ENDLESS JOURNEYS (O/A)

[PixelMuse]

Rikki Tikki Travi

The Ancient lifted her right arm.
From the sleeve emerged a dark blade the size of a longsword and etched with an unknown language.
She then raised her left arm. Five writhing tentacle like appendages erupted from that sleeve. They dripped with a malicious fluid as they slithered and squirmed almost a two feet in length from her sleeve.

In a moment of clarity, she realized irony of her weapons of choice. They truly represented what she was and what she had become.

With a mad screech, she dashed at Trinity with frightening speed while striking vertically downward with her blade.

Trinity heard the screech which gave away her location. Her glaive blocked her blow which caused her to dropped down on one knee. She then attempted to use the momentum to toss her over creating some distance. Then she pole-vaulted a kick at her yelling as she proceeded.  

[Rikki Tikki Travi]

PixelMuse

Trinity heard the screech which gave away her location. Her glaive blocked her blow which caused her to dropped down on one knee. She then attempted to use the momentum to toss her over creating some distance. Then she pole-vaulted a kick at her yelling as she proceeded.

Silhouette followed the momentum and rolled when she hit the groumd. She faced Trinity just as the woman vaulted at her. Sil reached out with her left arm and wrapped the tentacles around Trinity's leg. She used her adversary's momentum and added to it by throwing her aside.

Her blade retracted itself and she pointed her sleeve at Trinity. From within the darkness of her garment, six knives launches at her hated enemy.  

[Rikki Tikki Travi]

Kerana

When they reached the Dragon-kin she was no longer hiding behind him but at his side instead.

Alec was glad to have Kerana at his side and on the same page as him. He used his senses to search out the nearest person in need of help.

He heard what sounded like muffled shouting.
He concentrated and isolated the source of the voices. He waved his hand and said to Kerana, "This way. I think there's somone trapped"

He led them to a destroyed house and called out to the center of it, "I hear you! Just hang on"

He sniffed the wreckage and climbed over it gingerly on all fours. He found the strongest source of scent and sound. He then stood up and turned to Kerana.
He called to her, "Kay, they're right here., but I can't lift this alone. Go and get some help while I clear away some of this rubble"  

[BeaMichelle]

Keleth hit thr ground with a grunt and a thud when the suction stopped. She scrambled back up to her feet and tore her hammer out of the ground. She glared at the monster that just at Trinity and squeezed the handle of her weapon until she felt like the scales on her hands were going to burst.

The runes on her weapon glowed in response to her desire for battlsle. She turned to Nova and called out, "Nova! Can you get me high enough to where I can hit it's head with this?! I think I can at least slow it down if I pump all the power of the runes into the beast!"  

[PixelMuse]

Rikki Tikki Travi

Silhouette followed the momentum and rolled when she hit the groumd. She faced Trinity just as the woman vaulted at her. Sil reached out with her left arm and wrapped the tentacles around Trinity's leg. She used her adversary's momentum and added to it by throwing her aside.

Her blade retracted itself and she pointed her sleeve at Trinity. From within the darkness of her garment, six knives launches at her hated enemy.

Trinity landed like a rag doll facing her. There was no time to rest as she saw her sleeve aiming at her. She rolled away and got back up. Grabbing her glaive while doing so. Three blades made their mark her right thigh, her left side, and her right shoulder. Yelling in reaction of the fresh pain she dropped to her hands and knee.

She whispered a healing spell to recover from these wounds. She had to find some way to defeat her. Pictures of the people she had befriended on this journey flashed through her mind, including Ruby then Nova. He’s done so much for me… I can’t let him down. Not sure how much longer he can stick around… She looked like she was defeated, hopefully this will cause Sil to be close enough to pierce the stone in her chest.

She wiped the blood off her lip, “I know this may not mean much to you. I believe you’re telling the truth. Even though what I’ve said I know is true. Something could be hindering us from seeing the same truth. Regardless it seems as though my truth has more weight right now than yours considering what you are doing to the people in the area. They are all facing… a monster.” She looked to her with her constant glowing eyes.  

[Rikki Tikki Travi]

PixelMuse

She wiped the blood off her lip, “I know this may not mean much to you. I believe you’re telling the truth. Even though what I’ve said I know is true. Something could be hindering us from seeing the same truth. Regardless it seems as though my truth has more weight right now than yours considering what you are doing to the people in the area. They are all facing… a monster.” She looked to her with her constant glowing eyes.

Silhouette had be trudging toward Trinity as the mortal spoke. She abruptly stopped when Trinity called her a monster. Her eyes became the soft silver she was born with and she looked down at her left hand. Never before had she conjured something so fowl from her beloved shadows.She began to cry silently as she became lucid. The ancient looked down to Trinity with a pleading that came from someone who was tortured. She wanted the pain to stop, by any means necessary.

The lucidity was short lived, however, as the stone in her chest glowed and poisoned her mind further.
The sickly yellow once again bled the silver from her eyes, and she felt a seething hatred for the one she felt solely responsable for her condition.

"You insolent worm! How dare you speak of monsters when you lay before one of your own creation!" she cried.

The shadows that had been covering her exposed parts began to twist and crawl over what was left of her skin. Her jaw cracked and convulsed while her teeth morphed into grousome fangs. Her dress ripped and fell away, along with what was left of her hair, while the shadows consumed her body. Entire left arm was a mass of barbed tentacles, and her right hand's finger had been replaced by talons that dripped with a smoking black liquid. Her shapely legs popped and contorted into a shape that waz neither human nor beast. They were bent in several unnatural directions.

The shadows tightened around her and displayed an emaciated creature that stood almost a foot over Sil's previous height. Her gaunt face was without lips or eyelids, and her nose had flatened into reptilian slits. She hissed at Trinity and quietly manipulated the larger being that tormented the surface.

The large limbs of the monster retracted into the ground, but they left being smoking portals that connected to the shadows realm. Or more specifically, out of it.

Creatures resembling black panthers crawled out of the miasma. They shook their bodies after surfacing and revealed that each of them had a pair of barbed squid tentacles growing from their backs. They set their sights on the nearest people and began to give chase.

Alec smiled at Kerana and nodded in recognition and appreciation. He cleared away the last of the rubble and pulled the small family from the house. As soon as he did though the hackles on his fur went up, and he wondered if they weren't safer under the house.

His animal instincts went into overdrive as he smelled and heard the creatures emerge from the shadows left by the limbs. He looked to the closest portal and felt his blood run cold. He had heard of the things in books and in class, but he'd hoped to never encounter them in his lifetime. The dirlagraun.

"Kerana! Displacer beasts!" he called out to her while swiftly moving to her side.

The creature that was Silhouette didn't waste time on words. Not just because her transformation had rendered her incapable of speach, but because she was consumed with madening hatred and bloodlust for the woman on the ground before her.

With one last blood curdling screech, she bound and lunged at Trinity with her tentacles and talons outstretched.  

[Nova Blancke]

((ooc: apologies I could have sworn I checked a few days ago and saw nothing new. Just came out of nightshift. I'll post tomorrow. ))  

[PixelMuse]

Trinity saw what happened, what effect her words on her. She could tell for a brief moment that she didn’t want this … regret. That this not her will. Then the glowing stone glowed, changing her into something words could not describe. That stone has got to go.

Trinity focused on where she last saw the stone and lunged forward at the creature. With her glaive aimed at the stone’s location.

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Rikki Tikki Travi

 

[Rikki Tikki Travi]

Alex bared his teeth at the slowly approaching monster and lowered his stance. The blink dog suggestion was a good one, but...

"I can only summon animals I have come in contact with and made a pact, which is a shirt list. I can only ask for assistance from nearby fauna."

His ears perked up with one hell of a brain storm. If they weren't about to be mauled by a fell beast he'd have given Kerana a kiss for giving him the idea. There were local beasts that were highly resistant to tooth and claw.

He dropped to one knee and slammed both his palms on the soil. He took a deep breath and released a great howl. He was pleading to any earth divers willing to hear his call. Any mighty scaled beasts willing to defend the lands from the shadow creature and her minions. There is a balance that must be kept, and the dark threat endangers that balance.

Sil fell hard on the glaive. The blade piearced her chest and shattered the stone into dozens of shards. She mewled, shrieked, and howled before she grabbed the gaive with the tentacles of her left arm and pushed Trinity away with her right. She stumbled backward and fell to what might be called knees. With one more yank she forcefully removed the weapon from her chest. There was a gaping hole where the weapon was. Small glittering pieces of the stone were peppered along her weeping innards.

Her wild eyes calmed as her strength faded. She looked over to the woman that had run her through...again.

"Trin-i-tyyyyy." she whispered with a slimy hiss.  

[PixelMuse]

Trinity saw her eyes calmed. She approached her, this time not picking up her weapon. “The stone, it was corrupting you. Please… let me try to heal you.” She used the only healing spell she knew, hoping it would be strong enough to save her.  

[BeaMichelle]

Keleth switched her attention away from Nova and the shadow wyrm to the werid big cats that came out of the dark holes. One came bounding at her with it's teeth bared. She reared her hammer back and swung it horizontally at the creature, but she seemed to hit nothing as it's image phased out to reveal that it was actually still about a foot behind where it appeared initially. Keleth reacted swiftly and continued her spin to hit the beast in it's face with her tail. The beast rolled once and slid to a halt, stunned, but not unconscious.

She held her stance and called to Nova, "Hey, snap out of it! These things are freaky and make you see stuff!"  

[Nova Blancke]

Nova saw what happened at first. His vision lasted till right after the giant shadow monster swallowed Trinity. But after that....nothing. None of his senses responded to his commands. He couldn't move a muscle. His body was intact but he was disconnected from it somehow. Did his usage of Light Magic damage his connection to his own body? This was bad. He had to fix this if he could.
After several 'bursts' of his own magic his sight returned to him. Followed by his hearing, touch, smell and taste. His senses were back. Quickly after that he regained control over his body. There was no more time to waste.

Like before in the coliseum the sky began to darken as clouds quickly gathered. Lightning struck the beast closest to him.

"Sorry, I was....disconnected. What happened?"