Lurp had watched the brawls from a nearby rooftop, ratcheting up her vision to as sharp as it would go from this distance. She had watched for patterns to Devaena's fighting. Strengths. Weaknesses. To better prepare her for what was about to happen. She watched, waiting. Even as empty as it was, the street was not an auspicious place to begin a fight to the death. At the very least she needed a quiet alley. It would be just peachy if Devaena decided to cut home through some abandoned building but Lurp wasn't holding her breath
Dev , after a short while of no bites, re-sheathed her swords and slipped her gauntlets back on, then began to make her way back to the main plaza where Dead Man's was. She still hadn't decided if she would go back to her room tonight or if she would let the bartender wonder a bit, but no point in being stationary while she considered her options. She turned down an alley she knew to be a shortcut and began walking back that way.
Lurp scrambled to follow after, hopping from rooftop to rooftop as quietly as silently as she could. No human would have been able to detect her movements. When Devaena turned down the alleyway, Lurp could have cheered. She crouched on an adjacent roof spread her fingers and sent two deadly pointed tendrils for the back of Devaena's neck. She would end this fight before it could start.
It was only her hearing that saved her from a quick end. She shrugged her shoulders up and turned just enough to protect her neck. One of the points found purchase between the links of chainmail but the force wasn't enough to penetrate to anything vital. It still hurt though. Devaena reached out quickly to try and grab the tendrils and yank them towards her. She wanted to see the face of her daring attacker.
Well damn, Lurp hadn't expected a block, and is pulled off balance as her tendrils are yanked. She falls from her rooftop, but manages a perfect shift as she falls. Devaena won't see the face of her attacker, because her attacker now has no face that she can discern. It does however have a lot of legs, and eyes, and a hard chitinous shell, and spikes. The two tendrils slip from her grasp, recoiling between two large mandibles into the thing's mouth. A sharp tipped leg slashes at her.
Dev, in a swift, practiced motion slides the sword sideways out of its sheathe rather than drawing it out lengthwise gving her the extra second needed to bring her sword around to parry to blow enough to keep it from penetrating something vital. This...thing was different to anything she'd seen, but similar to things she had fought before. It had to have a weak spot, something vital to strike. Her eyes scanned looking deep beyond just the physical of what was before her. She sensed something there, though she couldn't have said what. Cautiously she watched
the creature for an opening. It was too amorphous to go full out on attack just yet, but she feinted a strike to see how it would react.
The creature springs backwards from the feint, raising two legs crossed in an X to block if needed. From between the legs it opens it's mouth and once again sends the sharpened tendrils out, this time aiming for Devaena's thighs in an attempt to disable her.
So, it was intelligent. Devaena pulled back from the feinted strike seeing it would defend, but when she saw the tendrils shooting out for her again she shifted and angled the blade downward intending to sever them from the mouth. It was a risky move and she knew if she missed they would find their mark.
The sword finds its mark. The strike is not strong, but it is enough to knock the tendrils aside from their mark, and to slice part way into one of them. Golden blood spurts from it and the creature shrieks in anger. It is an ear-rending sound. It lunges forward with two legs in an attempt to knock the sword from Devaena's hands.
Dev winces at the sound and the golden blood takes her by surprise, but she recovers from her surprise swiftly enough to keep her sword from getting batted away. "What are you?" she mutters not expecting a response as she draws back to strike at the energy she senses.
The strike bounces off the creature's shell with a resounding CLANG. The strike had not been far from Lurp's kir though, and the shifter panics, scuttling sideways and slashing at Devaena's right side with two razor-tipped legs.
Dev shifts sideways with the creature not wanting to leave her side or back exposed to it or let it move into an advantageous position. This movement was all that saved her from that razor sharp leg embedding in her side worse than it did. As it is, though her armor protects her from the worst of it, Lurp's leg still comes away wet, but not with blood. Instead it's tipped in a dark green ichor. Devaena sucks in a breath between her teeth. She was not about to die to some cosmic mistake that decided to make her dinner. Pushing the pain in the back of her mind she pressed her strike again, still focused on the only potential weak point she had found hoping that she could land a blow by brute force alone.
The CLANG this time is enough to make the creature's shell vibrate. It's still hitting too close to its kir for comfort and it scuttles back again, front legs raised in an X to block any new blows. With a few of it's back legs it hooks crates, garbage, and any other alley debris near and flings them over and forward at Dev. From behind this screen of debris, the creature rushes forward, pincers wide to catch and squeeze the warrior woman.
Dev , at the first sign of thrown debris, unclasps the wing claws resting at her neck and unfurls
the wings from her back giving a great flap and lifting into the sky. Assaulting this thing directly wasn't working. She wondered if it had a mind for her to try and delve into. Normally thought reading and planting magical suggestions were a last ditch tactic. Too many could break or defend against the magic. Still, it was worth a try. She searched for some kind of consciousness to touch upon with her mind. She needed more information and then she would break this creature.
Lurp is growing just as frustrated as Devaena. this fight should have been over in minutes. Now it is just dragging on and on. Lurp is stubborn, but her strengths in fighting lie in speed and surprise, not endurance. She needs to take this bint out and do quick. Devaena gets nothing back from her mental probe, but she does get more on what this creature is as its form elongates, drawing up into a 7 foot tall...thing. It trades its legs for tentacles, and sends one of them into the air to wrap around the woman and ideally smash her into the ground.
Dev felt the tentacle snake around her leg. She'd been around the multiverse long enough to knew what happened next. Well not on her watch, not if she could help it. She was close enough to the building to kick off of it towards the -creature-, sword pointed downwards hoping that with the downward yank and her own weight it would be enough to pierce this thing's shell and damage it.
Dev's move was the last thing Lurp had expected, and the sword bites deep. The creature screams as more golden blood rises from the wound. Dev may find it strange that her sword hits neither bone nor sinew, only a strange clay-like material. Mentally Lurp is stunned. The shifter always keeps her pain receptors pulled deep below her surface, so she rarely experiences pain. Now her ears ring with the shrill sensation singing through her. She stumbles backwards, and all her tentacles rise in unison, to completely envelop the intruder who has caused so much pain.
Dev twists the sword with a snarl once it finds its mark. It was strange that her sword met so little resistance and she had a feeling that she caused it pain, but no great mortal injury because of this. How the HELLS was she supposed to kill this thing? That momentary slip of focus where she tried to press her advantage too far would cost her as she saw the tentacles descending on her too late, and though she batted and slashed at them there were too many and she found herself engulfed in them.
The tentacles harden into place, pinning Devaena's legs together and her arms to her sides. A swath of clay seals over her face and nose, and if that wasn't enough, the clay around her throat begins to tighten, but the shifter is spending too much strength everywhere else, and she can't squeeze tight enough to cause any true damage. Frustrated, she shifts the throat ropes into inverted spike collars and tries again.
Had it just been her air cut off, Devaena would not have cared. Had this creature just been trying to crush her bones, Devaena was made of sterner stuff. But when she felt the spikes, she felt concern. Even she couldn't live without her head if the creature thought to tighten its hold that far. She gritted her teeth beneath the hold...but, she felt the creature harden, and that meant....she would hate to do this. It could ruin everything. Damn this creature! But she would not die. Dev released her mental hold on the magic, and the effect was instantaneous. Her already large form began expanding in the creature's hold, armor vanishing to be replaced be emerald scales covering the body from head to toe. Her height tripled over the next few seconds and her stature grew with it until the creature was no longer holding a woman, she was holding a monster. The spikes would find no purchase on the armor tough scales, not with Lurp already spread so thin trying to hold her and especially not once the transformation finished and the brutish fiend flexed the muscles cascading down its form and pushed with its wings to free itself.
The new creature doesn't have to push hard, as soon as the transformation is complete, the clay around it recoils, shrinking back down into a hardened spiky shell with too many legs. Lurp skitters nervously below the creature. Well, she had suspected there was more to the woman, and she'd wanted to know what, but she can't bring herself to feel triumphant. This... gargoyle looks like it is going to be much harder to kill. She turns her multiple eyes in different directions looking for a weakness. She doubles the sheathe around her kir, bracing herself for the creatures next attack.
Dev alighted back on the ground, its wings poised to lift back into the air if necessary. A sharp grin split its face and it hissed a laugh. "Not so full of bluster now are we?" it taunted as it flexed its four arms. The creature had wisely perched itself over Dev's sword, but no matter. Dev would rip it apart with her bare hands if she had to. With a bellow it charged at the spider-like thing, all four arms grabbing for legs with the intent of ripping it apart piece by piece if it had to.
Lurp is now fighting, not for a friend's safety from possible harm, but for her own life in the face of IMMEDIATE harm, and it makes her both more frightened and more resourceful. All four of the "loth's arms grabs a leg, but Dev quickly discovers it is like pulling taffy. There is no resistance as the legs come away from the body, trailing goopy strands. While the loth's hands are thus occupied, Lurp spits two spiked tendrils straight for the creature's eyes.
Dev tries to move out of the way of the spiked tendrils, but fails to avoid it completely. One tendril hits its mark, thankfully not with enough force to put her eye out completely, but no doubt she won't be using that one for a while. The monster bellows in fury more than pain. She was tiring of this game. With two arms still pulling at the 'taffy', the other two reach for the mouth while it's open to pull it wide enough for her to try and fit her arm down its throat. Dev figured there had to be something vital down there to sink her dagger-like claws into.
The loth manages to grab one side of the "mouth" and stretch it, widening the hole, but as it does, both the tendrils and the two freed taffy legs retract into the creature. Even as Dev get's her arm down it's throat, the throat elongates, along with the creature's mass, backwards. The tunnel of flesh solidifies into a large, spiked tail that comes stabbing downwards towards the Loth's head.
Dev could sense that bobbing energy source moving as the creature's flesh shifted and formed with such enviable ease. It was far out of her grasp now, resting in the tail coming straight for her... Instinctively one of her arms came up and grabbed for the tail to keep it from landing what would have certainly been an unpleasant blow at the least, if not worse. She considered for a brief moment where the energy source was now, but if her opponent stayed true to protecting it first then if Dev struck out at it, it would move. She took a gamble and tried to pull the tail closer as if trying to get at that energy, then instead when she pulled her arm free of the mouth she struck down at where she assumed the creature might move it to.
Devaena's fist hits a bit further from the energy source than she intended, but the effect is immediate. The entire body, from taffy legs to tail to shell shudders violent, and for a split second everything stops. Then all the available bits of the creature recoil back to the center, the large tail and taffy arms going almost liquid as they pull back towards the center.
Dev paced around the sphere for a moment. She couldn't let this thing go free, it was too risky. But she hadn't yet seen a way to get to it enough to kill it. It was smart enough to protect its vulnerable area, and she didn't have the means available to her right now to try other methods. She lifted her main set of arms and hissed out something in a dark, gutteral tongue. The air around the Lurp-spiked-ball glowed faintly as the incantation became physical, a near invisible sphere of air that would create a perfect trap. Devaena had used it often to protect valuable objects. Well this was perhaps the most valuable of all, except she was protecting herself from it instead of protecting it from something. Once the spell was finished she leaned down to pick up the ball in her hands. She idly wondered if the creature would die from lack of air or something else, but if it did, well...she would be safe and simply miss the chance to find out more about it. She glanced around the alley to make sure they were still alone and then began shifting back down into the half-mortal disguise she'd been wearing. No point in giving away her secrets yet.
At first the ball doesn't react. After a few moments though, it begins to roll inside the sphere, this way, and that. Slowly, the rolling picks up pace as the spiked ball rolls around all available surface of the sphere. Soon, some of the spikes become jointed legs that tap, and then bang at the edges of the sphere more and more frantically. The tapping reaches a frenzied crescendo, then slowly, the tapping stops, the legs retract, and the ball just sits there in the sphere. Even without a face, it looks miserable.
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For a long moment Devaena studied the ball, a wicked smirk on her face. "Ahh, we don't like being trapped do we?" She placed her hand on the invisible sphere then hefted it in her arms. It was heavy, too heavy for her to teleport back to her room. She had to get it to safety somewhere though, and somewhere that she could keep an eye on it. Whatever this thing was, it had tried to kill her, and that just wouldn't do. She could glamour it. Her kind excelled at subterfuge, and the magic of her fiendish blood leaned towards those ends. She would have to disguise it as something else.
And then it hit her...
And sure enough, a short time later Devaena strode into the inn with an armload of...man. At least that's what it looked like. Hey, even warrior women had to have their fun right? And the weight was the perfect fit for the glamour. To all appearances Devaena was carrying some lucky (unlucky?) gent up to her room for the night.
In reality Lurp's nightmare was just beginning.
((Original))
