2024-08-16: Of Gluttony and Grace II
- Log: Of Gluttony and Grace II
- Cast: Xander Lovell, Redi Hayworth, Cirea, Eleanor Klein, Dean Stark, Yulie Ahtreide, Ruth Pauling, Riley Lovell, Venetia Vuong, Avril Vent Fleur, Ida Everstead-Rey, Holly, Seraph Cavall, Billy Lee Black
- Where: Gunsmoke Desert
- Date: August 16, 2024
- Summary: Liligue was built upon a temple of Granas, where the Tongue of Valmar was once sealed. That seal has broken.
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
An agreement is made, reluctantly as it is made: Drifters will deal with the monstrosity that is the Tongue of Valmar, and Xander will devour it before it can take a host from one among them. He remains a problem -- possibly a stronger problem -- but he also remains the only problem instead of inventing a new one that spawns another ethical dilemma. There are quite enough of those in the world already. So it is that Xander, alongside his partner Riley, lead the Drifters down into the caves below Liligue through on old cellar door behind the lift manager's mansion. He warned them to take the potion he offered as soon as possible, it may be useless by the time they reach the Tongue.
The air is foul and humid.
Perhaps, if the Tongue were confronted sooner, and if, hypothetically, intrepid heroes on a focused mission for Granas, say, sent by a pope who no longer lives... then it might be that the Tongue would not have had the time to engorge itself so. It might be that its power would not have hollowed out its host so entirely, so completely, by now and that its feast would not have festered in its belly, and its vile aura would not be voraciously consuming the underground caverns.
This is an old temple devoted to Granas that reaches deep into the earth, long abandoned and forgotten. Ruins that should hold scarce but precious traces of ancient history to be gleaned. It's the kind of place that should be infested with beasts that have come to dominate the area as a new ecosystem.
Monster bones litter the passageways.
A few carapaces of monstrous insects remain whole, their soft innards cleanly carved out. But everything without an exoskeleton is scattered as incomplete skeletons, marrow sucked dry. There is no survivor left to be encountered, random or otherwise.
They may not have needed Xander's help to track the Tongue. Each step closer begins to sap their strength as hunger begins to eat away at them. Those who do not need to eat still feel the pain of starvation by whatever metric it means to require sustenance or fuel to continue -- they are being siphoned and drained. It does not matter if their foe can do nothing with a given form of energy. It takes. And it takes. And it takes.
Xander had been battling against this accursed effect for some time, creating what stop gaps he could against it. Those who drank his latest effort to combat it feel a small glimmer of protection. But those who do not are left adrift in the face of a Dark One truly succumbed to its instincts, with only an overwhelming desire to consume. For it to exist is to devour, gluttonous without end.
There is no battle on the way other than pushing past this new famished exhaustion, and in the depths, the Tongue awaits: a massive monstrosity, build like a spider or a crab, fingers growing from the joints of its eight fleshy legs, and additional arms headed by crocodilian jaws instead of pincers. This is a hard and rigid structure that does not evoke much thought of a 'tongue'... not until that central shell opens and fleshy, muscular tissue that spills out, hardly contained as it laps eagerly at nothing. Or everything, as it were.
So entranced by its own feeding of everything around it, it does not notice their arrival.
"And there is our quarry," Xander says, stumbling in his own growing weakness. Even as a Dark One himself, two pieces of Valmar versus one, he is not immune.
"I suggest you make the first shot count."
GS: Xander Lovell has activated a Boss Action! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Dean Stark with Starvation! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Avril Vent Fleur with Starvation! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Billy Lee Black with Starvation! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Cirea with Starvation! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Eleanor Klein with Starvation! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Holly with Starvation! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Starvation! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Redi Hayworth with Starvation! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Riley Lovell with Starvation! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Ruth Pauling with Starvation! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Seraph Cavall with Starvation! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Venetia Vuong with Starvation! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Yulie Ahtreide with Starvation! GS: Xander Lovell has gained 2 Combo! GS: Xander Lovell has completed his action. GS: Redi Hayworth mostly guards Xander Lovell's Starvation for 0 hit points! GS: Break, Cripple, Disease, Disrupt, Jam, Mute, Slow, and Weaken applied to Redi Hayworth! GS: CRITICAL! Cirea mostly evades Xander Lovell's Starvation for 0 hit points! GS: Cirea's Mute Ward may block the effect! GS: Cirea's Slow Ward may block the effect! GS: Break, Cripple, Disease, Disrupt, Jam, Mute, Slow, and Weaken applied to Cirea! GS: FP up! Arcane Font! GS: Eleanor Klein fails to guard Xander Lovell's Starvation for 0 hit points! GS: Break, Cripple, Disease, Disrupt, Jam, Mute, Slow, and Weaken applied to Eleanor Klein! GS: Avril Vent Fleur mostly guards Xander Lovell's Starvation for 0 hit points! GS: Avril Vent Fleur's Disrupt Ward may block the effect! GS: Break, Cripple, Disease, Disrupt, Jam, Mute, Slow, and Weaken applied to Avril Vent Fleur! GS: FP up! Arcane Font! GS: CRITICAL! Yulie Ahtreide marginally guards Xander Lovell's Starvation for 0 hit points! GS: Yulie Ahtreide's Jam Ward may block the effect! GS: Break, Cripple, Disease, Disrupt, Jam, Mute, Slow, and Weaken applied to Yulie Ahtreide! GS: Venetia Vuong fails to guard Xander Lovell's Starvation for 0 hit points! GS: Venetia Vuong's Mute Ward may block the effect! GS: Break, Cripple, Disease, Disrupt, Jam, Slow, and Weaken applied to Venetia Vuong! GS: Mute blocked! GS: Ruth Pauling mostly guards Xander Lovell's Starvation for 0 hit points! GS: Ruth Pauling's Disrupt Ward may block the effect! GS: Break, Cripple, Disease, Jam, Mute, Slow, and Weaken applied to Ruth Pauling! GS: Disrupt blocked! GS: FP up! Reaction bonus! GS: CRITICAL! Dean Stark fails to charge Xander Lovell's Starvation for 0 hit points! GS: Break, Cripple, Disease, Disrupt, Jam, Mute, Slow, and Weaken applied to Dean Stark! GS: Billy Lee Black marginally charges Xander Lovell's Starvation for 0 hit points! GS: Break, Cripple, Disease, Disrupt, Jam, Mute, Slow, and Weaken applied to Billy Lee Black! GS: Holly critically fails to evade Xander Lovell's Starvation for 0 hit points! GS: Holly's Break Ward may block the effect! GS: Holly's Mute Ward may block the effect! GS: Break, Cripple, Disease, Disrupt, Jam, Slow, and Weaken applied to Holly! GS: Mute blocked! GS: FP up! Arcane Font! GS: CRITICAL! Ida Everstead-Rey critically fails to evade Xander Lovell's Starvation for 0 hit points! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey's Cripple Ward may block the effect! GS: Break, Disease, Disrupt, Jam, Mute, Slow, and Weaken applied to Ida Everstead-Rey! GS: Cripple blocked! GS: Riley Lovell perfectly guards Xander Lovell's Starvation for 0 hit points! GS: Break, Cripple, Disease, Disrupt, Jam, Mute, Slow, and Weaken blocked! GS: FP up! Arcane Font! GS: Riley Lovell has gained 1 Combo!
<Pose Tracker> Redi Hayworth has posed.
The day before they gathered to face the new host for the Tongue of Valmar, Redi and Yulie spoke about their fears and their hesitations. Redi could say, truthfully, she felt better afterward. She had faced things about herself she hadn't quite said aloud. She knew things about Yulie that she didn't, before.
It was difficult, but it was an important step. It was an important trial.
And, now, as they break their camp outside of Liligue, she faces the last trial. The vial of the medicine Xander provided.
"But WHY," Redi says as she takes a sniff of it. "I-I can just... drink half of it, right?" She looks at Yulie, hopefully. "Water it down, maybe! Put something in--no, no--come on, you got this, Redi!"
She puffs out her chest, uncorks the vial, and then...
...she makes another face. "Whyyyyyy."
Then she groans, wobbling side-to-side, and then she closes her eyes, and--
GULP.
* * *
She slows as they reach the place that the Tongue's holder as made its domain. Her nose wrinkles at the stink; sweat beads on her brow from the humidity. She looks at the ruined temple with a thoughtful expression, but it becomes one of concern as she sees the bones.
She feels pangs of hunger, and it's disturbing because it isn't just in her stomach. It's a leeching feeling, a tingling in her fingers, the same way she feels when she draws on the life of the land around her to feed her. Her brow furrows.
The letter carrier keeps that to herself, adjusting her hat. She sees the terrible, crustacean-like monster -- with maws instead of limbs -- and she looks at Xander, setting her jaw. She grimaces but nods. "Right."
She glances back at Dean and Avril, then tips her fingers to her cap's brim. "Here I go," she says, and then a look at Yulie: "Back me up, Yulie!"
Then, she runs forward -- and once she's facing away, her eyes narrow. She launches herself at the Tongue -- comes into the air -- and launches into a rapid, mid-air spinning kick at its shell and massive tongue. "Hyah!"
'Sorry,' she thinks.
GS: Redi Hayworth has attacked Xander Lovell with Triple Spin Kick! GS: Redi Hayworth has gained 3 Combo! GS: Redi Hayworth gains 5 FP from Sufferer! GS: Redi Hayworth has completed her action. GS: Gamble: High! Xander Lovell mostly guards Redi Hayworth's Triple Spin Kick for 65 hit points! GS: FP up! Power Burst!
<Pose Tracker> Cirea has posed.
Cirea had not taken the strange potion offered by Xander.
Not because she didn't think it wouldn't work. It was solely because the whole situation made her mad and it was her way of declaring that she didn't trust him, if he claimed that he was going to inevitably absorb this energy and use it for himself. It was a petty kind of striking-back and he probably didn't even notice but she did it anyway.
She's starting to regret it by the time they head down underground, but her pride prevents her from asking for some - she weighs, what, one pound? she could get by with the leftovers in someone else's vial. Instead -
Well, she stole that little bit of arum root, even if she didn't originally eat it because Phwee looked so unhappy with it. She has since eaten it, with all the funny, exaggerated faces you'd expect from Cirea putting something that tasted *that bad* in her mouth. She *also* ate the little candies she sometimes keeps in her pockets to try to get the taste out of her mouth, though she doesn't have her travelling bag with anything more substantial than that.
(The candy did not actually help.)
By the time they get there, she's unhappy, feeling vaguely unwell, and she's basically been given permission to let loose. So she does.
Cirea starts to recite as fast as she can get the words out, so that as she draws a circle in the air with her flight, leaving a trail behind her that forms a magic circle, she's already half-finished the spell; as runes form, the circle brightens, then collapses inward -
"Power of the greatest light, grant unto me a halo of mine spirit! Shine Silhouette!"
The circle collapses into a ball of light, which shapes into a duplicate of Cirea; a silhouette, at least, with no detail, just a solid silhouette of shining white. The two of them begin two spells at once, spheres of light forming in the air above each of them before flying forward, each releasing a barrage of bright laser beams as they circle and orbit the Tongue of Valmar, shooting from all angles!
"That's how you make it count," Cirea says, self-satisfied despite the current state of affairs.
GS: Cirea has attacked Cirea with Shine Silhouette! GS: Cirea has gained 1 Combo! GS: Cirea has launched an attack Link! GS: Cirea's stances have changed from Link to Hero and Link! GS: Cirea accepts Cirea's Shine Silhouette for 0 hit points! GS: Blitz and Surge applied to Cirea! GS: Hyper applied to Cirea! GS: Blitz! Cirea has attacked Xander Lovell with Twin Ray! GS: Cirea gains 5 FP from Gleam! GS: Cirea has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Eleanor Klein has posed.
If Eleanor saw a better way to handle this problem than by way of this agreement, she would've taken it. But she didn't. She still doesn't. And the potion he offered...
She didn't take it. Eleanor, too, could be stubborn. Trusting Xander is not unreasonable, given Dean's explanation, but it feels wrong to her in this moment; she doesn't know what other effects the potion might have later, and her future vision has not illuminated that for her.
But she goes with the others nonetheless, helping to lead the way. That vile aura gets to her. Monster bones litter the passageways, and Eleanor frowns as she sees the signs of death all over. Tracking it is one thing... but hunger eats at her. Hunger like a wealthy woman like her has scarcely known. Hunger, and draining. It takes, and takes, and takes, and Eleanor grits her teeth against it.
There is no protection for her from the lack of potion, but she has her own ways of handling curses. This will be one. So this exhaustion is something that she pushes past, until she sees the Tongue... a monster of all things. It doessn'ts eem to notice them.
"Gh," Eleanor says. "...Right. I'll do what I can." Talking is difficult. Staying upright is difficult. But Eleanor lifts her shoulders and extends her hand in golden light. "By the power of Filgaia's Light...!"
Light begins to glow across the battlefield, a golden radiance that briefly soothes and empowers--but it is not strong enough yet, not on its own, to do the trick.
"Those of us who can heal can try to counteract the curse, but the rest of us must press the attack! Defeating the enemy will abate the curse's effects!"
Her words ring out, but Eleanor still finds herself falling to one knee under the weight of the curse's power.
"Do your best, everyone!"
GS: Eleanor Klein has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Edict! GS: Eleanor Klein has attacked Dean Stark with Edict! GS: Eleanor Klein has attacked Avril Vent Fleur with Edict! GS: Eleanor Klein has attacked Billy Lee Black with Edict! GS: Eleanor Klein has attacked Cirea with Edict! GS: Eleanor Klein has attacked Holly with Edict! GS: Eleanor Klein has attacked Ruth Pauling with Edict! GS: Eleanor Klein has attacked Venetia Vuong with Edict! GS: Eleanor Klein has completed her action. GS: CRITICAL! Cirea accepts Eleanor Klein's Edict for 0 hit points! GS: Pray adds Quick and Quick! GS: Quick applied to Cirea! GS: Eleanor Klein heals Ruth Pauling! She gains 8 temporary hit points! GS: Pray adds Regen and Shield! GS: Regen and Shield applied to Ruth Pauling!
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.
The power of Valmar and the power of the Guardians are not compatible in the sense that the latter has no ability to purify or protect against the former. Dean knows this. He knows because Moor Gault told him so, essentially. As such, he isn't expecting his Seer abilities to be especial help against the Tongue. He does expect Xander's potion to be of help, though, so as he and his friends descend into the temple ruins cellar to find the Tongue, he does so boldly, with no fear of the unknown.
He probably should've had a little fear. The aura of the Tongue leaves his belly aching even before they reach the bottom, and Dean grimaces in sympathy as he sees those hollowed-out bones of the Tongue's victims. Once they do reach the bottom, he stumbles and staggers, so hungry his shoulder aches. So hungry his soul aches. He can't even imagine how bad it must be for those who didn't take the potion.
"Ugh--this is bad, guys," he says, unnecessarily. Still, his gaze steels when he spots the Tongue itself, crab-like, full of fingers where fingers should not be, pincers made of crocodile jaws, its central mass slavering out into the open. Dean makes a face in revulsion, but he reaches out his hands and his paired ARMs flash into existence into them. His fingers shake, but his grip remains steady.
"Got it," he tells Xander. There are a lot of healers in their group, including Avril--he'll trust them to do what they can. When Eleanor rallies those healers to do precisely that, even more so--especially when she sends her power out to do what she can. "Thanks, Eleanor!!" He meets Redi's hat-tip and returns it with a nod; then he looks at Avril herself. "I'm going in!"
Then, where Redi goes high, and Cirea's spell strikes straightforwardly, Dean goes low, charging in as the combat rods extend from Twin Fenrir's handles. With a defiant shout, he swings them around and WHAMS them right into a cluster of those fingers. The impact may send power rushing back into him, strengthening him at a crucial time--but will it be enough to counteract the curse's influence?
GS: Dean Stark accepts Eleanor Klein's Edict for 0 hit points! GS: Pray adds Hyper and Quick! GS: Hyper and Quick applied to Dean Stark! GS: Dean Stark has attacked Xander Lovell with Power Booster! GS: Dean Stark has gained 1 Combo! GS: Dean Stark gains 5 FP from Gleam! GS: Dean Stark has completed his action. GS: Venetia Vuong accepts Eleanor Klein's Edict for 0 hit points! GS: Pray adds Hyper and Shield! GS: Hyper and Shield applied to Venetia Vuong! GS: Avril Vent Fleur accepts Eleanor Klein's Edict for 0 hit points! GS: Pray adds Surge and Lock State! GS: Lock state and Surge applied to Avril Vent Fleur! GS: CRITICAL! Xander Lovell mostly guards Cirea's Twin Ray for 129 hit points! GS: FP up! Reaction bonus! GS: Xander Lovell mostly guards Dean Stark's Power Booster for 73 hit points! GS: Mighty applied to Dean Stark! GS: FP up! Power Burst and Reaction bonus! GS: Eleanor Klein heals Holly! She gains 9 temporary hit points! GS: Pray adds Lock State and Regen! GS: Lock state and Regen applied to Holly!
<Pose Tracker> Yulie Ahtreide has posed.
The air feels clearer now, after their talk. The curse over the people of Liligue and the weight of what lies ahead of them still hangs in the air but Yulie's mind, at least, feels lighter. She can proceed with a little bit more confidence, though her heart still aches for what Gadan is going through.
But, indeed, one last trial remains - and it may be the greatest one they'll face...
Yulie offers Redi a sympathetic smile as she fights with herself about taking the potion. She wonders if Redi is like this with all medicine, or if it's just because of this particular one. Still, it's kind of cute, in its own way...
Yulie does an internal double-take at that thought, but it's too late now. It's already out in the open.
"Sorry. I don't think it'll work right unless we take all of it..." Yulie apologises. "It'll be alright. Would it help if we both take it at the same time?"
She counts down and, at the same time Redi does... gulp.
And now, they assemble. The only thing left to do is to enter the caverns.
"This is... horrible." Yulie murmurs, as they make their way through them. A temple of Granas, so profaned... She feels sympathy even for the monsters, drained away so completely. Even they didn't deserve this.
And then, there's the hunger. She can feel herself weaken, slowly and gradually. And this even with the help of Xander's potion - she can scarcely imagine what those who didn't take it must be going through. It takes effort even to put one foot in front of the other.
But she has to keep moving forward. The people of Liligue are counting on them to save them from this curse. If it's this bad for her... how must they be feeling, when they've been enduring it for who knows how long?
And finally, they arrive at their destination, and their target. With a gasp, Yulie clasps her hands over her mouth in horror. It's... terrible, and grotesque. Is this what a Part of Valmar is like, when it's truly grown out of control...? She steels herself, though, as Xander speaks - and as Redi calls out to her.
"Right." Yulie says with a firm nod. She draws her chakrams out from behind her.
"Mister Gadan... I don't know if there's anything left of you in there. But... I'm sorry. I wish there was something we could do to help you." Yulie says. "We'll do what we can to ease your people's suffering."
And then, as Redi comes in with a mid-air spinning kick - Yulie hurls her chakrams, the bladed metal rings spinning through the air toward the Tongue of Valmar to supplement her attack before flying back to Yulie, who uses the opportunity to better position herself for the use of support spells.
GS: Yulie Ahtreide has attacked Xander Lovell with Dual Ray Thrust! GS: Yulie Ahtreide has gained 2 Combo! GS: Yulie Ahtreide's stances have changed to Sage! GS: Yulie Ahtreide has completed her action. GS: Seraph Cavall fails to evade Xander Lovell's Starvation for 0 hit points! GS: Seraph Cavall's Break Ward may block the effect! GS: Seraph Cavall's Slow Ward may block the effect! GS: Cripple, Disease, Disrupt, Jam, Mute, Slow, and Weaken applied to Seraph Cavall! GS: Break blocked! GS: FP up! Arcane Font and Reaction bonus!
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
It took a lot for Ruth to fight back her own answer out of the dilemma. No matter what action is or isn't taken... she holds herself to the inevitability of bringing unrelenting violence down upon the bearer of the Tongue of Valmar.
The potion offered is, eventually, taken - something about arum root either repels the curse (she's never heard of this trait of it) or it's something Gadan always detested, and consuming something does stave off the uneasy feeling in town.
She hesitates briefly before entering the old temple to Granas, as the Hellion always has - whether it's psychological or an effect of her nature isn't clear - but she catches herself offering prayer such as she is, the rosary around her right forearm glinting through light.
What lies past is ghastly. Her hands tense so much the Nedian-made gloves pre-emptively assume enough pressure to start shifting the material to account for her true shape's dimensions even while she keeps it concealed. She remains silent throughout, to hold her feelings.
Truth is, hunger is just another flavor of urge you learn to manage as a Hellion, even if that (and Xander's potion) only offer fleeting protection. The reactions of others to the graveyard of consumed prey exacerbates her own monstrous predilection. She holds, head bowed, trudging forward dutifully with traces of the stoicism of a dutiful Etone sent to hunt monsters like she used to.
There is Gadan, or what's left of him, feasting away. In contrast to the paragraphs of lead to this moment...
'I suggest you make the first shot--'
A predatory smile on her face as Malevolence whips up and down her left arm with strength she both lacks and has in abundance as the rifle is basically torn free of its bindings, held aloft where she stands without even a moment to consider the best place to aim, a deafening report as the sniper rifle's shot screams for the bulk of the gluttonous spider-crab.
Wielding and firing that sniper rifle is its own sweet relief, and in this, Ruth indulges in order to counteract some of the oppressive aura of the Tongue.
After all... this was all she ever had to serve the Light - and she will be worthy of the others' fear, pain, and anguish in a time of need, such as it is.
GS: Ruth Pauling has attacked Xander Lovell with Anticipated Knock! GS: Ruth Pauling has gained 1 Combo! GS: Recover! Cripple and Disease removed from Ruth Pauling! GS: Ruth Pauling gains 5 FP from Sufferer! GS: Ruth Pauling gains 31 THP from Regen! GS: Ruth Pauling has completed her action. GS: Eleanor Klein heals Ida Everstead-Rey! She gains 8 temporary hit points! GS: Pray adds Quick and Regen! GS: Quick and Regen applied to Ida Everstead-Rey! GS: Billy Lee Black accepts Eleanor Klein's Edict for 0 hit points! GS: Pray adds Burst and Blitz! GS: Blitz and Burst applied to Billy Lee Black! GS: Xander Lovell mostly guards Yulie Ahtreide's Dual Ray Thrust for 64 hit points! GS: Delay blocked! GS: FP up! Power Burst! GS: CRITICAL! Xander Lovell marginally guards Ruth Pauling's Anticipated Knock for 135 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Riley Lovell has posed.
Down the cavern, past corpses picked clean, with hunger gnawing deeper with every step... it's a reminder of what Xander has been tormented by, every day. Riley once felt a shadow of this feeling through his soul bond with Xander. Now it's tangible and real and gnawing. His strength begins to flag... but no, he can't give in! He has to finally free Xander from this nightmare and feed him a proper meal!! He won't succumb, he can't! He tells himself... this feeling is only making him madder and stronger!! And, indeed, he feels a certain rallying of his strength. Or perhaps that's the protective glimmer of a certain potion, made with love... (Riley's portion was made with love, anyway, because he says so).
They face the monster, somehow more horrible since it first transformed. Riley wonders if there are circumstances that would turn him or Xander into a creature such as this one. Maybe that's the end state if the Fangs are starved of sacrifices... to be turned into an undead puppet, first, and then eventually some kind of... plant monster, probably. Maybe the same thing would happen if the Fangs were fully sated. There's no winning with Valmar... except for the chance at victory Xander has so desperately carved out for them. If only it didn't cost everyone and everything else.
Either way, he has no mercy to spare for Gadan; his survival was mutually exclusive with Xander's ever since the Tongue began calling.
Xander urges them to make their move, and Riley draws his bow, shooting an arrow for the Tongue holder that explodes into a tangle of poisonous, thorny vines.
"Xander, you can hang back and let me rescue you this time! Er... along with everyone else. Thanks, everyone else!" This would have been a foolishly dangerous mission if he'd gone with his original plan of charging in alone.
Also, he doesn't trust Xander to actually hang back, and positions himself so it will at least be possible to make a grab for him if he tries to run into the fray.
GS: Riley Lovell spends 1 Combo on Poison! GS: Riley Lovell has attacked Xander Lovell with Gift from the Blood Garden! GS: Riley Lovell has gained 2 Combo! GS: Riley Lovell has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Venetia Vuong has posed.
Venetia Vuong had considered the matter, and had chosen not to drink the potion offered, trusting in her own will and determination and not - it should be emphasized - just doing it because she's got some sort of hind-brain determination to stand next to Eleanor.
It's not that she dislikes Eleanor, of course. Eleanor is one of her dearest friends. It's a matter of pride.
But you can't eat pride.
Venetia doesn't eat pride. Perhaps like Cirea she doesn't cry uncle and ask for the drink of the potion. What is perhaps notable is that she eats everything in her hip bag - which isn't that much. A can of some sort of dreadful-smelling vegetable slice that she devours with apparent relish and which accomplishes nothing - yes. A folded-over bar of Meria Boule chocolate? Done. Three mentholated cough sweets? Yes. That's it. That's what she had.
And so she keeps going.
Wordless endurance of the wrack in her stomach. She keeps herself up but her pace slows, and her feet drag, and when she sees the horror of the Tongue it's almost a relief. She had started to worry they would have to run a gauntlet like this. The journey itself was bad enough.
Venetia takes a deep breath and, finally, speaks: "Fair enough." It sounds more croaky than Venetia wants it to; she swallows and reaches with deliberation towards her Crest Pouch. Out comes the Simulacrum Sign - which she then shifts in her grasp.
"You should have... just stayed a Tongue," she addresses the Thing, before taking a deep breath and forcing out a mostly-normal-sounding, "Simulacrum Sign!" The familiar shape of the purple-stone massive warrior-figure manifests, and everything is normal as it flies the distance between Venetia and the Tongue.
But then she tells Eleanor, "It's going to regret putting the hard bits out front," even as the Simulacrum reaches the side of the creature and, notably, does NOT punch -- instead bringing one of those brass-rivetted hands up and running her knuckles forwards in a slow leisurely drag that aims to cross as many of those horrid mouth-mounted limbs as possible.
In that dragging touch, exterior chitin... flows. Like gently warmed candle wax or like that chocolate bar on a sunny and sultry day. The Simulacra drags as much of the softening material as she can, but the purple-litten shape can only last so long.
"What?" Venetia says to Riley, with a sudden surge of what is doubtless known as 'hangur' to the ancients. "That doesn't make any sense, man, we walked down here! The fairies didn't, I suppose, but if anything it's this thing that needs rescuing and rescuing you should not provide!"
GS: Venetia Vuong has attacked Xander Lovell with Simulacrum's Touch Sign ~Diamond 2 Pearls~! GS: Venetia Vuong gains 5 FP from Gleam! GS: Venetia Vuong has completed her action. GS: ROU|LET|TE: Severe! Xander Lovell marginally guards Riley Lovell's Gift from the Blood Garden for 134 hit points! GS: Poison applied to Xander Lovell! GS: Cripple blocked! GS: Xander Lovell mostly guards Venetia Vuong's Simulacrum's Touch Sign ~Diamond 2 Pearls~ for 57 hit points! GS: Shieldbreak applied to Xander Lovell! GS: Disrupt blocked! GS: FP up! Reaction bonus!
<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.
Avril had made a promise, then a truce with Xander and Riley: to allow Valmar to be reborn is anathema, but there were more pressing threats even than him affecting Filgaia and beyond. Though her focus remains a land a sea away -- flush with its own threats to Filgaia -- when word had come of Xander's offer...
Well, Avril had hesitated. Allowing him to consume a part of Valmar was certainly nothing good. But permitting it to remain in the world to afflict some other poor soul as badly as Xander and Riley was also not acceptable. In the end, it was pragmatism: if Xander were to consume the part of Valmar, then at least they would know that no one else would be drawn into this, and at least they would know of the part's whereabouts when the time came to try to put an end to all this. Perhaps Xander had predicted their reaction to his offer based on this very factor.
And he had made an additional offer, perhaps to sweeten the pot: a potion, to aid them in withstanding the Tongue's power. Again, Avril had hesitated, but when Dean had accepted the aid, Avril had decided that she would not let him do this alone.
The smell, below, is horrible. Words fail to describe the redolent rot. It's here that, with a sidelong glance at Dean, Avril downs the dose of potion she'd been given. "..."
Words also fail to describe the taste of the potion. Avril's mouth twists and her nose wrinkles. Alas, that they all have to take the full dose, Redi...
She feels its presence perhaps a little before the others might, staggering mid-stride as the first of its ravenous power begins to steal at her being. "Even from here...?" she murmurs, wrinkling her forehead as she steadies herself (perhaps with the help of another) and presses on, for they cannot stop here. Even the protection the potion grants is small against the force that wants what it takes and takes what it wants, but it is perhaps better than no protection at all.
It is not long before they find it.
"So that is the Tongue... or is it merely its bearer?" she remarks aloud. She glances at Xander, then meets Redi's gaze. "The first shot... I see. Dean! I shall be right behind you!"
Eleanor's benediction falls upon her as it does upon so many others, and Avril finds the terrible sapping force has begun to lessen, if but by degrees. Her blade glints in the fading golden light.
"Here I come!"
And there she goes, launching herself at the fiend to follow up Dean's attack, as promised.
GS: Avril Vent Fleur has attacked Xander Lovell with Innocent Saber! GS: Avril Vent Fleur has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Ida did not sleep well last night, even after taking her medicine. Her dreams kept drifting back to the Day of Darkness, and everything she associates with it: stern lectures about sin in Catechism School, the horrid scene at the tower where the Wings were sealed, the repeated catastrophes in St. Heim. She awoke in a sweat, and couldn't get back to sleep. She spent a while practicing her breathing and cuddling Pokemon. Ida does not feel good, but she's determined to see this through.
Ida drank the potion before setting out. It's a little something, at least, and as the hunger sets in, she feels oddly grateful for it, despite the awful taste. She follows after Eleanor, her footsteps soft, her eyes darting back and forth. "God," she breathes, as she stops before yet another skeleton. "Not even a drop of marrow left, here." The long bones are all cracked open. If the Tongue could eat bone, there wouldn't even be a skeleton left.
(Where are Phwee and Sal, while all this is happening? Ida gave them--and Aurora and Marigold--a special mission. There's plenty of Xander's curative left, and plenty of villagers who still need it.)
Ida stops in her tracks as she sees something massive moving in the gloom. There's no mistaking the Tongue for anything else, and Ida's whole body locks up, for a moment; visceral horror and disgust war against her fatigue, and the faint-yet-growing hunger. The blood drains from her face.
"God Almighty," Ida says, and it is a tiny prayer in the moments before battle.
The Tongue eats. Ida's face pinches tight, and her legs shake beneath her. She holds herself upright through the draining onslaught, and clenches her fists until her knuckles go white. "Gadan," she croaks, forcing herself to look at the Tongue. "We're here to release you." And then, Eleanor's light washes through the gloom, taking the edge off the sense of emptiness. It helps Ida regain the strength to move, and move she does.
The martial artist leaps forward, tucking behind a crumbled stoned column. Her right hand darts for Devil's Due, whips the gun free, and aims. As the golden haze of her life-force settles before her eyes--only to be sucked away, moments later, by the Tongue--Ida wonders what her mother would do, here. If she would face down the Tongue, if she would face down Ruth.
Ida takes a breath to clear her head, and pulls the trigger. She greets the tongue with a hail of lead of her own, trying to keep it pinned down.
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Xander Lovell with Suppression! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has gained 1 Combo! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey's stances have changed to Stoic! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey gains 8 THP from Regen! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Holly has posed.
Holly had chosen to tag along because... she felt obligated to in a lot of ways, none of which she actually voiced to anyone. Instead it had been a simple affirmation that she'd come to help.
That said, she's a little in the dark. She's heard rumors of, well, artifacts out there, but none of the myriad of books she'd read had really gone into any real detail. At that point, she just writes it off as myth and weirdness. That she's a tiny fairy in a giant underground library who was innately magic didn't diminish any of that.
Still, on top of feeling like she should help out the others, there are people here she actually does care about and would have helped without a general feeling of needing to be helpful.
She'd been weirdly quiet though. Floating along, looking officious. As... the erratic fae actually can with her paintbrush slung over her shoulder, more or less darting around, trying to keep things safe!
Not that she's raelly in a spot to do anything about the oppressive atmosphere or the actual problems. She's even managed to grimace.
The feeling of hunger is one she'd rather forget. That there are bones and husks all around are strangely familiar and offputting to the fae in a way she hasn't actually told anyone. It brings back memories and some underlying fears with them.
Before she can even get too far into it though, that supernatural.. nastiness starts to seep in and a call for trying to counteract the curse is sent out. She swings her brush around, leaving a streak of ink in the air that coalesces into a spell. More refined than she had been using before. Like she's been practicing or something!
She actually looks torn too. She has a charge to protect, in a sense. But there's another. And she's clearly trying to hurry on the fly to pick who to help first. A different kind of anxiety than the last time anyone had really seen her. And she doesn't look proud of it.
Finally, she decides though. And reaching out, she touches the ink, causing it to solidify and fade away. Turning into an attempt to bring relief to another. A mixture of magics almost reminisecent of a forest in bloom. Which is probably a nice change of pace from the fairy's usual...
GS: Holly has attacked Eleanor Klein with Brief Reprieve! GS: Holly has gained 1 Combo! GS: Holly's stances have changed to Stoic! GS: Holly gains 7 THP from her Cautious! GS: Holly gains 10 THP from Regen! GS: Holly has completed her action. GS: Eleanor Klein accepts Holly's Brief Reprieve for 0 hit points! GS: Restore! Hex removed! GS: Protect applied to Eleanor Klein! GS: Eleanor Klein is now being protected by Holly! GS: Shield applied to Holly! GS: FP up! Holly's Reload!!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Cavall has posed.
Cavall did not take the potion. Whatever the difficulty may be caused, they would prefer those to the untrustworthy alchemist's offering. It may help in the near term... but may lead to greater problems later.
Much like trusting Xander himself. But they have chosen to try and prevent a great wrong--the starvation of an entire village--rather than to sacrifice them in the name of expediency. It is not a choice Cavall particularly likes, but it is the choice they dislike the least. Xander can be dealt with later; the lives of the dead, however, cannot be restored once lost.
"These caverns run deep..." rumbles Cavall quietly as the proceed along. "... but there is also a structure embedded within the earth."
They sniff curiously at the various carapaces, bones, skeletons, and remains that they find as they go... but surely, inexorably, their footing falters for a moment. The wolf pauses to concentrate. "This beast... to inflict hunger on one who needs not sustenance... This is a most foul magic indeed."
Their strength flags for a moment, all four paws slipping for a moment as their stance lowers. But they set their resolve, growling as they try to rally. They are of the earth; they will endure.
And then they see what's left of this Gadan. Cavall struggles under the weight of that oppressive starvation, growling harshly as they try to pit their determination--teh steadfastness of the earth itself--against the overwhelming power of a dark one. "Gadan, if there is ought of you left inside that shell... you must resist. Show us the man you once were yet lives."
But determination alone may not be enough to see them through this. Cavall is feeling the dark energy sap at their strength still, can see the others being affected as well. Althenian runes appear below their paws as they reach deep down into the earth, drawing vitality and life. Several of those on this journey feel the life force of the earth itself weaving into them, attempting to replace the life force being robbed from them, and to buffer them from further intrusion.
GS: Seraph Cavall has attacked Eleanor Klein with Renewal of Life! GS: Seraph Cavall has attacked Cirea with Renewal of Life! GS: Seraph Cavall has attacked Seraph Cavall with Renewal of Life! GS: Seraph Cavall has attacked Venetia Vuong with Renewal of Life! GS: Seraph Cavall has attacked Holly with Renewal of Life! GS: Seraph Cavall has gained 2 Combo! GS: Seraph Cavall has completed their action. GS: Seraph Cavall heals Seraph Cavall! They gains 29 temporary hit points! GS: Restore! Hex removed! GS: Seraph Cavall heals Eleanor Klein! She gains 28 temporary hit points! GS: Restore! Break, Cripple, Disease, and Disrupt removed! GS: Shield applied to Seraph Cavall! GS: Seraph Cavall heals Holly! She gains 26 temporary hit points! GS: Restore! Hex removed! GS: Seraph Cavall heals Cirea! She gains 28 temporary hit points! GS: Restore! Hex removed! GS: Seraph Cavall heals Venetia Vuong! She gains 26 temporary hit points! GS: Restore! Hex removed! GS: Quick applied to Seraph Cavall! GS: Xander Lovell mostly guards Avril Vent Fleur's Innocent Saber for 69 hit points! GS: FP up! Power Burst! GS: Xander Lovell critically fails to guard Ida Everstead-Rey's Suppression for 135 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Billy Lee Black has posed.
Previously, Billy Lee Black has made no small amount of grim Etone conviction from his bond to destroy Xander Lovell and their works. Monsters must be silenced. There is room for mercy, doubt, and compassion...but in the end, monsters must not be allowed to have their way.
...but he learned the lesson from Stone. Blind malice, arrogant overconfidence, those are killers to more than just Etones. Indeed: This makes Xander just the one, stronger, problem. So...fine.
It takes an Etone's will to stay the course. The ravenous hunger fills his stomach. This is the kind of curse he struggles to resist. He took the potion - daring to believe in a demon's generosity - and though it didn't double-cross him, maybe his doubts saw to it that its effects were blunted. At the entrance to the chamber of the tongue, he staggers against the wall, finds himself leaning helplessly against it. Xander encourages them to make good use of the first shot. His hand lowers to his gunbelt, thumb on the hammer of his pistol...and tucks it away. Instead, he falls to one knee, letting the horrible, twisting hunger draw him down. But he grips hard to the Etone cross at his collar, breathing, "Lord, bearer of light and life...relieve our burdens...!"
Light pulses away from him, bright and purifying.
GS: Blitz! Billy Lee Black has attacked Eleanor Klein with Purity Light! GS: Blitz! Billy Lee Black has attacked Seraph Cavall with Purity Light! GS: Blitz! Billy Lee Black has attacked Yulie Ahtreide with Purity Light! GS: Blitz! Billy Lee Black has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Purity Light! GS: Blitz! Billy Lee Black has attacked Cirea with Purity Light! GS: Billy Lee Black has completed his action. GS: Eleanor Klein accepts Billy Lee Black's Purity Light for 0 hit points! GS: Restore! Jam and Mute removed! GS: FP up! Billy Lee Black's Reload!! GS: Seraph Cavall accepts Billy Lee Black's Purity Light for 0 hit points! GS: Restore! Cripple and Disease removed! GS: Quick applied to Billy Lee Black! GS: FP up! Billy Lee Black's Reload!! GS: CRITICAL! Yulie Ahtreide accepts Billy Lee Black's Purity Light for 0 hit points! GS: Restore! Break, Cripple, and Disease removed! GS: FP up! Billy Lee Black's Reload!! GS: Cirea accepts Billy Lee Black's Purity Light for 0 hit points! GS: Restore! Break and Cripple removed! GS: FP up! Billy Lee Black's Reload!! GS: CRITICAL! Ida Everstead-Rey accepts Billy Lee Black's Purity Light for 0 hit points! GS: Restore! Break, Disease, Disrupt, and Jam removed! GS: FP up! Billy Lee Black's Reload!!
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
With a combined effort of Light and Purity from fairy, Sage, Seraph, and Etone, some of the Tongue's horrific aura is pushed back against. Even Ruth's own aura is something that can mix and contend to give everyone a fighting chance as they leap into action.
As everyone takes to battle, Xander watches. He dares a step forward before Riley is there in front of him and tenses. It's enough to make him think twice. He hates this feeling, that others are fighting a battle he should be in, and that he would be in the way if he moved in now. With his own injuries, he warning he gave others applies to him most of all: whatever move he decides to make, it'd better count.
Redi kicks thrice, two into the rigid shell and the third right into the tongue in time with Yulie's rings to cross a powerful strike. The monster shrieks an offended sound and slurps its tongue right back in. It huddles into its shell, enduring a barrage of Cirea's light around its shell.
Dean comes in low, landing his blow into the fingery joints, joined by Avril's followup assault. The legs of the creature buckles and then bends, sending it halfway crashing to one side. Riley's arrow follows up on the other side, tangling another pair of legs together and the whole of the Tongue drops.
A sniper shot from Ruth and a stone figure from Venetia smack into the bulk of the body while it is unbalanced, allowing Ida's lead to hail into its form.
Yulie offers a spot of compassion for Gadan, and Xander looks to the ground, fist clenched around the strap of his bag. Ida offers mercy. The Tongue of Valmar does not regard either with recognition. For a long moment, it does not move at all.
Is that it, then? To have rushed in and poured in their light and healing, taken it out with a decisive blow while it was weak and feeding?
...
The weight of hunger crashes down over them, like a pain in their guts or the cores of their beings, eating them from the inside out to make them hollow. Xander tenses, calling something out, but whatever advice he may mean to give is lost under the terrible bellow of the monster, great enough to shake the entire cavern around them.
Debris rain down, crashing dangerously over the battlefield as each bit of strength it devours has it standing taller, firmer, and ready. Each of its mouths point down at the Drifters before it, and its tongue slips over the lips off its shell in elation. If it can be said to smile, then what they are looking at is a grin.
With a great inhale, it sucks in the air, and with its great gulp they can feel their own essence being ripped from them and pulled into the void of Valmar's gluttony.
GS: Xander Lovell has activated a Boss Action! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Xander Lovell with mMMmoOoooRrrrEEee!!!!!!! GS: Xander Lovell has gained 2 Combo! GS: CRITICAL! Xander Lovell heals Xander Lovell! He gains 130 temporary hit points! GS: Xander Lovell has activated Force Action: Fury Shot! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Cirea with Hunger Pains! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Eleanor Klein with Hunger Pains! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Riley Lovell with Hunger Pains! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Redi Hayworth with Hunger Pains! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Seraph Cavall with Hunger Pains! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Holly with Hunger Pains! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Venetia Vuong with Hunger Pains! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Yulie Ahtreide with Hunger Pains! GS: Xander Lovell has gained 2 Combo! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Malnutrition! GS: Xander Lovell has gained 2 Combo! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Dean Stark with Iron Deficiency! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Ruth Pauling with Iron Deficiency! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Avril Vent Fleur with Iron Deficiency! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Billy Lee Black with Iron Deficiency! GS: Xander Lovell has gained 2 Combo! GS: Xander Lovell gains 5 FP from Sufferer! GS: Xander Lovell takes 44 damage from Poison! GS: Xander Lovell has completed his action. GS: Redi Hayworth mostly guards Xander Lovell's Hunger Pains for 11 hit points! GS: Misery adds Blind! GS: Blind, Disrupt, and Starve applied to Redi Hayworth! GS: CRITICAL! Eleanor Klein critically fails to guard Xander Lovell's Hunger Pains for 67 hit points! GS: Misery adds Entangle! GS: Disrupt, Entangle, and Starve applied to Eleanor Klein! GS: Protect! Holly takes 17 damage! GS: Billy Lee Black fails to evade Xander Lovell's Iron Deficiency for 64 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Billy Lee Black gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Misery adds Poison! GS: Disrupt, Leak, and Poison applied to Billy Lee Black! GS: Cirea fails to guard Xander Lovell's Hunger Pains for 74 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Cirea gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Misery adds Poison! GS: Disrupt, Poison, and Starve applied to Cirea! GS: Holly marginally guards Xander Lovell's Hunger Pains for 21 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Holly gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Misery adds Entangle! GS: Disrupt, Entangle, and Starve applied to Holly! GS: COUNTER! Ruth Pauling counterattacks Xander Lovell with Counter Shoot! GS: CRITICAL! Ruth Pauling fails to charge Xander Lovell's Iron Deficiency for 63 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Ruth Pauling gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Ruth Pauling's Disrupt Ward may block the effect! GS: Misery adds Break! GS: Break, Disrupt, and Leak applied to Ruth Pauling! GS: CRITICAL! Yulie Ahtreide critically fails to guard Xander Lovell's Hunger Pains for 83 hit points! GS: Misery adds Disease! GS: Disease, Disrupt, and Starve applied to Yulie Ahtreide! GS: Dean Stark marginally guards Xander Lovell's Iron Deficiency for 30 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Dean Stark gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Misery adds Hex! GS: Disrupt, Hex, and Leak applied to Dean Stark! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey mostly guards Xander Lovell's Malnutrition for 32 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Ida Everstead-Rey gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Misery adds Delay! GS: Delay, Disrupt, and Old applied to Ida Everstead-Rey! GS: CRITICAL! Avril Vent Fleur critically fails to evade Xander Lovell's Iron Deficiency for 58 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Avril Vent Fleur gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Avril Vent Fleur's Disrupt Ward may block the effect! GS: Misery adds Weaken! GS: Disrupt, Leak, and Weaken applied to Avril Vent Fleur! GS: Venetia Vuong mostly evades Xander Lovell's Hunger Pains for 19 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Venetia Vuong gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Misery adds Break! GS: Break, Disrupt, and Starve applied to Venetia Vuong! GS: CRITICAL! Seraph Cavall mostly evades Xander Lovell's Hunger Pains for 32 hit points! GS: Misery adds Weaken! GS: Disrupt, Starve, and Weaken applied to Seraph Cavall! GS: Riley Lovell mostly guards Xander Lovell's Hunger Pains for 20 hit points! GS: Misery adds Jam! GS: Disrupt, Jam, and Starve applied to Riley Lovell!
<Pose Tracker> Redi Hayworth has posed.
With Yulie drinking it at the same time, Redi had the courage to drink the medicine. Which helped -- and it helps now. The hunger isn't completely unmanageable, as distracting as it it is.
Redi watches the two chakrams fly in under her -- and Dean's charge and Cirea's spells, too -- and bounces back off the shell.
"You're welcome!" Redi calls back to Riley, before she blinks. "I think! It's complicated!"
She looks back at Avril, nodding quickly at her. "Its shell is tough," she says. "Dean, Yulie, maybe if we hit the same spo--"
The weight of hunger crashes down over her and she literally crumples. Her knees buckle. She groans; her eyes flare with blue light, and red and violet motes crackle off her like flame. "Gh--this thing is--"
She looks at its mouths, open, and inhaling their essence into them. Her proposed strategy collapses like a house of cards in face of that drained feeling. Redi grits her teeth. She looks back at Yulie. "Y--You okay?" she manages to ask. "We can push through. It's--it's gotta beat..."
She looks back at the Tongue. She doesn't finish. Whatever they do would be a mercy for Gadan, she thinks, unhappily.
"I'm sorry, Gadan," she says. She goes running in, this time with those same spectral violet and crimson flames trailng after. As she comes in close, one boot-clad foot crushes down chips of bone under her heel, and she pivots. The staff whirls out, slamming for the side of its head with both hands.
"I don't know what else I can do for you!"
GS: Redi Hayworth has attacked Xander Lovell with Crescent Sweep! GS: Redi Hayworth has gained 2 Combo! GS: Redi Hayworth's stances have changed to Avenger! GS: Redi Hayworth gains 5 FP from her Daredevil! GS: Redi Hayworth gains 5 FP from Sufferer! GS: Redi Hayworth has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Eleanor Klein has posed.
Eleanor apprecites Venetia, even if that totally isn't the reason Venetia didn't take the potion at all. ...She is glad to be near her for now, in any case. Especially as even Dean calls it bad. ...Because it is.
The Sage remains on the ground, unable to both stand and project her power elsewhere. At least, that is the case until Holly's forested magic buoys her; the blooms of that power help Eleanor rise to her feet, and she feels just that little bit better. Fairy magic...
It is a reminder of her duty here. "Thank you!" she calls to Holly, "But be careful!"
Cavall's seraphic artes reach her nexxt, and the power of the earth steadies Eleanor's steps. She looks to the Seraph--and does not have the heart to say that there can be nothing left of Gadan there that could fight, now.
Riley thanks them. Riley, whose faith helps. Eleanor turns her head towrds him, her blonde hair rustled in an unseen wind, "Just be careful, Riley! If Xander doesn't make it, our backup options aren't ideal!"
A different kind of Light exudes from Billy, but it is familiar to Eleanor all the same. Billy's hopes were greater than hers, in this, and she feels those hopes now.
"Right! We CAN do this!"
Then she says to Venetia, "I hope it regrets that very hard," glad of her friend's more offensive magic than her own. Ruth is serving in her own way, meanwhile. Eleanor is... glad, she didn't go through with her own plan, but the report of that gun still roars in her ears.
The weight of hunger crashes down. Eleanor's core feels like she's burning, and she gasps audibly as she puts a hand on the cavern--just in time fro the debris to start crashing down. Her very essence seems to drain away--and while hers might be unpleasant to Valmar...
"No!" Eleanor calls. "We won't give up!"
Redi apologizes--but that strange set of flames trails after her. Eleanor stares for an instant--and then pulls a Crest. The powers of Wing and Geo are emblazoned upon the golden card. "O unceasing river of Time, I call upon your power! Embrace us in your flow, and carry us to where we must Be!"
There is a sense of a whirring, a ticking clock sounding out about the room--and a clock face appears above Eleanor, suddenly reversing its spin. Upon many of the allies present, they will feel a lurch, and then suddenly that which has been done has no longer been done.
But the backlash of using magic through such an effect knocks Eleanor from her feet with a cry, the Crest barely gripped in her hand as she hits the ground.
She can't affect everyone, accordingly, but those her magic can touch include even the strange Redi...and of course, some who aided her.
GS: Eleanor Klein has attacked Eleanor Klein with Reversion! GS: Eleanor Klein has attacked Ruth Pauling with Reversion! GS: Eleanor Klein has attacked Billy Lee Black with Reversion! GS: Eleanor Klein has attacked Holly with Reversion! GS: Eleanor Klein has attacked Cirea with Reversion! GS: Eleanor Klein has attacked Redi Hayworth with Reversion! GS: Eleanor Klein has gained 2 Combo! GS: Eleanor Klein's stances have changed to Sage! GS: Eleanor Klein gains 5 FP from Gleam! GS: Eleanor Klein has completed her action. GS: Eleanor Klein heals Eleanor Klein! She gains 107 temporary hit points! GS: Restore! Disrupt, Entangle, Slow, and Weaken removed! GS: Eleanor Klein heals Cirea! She gains 26 temporary hit points! GS: Restore! Disease, Jam, and Starve removed! GS: Eleanor Klein heals Billy Lee Black! He gains 27 temporary hit points! GS: Restore! Break, Disease, Disrupt, and Jam removed! GS: Eleanor Klein heals Ruth Pauling! She gains 108 temporary hit points! GS: Restore! Jam, Mute, and Slow removed! GS: CRITICAL! Xander Lovell marginally guards Ruth Pauling's Counter Shoot for 110 hit points! GS: FP up! Power Burst! GS: Gamble: Moderate! Xander Lovell mostly evades Redi Hayworth's Crescent Sweep for 61 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Xander Lovell gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Mighty applied to Redi Hayworth! GS: FP up! Power Burst and Reaction bonus! GS: CRITICAL! Redi Hayworth accepts Eleanor Klein's Reversion for 0 hit points! Diseaseweakens healing! GS: Restore! Blind, Break, Cripple, Disease, Jam, and Slow removed!
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.
Dean gets why Yulie and Ida would call out to Gadan like he's still a person who can hear and understand them. But... the way the Tongue looks now, the severity of the curse he's suffering under... he honestly thinks it's better if he's lost his mind entirely. Then at least he won't have to suffer.
He doesn't tell them or anyone else *not* to call out to him, though. This is... a truly horrible fate. Whatever person he was before, Dean can't help but feel sorry for Gadan.
Right now, he flashes a grin back at Avril and her sword, then leaps into the fray, trusting Ida's bullets to cover them. Even Ruth's Malevolence, as unpleasant as that is, serves as a good counterpoint to the Tongue's presence. Both their bullets hits true--they all do, as far as he can tell--but the Tongue is just... standing there, taking it, letting everyone's hits just strike its carapace. Dean doesn't especially want to get a better look at the poor guy, but he squints at him even so. "That can't be it, right? This can't be--"
The waves of hunger crash out from the Tongue like a tsunami; the Tongue sucks it all back in as detritus falls from the ceiling. He lets out a startled groan as he doubles over, staggering backwards. Redi's suggestion to him and Yulie that they all hit it at the same time doesn't get an immediate answer as a result.
"A-Avril, you okay?" he asks through grit teeth. He's concerned for all his friends, but right now, he can only spare focus for the friend right by his side. "Sure glad we took that potion!" He looks over to Redi and Yulie and gives them a sharp nod. "You two go in first--we'll come in from the other side!"
Sure enough, when Redi charges with fiery feet, Dean sweeps in from the other side. "Avril! On three!" he calls. He skids to a halt, then swings his ARMs around and up to aim at the other side of the Tongue's head, the chambers set to a certain Bullet. "One! Two! Three!!"
Then, rapidfire, he unleashes with both barrels a series of fireballs to crash in towards the Tongue and scorch its shell where Redi just struck, potentially ruining its defenses by making it hurt regardless of whether it blocks those attacks or not. If so, it'll give Avril, Yulie, and the others a choice opportunity. He'll leave the back line, the magic and the healing to Ida, Eleanor, and the others--he trusts them all to do what they need to do.
There's no question at all that Riley will protect Xander until he's able to consume the Tongue for himself. That's just what Rileys do.
GS: Dean Stark has attacked Xander Lovell with Fire Bullet! GS: Dean Stark gains 5 FP from Gleam! GS: Dean Stark has completed his action. GS: Xander Lovell critically fails to charge Dean Stark's Fire Bullet for 216 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Xander Lovell gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Break blocked! GS: Eleanor Klein heals Holly! She gains 28 temporary hit points! GS: Restore! Cripple, Disease, and Entangle removed!
<Pose Tracker> Yulie Ahtreide has posed.
Purifying light washes over Yulie. She can feel some of that terrible hunger fade - settling, just a little.
"Thank you..." Yulie murmurs, grateful for Billy's aid.
Their opponent is tough, and for a moment seems still... Yulie looks toward Redi as she starts to suggest a strategy - but then, before she can finish, that hunger reasserts itself - washing over her again with enough force that she nearly drops to her knees from weakness. She catches herself, though, standing firm - if a bit unsteady. Every drop of their strength it devours only serves to strengthen it further... This truly is a terrible curse. If any of them had tried to face it alone...
Perhaps it is good they came when they did.
"I'm...still holding on." Yulie replies to Redi, offering her a shaky, uncertain smile. She nods. "...We can. We have to." She replies
Yulie looks toward Dean, then, and nods back.
"I'll focus on support - I'll do what I can to back you all up." She says.
Redi goes in for another attack - but this time, Yulie decides to focus on support. She draws out a Crest Graph, focusing on it. Her already strained reserves of energy make forming the spell difficult - but she forces it anyway.
The spell radiates outward - like a wave of pleasantly cool, soothing air to ease their weariness and, perhaps, fight back against the curse eating away at them somewhat. It may not be much - but here and now, every little bit helps.
GS: Yulie Ahtreide has activated Force Action: Extend! GS: Yulie Ahtreide has attacked Dean Stark with Soothe! GS: Yulie Ahtreide has attacked Avril Vent Fleur with Soothe! GS: Yulie Ahtreide has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Soothe! GS: Yulie Ahtreide has attacked Riley Lovell with Soothe! GS: Yulie Ahtreide has attacked Yulie Ahtreide with Soothe! GS: Yulie Ahtreide has attacked Venetia Vuong with Soothe! GS: Yulie Ahtreide has attacked Seraph Cavall with Soothe! GS: Yulie Ahtreide has gained 2 Combo! GS: Yulie Ahtreide has completed her action. GS: Yulie Ahtreide heals Yulie Ahtreide! She gains 10 temporary hit points! GS: Restore! Jam, Mute, Slow, and Weaken removed! GS: Pray adds Surge! GS: Regen and Surge applied to Yulie Ahtreide! GS: Shield applied to Yulie Ahtreide! GS: Yulie Ahtreide heals Venetia Vuong! She gains 9 temporary hit points! GS: Restore! Break, Cripple, Disease, Jam, and Starve removed! GS: Pray adds Amplify! GS: Amplify and Regen applied to Venetia Vuong! GS: Yulie Ahtreide heals Seraph Cavall! They gains 44 temporary hit points! GS: Restore! Jam, Mute, and Slow removed! GS: Pray adds Surge! GS: Regen and Surge applied to Seraph Cavall! GS: Yulie Ahtreide heals Riley Lovell! He gains 43 temporary hit points! GS: Restore! Disrupt, Jam, and Starve removed! GS: Pray adds Blitz! GS: Blitz and Regen applied to Riley Lovell!
<Pose Tracker> Cirea has posed.
"I'm not walking in that," Cirea says, defensively with her hands momentarily on her hips, when Venetia says 'everybody walked except the fairies'. "Anyway, flying's just as hard! I just have a lot of energy."
Usually, anyway. Right now she's a little short. (No jokes please.)
Energy - from Cavall, from Billy, from Eleanor - keeps Cirea up and her silhouette-image manifested. The silhouette mirrors what Cirea does, mostly, though she seems to be able to give it commands - like now, when she directs it to circle around the Tongue, so the two of them can strike it from opposite sides.
"Striking together..." Redi's plan has merit, but Cirea has a better idea. "No, let's see if it can handle everything at once!" Well, it's sort of the same, but not quite. "I've got something I bet it's never seen before... I bet none of you have seen it before!"
Cirea raises her arms - just as the hunger hits her.
It hits her with enough force that she lowers her arms, wrapping them around her midsection as she practically folds up around it. Cirea is notoriously a big eater - for someone her size, anyway - and it's not entirely because she's sometimes greedy (though, to be fair, it's at least partially that she *is* a gourmand); fairies need a lot to keep going.
Cirea slowly loses height, her wingbeats slowing as she drifts downward rather than falls. If she had anything left to eat she would eat that, but she doesn't, so all she can do is suffer through it. She lets out a groan.
Eleanor's magic is enough to reverse that, at least for the moment; Cirea doesn't quite find her energy refilled, but it's back where she can push it aside for the moment. She returns to her spell, bobbing a little lower now:
"Gift of water, spread your brilliant shine!"
Cirea is known to be an Althenean sorceress. They tend to use two elements; for her those are Air and Light. Always Air and Light - but this is Water, a stream of pure water that flows from her fingertips, forming a sphere directly over the Tongue of Valmar.
At the same time, the Silhouette casts a spell of its own, and the sphere of water begins to glow as if there was something radiant deep within. The ball of water grows to perhaps six feet across, the inside shining dimly as Cirea clenches her hands into fists.
"Rainbow Drop!"
The sphere of water falls - and when it falls it *bursts* on impact, slamming the Tongue downward while breaking into a cloud of mist. Rainbow mist, as it emits its own light, filled with little specks of shining colour that form a cloud of purest Light around the Tongue, assisted by Water.
Cirea, for her part, has surreptiously stuck her thumb out of her fist and is spraying a stream of water directly into her own mouth, water fountain-style. It's not *food* but it at least makes her feel less empty. When she cheers for her own spell, she almost inhales it and ends up making a noise best described as 'blrbl'. "How do you like that?" she crows, afterwards. "THREE elements! I'm a great sorceress and don't you forget it!"
GS: Cirea has activated Force Action: Full Clip! GS: Blitz! Cirea has attacked Xander Lovell with Rainbow Drop! GS: Cirea has gained 2 Combo! GS: Cirea gains 5 FP from Gleam! GS: Cirea takes 44 damage from Poison! GS: Cirea has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Venetia Vuong has posed.
Cavall's artes fill Venetia with the energy of life. This means several things; it does mean that she's still hungry, but at least it's only ordinary hungry now. Her teeth clench. The Seraph gets a glance (Venetia can tell which direction magic comes from, pretty reliably) and a firm nod, but time presses.
It's timely. Her stomach makes a wrenching sound that isn't quite a rumble. This digestive crank makes her stagger forwards as she lets out a breath, even as debris falls downwards and -- as it's eating... stone?
And then the suction comes. Something in Venetia is *pulled* upon; a wash of fatigue, a feeling like ten hours have progressed and she hasn't rested or drank water or *eaten* - she staggers, head lolling forwards, before looking towards Eleanor. Who struggles against this.
Venetia breathes heavily. In fact, she actually sinks to one knee, with a brief, muffled, but extant cry. Venetia's free hand comes up to palm her own face, masked eyes staring out through her spread fingertips as she makes herself breathe. Even THAT feels hard. But what Eleanor's doing -
'Time'...
The thought crawls like a stunned slug through Venetia's glucose-starved brain. She clasps the embers of anger, because it has been a sturdy friend, but Dinoginos, Venetia thinks, I think I'm going to pass out --
And then there's a cool breath of air.
Sorcerously so.
Venetia feels a certain self-disgust for having needed this much support, and even so, she gets up to her feet. "Now, here's what I wonder," Venetia mutters (with a momentary thankful glance to Yulie - her loathing and fury is aimed entirely internally, at least for that moment - and soon to a more deserving target!)
"Are you able to eat just any stone? Or is that like eating konjack jelly for you?" Her right hand is digging in her Crest Pouch, but there is another option. Namely:
A GUN! Venetia clears leather and shoots mostly-from-the-hip: the target, after all, is pretty clear. BANGBANG -- a brief lull to avoid shooting Redi in the butt -- BANGBANGBANG and the gun is back in the holster. Venetia shakes her left hand out, because one-handed shooting stings.
("Oh, well shot," Venetia comments when she hears Cirea's crowing, though it's distracted.)
GS: Venetia Vuong has attacked Xander Lovell with Penultimate Argument of Reason! GS: Venetia Vuong has gained 1 Combo! GS: Venetia Vuong gains 5 FP from Gleam! GS: Venetia Vuong gains 37 THP from Regen! GS: Venetia Vuong has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Holly has posed.
The wave of gnawing hungry does cause her to drop for a moment. She recovers. Holly tightening her grip on her paintbrush. Brandishing it like a staff, she regains here altitude and tries her best to push the very worrying feeling of her magic being ripped away. On two fronts making it worse. She doesn't say anything about it. She clenches her teeth and tries to keep the appearance of having it all under control.
"Y-yeah." She calls out, in reply to Eleanor, ruining the illusion, but there's only so much you can do.
There's concerned looks to everyone at this point. Too much, too little, what can you do? Lean into it? That's what she used to do. How did that turn out?
"You too." She calls out, trying to sound more put together, replying finally to Eleanor properly. "And everyone else-" Though while she says that, she's keeping an eye on Cirea. Because she's worried. And she's trying not to make it obvious.
She is given some aid though! Both from Cavall, who gets a funny look. It's been a long while since she'd seen the Seraph, "You be real careful-" She starts. Like she's not in a similar boat, but also a call of, "Thanks again!" to Eleanor. It is really helping lighten things. Returning some... necessary control to herself.
Choosing at this point, to preserve what she has, she slashes the brush through the ink swirling around her in dark streaks and darts forward, bringing the brush back, then swinging it wide! The ink slung out doesn't behave normally though and slices forward, sharp as a blade. Briefly, Holly almost looks proud. It's been a while since she wasn't brute forcing and- She quickly shakes her head and continues her flight, darting back and away from the strange, unsettling monster. The ink flowing to act almost like a shield. Similar to the little blob of ink that's somehow started to swirl around Eleanor. There'd probably be more if she weren't limited here. For better or worse...
There is a strange, worried look shot to Cirea as she drinks magically created water. Is that healthy? It works though. Right?
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
Ruth's left shoulder screams in unrelenting joint pain and weakness in soaking her rifle's notoriously heavy kick as she sucks in a breath when the host of the Tongue of Valmar seems to have been sucker punched into submission. She can feel, in the periphery, the colors and lights of a grace given to others, and to hear Billy way over to her right stating Etone prayer.
Hunger grows, and her eyes flare open as rocks crash around her and at least one waggling tongue is a bit too close for comfort (*any line of sight is too close for comfort, honestly).
Then, the air. Ruth staggers back as the rifle goes off again, a second time - and luckily still in 'a path that has Gadan in the way.' She's still breathing, but it feels like nothing reaches her lungs as Valmar pulls away at her essence.
It feels a little too close to...
ON MARDUK
An otherworldly - no, godly - figure emerges from containment. Condescending, and then... pressure. Unrelenting, smothering, crushing pressure that paralyzes physically and emotionally to the point of near-cessation of any semblance of emotional or intellectual presence. Like one ceases to be anything other than merely present in the space, and little more.
It was anathema to her very being, and yet she was powerless to fight against it were it not for the intervention of the Sword Magess herself.
NOW
Ruth's bayonet blade has stabbed into the ground to keep it upright, though she herself is not. Her grip on the rifle with her left hand is weak as she lies seated, suppressed. The emotional rancor she held until she could find an outlet to let it boil over is gone, and it feels like her very soul is only being held together by the spiritual poison that simultaneously tears it apart.
'O unceasing river of Time, I call upon your power! Embrace us in your flow, and carry us to where we must Be!'
Time starts to flow in reverse. The guilt, the shame, the regret, and despair permeate Ruth anew - and all it takes is for a tear to be shed, for Malevolence to build up again. The grip of her left arm falters...
...to be reinforced by the lengthy tail of her burgeoning monstrous shape, snaking around the rifle's shaft. Nedian-made bindings and accessories shift to accommodate her as she rises anew, her singular wing escaping the slit in her back as her Domain expands like a trauma response to the near-consumption of her very spirit.
"No," she says as she rises, her right hand over her chest, "thisss... iss mine." She pulls the rifle out the ground before the gluttonous creature that has fully overtaken its host.
The rain starts to fall (within this cavern, somehow), threatening to drench the Tongue of Valmar as Ruth comes up to her full height as her wing flares out.
Her guilt, shame, regret, and despair will not run dry today - and the ensuing rain is an invitation less to drink and more to drown. Whether she scares and unsettles the other former Etone, the Seraph, the faeries, the Seers of Fire, and everyone else that's come to accept her as a friend...
Sometimes only a daemonic figure can answer prayers.
GS: Ruth Pauling spends 1 Combo on Poison! GS: Ruth Pauling enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Ruth Pauling has attacked Xander Lovell with Coming Rain! GS: Ruth Pauling has gained 2 Combo! GS: Ruth Pauling's stances have changed to Hero! GS: Ruth Pauling enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Ruth Pauling gains 5 FP from Sufferer! GS: Ruth Pauling gains 32 THP from Regen! GS: Weaken expired! GS: Ruth Pauling has completed her action. GS: Holly has attacked Xander Lovell with Cursed Ink! GS: Holly has gained 1 Combo! GS: Holly gains 23 THP from her Cautious! GS: Holly gains 37 THP from Regen! GS: Holly has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Riley Lovell has posed.
"We're rescuing Xander from the curse," Riley grumps to Venetia. It certainly makes complete sense to him. They're rescuing Xander along with everyone else in the city, of course, but Riley plays favorites, moreso now thanever. Avril wonders if the monster is the Tongue or its bearer. "I guess it's both, now." That's kind of the problem with being the bearer of any of these Parts, the separation disappears. It's why no one has been able to figure out how to purify them without destroying them along with it...
Eleanor bids him to be careful, and there is a little sparkle in his eyes. She hasn't completely given them up for dead! At least for the purposes of utility in the current situation... But he'll take it. He's sorry for letting you down and not being the person he tried to be, Eleanor... "It's all right, I'll keep him safe!" he assures.
Redi says he is welcome, maybe. "You get extra thanks, Redi! Because we are friends!."
Unless... is it already over? Did they catch it unawares and overwhelm it with force?
NOPE.
Its roar shatters through them, and The hunger intensifies. Riley feels it hollowing him out until it seems there is nothing left... and then, somehow the Tongue then begins to pull something more from him. "Is it eating our SOULS?!" Riley protests in horror. His legs feel like they're going to give out beneath him, and he grasps out, calling the cursed Shovel of Valmar from the ground beneath him. First just to lean upon until he gathers enough resolve to push through the feeling of collapse. Then he rushes forward, sweeping out the Shovel to crack against the Tongue's carapace. As he pulls it back again, a ghostly, life-leaching hand bursts off the "blade" of the shovel. "I'd like some of my soul back, thanks!" With that burst of energy done, he wavers again, leaning on the Shovel. The aura is...so intense...!
That's when Yulie summons a soothing breeze... he feels like he can breathe again, his grip strengthening enough to push himself up. "Th-thanks!"
GS: Blitz! Riley Lovell has attacked Xander Lovell with Brush with Death! GS: Riley Lovell has gained 1 Combo! GS: Riley Lovell gains 39 THP from Regen! GS: Riley Lovell has completed his action. GS: Yulie Ahtreide heals Ida Everstead-Rey! She gains 34 temporary hit points! GS: Restore! Disrupt, Mute, and Weaken removed! GS: Pray adds Shield! GS: Regen and Shield applied to Ida Everstead-Rey! GS: Yulie Ahtreide heals Dean Stark! He gains 10 temporary hit points! GS: Restore! Hex removed! GS: Pray adds Lock State! GS: Lock state and Regen applied to Dean Stark! GS: Shield applied to Yulie Ahtreide! GS: Xander Lovell mostly guards Cirea's Rainbow Drop for 141 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Xander Lovell gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Blind blocked! GS: FP up! Reaction bonus! GS: CRITICAL! Gamble: Very High! Xander Lovell critically fails to guard Venetia Vuong's Penultimate Argument of Reason for 347 hit points! GS: Xander Lovell fails to guard Ruth Pauling's Coming Rain for 196 hit points! GS: Poison blocked! GS: FP up! Reaction bonus! GS: Xander Lovell critically fails to guard Holly's Cursed Ink for 168 hit points! GS: Cover applied to Holly! GS: FP up! Power Burst! GS: Xander Lovell mostly guards Riley Lovell's Brush with Death for 126 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Cavall has posed.
Billy's light washes over them, further restoring some energy and counteracting the force of that terrifying, overwhelming hunger. "Thank you, friend."
Cavall looks to Eleanor next, when she glances their way. and nods in her direction. Do they get the message? Or are they simply acknowledging the vitality given? There is another nod shared in Venetia's direction. (They do not find the idea of telling the direction of magic difficult to believe.)
It has been a while, yes. Cavall nods to the (Filgaian) fairy. "You as well, Holly." There might be more time for catching up... later.
But there are multiple people trying to reach through--but the beast only grows stronger from their loss of hunger, and doesn't seem to be showing any signs of holding back.
And that hunger redoubles, with Cavall stumbling, almost falling to the ground as their efforts to weave life and vitality into the others is abruptly forced to cease. "I... grr..." It is an effort to stand again--not the strain of muscles fighting an unnaturally imposed malnutrition, for they do not have muscles--but it is the battle of wills, instead, the urge to resist versus the urge to succumb.
There are things the wolf could do, enchantments they could weave that might further reinforce their allies, or soothe their wounds, but the unholy hunger sapping at their strength would disrupt their artes, and create a difficult gulf to cross to gather the energy required.
But Yulie's magic soothes some of the ache and pain, and with a ferocious growl they force themselves up to their feat. In the same motion they leap forward, raking at the beast with sharp claws as they attempt to rally and build their own momentum.
GS: Seraph Cavall has attacked Xander Lovell with Resurging Strike! GS: Recover! Disrupt and Starve removed from Seraph Cavall! GS: Seraph Cavall gains 5 FP from Gleam! GS: Seraph Cavall gains 32 THP from Regen! GS: Seraph Cavall has completed their action. GS: CRITICAL! Xander Lovell fails to evade Seraph Cavall's Resurging Strike for 240 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Xander Lovell gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Quick applied to Seraph Cavall! GS: FP up! Power Burst and Reaction bonus!
<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.
It's Riley who gives her an answer, the thing that she had not yet heard full the tale regarding but had suspected from comments from the others. "So... there was already a host." Was there any coming back from possession? One tale suggested a possible return, but--
Best to be certain, she'd said to herself in private. Best to make sure this cannot spread further. Best to...
Be ready for what was necessary, perhaps, yet hopeful for another way.
She gets in one good shot.
Perhaps in another time and place, against a different foe, it would have been enough. Perhaps the situation would already be handled. But one of the pieces of Valmar is not to be underestimated -- certainly, Avril knows this, has taken every precaution when facing a foe like this. They all have: they're all giving it everything they have. But it's not enough.
"Ah--?"
Little is 'enough' against such raw want and crushing hunger. Even the blade in her hand has lost its faint white luster; Avril herself staggers, driven nearly to her knee under such an assault on her being. It's as if a hole has been rent in her gut and everything she is threatens to pour out from that wound. It's all she can do to stand, shakily, against the onslaught.
"I... I'm fine," she answers Dean, though the quaver in her voice may betray her lie. "I'm still here-- Dean, are you...?" She doesn't finish her statement, turning her gaze instead upon the Tongue. "..."
Would this be worse without the potion? Are those who abstained hanging in there? She can only just take a look about herself (even this seems almost too much energy to use) and make the best possible guess about everyone's status as things stand.
"On three," she agrees, her blade vanishing from her hands. The bullet that Dean fires at the Tongue may be fire, but the array of missiles that already has begun to crystalize behind her is of ice. Each sharpened point of the ice-forged javelins glitters even in this dim light. One, two--
In the blink of an eye her spell launches itself forward, answering Dean's twin shots threefold.
GS: Avril Vent Fleur has activated Force Action: Full Clip! GS: You have activated the Force Action Full Clip! GS: You cannot act while you still have attacks in queue. GS: Yulie Ahtreide heals Avril Vent Fleur! She gains 11 temporary hit points! GS: Restore! Break, Cripple, Disease, Leak, and Weaken removed! GS: Pray adds Surge! GS: Regen and Surge applied to Avril Vent Fleur! GS: Avril Vent Fleur spends 1 Combo on Gatling, loading 1 into Gatling! GS: Avril Vent Fleur has attacked Xander Lovell with Courant Glaciaire! GS: Avril Vent Fleur gains 39 THP from Regen! GS: Avril Vent Fleur has completed her action. GS: Xander Lovell fails to charge Avril Vent Fleur's Courant Glaciaire for 274 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Xander Lovell gains 1 additional Combo! GS: FP up! Reaction bonus!
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Ida twists back behind the half-crumbled pillar, slides the empty clip free, and slams a fresh clip home. Devil's Due makes a satisfying click-click, as it always does, as a new round feeds into the chamber. Ida peers back out from behind her cover, and stomach twists as she sees the Tongue's action. Or lack of action.
Perhaps it doesn't need to lay a hand on them to hurt them--not that it lacks for those. The Tongue bellows. Chunks of stone rain from above; one slams into the floor not quite three feet away from Ida. The pillar in front of her crumbles, and Ida almost crumbles with it. Her free hand clutches her belly. Her head swims. Her whole body feels shaky. It's not... wholly unfamiliar, if not to this extreme. There were times, when she was a Hellion, that she couldn't bring herself to eat.
Yulie's sorcery washes over her, and soothes the trembling in her hands. "Thanks," she manages, with a shaky little nod. "Be careful! Don't overextend!" She knows this must be even more debilitating for the sorcerers here, Yulie included.
Ida curls her hand around Devil's Due like it's a holy talisman, and breathes. Quicksilver flesh flows through the ARM, curls around the bullet in the chamber, and severs itself from the rest of her. It carries with it just a bit of Ida's life-force, metaphysically heated. Ida pulls the trigger, and the slug flies free, shattering into dozens of searing fragments in mid-air. Each one seeks out the Tongue, trying to burrow through that carapace and break its guard.
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Xander Lovell with Burning Quicksilver ! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has gained 1 Combo! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey gains 30 THP from Regen! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action. GS: CRITICAL! Xander Lovell mostly evades Ida Everstead-Rey's Burning Quicksilver for 81 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Xander Lovell gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Infect! Debuff durations extended!! GS: Shieldbreak applied to Xander Lovell!
<Pose Tracker> Billy Lee Black has posed.
Billy's light radiates outward, relieving the worst of the crushing hunger and allowing others to shine their own lights on him in turn. But the Tongue's power is greater than one prayer, and he feels his gut suddenly lurch under him, feels his blood fail him as his head tenses up and his knees grow weak.
He staggers forward, groaning, "We won't...be able to keep up, like this...!" he grimaces, preparing to open fire...but the gun slips from bloodless fingers, and its bullets tumble free soon after. Again, he finds himself on the ground soon. "This...immense suffering..." he husks out. He does get his hands on his gun again, but he reaches for his prayer icon once more, holding it close. "Holy Father..."
Ruth's Domain expanding earns a grunt, all the strength he has now. Helions...he's seen this. But... ...this is already a battle to choose between monsters, after all.
Eleanor's light, in turn, reverses the worst edges of his suffering. But still, he focuses himself on prayer, letting his light shine out against the choking force. "Protect us!"
GS: Blitz! Billy Lee Black has attacked Billy Lee Black with Sacred Veil! GS: Blitz! Billy Lee Black has attacked Eleanor Klein with Sacred Veil! GS: Blitz! Billy Lee Black has attacked Ruth Pauling with Sacred Veil! GS: Blitz! Billy Lee Black has attacked Venetia Vuong with Sacred Veil! GS: Billy Lee Black has gained 2 Combo! GS: Billy Lee Black takes 47 damage from Poison! GS: Billy Lee Black has completed his action. GS: Billy Lee Black heals Billy Lee Black! He gains 121 temporary hit points! GS: Shield and Surge applied to Billy Lee Black! GS: Billy Lee Black heals Venetia Vuong! She gains 122 temporary hit points! GS: Shield and Surge applied to Venetia Vuong! GS: Billy Lee Black heals Ruth Pauling! She gains 122 temporary hit points! GS: Shield and Surge applied to Ruth Pauling! GS: Billy Lee Black heals Eleanor Klein! She gains 124 temporary hit points! GS: Shield and Surge applied to Eleanor Klein!
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
"Don't spin it like you're doing him a favor," Xander says from his place watching, his voice containing no shortage of venom. They'll say the same to him later, deluding themselves into thinking it's a mercy when it's the furthest thing from it. "Don't you have your own wills to live to rely on?! Focus on what and who you're fighting for!"
Whether now is not the time or the perfect time for this depends on what rallying cry helps the most pushing past the weight of the Tongue's famine.
He grits his fanged teeth as Eleanor calls for his protection. They won't need a back up plan. This Tongue is his, or he dies. There's no other choice.
Rejuvenated by its unholy feast, the Tongue of Valmar skitters with renewed vigor. Disturbingly light on its many legs, it dashes from Redi, still clipped for a chunk of damage into the side as it's chased into Dean and Avril's combined assault. Even with this outplay of teamwork, its shell does not crack.
A deluge of water follows, from Cirea's explosions of prismatic mist to Ruth's ominous rains. There should be no such weather within the caverns, but now water turns broken earth and stone into mud around them. The Tongue's footing slips and struggles -- but it well may not be the terrain that helps weaken it... rather fairy light and hellion influence.
Ink, shovel, Devil's Due, and claw surge forward to continue the assault, making sure the Tongue cannot move away as it flails, thrashes, and swats at each attacker in blind desire to get some space. These are not the movements of a tactical, intelligent sort of creature. Or perhaps it is simply always 'hangry'.
But this leaves a clear target -- a target Venetia capitalizes on with a BANGBANGBANG that spits an arc of too-dark blood into the air. More oozes, drizzling into the pools of water forming around the chamber.
It does not buckle this time. It licks its shell again and makes a massive leap into the air, crashing down upon Redi, Avril, and Dean in its vicious hunger to snap its jaws at those who keep filling this room with their soothing purification. Jaws snaps out for Billy, Eleanor, and Yulie, any nick of these smaller Tongues more draining than the Tongue's aura itself. The teeth come out, turned on Cavall, Ida, Holly, and Cirea, trying to take each of them into the frenzy of chomping jaws.
But the main mouth -- the shell and its central Tongue -- opens wide. The Tongue of Valmar splits, twice as tall, and its tongue writhes up and down, drooling as a deluge of dark acid washes down like digestive juices.
Suddenly, all Ruth, Venetia, and Riley know is a massive maw trying to pull them in and crush.
GS: Xander Lovell has activated a Boss Action! GS: Xander Lovell has activated Force Action: Fury Shot! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Redi Hayworth with Huge Leap! GS: Xander Lovell has gained 1 Combo! GS: Recover! Poison and Shieldbreak removed from Xander Lovell! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Avril Vent Fleur with Huge Leap! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Dean Stark with Huge Leap! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Billy Lee Black with Gluttony! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Eleanor Klein with Gluttony! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Yulie Ahtreide with Gluttony! GS: Xander Lovell has gained 1 Combo! GS: Xander Lovell spends 1 Combo on Interrupt! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Seraph Cavall with Eat 'Em Alive! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Eat 'Em Alive! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Holly with Eat 'Em Alive! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Cirea with Eat 'Em Alive! GS: Xander Lovell has gained 3 Combo! GS: Xander Lovell spends 4 Combo on Interrupt and Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Xander Lovell has attacked Ruth Pauling with Starving Tongue! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Xander Lovell has attacked Venetia Vuong with Starving Tongue! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Xander Lovell has attacked Riley Lovell with Starving Tongue! GS: Xander Lovell has gained 2 Combo! GS: Xander Lovell has completed his action. GS: Eleanor Klein mostly guards Xander Lovell's Gluttony for 99 hit points! GS: Dispel! Protect and Shield removed! GS: Misery adds Cripple! GS: Cripple applied to Eleanor Klein! GS: Venetia Vuong mostly charges Xander Lovell's Starving Tongue for 234 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Venetia Vuong gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Misery adds Disrupt! GS: Disrupt and Interrupt applied to Venetia Vuong! GS: Venetia Vuong enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Slow expired! GS: Venetia Vuong has lost 2 Combo from Interrupt! GS: Xander Lovell drains Venetia Vuong! Xander Lovell gains 100 temporary hit points! GS: CRITICAL! ROU|LET|TE: Moderate! Redi Hayworth mostly guards Xander Lovell's Huge Leap for 88 hit points! GS: Misery adds Break! GS: Break applied to Redi Hayworth! GS: Yulie Ahtreide fails to guard Xander Lovell's Gluttony for 248 hit points! GS: Dispel! Lock State removed! GS: Misery adds Entangle! GS: Entangle blocked! GS: ROU|LET|TE: Low! Dean Stark fails to charge Xander Lovell's Huge Leap for 83 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Dean Stark gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Misery adds Shieldbreak! GS: Shieldbreak applied to Dean Stark! GS: Dean Stark enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Billy Lee Black marginally guards Xander Lovell's Gluttony for 251 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Billy Lee Black gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Dispel! Lock State removed! GS: Misery adds Cripple! GS: Cripple applied to Billy Lee Black! GS: ROU|LET|TE: Severe! Cirea fails to evade Xander Lovell's Eat 'Em Alive for 189 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Cirea gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Dispel! Blitz and Hyper removed! GS: Misery adds Entangle! GS: Entangle and Interrupt applied to Cirea! GS: Cirea has lost 2 Combo from Interrupt! GS: Xander Lovell drains Cirea! Xander Lovell gains 95 temporary hit points! GS: CRITICAL! ROU|LET|TE: Severe! Seraph Cavall critically fails to guard Xander Lovell's Eat 'Em Alive for 218 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Cavall gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Dispel! Regen and Shield removed! GS: Misery adds Delay! GS: Delay and Interrupt applied to Seraph Cavall! GS: Seraph Cavall has lost 2 Combo from Interrupt! GS: Xander Lovell drains Seraph Cavall! Xander Lovell gains 100 temporary hit points! GS: Ruth Pauling mostly charges Xander Lovell's Starving Tongue for 210 hit points! GS: Disrupt and Leak removed! GS: Misery adds Hex! GS: Hex and Interrupt applied to Ruth Pauling! GS: Ruth Pauling has lost 2 Combo from Interrupt! GS: Xander Lovell drains Ruth Pauling! Xander Lovell gains 100 temporary hit points! GS: ROU|LET|TE: Low! Ida Everstead-Rey fails to evade Xander Lovell's Eat 'Em Alive for 109 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Ida Everstead-Rey gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Dispel! Lock State removed! GS: Misery adds Mute! GS: Interrupt and Mute applied to Ida Everstead-Rey! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has lost 2 Combo from Interrupt! GS: Xander Lovell drains Ida Everstead-Rey! Xander Lovell gains 59 temporary hit points! GS: Riley Lovell mostly guards Xander Lovell's Starving Tongue for 134 hit points! GS: Misery adds Blind! GS: Interrupt applied to Riley Lovell! GS: Blind blocked! GS: Riley Lovell has lost 2 Combo from Interrupt! GS: Xander Lovell drains Riley Lovell! Xander Lovell gains 69 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Redi Hayworth has posed.
"All right," Redi answers Yulie, with a brief but small smile. Then she looks at Dean; her eyes widen. "R-Right!" He didn't forget the plan she suggested, and she charges in. "Don't worry, Yulie, I'll get a good hit in for both of us. Keep us up...!"
It proves shockingly fast, though, darting back before her blow fully lands. Her eyes widen. She takes a couple of faltering steps backward. "It's fast!"
The energy of Eleanor's crest makes Redi feel a lurch -- and the crushing hunger is rewound, practically, pulled back and her senses clearing. Her blue eyes widen; they still glow, intensely, and there's still a crackling aura about her. But it stings less than it did.
"Th-thank you!" she calls towards the Sage of Light. Then, she looks at Riley -- and flashes a quick smile. "Yeah!"
There's also a glance at Xander. Maybe this isn't a favor. She doubts she would think it one...
If Gadan can think at all.
She looks up, then -- and then at Dean and Avril. "RUN!"
The Tongue of Valmar crashes down with its shell, and she leaps -- and slams into the ground, rolling roughly a few times. Scratches are across her arms and her clothes are dusty and dirtied. She comes up, breathing heavily.
She looks at Yulie, with a worried expression. "Yulie!" she calls out, voice betraying her concern. "You okay?"
She looks at Gadan. Or, perhaps, what's left of him.
"Eyes on me, buddy!" she snaps at the Tongue. Then she swings her staff around, and violet and crimson flame leaps up the length of it. Redi runs straight in, swinging the staff backward. It spins behind her before she thrusts it out, the wooden end slamming for the shell -- and the flesh of the tongue.
Then, there is a bright, but cold explosion of shadow energy and flame alike that billows outward, slamming through the Dark One -- and drawing energy back into her, tendrils of violet light flowing into her.
GS: Redi Hayworth spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: Redi Hayworth has attacked Xander Lovell with Coldfire Break! GS: Redi Hayworth has gained 2 Combo! GS: Redi Hayworth gains 5 FP from her Daredevil! GS: Redi Hayworth gains 5 FP from Sufferer! GS: Lock state, Mute, and Weaken expired! GS: Redi Hayworth has completed her action. GS: ROU|LET|TE: Ruinous! Avril Vent Fleur fails to guard Xander Lovell's Huge Leap for 222 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Avril Vent Fleur gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Misery adds Interrupt! GS: Interrupt applied to Avril Vent Fleur! GS: Xander Lovell has activated Force Action: Guard! GS: Xander Lovell mostly guards Redi Hayworth's Coldfire Break for 209 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Xander Lovell gains 1 additional Combo! GS: FP up! Power Burst! GS: Redi Hayworth drains Xander Lovell! Redi Hayworth gains 98 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Venetia Vuong has posed.
Venetia can feel the blessing of a priest, however lapsed his faith, rest upon her. The world, however, is contracting even as she stares at the horror. Some of this is doubtless that fatigue it's causing, but she passes something from her right hand to her left and starts digging in the Crest Pouch even as the creature's fury spreads out, even as water surges.
The jaws snap.
Venetia stares ahead as the thing comes towards her, drooling a caustic forerunner, a horrid magnification of the role of saliva in proper digestion. Venetia doesn't breathe through her nose for a moment. She doesn't want to know how this smells.
But as the thing draws her forwards, she raises up her left hand and grins with sudden width. "Gotcha," she says.
CAN SHE LIVE UP TO THAT? LET'S FIND OUT, FOLKS --
That Crest Graph shines forwards. There is that sort of... drum-stroke echo in the Ley that these meta-thallic enhanced Crest Graphs often hold; like the world itself took a breath and let it out a little bit. It's not as dramatic as some of the others, but the spell is invoked just the same.
It's the Selenite Sign - the cage of blueish salt crystals. It comes ahead of her, yes, but it falls short of the screaming maw, the crystals contorting in that strange hungry gravitation, infalling inwards -- and hopefully, the thick pillars of saline crystal will be enough to catch the jaw, for a fleeting moment.
"Hahahaha!! SWALLOW THIS!!" Venetia cackles as her right hand comes up, and this time that Ley-echo has a much more resounding feeling, a deep strike on a kettle drum as the Crest glimmers with gathered energy and the ground begins to rumble.
Rumble... and then the floor itself ripples upwards in hexagonal pillars, the ground itself metamorphic into the peculiar 'Giant's causeway' formations you can find in a few areas where volcanic stone ended up right near humid sea air and active geological structures. It is like that erosion played first backwards, then forwards, an actual *wave* of black stone rippling forwards as Venetia tenses up and --
"Hexagonalprismsign!!" *does it a second time*, sending a second wave smashing forwards. Fragments of black stone and entire narrow black-stone pillars topple aside, potentially just in time to aid others as Venetia lurches, falling back on that knee again but still cackling.
GS: Venetia Vuong has activated Force Action: Full Clip! GS: Venetia Vuong has activated Force Action: Fury Shot! GS: ROU|LET|TE: Severe! Holly critically fails to guard Xander Lovell's Eat 'Em Alive for 156 hit points! GS: Dispel! Lock state removed! GS: Misery adds Blind! GS: Blind and Interrupt applied to Holly! GS: Holly enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Holly has lost 2 Combo from Interrupt! GS: Xander Lovell drains Holly! Xander Lovell gains 78 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Riley Lovell has posed.
"I'm fighting for you...!" Riley assures Xander with a pained smile, though he surely wasn't talking to him. But perhaps it will embarrass Xander a little and that would be good for Riley's morale in the face of this starvation sapping at his power and will...
The Tongue goes on the attack, splashing burning acid that sears through his skin. Riley moves to protect his face, and in that moment of blinding himself to save his sight, the maw of the creature pulls him in. Panic, and the urgent need to do something to stop this, calls forth a burst of vines from Riley's body, wrapping and wrapping and trying to hold the jaws open with the tension of pulling ropes and the leverage of the shovel inside its jaw. Red buds burst open, spewing poison and venom into the open mouth, while Riley scrambles for freedom. Having bound himself to the creature's skull, he only finds a less doomed place to perch himself, clinging to its face along with the vines.
GS: Blitz! Riley Lovell has attacked Xander Lovell with See What Blooms! GS: Riley Lovell has gained 1 Combo! GS: Interrupt expired! GS: Riley Lovell gains 35 THP from Regen! GS: Lock state expired! GS: Riley Lovell has completed his action. GS: Venetia Vuong spends 1 Combo on Interrupt! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Venetia Vuong has attacked Xander Lovell with Greater Selenite + Hexagonal Prism Signs ~Bow Down Overdweller~! GS: Venetia Vuong has gained 1 Combo! GS: Venetia Vuong gains 5 FP from Gleam! GS: Venetia Vuong gains 38 THP from Regen! GS: Interrupt expired! GS: Venetia Vuong has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.
Dean smiles at Avril and the quaver in her voice. Is it a lie? Can he tell it's a lie? "Yeah. Me too," he replies, because he's in the same position.
They can't stop now. They've got to keep fighting to the bitter end. So many people are counting on them--and all of them are counting on each other.
So when Avril follows up his fireballs with her ice spell, he cheers, "Nice shot!" It's forced enthusiasm to some extent--he feels like his stomach is digesting itself--but it really was a nice shot. ...Just not nice enough. But maybe the next shot will crack that carapace!
Yulie switches to support. No problem there; they definitely need it. Ida shouts advice not to overextend. More and more, Dean is thinking that's actually very good advice. And Redi shouts a warning--
"Woah--HERE IT COMES!" he shouts, and dives a little too late. The massive crab-like body impacts with him still partly underneath, and he screams in pain. He's not crushed, per se, but between that and the psychosomatic effect it's having on them, it's already a lot. He limps up to his feet, and reaches out a hand to help up Avril, who was likewise caught in the slam. As hard as they were both hit, the Tongue is giving even worse to everyone else--especially that truly nauseating *stuff* it's drooling as it tries to eat Ruth, Venetia, and Riley outright.
"No! You guys!!" Dean shouts--and then grits his teeth in pain as one of his legs buckles. "It's a lot stronger than we thought," he says grimly to Avril. "We've gotta give it everything we've got, or this'll never end!" He raises Twin Fenrir. "You ready? Let's do *that* maneuver!"
No need to explain what he means; after all, Avril was the one who taught him how to do it in the first place. As the Tongue is distracted, Dean beads his ARMs on its hideous maw and charges up a pair of energy blasts. "Go!!" he shouts, and fires to release them both. And at the same time, Avril moves--!
GS: Dean Stark has activated Force Action: Snipe! GS: Dean Stark has activated Force Action: Full Clip!
<Pose Tracker> Eleanor Klein has posed.
Eleanor indeed hasn't seen Cirea's new magic before--a new sort of magic, a way of using the Blessing she hasn't seen. Eleanor rights herself, pushing up from the ground, and manages a difficult and brief smile. "Very good," Eleanor agrees with Cirea. "Keep it up!"
Oblivious to Venetia's ANGER for the moment, Eleanor instead watches her take her gun out and make a very reasonable anger. "I'd--also wonder!" she barely manages to say. Holly continues to help her, thanks her again--and she will be careful, in fact.
Ruth will keep her own despair. Eleanor watches her there. ...The prayers she can answer are prayers Eleanor, too, has made.
As for Riley--Eleanor does hold out the barest hope that they can do something for Riley, and a smaller hope for Xander. It's just quite dim. "All right," she says to Riley. She pushes the rest of the way to her feet. Riley's question... "It's trying to!" she tells him of souls. Eleanor does not answer Xander's venom. Instead--
The jaws snap out for her, and Eleanor speaks an arcane word that bolsters her equipment; because of that, and because of the power Billy has given her, she is shielded from the worst of those smaller tongues. It hurts, but the barrier he provides takes care of it.
She watches as her friends have varying degrees of luck with that--of the terrible acid, of, "No!" Ruth, Venetia, and Riley are subject to a terrible assault. She grits her teeth--and since drawing on her magic is so difficult, she instead pulls out one of the fruits of her time in Nede. Not a Pokemon, but...
A pistol. "Modern problems require modern solutions," she mutters, and hefts the gun in both hands to aim straight for the Tongue's core. It's smoother than most Filgaian firearms, with fewer exposed parts.
"Miss Hayworth..." she doesn't know what to say.
But, "...Nevermind. We fight now, we worry later. Come on!"
She starts firing, one after another, as she approaches Venetia, stopping to stand next to her. "I'm with you," she says, kneeling down to defend her with her pistol in a ready stance. "...Though it seems you can do it yourself well enough..."
She manages a brief, brief smile. Not long, though; she's very hungry. She's tired. She's exhausted. But--
She has what she's fighting for, too.
GS: Eleanor Klein has activated Force Action: Lock On! GS: Eleanor Klein has attacked Xander Lovell with Heavy Shot! GS: Eleanor Klein has gained 2 Combo! GS: Eleanor Klein's stances have changed from Sage to Avenger! GS: Eleanor Klein gains 5 FP from Gleam! GS: Eleanor Klein has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
Ruth braces against the violently shaking ground as the Tongue of Valmar makes its leap towards some others, and somewhere in this equation, she can just make out an invocation to a 'Holy Father' from Billy.
Something about it gives the Hellion pause, when she's included in the protection. Her left arm violently shakes with memories of burgeoning, increasing weakness kept at bay by the miraculous sorceries of others. In some ways, it was the only kindness she received in her time in the Etones. (Arguably, given her history, it was far more than she deserved.)
A few more tears fall, in the swinging pendulum of a Hellion's emotional state in a battle high. "...Thank you." Her serpentine tongue flicks. The Granasian rosary pulled taut around her forearm as if to risk cutting off all circulation feels all the more noticeable in the moment.
Still, teeth come out, one of them over Ruth as they are reaching to Billy. She raises her head up and lets out a deafening, screeching hiss as she runs towards the large mouth - she might not be consciously aware, in the moment, that the central Tongue is trying to pull them all in as deeply acidic humours threaten to strip away plenty. Whatever the nature of Ruth's some-parts-leathery, some-parts-lithified flesh, acrid smoke hisses and rises from where it makes contact. (Her outfit got a simple run of Nedian Symbological treatment, it'll survive against disintegration. The smell, though... a future Everyone Else Problem.) Then, there is immense, crushing pressure. She doesn't know or care if it's their teeth or just the roof of their mouth.
To her side, a cackling Venetia who may have saved her life by catching the jaws with those blue-hued salt crystals. to the other, Riley's vines might be binding them. Ruth is almost facing certain death by being in the grasp of the central Tongue.
A bitter smile, and then discordant laughter as better sense almost breaks through the delirious battle high. Her rifle hefted in the <s>belly</s> mouth of the beast, all she does is heft her rifle and stab into it while her very Domain continues to flare with its own opposing spiritual corruption.
This may give Xander serious cause for concern about whether or not there'll even be an opening to claim the Part.
GS: Ruth Pauling spends 1 Combo on Poison! GS: Ruth Pauling has attacked Xander Lovell with Scars of Celesti! GS: Interrupt expired! GS: Ruth Pauling gains 5 FP from Sufferer! GS: Ruth Pauling gains 33 THP from Regen! GS: Ruth Pauling has completed her action. GS: Interrupt! Attack weakened! GS: CRITICAL! ROU|LET|TE: Severe! Xander Lovell mostly guards Riley Lovell's See What Blooms for 166 hit points! GS: Misery adds Entangle, Shieldbreak, and Mute! GS: Entangle, Mute, and Shieldbreak applied to Xander Lovell! GS: Xander Lovell perfectly guards Venetia Vuong's Greater Selenite + Hexagonal Prism Signs ~Bow Down Overdweller~ for 82 hit points! GS: Misery adds Drowsy! GS: Drowsy, Entangle, and Interrupt blocked! GS: Xander Lovell has gained 1 Combo! GS: Xander Lovell has lost 2 Combo from Interrupt! GS: Xander Lovell mostly guards Eleanor Klein's Heavy Shot for 62 hit points! GS: Blind applied to Xander Lovell! GS: Jam blocked! GS: FP up! Reaction bonus!
<Pose Tracker> Holly has posed.
Holly absolutely agrees on the 'catch up later' side of things. Even if her attention being split as she tries to do... too much at once when this out of sorts with herself doesn't pay off. Teeth catching her off guard. Using her hand to create the barrier rather than her brush, resulting in a painful crush that... she'll regret later, but only left some bruising despite the ferocity. Quietly thankful that diminished or not, she's not doing the worst she could be to endure this all.
Leaving the cursed ink behind to at least buy her some breathing space while the teeth hopefully take it out on that concentrated nastiness, she begins to weave her own.
There's a moment of consideration. And by that, she's now talking to herself. Something about the wrong number of teeth, how she needs to try and slow it down, how it's clearly something wrong and out of place and various other inane things. It's a little different than her usual sense of rambling. It's tinged with magic. A remembered spell that she may or may not have used to have an excuse for an extended snack break whenever she was entertaining people she particularly didn't care to deal with. She's not even fully sure if the scraps of magic she's gathering for this will be enough to work on. Well. That bundled pile of strange and nasty, but maybe she can get it slowed down enough to give her time to give everyone else time to-
Drifting in a way that makes it clear she'll try to pull the gnashing teeth away, but.. that she's still in reach to help the others.
Those without the potion... if it had been voiced, she is holding in, but it's not pleasant!
An errant thought has her wondering if she shouldn't be rotating with the wolf. Or some of the others that are particularly defensive. Mixing up who's guarding who? A thing for later?
She doesn't do tank rotation usually, it's a strange concept.
Either way, she's not as chatty by dint of trying to maintain the enforced drowsiness combined with trying to clean... all sorts of gunk and nastiness off of herself.
GS: Holly spends 1 Combo on Interrupt! GS: Holly has attacked Xander Lovell with Lethargic Incantation! GS: Holly has gained 1 Combo! GS: Holly gains 23 THP from her Cautious! GS: Holly gains 37 THP from Regen! GS: Interrupt, Jam, Slow, Starve, and Weaken expired! GS: Holly has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Cirea has posed.
The mystic water doesn't seem to be doing Cirea any harm. It probably won't stave off dehydration, but she's only using it as a stopgap to assuage her hunger anyway, so it's not a big deal on that front... she's not about to pass out from lack of real water.
Cirea stops spraying water out of her thumb when she has to move again, avoiding the leaping Tongue of Valmar. It doesn't strike her with that as she darts back, doing a little backflip to avoid getting squashed and momentarily flying upside down, with her hair in her eyes (and pleased she's in her new outfit, with pants).
Cirea rights herself, makes a face at the Tongue of Valmar, and then gets eaten by a chomping claw-mouth. She vanishes completely from view, being small enough to simply be completely hidden by the crunching teeth.
It is the grossest thing that has happened to Cirea in a long time. It actually doesn't hurt as bad as it could - because she *is* small she can actually get her legs in past the teeth, and she's not being bit so much as held in the mouth and bludgeoned by the tongue, which draws more energy out of her. She feels herself wavering, and outside the mouth, her silhouette wobbles like it was seen in a funhouse mirror and then pops in a flash of light.
She can't move enough to draw the circle, so she'll have to do this the hard way. Cirea takes a deep breath, regrets it, and screams out the entire chant for a spell at top volume while being smashed into the top of the mouth, trying not to slide any further down than she was already. She gathers the energy to her, and with this spell, she aims it.
She aims it right down the throat.
A gale erupts (hopefully) somewhere inside the Tongue of Valmar, whistling out through every mouth and jaw - including the one Cirea is in, which launches her out, propelled on a gust of wind; even if she can't manage the full spell and the Tongue resists most of it, she can at least push herself out of the horrible, horrible mouth. She feels completely enervated and doesn't so much fly as tumble, doing several somersaults before hitting the ground and rolling, ending up on her back with arms and legs spread in a daze.
"Urg," she gets out, trying to gather enough energy to get back up. Even if she can't fly, even just to sit up...! It's slow going. She sprays water at her face again because she's still holding onto the edge of that spell, half to drink and half to just try to shock herself with cold water to do anything more complicated.
GS: Cirea spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: Cirea has attacked Xander Lovell with Howling Gale! GS: Cirea has gained 1 Combo! GS: Interrupt expired! GS: Cirea gains 5 FP from Gleam! GS: Cirea takes 51 damage from Poison! GS: Surge expired! GS: Cirea has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.
He's all right. It's in the same way that she's 'all right', but it is still better than the alternative, still better than the both of them felled by the fiend.
There, at the height of her own spell, Avril feels the sweet touch of another's magic. In the oppression of the cave, Yulie's incantation is a literal breath of fresh air, easing but some of the burdens that Valmar's Tongue's presence leveled upon her. She finds she can stand a little straighter, breathe a little deeper.
Yet, even so, the thing that troubles her heart as her spell cracks against the Tongue's shell is exactly that: her magic may discharge as it should and damage the fiend before them but it does not breach the shell. And so long as it still stands, it remains for them a potent threat.
'RUN!' calls Redi as the thing manages what should be an impossible leap; taking to the air overhead them, all Avril can do as it comes crashing down is throw up a barrier of ice.
It does not stand.
Bowled over by the impact, she is sent skipping and sliding across rough terrain. Only at a remove is she able to stand, helped up off the flood by Dean. She sways if just for that one instant. "I am... I am still able to fight!" she assures him: though she may be battered, the look in her eyes might say everything about her intentions.
But even her attention is taken by the leash and dragged towards the unfolding tableau: that thing is going to try to eat Ruth, Venetia, and Riley. "No!" In the same instant her gaze meets with Dean's as he makes his proposal. He needn't ask twice: she nods as if she had been born ready. "Yes," she says regardless, her gaze turned sharply over at the Tongue. In her hand already is Absolute Zero: its blade vanishes in a flash of light.
He draws his own ARMs, firing off a pair of shots. Avril is right there behind him. "This is it!" Pulling the trigger on her ARM just the once, light gathers at the end of Absolute Zero's hilt. It bursts through the barrage of shots Dean's fired, screaming ahead of them as a single brilliant beam for Valmar's Tongue.
It's as if it were a comet, perhaps, or a javelin of light.
She'll light the way.
GS: Dean Stark spends 2 Combo on Headshot! GS: Formation! Dean Stark has attacked Xander Lovell with Javelin Bullet! GS: Dean Stark has gained 1 Combo! GS: Dean Stark gains 5 FP from Gleam! GS: Dean Stark gains 10 THP from Regen! GS: Cripple, Disease, Jam, and Mute expired! GS: Dean Stark has completed his action. GS: Avril Vent Fleur has activated Force Action: Fury Shot! GS: You have activated the Force Action Fury Shot! GS: Formation! Avril Vent Fleur has attacked Xander Lovell with Javelin Bullet! GS: Avril Vent Fleur has gained 2 Combo! GS: Avril Vent Fleur gains 35 THP from Regen! GS: Jam, Lock state, and Slow expired! GS: Avril Vent Fleur has completed her action. GS: Xander Lovell marginally guards Holly's Lethargic Incantation for 0 hit points! GS: Delay, Drowsy, and Interrupt applied to Xander Lovell! GS: FP up! Power Burst! GS: Xander Lovell has lost 2 Combo from Interrupt! GS: Interrupt! Attack weakened! GS: CRITICAL! Xander Lovell mostly guards Cirea's Howling Gale for 180 hit points! GS: Riposte applied to Cirea! GS: CRITICAL! Xander Lovell critically fails to guard Dean Stark's Javelin Bullet for 309 hit points! GS: Interrupt! Attack weakened! GS: Xander Lovell critically fails to guard Ruth Pauling's Scars of Celesti for 209 hit points! GS: Disease, Disrupt, and Poison blocked! GS: FP up! Power Burst! GS: Interrupt! Attack weakened! GS: Xander Lovell fails to guard Avril Vent Fleur's Javelin Bullet for 219 hit points! GS: Misery adds Slow! GS: Slow applied to Xander Lovell! GS: Shieldbreak blocked!
<Pose Tracker> Yulie Ahtreide has posed.
Yulie nods back as she receives thanks - vocal or otherwise, then looks toward Redi. She says she'll get a good hit in...
"I believe in you." Yulie assures.
Xander, though... He shouts at them. Yulie frowns.
"This is my will to live." Yulie replies quietly. "As a Paladienne... I can't ignore the suffering of those I'm up against. To ignore that... it'd be ignoring a part of my own self."
If she can't understand, if she can't try to sympathise with her enemy... How is she supposed to be able to ease the suffering of the earthbound dead? Gadan's current situation... It's altogether more terrible, but it's no different.
The Tongue is strengthened anew, and it surges horrifically. And even worse, her efforts see it turn upon her, lashing for her directly. She raises a barrier at the last moment - but it may as well not exist for all the effort she put into it. She is hurled away, only barely able to retain her footing as she lands.
Her stomach feels empty. Her energy reserves feel empty, too. Painfully drained, it's hard to think... But she has to push through it.
"I'm..." Yulie starts as Redi calls out to her, worried. "I'll... I'll be okay."
Redi moves in attacking with shadow and flame. She's going all out - Yulie won't let herself let down.
Yulie inhales, breathing in, and out. She has to focus. This lack of energy is making it difficult to think with a cool head. She thinks back to her friend, Raquel, and the technique they'd devised together. It's hard to do it alone - but right now... they might need it.
"So we can keep moving forward..." Yulie murmurs to herself. She cups her hands, and a ball of softly-glowing light begins to rise - and then it disperses into a cloud of purple sprites, settling over those who need it most. Unlike before, where Yulie's magic soothed the body, this time, she aims to soothe the mind - clearing the fog of fatigue and starvation to allow one to plan and act more sharply.
GS: Yulie Ahtreide has activated Force Action: Extend! GS: Yulie Ahtreide spends 2 Combo on Inspire and Reload! GS: Yulie Ahtreide has attacked Billy Lee Black with Mind Recovery! GS: Yulie Ahtreide has attacked Redi Hayworth with Mind Recovery! GS: Yulie Ahtreide has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Mind Recovery! GS: Yulie Ahtreide has attacked Eleanor Klein with Mind Recovery! GS: Yulie Ahtreide has attacked Seraph Cavall with Mind Recovery! GS: Yulie Ahtreide has attacked Venetia Vuong with Mind Recovery! GS: Yulie Ahtreide has gained 1 Combo! GS: Yulie Ahtreide gains 8 THP from Regen! GS: Yulie Ahtreide has completed her action. GS: CRITICAL! Eleanor Klein accepts Yulie Ahtreide's Mind Recovery for 0 hit points! GS: Restore! Cripple and Starve removed! GS: FP up! Yulie Ahtreide's Reload!! GS: Eleanor Klein gains Combo from Inspire! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey accepts Yulie Ahtreide's Mind Recovery for 0 hit points! GS: Restore! Delay, Interrupt, Mute, and Old removed! GS: FP up! Yulie Ahtreide's Reload!! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey gains Combo from Inspire! GS: Redi Hayworth accepts Yulie Ahtreide's Mind Recovery for 0 hit points! GS: Restore! Break and Starve removed! GS: Shield applied to Yulie Ahtreide! GS: FP up! Yulie Ahtreide's Reload!! GS: Redi Hayworth gains Combo from Inspire! GS: Billy Lee Black accepts Yulie Ahtreide's Mind Recovery for 0 hit points! GS: Restore! Leak, Slow, and Weaken removed! GS: Shield applied to Yulie Ahtreide! GS: FP up! Yulie Ahtreide's Reload!! GS: Billy Lee Black gains Combo from Inspire! GS: Seraph Cavall accepts Yulie Ahtreide's Mind Recovery for 0 hit points! GS: Restore! Delay, Interrupt, and Weaken removed! GS: FP up! Yulie Ahtreide's Reload!! GS: Healthy! For entering Condition Green, Seraph Cavall receives 121 temporary hit points. GS: Seraph Cavall enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Seraph Cavall gains Combo from Inspire! GS: Venetia Vuong accepts Yulie Ahtreide's Mind Recovery for 0 hit points! GS: Restore! Disrupt removed! GS: Shield applied to Yulie Ahtreide! GS: FP up! Yulie Ahtreide's Reload!! GS: Venetia Vuong gains Combo from Inspire!
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
A sudden shriek rises from Ida's throat as the Tongue starts to scuttle, moving far faster than it has any right to. "Stay back!" she manages, once she's sucked in a breath. It almost distracts her from Xander's words, and the hot spark of anger they set off inside her. What would Gadan think? There's no way to know, now.
Ida's legs wobble beneath her as she strafes to the left, keeping her ARM trained on the Tongue. Then, all at once, the thing that was Gadan explodes into ravenous violence. "Yulie!" Ida screams, as the Paladienne goes flying, but the Tongue turns on her before she can try to help. The reptilian maw that is one of its 'pincers' blurs forward, and opens wide. Ida stumbles away, but she's not fast enough. It clamps shut on her right shoulder, the same one that Reapers bit chunks from years ago.
This time, Ida's armor saves her from a worse injury. A horrible scraping noise emanates from between the jaws, and Ida throws Devil's Due into her off-hand. She swings the butt of the pistol in a whipping motion at the Tongue's secondary jaw, and it strikes home with a dull 'crack'. A glancing hit, but just enough to free her. Two-colored blood trickles fron the teeth marks embedded in her shoulder.
A sudden, horrid CRUNCH draws Ida's ear, and her heart skips a beat before she realizes Venetia, Ruth, and Riley are still alive, and the Tongue just got a mouthful of Venetia's crystals.
One of Yulie's little, violet sprites lands on her shoulder. "...Sal?" Ida mumbles, her eyes darting to the side. It's not Sal. It's reassurance from a comrade. The sprite sinks into her, and in an instant, the jumpy shakiness melts away. "No you don't!" Ida snarls. Her right hand lashes out with sudden speed, trying to grab the jaw-pincer behind the joint as it darts in for her again. Ida's other hand levels Devil's Due, aiming it between those gnashing jaws. She pulls the trigger. Light fills the humid, gloomy chamber as Dragonfire pours from the ARM's barrel, and--hopefully--right down the Tongue's pincer-arm-throat.
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has activated Force Action: Full Clip! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey spends 4 Combo on Poison and Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Xander Lovell with Breath Of The Fire Dragon! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has gained 1 Combo! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey gains 37 THP from Regen! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Cavall has posed.
It is a hectic, pitched battle, against a foe with unknown capabilities. A truly vile, disgusting thing with far, far too many body parts. Cavall sought to strike out against the beast, to overcome the inertia of hunger by just moving again.
It worked--the action has staved off some of the hunger, and Cavall can feel the energies of the earthpulse flowing through them more eassily than a moment before.
The downside is, doing so brought them within striking distance of those terrible, terrible gnashing teeth. And the effort pushing past the aura of suffering inflicted on those present has left the Seraph, for lack of a better term, momentarily wounded.
Cavall attempts to summon up the power of the earth, to raise a defense as those gnashing teeth come for them, but they are too slow. A distressed bark joins the cacophony of battle as Cavall struggles to break free, claws raking against the ground seeking purchase to pull away. The wolf growls and strains until finally they tear free, stumbling backwards awkwardly until they tumble to the ground.
Paws slowly find purchase, as Cavall awkwardly twists and attempts to rise to their feet. There is a false start as a forepaw slips, but on the second attempt they manage it. Shaking their head, they turn to face the beast, hackles raised as they growl.
"I know not what designs would have a man turn into a beast whose hunger never slakes. But I will mourn the life we end this day, that others may yet live."
Althenian runes appear beneath their feet in a ring, and at the same time appears beneath the feet of most of the drifters engaged in combat. "Oh blessed earth, constant and sure. Grant us your vigor and might. Help us withstand this onslaught!"
And all at once, Cavall digs deep, guiding the very essence of the earth and weaving it into an enchantment to settle on the assembled Drifters. It offers reinforcement and energy, hopefully enough to withstand the aching hunger inflicted by the Tongue.
GS: Seraph Cavall has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Stonespirit! GS: Seraph Cavall has attacked Yulie Ahtreide with Stonespirit! GS: Seraph Cavall has attacked Avril Vent Fleur with Stonespirit! GS: Seraph Cavall has attacked Cirea with Stonespirit! GS: Seraph Cavall has attacked Holly with Stonespirit! GS: Seraph Cavall has attacked Ruth Pauling with Stonespirit! GS: Seraph Cavall has attacked Eleanor Klein with Stonespirit! GS: Seraph Cavall has attacked Dean Stark with Stonespirit! GS: Seraph Cavall has attacked Venetia Vuong with Stonespirit! GS: Seraph Cavall has attacked Redi Hayworth with Stonespirit! GS: Seraph Cavall has attacked Billy Lee Black with Stonespirit! GS: Seraph Cavall has gained 1 Combo! GS: Seraph Cavall gains 5 FP from Gleam! GS: Seraph Cavall has completed their action. GS: Seraph Cavall heals Eleanor Klein! She gains 40 temporary hit points! GS: Lock state, Regen, and Shield applied to Eleanor Klein! GS: Seraph Cavall heals Yulie Ahtreide! She gains 10 temporary hit points! GS: Lock state, Regen, and Shield applied to Yulie Ahtreide! GS: Seraph Cavall heals Ida Everstead-Rey! She gains 38 temporary hit points! GS: Lock state, Regen, and Shield applied to Ida Everstead-Rey! GS: Seraph Cavall heals Avril Vent Fleur! She gains 31 temporary hit points! GS: Lock state, Regen, and Shield applied to Avril Vent Fleur! GS: Seraph Cavall heals Ruth Pauling! She gains 31 temporary hit points! GS: Lock state, Regen, and Shield applied to Ruth Pauling! GS: Seraph Cavall heals Dean Stark! He gains 33 temporary hit points! GS: Lock state, Regen, and Shield applied to Dean Stark! GS: Seraph Cavall heals Cirea! She gains 31 temporary hit points! GS: Lock state, Regen, and Shield applied to Cirea! GS: Seraph Cavall heals Billy Lee Black! He gains 31 temporary hit points! GS: Lock state, Regen, and Shield applied to Billy Lee Black! GS: Seraph Cavall heals Venetia Vuong! She gains 33 temporary hit points! GS: Lock state, Regen, and Shield applied to Venetia Vuong!
<Pose Tracker> Billy Lee Black has posed.
Slowly, Billy rallies himself, famine sinking deep into his bones. But he still forces himself to his feet, feeling almost hollowed completely out. And even so, Ruth hisses out a thank you. "...of course," is Billy's ragged reply. "...that is our prayer, is it not? Peace...for all."
His will endures, his wish for peace endures. He finds his gun again and squares his feet. And finally, Yulie's prayer washes over him, ridding him of the edges that were tearing away the worst of his strength. "Sister," he sighs. "My thanks. This need...to relieve such suffering and bring it to rest..."
He reaches behind himself and produces his longbarrel Cartridge rifle, and then *hurls it into the air*! "Is why an Etone fights!"
He CHARGES, digging deep into sorcerously subsumed reserves to force himself up. However monstrous the demon, Billy is a fighter of Wels and fears no monstrosity; he leaps up into a high kick, a whirling thing that lets him climb the carapace of the monstrosity with a series of vicious lashes of his boots, before he surges off a 'leg' and into the air enough to grab his tumbling rifle out of the sky as it returns.
He whips it downward at the apex of his arc. A technique Stone taught him, dangerous and aggressive and penetrating.
A spear of light erupts from the barrel when he pulls the trigger.
GS: Seraph Cavall heals Holly! She gains 40 temporary hit points! GS: Lock state, Regen, and Shield applied to Holly! GS: Blitz! Billy Lee Black has attacked Xander Lovell with Banfrau! GS: Billy Lee Black has gained 1 Combo! GS: Billy Lee Black's stances have changed to Hero! GS: Billy Lee Black gains 37 THP from Regen! GS: Billy Lee Black has completed his action. GS: Redi Hayworth accepts Seraph Cavall's Stonespirit for 0 hit points! GS: Lock state, Regen, and Shield applied to Redi Hayworth! GS: Healthy! For entering Condition Green, Redi Hayworth receives 98 temporary hit points. GS: Redi Hayworth enters CONDITION GREEN!!
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
Though Xander's gaze may darken, Yulie's retort is enough to silence further argument. But in Riley's effort to embarrass Xander, he certainly flusters him -- which could be the same thing, depending on who you are. "I-I know!" he snaps. "Just -- be careful!" This isn't how any of this is supposed to work. Ever since they were kids he was meant to be in the melee to Riley's archery. Why is he the one in the back now...?!
He makes an undignified sound when the mouth of the Tongue tries to devour his other half.
The Tongue of Valmar rumbles with delight. No matter how many wounds it sustains, it eats and it eats and it eats. Devouring souls, chomping at flesh, slurping and tasting. There is a grim clarity to its actions: it will eat everyone here, given the chance. It will relish in it.
So they must not give it that chance.
The meals it has captured do not accept their fate. A Crest Graph shines, and the Tongue is fed pillars of salt in a DOUBLE CAST. It crunches harder, suffering for its desire to feed and getting salt into the wounds of its shrapnel meal as it's battered in waves of earth. Combined with Riley's poisonous thorns burst out of its mouth, forcing it back open.
And then there's Ruth, using her rifle to stab at flesh. Her domain flares, and the opposition is just enough that she punctures straight through, pinning the mouth open. Xander's gaze darts from Riley to Ruth, jaw clenched. He cannot afford to worry about it now.
With the flesh exposed, the Tongue is a greater target. Redi's cursed flames explode, and with any luck those burns scorch those taste buds, punishing the glutton for trying to consume too hot (or too cold) food.
Dean and Avril follow up, energy blasts heralding the arrival of Avril's powerful beam of light piercing inside. Eleanor feeds it a powerful bullet. It devours each, finding no sustenance as it writhes instead of tasting delight.
Cirea shoots her spell down the throat -- against a monster with very little throat. Which is to say, her wind does not have to travel very far to explode from the center and out through its other limbs. Each mouthed. Each connected. Each echoing with a pained belch. One burps so hard, dizzied and tired from Holly's rambling, that it pops off.
Well, no matter. It has more.
...But one less when the flames of Ida's ARM explodes out the other throat, fed by the winds, and blasting the limb open and off of the monster. Less of a crab, more of a spider -- which regrettably makes it scuttle faster, slurping at the ground and earth for MmmOooOoRrrrRReeeEEee!!
Two less limbs in the way, charging directly at the rest of them... and Billy's lance of light fires as anathema to Valmar's very being, plunging into the monster's open maw.
It stops. Sputtering. Its mouth closes around that light as a something inside gurgles. With a disturbed tremble, it makes a muffled, high pitched noise with its indigestion even as it continues to eat through its unholy horror. Flesh squirms in the broken part of its shell, threatening to regrow into new mouths and limbs.
This might go on forever, as long as it has food to eat.
But isn't the Tongue of Valmar looking a little... green?
Light seeps from the cracks in its shell, and its maw opens with a sudden eruption of energy, spewing back out everything it stole but did not yet digest in a terrifying deluge that feels like a punch straight to the soul.
Xander reaches into his bag, grabbing a series of vials. He chucks them into the air with grit teeth and then spins his silver gun into place, firing at them. Sparkling mist rains down over the battlefield, joining Cavall and Yulie in soothing over the Tongue's influence during this moment of its weakness.
"Now! Before it recovers! I'll take it from there!"
GS: Xander Lovell has become ENRAGED! GS: Xander Lovell has activated a Boss Action! GS: Xander Lovell mostly guards Ida Everstead-Rey's Breath Of The Fire Dragon for 107 hit points! GS: Poison blocked! GS: FP up! Reaction bonus! GS: CRITICAL! Xander Lovell critically fails to guard Billy Lee Black's Banfrau for 331 hit points! GS: Xander Lovell spends 2 Combo on Inspire and Reload! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Riley Lovell with Gastralgia! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Ruth Pauling with Gastralgia! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Eleanor Klein with Gastralgia! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Redi Hayworth with Gastralgia! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Yulie Ahtreide with Gastralgia! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Gastralgia! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Dean Stark with Gastralgia! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Seraph Cavall with Gastralgia! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Cirea with Gastralgia! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Holly with Gastralgia! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Avril Vent Fleur with Gastralgia! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Venetia Vuong with Gastralgia! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Billy Lee Black with Gastralgia! GS: Xander Lovell has gained 1 Combo! GS: Interrupt expired! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Riley Lovell with Go on then! Finish the job!! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Ruth Pauling with Go on then! Finish the job!! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Eleanor Klein with Go on then! Finish the job!! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Redi Hayworth with Go on then! Finish the job!! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Yulie Ahtreide with Go on then! Finish the job!! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Go on then! Finish the job!! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Dean Stark with Go on then! Finish the job!! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Seraph Cavall with Go on then! Finish the job!! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Cirea with Go on then! Finish the job!! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Holly with Go on then! Finish the job!! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Avril Vent Fleur with Go on then! Finish the job!! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Venetia Vuong with Go on then! Finish the job!! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Billy Lee Black with Go on then! Finish the job!! GS: Xander Lovell gains 5 FP from Sufferer! GS: Enrage purges all positive status! GS: Xander Lovell has completed his action. GS: Eleanor Klein critically fails to guard Xander Lovell's Gastralgia for 319 hit points! GS: Enrage! Lock state removed! GS: FP up! Xander Lovell's Reload!! GS: Eleanor Klein enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Eleanor Klein gains Combo from Inspire! GS: Eleanor Klein accepts Xander Lovell's Go on then! Finish the job! for 0 hit points! GS: Restore! Enrage! Regen, Shield, and Surge removed! GS: Cirea mostly evades Xander Lovell's Gastralgia for 111 hit points! GS: Enrage! Lock state removed! GS: FP up! Arcane Font and Xander Lovell's Reload!! GS: Cirea enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Cirea gains Combo from Inspire! GS: Stagger removed! GS: Cirea accepts Xander Lovell's Go on then! Finish the job! for 0 hit points! GS: Restore! Enrage! Disrupt, Entangle, Quick, Regen, Riposte, and Shield removed! GS: Dean Stark perfectly guards Xander Lovell's Gastralgia for 64 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Dean Stark gains 1 additional Combo! GS: FP up! Reaction bonus and Xander Lovell's Reload!! GS: Dean Stark enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Dean Stark has gained 1 Combo! GS: Dean Stark gains Combo from Inspire! GS: Dean Stark accepts Xander Lovell's Go on then! Finish the job! for 0 hit points! GS: Restore! Enrage! Disrupt, Leak, and Lock state removed! GS: Redi Hayworth accepts Xander Lovell's Gastralgia for 337 hit points! GS: Enrage! Lock state removed! GS: FP up! Xander Lovell's Reload!! GS: Redi Hayworth gains Combo from Inspire! GS: Redi Hayworth accepts Xander Lovell's Go on then! Finish the job! for 0 hit points! GS: Restore! Enrage! Disrupt, Mighty, Regen, and Shield removed! GS: Yulie Ahtreide critically fails to guard Xander Lovell's Gastralgia for 193 hit points! GS: Enrage! Lock state removed! GS: FP up! Xander Lovell's Reload!! GS: Yulie Ahtreide enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Disease and Starve expired! GS: Yulie Ahtreide gains Combo from Inspire! GS: Ruth Pauling critically fails to charge Xander Lovell's Gastralgia for 326 hit points! GS: Enrage! Hex and Lock state removed! GS: FP up! Xander Lovell's Reload!! GS: Ruth Pauling enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Ruth Pauling gains Combo from Inspire! GS: Yulie Ahtreide accepts Xander Lovell's Go on then! Finish the job! for 0 hit points! GS: Restore! Enrage! Disrupt, Regen, Shield, and Surge removed! GS: Ruth Pauling accepts Xander Lovell's Go on then! Finish the job! for 0 hit points! GS: Restore! Enrage! Regen, Shield, and Surge removed! GS: Riley Lovell fails to guard Xander Lovell's Gastralgia for 271 hit points! GS: Enrage! Blitz and Regen removed! GS: FP up! Arcane Font and Xander Lovell's Reload!! GS: Riley Lovell enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Riley Lovell gains Combo from Inspire! GS: Venetia Vuong mostly guards Xander Lovell's Gastralgia for 138 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Venetia Vuong gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Enrage! Lock state removed! GS: FP up! Xander Lovell's Reload!! GS: Venetia Vuong enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Venetia Vuong gains Combo from Inspire! GS: Stagger removed! GS: Riley Lovell accepts Xander Lovell's Go on then! Finish the job! for 0 hit points! GS: Venetia Vuong accepts Xander Lovell's Go on then! Finish the job! for 0 hit points! GS: Restore! Enrage! Amplify, Hyper, Regen, Shield, and Surge removed! GS: Billy Lee Black critically fails to evade Xander Lovell's Gastralgia for 241 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Billy Lee Black gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Enrage! Lock state removed! GS: FP up! Xander Lovell's Reload!! GS: Billy Lee Black enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Billy Lee Black gains Combo from Inspire! GS: CRITICAL! Billy Lee Black mostly evades Xander Lovell's Go on then! Finish the job! for 0 hit points! GS: Restore! Enrage! Blitz, Cripple, Quick, Regen, Shield, and Surge removed! GS: FP up! Reaction bonus! GS: CRITICAL! Ida Everstead-Rey critically fails to guard Xander Lovell's Gastralgia for 310 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Ida Everstead-Rey gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Enrage! Lock state removed! GS: FP up! Xander Lovell's Reload!! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey gains Combo from Inspire! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey accepts Xander Lovell's Go on then! Finish the job! for 0 hit points! GS: Restore! Enrage! Quick, Regen, and Shield removed! GS: Avril Vent Fleur fails to evade Xander Lovell's Gastralgia for 208 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Avril Vent Fleur gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Enrage! Lock state removed! GS: FP up! Arcane Font and Xander Lovell's Reload!! GS: Avril Vent Fleur enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Interrupt expired! GS: Avril Vent Fleur gains Combo from Inspire! GS: Please react using the attack number in +queue. GS: Avril Vent Fleur accepts Xander Lovell's Go on then! Finish the job! for 0 hit points! GS: Restore! Enrage! Disrupt, Regen, Shield, and Surge removed! GS: Your status has been set to Quick:3, Shield:3, Hyper:3, Burst:3, Surge:3, Amplify:3, Regen:3, Mighty:3, Riposte:3, Cover:3, and Lock State:3.
<Pose Tracker> Redi Hayworth has posed.
Redi steps backward, staff raised defensively, after striking that hit on the the Tongue.
Yulie's response to Xander makes Redi turn her head. Her eyes blink, once -- and while she doesn't look surprised, she does look proud. She smiles at her, nodding.
Then, her eyes shift to Dean and Avril. They're newer companions -- and their team work makes her eyes widen. "Wh-whoa," she murmurs. Then, louder: "Dean! Avril! You're amazing!"
Redi hears Eleanor's hesitation. There is a flinch, for a moment; it's a reminder that she isn't quite like most of the others. But she nods, at Eleanor's determination. "R-Right, later!"
Then, she looks at the surge of purple sprites that erupt from Yulie's spell. Many of her healing spells don't work on Redi; but, as it happens, her mind is her own. She finds her thoughts cleared. The feeling of hunger, already renewed, is pushed down again. She sucks in an easier breath than before.
"Thanks, Yulie..." She clenches her fist. "We can do this! Just a little more!"
Cavall's earth spell swirls around her, too. Her bangs blow to the side with the power of the magic; she adjusts her hat, to keep it on tightly. She looks at the Tongue, its mouths -- all of it -- aglow with green light. She grimaces.
'Now! Before it recovers!'
She nods at Xander. "Right...!" The mist begins rain down from his vials, strengthening her further. Then, she goes running forward. Violet and crimson flame roar to life around her; her eyes glow bright enough to leave trails of blue as she runs in.
She leaps, the staff spinning into a blur over her head. The fire gathers at the end of it, and then Redi comes crashing down.
She slams her feet into it with a hard kick -- and then she swings the staff down. It explodes, a shockwave of violet flame blasting into the Tongue. It pitches Redi back, too, roughly.
She lands, in a three-point stance, next to Yulie. Then she reaches up, and adjusts her hat again.
GS: Redi Hayworth has activated Force Action: Lock On! GS: Redi Hayworth has activated Force Action: Full Clip! GS: Redi Hayworth spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Redi Hayworth has attacked Xander Lovell with Calamity Break! GS: Redi Hayworth has gained 1 Combo! GS: Redi Hayworth gains 5 FP from her Daredevil! GS: Redi Hayworth gains 39 THP from Regen! GS: Redi Hayworth has completed her action. GS: Xander Lovell critically fails to guard Redi Hayworth's Calamity Break for 365 hit points! GS: Redi Hayworth drains Xander Lovell! Redi Hayworth gains 100 temporary hit points! GS: Strain! Redi Hayworth takes 61 damage! GS: CRITICAL! Holly fails to guard Xander Lovell's Gastralgia for 278 hit points! GS: Enrage! Lock state removed! GS: FP up! Arcane Font, Reaction bonus, and Xander Lovell's Reload!! GS: Holly gains Combo from Inspire! GS: Holly accepts Xander Lovell's Go on then! Finish the job! for 0 hit points! GS: Restore! Enrage! Blind, Cover, Disrupt, Regen, and Shield removed! GS: Seraph Cavall marginally charges Xander Lovell's Gastralgia for 229 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Cavall gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Enrage! Lock State removed! GS: FP up! Arcane Font and Xander Lovell's Reload!! GS: Seraph Cavall enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Seraph Cavall gains Combo from Inspire! GS: Seraph Cavall mostly charges Xander Lovell's Go on then! Finish the job! for 0 hit points! GS: Restore! Enrage! Amplify, Burst, Cover, Hyper, Mighty, Quick, Regen, Riposte, Shield, and Surge removed! GS: FP up! Reaction bonus!
<Pose Tracker> Riley Lovell has posed.
Savoring Xander's fluster will have to be for later... for now there is a punishing burst of light from the creature, followed by Xander's rain of alchemical mist to give them one last burst of strength.
Xander gives the signal to try to bring it down for him to claim the Tongue. Riley has already chained himself to the Tongue's head with vines, and so he digs in deeper, letting his blood flow to feed the Garden as more and more greenery springs from his body, wrapping around shell and legs alike to try to build a coffin of thorns for the creature.
This reeking crablike being that now exists in a tangle of teeth and limbs and mindless hunger... it was once an ordinary man who was corrupted by some chance encounter with a Part of Valmar -- just like him. But he can't afford to spare a thought for that, only to focus on bringing its end. More and more vines unfurl, some of them springing from Riley, others from the ground itself, pulling it downward toward cracking the ground as they try to pull it partway into the earth.
The cage he's building serves two purposes -- one, to hurt and immobilize the Tongue, and two... to try to wall it off from anyone but Xander who tries to come close to it if everyone's efforts should be able to bring it down.
GS: Riley Lovell spends 2 Combo on Headshot! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Riley Lovell has attacked Xander Lovell with To Hell with You! GS: Riley Lovell has gained 1 Combo! GS: Riley Lovell gains 40 THP from Regen! GS: Riley Lovell has completed his action. GS: CRITICAL! Xander Lovell critically fails to guard Riley Lovell's To Hell with You for 371 hit points! GS: Cripple applied to Xander Lovell! GS: Poison blocked! GS: Riley Lovell enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Strain! Riley Lovell takes 53 damage!
<Pose Tracker> Cirea has posed.
Cirea remains flat on her back even after trying to rouse herself with water. She ended up drinking most of it after all in an attempt to feel less ...hollowed-out, without much success; she's poured enough water down her throat that she now feels both uncomfortably overfull and completely empty at the same time, which is a perplexing sensation she doesn't much like. Normally if she overindulges at least she at least enjoyed the food (and mostly only regrets it later).
Energy, released from the Tongue, finds its way home. It's like a kick and gets her to curl up, half in pain and discomfort, but she still seems too out of it to rouse...
...until she feels power coming up from beneath, from Cavall, at the same time Xander's sparkling mist rains down on her from above.
"I told you I don't need your help!" Cirea groans - but she rises, pushing herself to her feet and then to the air, bobbing uncomfortably. They really do need to take it out, which means she's going to have to exert herself again, which means she has to follow Xander's directions, even though it grates...
"A thousand thousand lights in the sky above - name one and call it forth!"
Cirea raises her hands overhead and forms a ball of shining silver light. It starts about soccer ball sized, then expands to basketball, then bigger and bigger; the whole thing becomes as tall as a human, a slightly rippling sphere of shining white light that lights up the whole cave (whether you want a better look at what's around or not).
Then she releases it with a visible shove. It slooooowly drifts toward the Tongue of Valmar. It's easy to dodge. You barely have to try, though the vines will make it harder.
But Cirea is still casting. She spins in place, clamping her jaws shut as her stomach objects as a circle forms around her. She continues the chant a few moments later:
"From night to day, a star touched by another!"
Cirea fires a gold-tinged beam directly at the sphere. It's faster-moving - and when it impacts the sphere of light, it sinks inside. The whole sphere begins to tint, its white core slowly becoming a bright gold -
"TWINKLE STAR!"
The ball flares, surging twice its size and *blasting* a wave of energy out at the Tongue of Valmar. And then another, as Cirea fires a second gold bolt - and a third, and a fourth. Every time the sphere is smaller, having burned up some of its power, but the sheer amount of energy Cirea is manipulating is staggering, even for her. She's definitely gotten better, lately...
"Come on! You can't stay up forever...! I'll show you what we - what I - can do!"
GS: Cirea has activated Force Action: Full Clip! GS: Cirea has activated Force Action: Lock On! GS: Cirea has attacked Xander Lovell with Twinkle Star! GS: Cirea has gained 1 Combo! GS: Cirea gains 5 FP from Gleam! GS: Cirea gains 40 THP from Regen! GS: Cirea has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Venetia Vuong has posed.
They're all with her. Yulie's magic washes over Venetia, clearing out some of that cackling madness that was upon her (though not all of it, that's not something you can do with one spell) -- Cavall sends their blessing as well, and it puts strength back in her spine.
Away go the Crest Graphs afterwards. Ingrained. Deep rooted. You spend your first year in the Crest Sorcery program learning how to not lose your Crest Graphs (and Venetia occasionally has nightmares about the time she did lose several, the first time she went to Lunar).
Of course, that will be joined with the sudden view of the Tongue of Valmar, to say nothing of what it spews forth. What it feels like is indescribable, but Venetia thinks she might know what it's like to get shot, now. Venetia sways for a moment. She swallows; she reaches for her crest pouch and says -
"You know, Eleanor," Venetia says, "I think you were on to something a moment ago." As Xander's weapons-fire sends shimmering potion-mist and glittering fragments of glass falling, Venetia turns her head to look at her. "With 'time.'"
She takes a deep breath and lets it out.
"Do you think it can chew on something that doesn't exist?"
Venetia turns now to face the Tongue, raising her left hand up. It's a guarded gesture. Is she about to do karate? No -- Venetia knows the basics quite well, perhaps, but she is not going to throw her own personal flesh into this thing's mouth when it ails so severely. She sees the thorns Riley summons and glances towards him for a moment. He's building a cage with them.
Venetia's eyes lid. There's another of those quivering Ley-pulse feelings as she draws on this Crest Graph, and then there's a sudden shimmer of SOMETHING that feels tense enough to make people flinch or get out of the way. Most of them, anyway. Like standing waves of being stared daggers at, or emanations of morbid fate.
The invisible fields undulate... and Venetia chuckles in the back of her throat. "Come on... come now... let the work of a thousand years be done... for that poor old tree on Lunar, and for all the ones striving here... calculate millenia, and emerge -- New Derivative Sign!"
THWUM. It pulsates outwards. Some of those undulating nodules of bad vibes suddenly erupt, with that ineffable space not occupied but suddenly erupting as if a great tree had just gone through hundreds of years of growth in mere seconds, the implacably patient destructive force of Wood rippling outwards.
Outwards, it must be said, and towards the tongue. "It's on the back -- thing!" Venetia calls up to Cirea as she wordlessly guides the hypothetical roots to the limited extent it's possible, mostly to try to focus on the Tongue. "Don't give it a moment's rest! Once it's roast on a tortilla, then we can fall over!"
GS: Venetia Vuong has activated Force Action: Fury Shot! GS: Venetia Vuong has activated Force Action: Full Clip! GS: Venetia Vuong has attacked Xander Lovell with New Derivative Sign ~Hypothetical Root~! GS: Venetia Vuong gains 5 FP from Gleam! GS: Venetia Vuong gains 34 THP from Regen! GS: Venetia Vuong has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.
If there's anything anyone can say for the Tongue of Valmar, it has clarity of purpose. That doesn't change anything about what the rest of them have to do, or how they feel about it in return. None of them are getting devoured today. Even if the Tongue insists on devouring their attacks. There's got to be a bottom to its stomach somewhere!!
And indeed, as they all pour on the heat--some of them literally--the Tongue eventually stops and squeals, afflicted by (un?)holy heartburn. Its flesh still wriggles, though, threatening to regenerate anew. When Xander hurls those vials into the air and shoots them, the mist falls, and it and Cavall's Seraphic artes wash over Dean, easing that horrible hunger into a more normal hunger. (Hey, fighting is hungry business. He could *annihilate* a plate of fried noodles after this.) The sprain or break in his leg eases, too.
"Got it!" he calls back to Xander, along with, "Thanks, you two!" to him and Cavall. "You too, Yulie!" he adds, because he'd been a little too squashed last time to say so.
Heartened in this way, Dean shoots Redi a grin and a thumb's up as she marvels at him and Avril. "Thanks! You got some great moves too!" he calls back. He looks over to Avril; the two of them made a great combination move, but... "One more time!" he encourages her. "It's got to go down this time!"
...Even if 'going down' really just means 'giving Xander the opening he needs.'
So Dean faces the Tongue, and brilliant light shines from Twin Fenrir as he loads up both barrels full of bullets. With a defiant roar, he then unloads--firing from one gun, then the other, then back to the first, then both, then the other, twirling around for the style, until the combat rods of his ARMs glow with a brilliant searing light, and he charges forward to rail them into the Tongue's horrible distorted body, before finally leaping back to range and unleashing a massive beam of light that fires from both his guns and joins as one just before the laser impacts.
"Everybody!! Let's give it all we got!! RrrrrRRRAAAAUGH!!" he shouts to the others as he unloads.
GS: Dean Stark has activated Force Action: Full Clip! GS: Dean Stark has activated Force Action: Snipe! GS: Dean Stark spends 5 Combo on Headshot and Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Formation! Dean Stark has attacked Xander Lovell with Twin Fenrir - Laser Impact! GS: Dean Stark has gained 1 Combo! GS: Dean Stark gains 5 FP from Gleam! GS: Dean Stark gains 34 THP from Regen! GS: Dean Stark has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Eleanor Klein has posed.
Ruth... will probably not accidentally consume the Tongue through sheer violence. Probably. Eleanor looks to her for a moment, and says, "Careful, Ruth!"
She worries at Cirea, but Cirea frees herself, tumbling away. At least tehre's safety for her in the moment. But Avril and Dean move in perfect time, and for not the first time, Eleanor wonders at Avril. Distantly, pained, the strange sense she has sometimes looking at her is drowned out by the rest. ...Until Yulie helps her think; until Yulie's light and those purple sprites soothe her mind. The fog lifts, and...
There. "Oh?" eleanor asks of Venetia. Onto something? If Venetia says so, she must have an idea. To chew on something that doesn't exist... "That would seem to be impossible," Eleanor allows. "But I trust that you can make it happen." The Tongue may be delighted, may wish to devour them all, but Eleanor does not intend to allow it. None of them seem to. Billy and Yulie have their prayers, and... Yes. yes, it does look green. It spews energy back at them, and Eleanor stumbles, that energy crashing into her. She wavers on her feet, hand against the wall, even as Xander throws his sparkling mist over them.
'...This time,' Eleanor's own voice tells her, 'You can trust him. This time. The group does not fall here. The reckoning will come... But not today.'
"!?"
It is a vision; her eyes glow golden. And she Sees.
Eleanor stands as the sparkles of Xander's alchemy wash over them. She looks ahead, into seemingly nothing, until the Vision passes.
"...It is Fate that we succeed," Eleanor says seriously, a faraway sound to her voice and look in her eyes. "Xander will take the Tongue."
She lifts a hand, and begins to channel energy; a medallion around her neck glows suddenly, a lightning-bolt shape taking on a new sheen as she channels its power in an ancient language, far older than this temple. She switches to the common tongue, "Power that sleeps within..."
"Come forth, and bind my foe!"
Weather happens again, inside. A sudden rain, pure and wholesome, erupts over the Tongue, before electricity crackles forth--and snow rushes around, a thundering blizzard of power that seeks to bury the Tongue outright in rime and radiance.
"...As they say," Eleanor says in the wake of her spell. "We will mourn. And one day..."
"We will end this evil, once and for all."
For now though, she doesn't try to get close to Riley's cage.
"...Our strength will not fail today."
GS: Eleanor Klein has activated Force Action: Lock On! GS: Eleanor Klein spends 5 Combo on Headshot and Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: Eleanor Klein has attacked Xander Lovell with Aether! GS: Eleanor Klein gains 5 FP from Gleam! GS: Eleanor Klein gains 39 THP from Regen! GS: Eleanor Klein has completed her action. GS: Gamble: Low! Xander Lovell critically fails to guard Cirea's Twinkle Star for 296 hit points! GS: Mighty applied to Cirea! GS: ROU|LET|TE: Ruinous! Xander Lovell critically fails to guard Venetia Vuong's New Derivative Sign ~Hypothetical Root~ for 267 hit points! GS: Misery adds Cripple! GS: Cripple and Entangle applied to Xander Lovell! GS: CRITICAL! Xander Lovell critically fails to guard Dean Stark's Twin Fenrir - Laser Impact for 373 hit points! GS: CRITICAL! Xander Lovell critically fails to guard Eleanor Klein's Aether for 360 hit points! GS: Blind and Jam applied to Xander Lovell! GS: Xander Lovell has Fallen! He is no longer able to fight!
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
Ruth stays where she is, even in the mortal danger this presents just from the fell acidic slobber she's being subject to - resisting, but not immune, by whatever arcane manner of cross-sorcerous chemistry outcomes.
She feels the wriggling keenly as she tests what strength she has against a far larger foe, anchored by the Malevolence-fueled will that all but makes it possible to wrestle her rifle out of her grasp. She only barely makes out Billy's reminder about what the prayer of peace is meant for - everyone - as the high-pitched noise of squirming Valmar-altered flesh drowns out what else ther eis said.
It is for the best her face is not directly seen. Her eyes are wild, uncomfortably alive, and it only sobers when somehow the Tongue regurgitates its stolen energies in a deadly form that sees Ruth bow her head, shut her eyes, and find her strength starting to fade. Her own despair becomes harder to bear.
...
An earthen boon fills the space, racing along the ground and through Ruth's self. There's a sense of trying to mend something that never truly can, her left arm shaking violently as she peers to see Cavall's sharing of their boon even to someone who is by rights their mortal enemy.
"...Heh." She doesn't know if he's starting to laugh or cry, as her grip on her rifle becomes firmer and she tries to keep herself where she is.
"You're hurt. You're scared." Ruth murmurs to someone beyond their own humanity now - her voice is bereft of monstrous screeching and hissing, more the muted horror of the mortal encased in her Malevolence. "This wasn't... you, was it."
Xander calls to take it down, before it recovers, as sparkling mist fills the space in soothing some of the physical aches. Her serpentine tongue flicks, tasting something beyond the acrid spittle, rancid flesh, and blood that calls to her.
The only way to fight back against the hunger Valmar inflicts is to embrace her own - that endless cycle of feeding on the harm and terror her legacy brings, using the guilt to anchor her from it... but she never feels so sorry as to let go of the rifle.
The discordance rises into physical manifestation of rain anew. The kindest thing she can do for Gadan is, in the moment, to try and be a more frightful monster than an unwitting agent of Valmar and brace herself in the emotional spiral that empowers her. She pushes the rifle in a bit more, as the thundering rain pours down harder as if to try and bring them underwater.
"If there's anything beyond your hunger... then... scream it now!" Ruth's voice builds in intensity, eyes flaring as the rainpour becomes deafening and almost a waterfall. Maybe the last thing Gadan will ever see is as a victim, rather than a monster himself. "Thissss is the only thing I can do for you!!"
Riley's thorny cage builds to try and cut people off. It envelopes Ruth, for a moment. Her hold of the rifle is absolute - but the rifle's hold on the rest of Gadan is not, and in time, it will sweep her off and pin her, giving Xander the opening to further steep himself in the Darkness.
She violently thrashes against the brambles the entire time like a beast, because... she is, holding onto lucidity with the remembrance that despite this, someone thought there something more to her.
In its on way, an ill-conceived attempt to paying that forward.
GS: Ruth Pauling has activated Force Action: Extend! GS: Ruth Pauling has attacked Xander Lovell with Inconsolable Heavens! GS: Ruth Pauling enters a Counter stance! GS: Ruth Pauling has gained 2 Combo! GS: Ruth Pauling gains 40 THP from Regen! GS: Ruth Pauling has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Yulie Ahtreide has posed.
Billy sighs his thanks, and Yulie offers him a nod and a smile.
"You're welcome, Brother... Thank you for being here." She replies. The Paladiennes and Etones may be two different orders with their own individual focus, but they are united by that common goal, even more than their devotion to Granas.
That is why they fight. That is why they are here. She can't think of anyone better to fight against Valmar's influence.
"Just a little more." Yulie agrees with a nod toward Redi - and then to Dean, as he thanks her. They can do this... And, even more aid comes - Cavall draws upon the very essence of the earth. She feels the energy seep from the ground and into her whole body, offering her a reprieve from the hunger within. Yulie exhales. She has more focus now than she had when she first stepped into this room.
"Thank you..." She offers - and, the timing could not be better. Pushed to the edge, the Tongue of Valmar unleashes its consumed energes in a terrifying outward eruption. Yulie thrusts her hands forward, chakrams circling in front of her as a magical barrier forms. The wave of energy is not just physical, but she can feel it within, too. It's overwhelming...
...But soon, sparkling mist begins to rain down. Xander provides aid - and the strength to persevere returns once more.
This is their chance. They won't have another.
"I'm sorry." Yulie murmurs - and then, readies herself.
"Safety device, disengaged!" She calls out. The metallic rings on her right wrist unfurl into their true form. "Linking to the Material...!"
In the air above them, something begins to gather, nanomachines flooding into the cavern's pathways and beginning to build into the skeleton of something large.
"Ready to operate: Code M!" Yulie enters the command - and it takes form. The cloud coalesces into a dragon, scaled but with great feathery wings and a massive, glowing red crystal emerging from its back.
It hovers in the sky, wings flapping, and then it rears back. Fire is its very being - and fire is what it brings to the Tongue of Valmar. With one mighty flap of its wings, waves of fire join Redi's violet flames, raining down to consume that which consumes - and then, it is gone, the nanomachines consisting its form dispersing to return to where they came from.
Redi lands next to her in a three-point stance, and it's worth of applause - in any other situation, she would do so... but here and now, she can only afford to offer her an approving nod.
GS: Formation! Yulie Ahtreide has attacked Xander Lovell with Material Drive - Set E! GS: Yulie Ahtreide has gained 1 Combo! GS: Yulie Ahtreide gains 36 THP from Regen! GS: Yulie Ahtreide has completed her action. GS: Xander Lovell critically fails to guard Ruth Pauling's Inconsolable Heavens for 250 hit points! GS: Cover applied to Ruth Pauling! GS: Xander Lovell has Fallen! He is no longer able to fight! GS: CRITICAL! Xander Lovell critically fails to guard Yulie Ahtreide's Material Drive - Set E for 320 hit points! GS: Xander Lovell has Fallen! He is no longer able to fight!
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Cirea's wind feeds Ida's flame, and the Seer is not expecting the eruption that ensues. Her eyes snap open, and she steps back as the Tongue's arm rips clean off. She braces Devil's Due with both hands, preparing to follow up with more conventional bullets when Billy launches Etheric flame into the Tongue's maw. It's something right off a cathedral window--the pious monster-hunter delivering the finishing blow to his Valmar-spawn foe.
But the Tongue keeps eating. "What's it--" Ida says. "It's growing back!" Is this a battle of attrition? Ida doesn't know if they could survive one, given this thing's horrible, draining aura.
But as it turns out, the Tongue has eaten something that disagreed with it. Ida takes the barrage of stolen power right to the metaphorical face. She doubles over, breathing through gritted teeth. Cavall's glyph flares beneath her feet, helping steady her as she fights through it. She makes a note to thank them, later.
Ida raises her head, and sucks in a breath at the sight of everything--Eleanor tapping into something deep and old, Yulie unleashing one of her strange artificial summons, Ruth...
"Ruth, get back! GET BACK!" Ida's voice is raw, but she breathes through the momentary panic, takes aim, and opens fire. Once again, she unloads an entire clip into the Tongue, but this time, each bullet is aimed for effect, rather than suppression. She is not drawing any closer to that thing if she can help it, unless she needs to physically tackle Ruth out of the way.
No one deserves to become the Tongue's next victim, and that includes her.
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has activated Force Action: Full Clip! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Xander Lovell with Raw Spite! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey gains 40 THP from Regen! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action. GS: Sneak! The true nature of Ida Everstead-Rey's attack becomes clear! GS: CRITICAL! Xander Lovell critically fails to guard Ida Everstead-Rey's Devil's Draw for 326 hit points! GS: Xander Lovell has Fallen! He is no longer able to fight!
<Pose Tracker> Holly has posed.
Holly grimaces as the mouth closest burps and.. falls off. "That's vile." She mutters, somehow upset that she's still hungry because of the gnawing curse of the area and can't reconcile that. Even she wasn't so obnoxious with her curses, was she? Somehow the distraction at least, briefly, helps. Only so much though.
That it took her this long to catch that Cirea had been well, at least lightly chewed on does worry her, she's definitely feeling out of sorts and does take a brief moment to spin and head count the others. Mostly making sure they still have theirs.
She does give the other fae a wry look and calls out, "I don't have anything that'd help." Holding her hands up. She might have some water, but it's usually you know, not fun water.
UNless you're Holly, but that's a different issue.
It's funny how much goes through your head before the blast of energy sends her tumbling through the air. Idly still glad she doesn't go the usual route and wore more modern fairy sized clothes as she does so.
She does land on her feet, surprisingly lightly, though clearly disoriented.
She closes her eyes, orients herself and takes back to the air, dark magic mingled with water, some fae magic and symbology brewing. She chants a quiet spell to herself, the words old, some half-improvised as she blends a few types of magic and fueled mostly by the invigoration and a desire to stop this nastiness from going onward.
She's not even hungry and she's hungry and it's making her head hurt.
It's about this time she notes, and nods to Cavall her thanks for the air, but right now, she's trying to aim a growing mass of darkness that spreads above the. Why is it a tongue? That's gross. It spreads overhead though, despite Holly's wandering thoughts and with a faint snap, like glass breaking, the ink turns to sharp shards of whatever cursed ink Holly's been brewing with her magic. It's certainly not pleasant. Nothing about this has been, in a few ways.
Notably, she is keeping her distance from the mass attempting to regrow.
GS: Holly spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: Holly enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Holly has attacked Xander Lovell with Pitiless Storm! GS: Holly has gained 1 Combo! GS: Holly gains 23 THP from her Cautious! GS: Holly enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Holly gains 38 THP from Regen! GS: Holly has completed her action. GS: CRITICAL! Xander Lovell critically fails to guard Holly's Pitiless Storm for 378 hit points! GS: Xander Lovell has Fallen! He is no longer able to fight!
<Pose Tracker> Billy Lee Black has posed.
Dispensing with the Lord's light, an Etone turns to other methods of mercy.
The Tongue of Valmar gorges itself on light, and the force of the shot sends Billy flying back to the battle line. He spins the longbarrel back into his habit, trying to carefully regulate his breathing amid the Tongue's miasmic hunger.
What it attacks with is difficult to reckon, let alone evade, and Billy lurches and groans as the backwash of forces washes over him. "Even its failing strength is revolting," he mutters. But - fortunately, Yulie's strength and Cavall's and Xander's aid them, and Billy can finally breathe deep of refreshing air.
Xander will take it from there. "Yes," Billy mutters, his soft blue eyes slowly closing in regret. "I suppose you will, at that."
He ducks back, toward the rear line, to give himself a moment.
The next time anyone can lay eyes on him, he's pulled out An Entire Machine Gun and mounted it on a tripod. "DOWN!!" he roars, and then the air fills with the buzzing of extremely-rapid fire and the eruptions of explosive shells across a monstrosity's carapace.
GS: Formation! Billy Lee Black has attacked Xander Lovell with A Real-Ass God-Damn Minigun! GS: Billy Lee Black has gained 1 Combo! GS: Billy Lee Black gains 32 THP from Regen! GS: Billy Lee Black has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Cavall has posed.
The Tongue erupts in an explosion of disgorged remants of soul, life, energy, and vitality. Cavall sets their stance as they continue to maintain the weaving, ethereal green vines of energy growing out of the glyphs at everyone's feet to restore energy and strength to them. The force of the attack pushes Cavall back, long, deep scratches in the ground marking how far back they are pushed-- but at the end of it they are standing upright and intact.
Cirea insists she didn't need the help--Cavall is going to choose to infer that the comment is directed to Xander and not themselves. But there is a thanks from Dean, and the wolf-shaped Seraph acknowledges that with a nod. "You are welcome--but now is the time to strike!"
But Ruth notices, of course, the boon that Cavall imparts, and when she looks the seraph's way, Cavall simply gives her a curt nod. "Use it wisely." To Yulie there is a less terse, "You are welcome." Holly gets a quick nod back in return.
But it's time for Cavall to take their own advice. Curiously, around their neck are the links of a great heavy chain, doubled over, yet they do not seem to cause distress or hamper their movements. There is a shake, as if they were drying out their fur, but instead what happens is a great big anchor appears in the blink of an eye. One of the heavy tines rests over their neck--again, without distress, and Cavall leaps back to get some clearance. With a shrug of their shoulders, the anchor slips off and impacts the ground with a heavy thud.
Several loops of chain follow suit (there are suddenly much more now than the simple two loops seen before), and Cavall grabs the end of the chain, close to their body, with their teeth. With an absurdly effortless gesture of their head they swing the anchor around in the air in slow, ponderous whooshes. Faster and faster it goes.
Somehow they twist, effortlessly redirecting the energy from horizontal to vertical, slamming it into the ground. The anchor embeds itself deep into the earth, fracturing and cracking it. Cavall leaps into the air, drawing the chain taught as they twist, heaving as they sumersault to wind the chain around them, to tear a massive chunk of earth free from the ground. Up and over, and Cavall continues to twist to bring it high overhead and then crashing down right on top of the Tongue.
GS: Seraph Cavall spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Seraph Cavall has attacked Xander Lovell with Continental Shift! GS: Seraph Cavall has gained 2 Combo! GS: Seraph Cavall gains 5 FP from Gleam! GS: Seraph Cavall gains 40 THP from Regen! GS: Seraph Cavall has completed their action.
<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.
Just when she needs it most, the earth beneath her feet feels suddenly more solid, more sure. It's because of that Seraph, she realizes, casting a glance Cavall's way. In spite of the desperation of the moment, she's able to smile at them.
They need to finish this. That much is clear: it's become more than a case of not letting the Tongue find another host. It cannot be permitted to be, period. Even if it failed to leap from this host to another, there's a strong chance it could find its way from here and do precisely what it does best. Avril has no desire to find out how much -- and if -- its appetite could be sated. This piece of Valmar threatens the world's fragile balance all on its own.
They can ill afford such damage when Filgaia is already sickened and dying, already having its Ley tapped by the Ten Wise Men.
She and Dean give it nearly everything they have. They all give it everything they have. Its shell finally cracks.
But instead of relief, Avril finds only horror: even now it is struggling to regrow itself. Is it possible this could be endless? Might their reserves give before it does? It looks ill somehow and even this brooks no relief, not when this is in turn met with an explosion of energy -- a portion of their power, returned to them violently for their troubles.
It's all Avril can do to stay upright. She doubles over as surely as she'd been struck right in the gut, gasping for air. It feels like she's drowning on dry land. She reaches for her throat with her left hand, all-too-aware that there's nothing present to tug away.
The air around her shines. "Xander--?" she gasps, the mist strengthening the earlier enchantments and driving away the foulness of Valmar's presence. She can breath. The very rock upon which she now stands feels again holy, sacred.
That was amazing, Redi more or less says to the both of them. "Do you think so?" she finds herself asking of Redi. "I suppose it is practice," she adds, glancing at Dean. "Yet, Xander is right. We must finish this. Otherwise..."
There's only one way for this to end. And even about that, she has her misgivings, but there is no better way she can think up (and certainly not right in this moment). "Dean! I'll follow your lead!"
Absolute Zero should have enough energy stored for one more shot, she thinks. She'll make it a good one. Darting left as Dean opens fire, she races about to close in on the wounded fiend from the other side. Possibly, it won't be expecting it.
Perhaps especially not when she comes in not only from the opposite side but from above. Her Sea Medium cradled in one arm and brandishing Absolute Zero, she descends in an arc for Valmar's Tongue. As she falls closer, she pulls the trigger.
It's light, captured. More than that-- what lashes forth from her ARM is nothing less but a thin streamer of plasma whirling in a seemingly wild dance all about as she makes her final descent. The fiend will perhaps know of her approach from this and this alone.
GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Avril Vent Fleur has attacked Xander Lovell with Absolute Zero - Plasma Arc! GS: Avril Vent Fleur has gained 1 Combo! GS: Avril Vent Fleur gains 32 THP from Regen! GS: Avril Vent Fleur has completed her action. GS: CRITICAL! Gamble: Moderate! Xander Lovell critically fails to guard Billy Lee Black's A Real-Ass God-Damn Minigun for 384 hit points! GS: Xander Lovell has Fallen! He is no longer able to fight! GS: Xander Lovell critically fails to guard Seraph Cavall's Continental Shift for 300 hit points! GS: Xander Lovell has Fallen! He is no longer able to fight! GS: CRITICAL! Xander Lovell critically fails to guard Avril Vent Fleur's Absolute Zero - Plasma Arc for 368 hit points! GS: Break applied to Xander Lovell! GS: Delay blocked! GS: Avril Vent Fleur enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Xander Lovell has Fallen! He is no longer able to fight!
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
The Tongue of Valmar is reeling. Redi descends upon it in violet flame, her own cursed energy coiling with Yulie's summoned dragon, entwined together as they strike. Cirea calls upon the stars to pummel it, taunting this piece of Valmar with infinity. Venetia with the impossibility of time, a tree skewering the Tongue from the bottom up, something it cannot absorb to rise again. Dean unloads with brilliant lasers and a battle cry and Avril with her beautiful arc of plasma in their own combined dance. Ida has her own meal of bullets to pour into the beast, suppressing its ability to regenerate. Holly's magic, quietly chanted, lands with inversely proportional force. Cavall uses their bond with earth to create a meteor hammer of stone and bashes into the eldritch beast.
There's also a real-ass god-damn minigun unloading into this shade of an evil god. Exorcism.
When Eleanor's holy storm joins the assault, Xander briefly turns from their shared foe to land his intense gaze upon her. So this is Fate, she says. And one day, this evil will be defeated...
In this moment, it is impossible to read Xander's expression.
Ruth calls for anything beyond Gadan's hunger. But there is no scream. Only hunger. And so, all she can grant is the mercy out of her own reach as the rain falls. But she is too close. Xander lurches forward, stumbling in his own weakness.
"The Tongue is mine!" he declares, and if anyone didn't know better -- and they must certainly know better by now... right? -- they might think they caught an edge of urgency in his tone more reminiscent with protection than possession.
Under the shelter of Riley's thorns, Ruth's rain washes over Xander, sticking his long hair and clothes uncomfortably against his skin. He, too, is a Dark One, but though the purification burns his soul and a cursed hunger still eats at him, he pushes into action. He stretches out his arm and breathes in deep. Streams of darkness draw out of the Tongue of Valmar, coalescing into an orb at Xander's chest. The Tongue's body flickers and fades away while Xander absorbs the darkness into his chest, gently pressing the last of it in with his clawed hand.
That's three. Xander huffs a broken laugh of relief. There's already some color back in his face, his features healthier by the second with a sparkle of life behind his eye. He draws himself up, posture solid and strong. While everyone still reels from battle, Xander now looks bright-eyed and bushy-tailed... well beyond even before this round of the curse had begun to haunt him.
If anyone thought the fight should continue here and now, it would be unwise at best.
What's left behind in his wake is the body of a balding man in a striped suit. Despite the battle, the soulless corpse is untouched by its scars. He instead lies among the remnants of everyone's combined efforts, the remnants of spells and ARMs still glittering in the air. It's pretty, in a way.
Gadan... once a man, and loved by the people until he was changed dramatically by the Tongue. Then they came to fear him. Hate him, perhaps. He ruined their livelihoods, consumed by his own gluttony. But it wasn't 'his' gluttony, was it? It was Valmar's.
You will not merely become Valmar, Xander. You will overwhelm Valmar. You will surpass him. You will crush Valmar's existence with your own, and become a living God. When you ascend, you will not carry out Valmar's will -- but your own.
"...What you all know as 'Valmar' will one day be destroyed," he promises. "But Fate had best watch itself."
<Pose Tracker> Redi Hayworth has posed.
"You two have worked together for awhile, haven't you?" Redi asks Avril, with brief -- but small, given the circumstances -- smile. She looks at Dean, too, and her smile brightens a bit. "Thanks, Dean."
Then, she looks sideways at Yulie -- and stands up from that three-point stance, dusting herself off. She looks at the Guardian Program, as it begins to fade. "Wow," she says, her voice quiet. She looks over at Yulie.
Hard to not think about yesterday, seeing it. "You did great," she tells her.
But she watches the Tongue, too, warily. She watches it wither under their combined assault... and then Xander, as promised, absorbs it. She winces -- and glances to the side.
This was what they wanted to stop -- but...
She shakes her head, then looks back. At Xander, and then down at Gadan. "Xander..." She frowns. "...I hope you know what you're doing."
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.
"Yup! Ever since we met back in Capo Bronco," Dean tells Redi cheerfully. He looks over at Avril with a smile. He's wiped out--but it's not a bad kind of wiped out. It's the exhaustion that comes at a hard-won battle.
But it's hard to keep up that cheer--not when Xander stumbles forward to take in the darkness of the Tongue under the veil of rain and thorns. Dean doesn't know better, and so he does hear a protective edge to his voice--because, of course, at the heart of Xander is his desire to protect. They all know that, right?
It remains a grim reminder of what Xander is, and what he aims to become. It's grimmer yet when the body of Gadan is left behind in its wake. Dean looks down at him soberly, then over at Yulie and Ida and the others. "...We'll have to carry all the bones out to give them a proper burial," he says. Billy and Yulie can give them their last rites.
He looks to Xander then. He looks a sight better than before, visibly empowered by what he's consumed. Riley will be happy, no doubt, but... "Yeah," he says after Redi. "Same."
<Pose Tracker> Eleanor Klein has posed.
Everyone does the best they can, but Eleanor doesn't doubt their victory. She knows what's coming in the next moments--as Xander declares the Tongue his.
Xander looks at her, and Eleanor meets his eyes, her expression as inscrutable as his. Her eyes remain a strange gold, but no longer glow except very faintly.
Maybe it is protection. But...
She sees Xander's renewed strength. He could strike at them now, if he wanted.
But he won't.
"...It always does," Eleanor says to Xander of Fate. "You don't have to worry about that."
But she does.
Instead, though, when Redi spekas up--for all that Eleanor has doubts about her now...
She seems kind, at least. If only kindness could be enough. But Eleanor kneels down beside Gadan, looking him over. "...ARMS, we'll ensure that this man has a proper burial. But the curse is over."
She nods to Dean. "...But we have a priest and a Paladienne for that." She does not insult them by asking if they're willing; they've proven that already.
"..." Redi asks the question, and Dean echoes it.
"He does," Eleanor says, looking back to Xander. "...Xander knows precisely what he's doing."
She turns. "...I'm going to go talk to the villagers."
<Pose Tracker> Cirea has posed.
Cirea calls on the stars, and the stars - along with everything else - is enough.
Which is good, because Cirea didn't have anything left in her. That was it! No more magic. She's already barely flying, kind of bobbing at about waist level on a human, and when the Tongue goes down -
"I'm glad he didn't eat him," Cirea stage-whispers, as Xander absorbs the energy in a ball.
She did not trust Xander. She still doesn't, and seeing him energized by that makes her angry - not that there's much she can do about it right now. She didn't like it in the first place, but there was nothing she can do, and there's nothing she can do now, either. Which makes her feel even worse! She lifts up slightly, fluttering as he speaks against fate...
"I'm going to kick your butt when you do something evil," she informs him, arms crossed. "Nobody who talks like that is doing something good! And if you bring the curse back, or - or you curse someone else, somewhere else..."
It loses something because of her clear exhaustion; she looks like she's about to land. Or possibly be sick; as the curse has passed, so did the feeling of emptiness, which means Cirea mostly feels bloated from all the water she guzzled to try to avoid the *feeling* of starvation after she ran out of arum root and everything else edible on her or that she could beg off other people, and looks decidedly green. (Fortunately, not literally green. With her control of light magic, she *could*, though.)
"Definitely gonna kick it," she groans, before dropping back to stand on the ground, hunching down slightly and lowering her hands to her belly. Stomachache...
She's going to have to steal a ride out.
<Pose Tracker> Riley Lovell has posed.
Under the rain and thorns, Xander is able to draw nearer, and finally take the Tongue into himself. Riley's heart lifts as he sees vitality return to Xander at last...
Then, as the transfer of the Tongue completes itself, the vines wrapped around the monster begin to fall away, loose and empty as the former owner changes form. It's a shock to Riley to see that in the aftermath, Gadan's humanity is miraculously restored, only now that his life is gone and there is no one left to return to that body. Cruel. Valmar is so cruel... Riley hates it.
He grips Xander, leaning on him more than he means to, and turns to the Drifters. "Thanks everyone... for making a little peace with us for this." It would be a stretch to say they really played along with him (maybe Redi and Dean?), but it was still nice to pretend a little bit... and to genuinely align for a moment on a purpose that everyone could agree was worth doing. The people of the town should be safe, now, freed from the curse and finally able to eat, save for a few who couldn't be saved in time, Gadan himself, and one more who... better not dwell on that.
But that means there is no more purpose to an alliance. No one here is making a hostile move, but you can't be too safe...
"A-anyway, we really need to go get Xander something to eat, he has been starving for weeks!!" With that, the vines writhe to life again, forming a chaotic wall to cover the Fangs' escape. "Bye!!"
<Pose Tracker> Yulie Ahtreide has posed.
Xander makes his declaration - that the Tongue is his. Yulie looks at him. That urgency... She won't call attention to it. But it does bring to mind... She must become stronger. Focus her talents so that, hopefully, this doesn't need to happen again. Still, she meets Redi's eyes as she looks over at her, and her encouragement helps. She offers her a small smile.
"...Thank you. You did great, too." She says.
Xander absorbs the Tongue of Valmar's power - and as the corruption fades, all that's left is just a man. Nothing more. Yulie stares down at what's left of Gadan, and then at Xander.
Valmar will one day be destroyed. But, Fate...
Yulie thinks on that quietly. ...It's so much more complicated
For now, she turns her attention back to Gadan.
"...Yes. We must check on the people of Liligue and see to their needs... and tell them what happened here." Yulie agrees. But she doesn't move to leave just yet. Instead, she clasps her hands in front of her, closing her eyes and bowing her head in prayer.
A prayer for Gadan, even if there may not be anything left to receive it. She doesn't move to intercept the Fangs as Riley retreats with Xander.
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
Ruth continues to violently thrash at the brambles that have helped pull her away from the Tongue - the best result for all involved, given the circumstances and inevitabilities - and it's only with bringing her fangs down upon one such pile of brambles does she finally get herself free, far too late.
She can see who's left behind when the Tongue disappears - that there was still at least some remnant of Gadan underneath the Tongue and its corruption. A body that survives, seemingly untouched and unscarred by the battle.
Ruth herself... succinctly: she needs a shower.
A renewed, triumphant Xander makes his claim with conviction in his voice. The gargoyle-shaped Hellion trembles, head bowed as the light of her eyes leaves its fell glow to see the surrounding ruin around them of the Tongue's other victims by periphery. She knows that Yulie and Billy are both capable and ordained to give last rites, as Eleanor points out.
5tEven as an Etone, Ruth wasn't given that charge. Even now, she wouldn't feel herself deserving of that grace.
She staggers once before her will gives out, unable to push past the totality of injury suffered in the height of Malevolence-fueled adrenaline - with Xander's and Riley's leave, there's nothing left for her here. She might need to decompress in this cavern for a bit, tension still running high in a place sacred to Granas that she feels she doesn't belong in.
Her gaze swivels, not to meet against Cavall directly, but wordless, as the ordained are left to deal with the remains and the last rites.
<Pose Tracker> Holly has posed.
Holly... is kind of surprised. Despite the intensity of it, she came out feeling better than she looks. And worse in some ways, but that's more because everything about this was gross.
The paintbrush is flicked a few times, clearing the worst of the mess away from the bristles. That the ink hovers there and then slowly fades from sight suggests this is... Holly being somewhat odd with her own magic.
That she draws the ink away from the monster, taking a moment to thin it out, using her hand to spread it, spin it and check it before it too fades away kind of reiterates this.
There's some level of clinical detachment from what she sees Xander doing as she works. It registers. She can't say she's seen this. She's keeping it clamped up until later where she can take the information and... nastiness and direct it to something useful like studious research. She knows where the books should be, she knows roughly how she wants to get there even with the damage. She's done enough maps and some of the reconstruction efforst have helped..
Right now though. A friend is in need. A few are, but she darts towards Cirea, clearly intent on trying to offer her a helping hand! She's not... a ride out unfortunately, being the shorter of the two. "Come on." She suggests, surprisingly short on words!
A guilty look passes her features and she looks to the others, holding her brush up in one hand, "I.. can help anyone that needs it. I'm still not as good as most, but-" She trails off. "I can help."
Still short on words!
Maybe she can steal a ride out too. Just... because
<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.
They give it everything they have. This time, it's enough.
Into this moment as the terribly wounded Tongue is staggered, burned, exorcized presses Xander: he does precisely what he'd promised to do.
Avril does not look away. She watches as he does it, drawing all the darkness this fragment of a fell god has into his being. Can he contain it? Is it too much? Perhaps there is no choice left to him but to try.
He looks healthy and strong once he's finished, a counterpoint to the way all of them must surely seem. "Then, it's over," she says, her gaze turning from Xander towards what remains of the man the Tongue had possessed. She hadn't known him before: he's an unfamiliar person to her. Still, what can she do but bow her head?
"Later," she says to Dean, "we might bring flowers."
She nods at Redi's question, at Dean's answer. "Yes. Ever since we first met. I was fortunate... the people I met on that day were good and kind."
Otherwise, there's no telling where her journey might have taken her.
But of Xander and his aims, she can only say to Redi, "Eleanor is right. He... does know."
And at length, she turns away from what remains of Gadan. "Dean... we ought to go, too. I understand there is much to do, and we must rest."
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Cavall has posed.
Cavall yanks their anchor free of the chunk of ground that became their weapon. The coins of the anchor neatly wind around their neck, and the anchor rests over their shoulder in a single, smooth motion. They watch, quietly, as Xander approaches, and absorbs the tongue.
It is only when the battle is finally, truly over--namely that Xander doesn't then immediately take advantage of their exhaustion--that Cavall puts away the anchor, reducing it to a single loop of chain doubled over around their neck. "Our stars will not suffer more false dieties," warns Cavall to Xander. "Your reckoning will yet come."
Cavall approaches the body of Gadan, standing quietly to observe their restored (though still deceased) form. They remember a trip taken on a train, once--and they know that the customs here are different than on Lunar.
But they do have customs.
"If anything of this man yet remains beyond his mortal form, I can do nothing for it. But I would help lay his body to rest, if permitted. He is owed that much, at least."
But whatever the result of that request is, next they turn to pad softly over to Cirea. "You wield the Blessing with great skill--and your mastery of elements is quite impressive."
They might be willing to offer Cirea a ride if she asks nicely. They are spent, but not exhausted. Holly can have one, too.
But Cavall next turns to head back to the surface, also keen on seeing to the villagers (even if most of the villagers can't see them.) They look to Ruth and simply nod, silently.
Cavall has kept their own promise: They will not allow Ruth to come to harm as long as those around her count her among their number.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Ida lets out a sharp, short breath as the Tongue joins with its new host. It's as contained as it can be, now, and the faint hunger in her belly fades to nothing. She glances between Eleanor and Xander, fairly certain that if a fly passed between the two of them in that moment, it would disintegrate from their combined force of will.
"...I'll help carry him out," Ida murmurs, as she steps forth to Yulie's side. "Once you're done." Tears mist her eyes, and she glances back at the wall of foliage left by Riley's exit. "What did Valmar think was worth this?" Her hands clench. She's ruminating, again. "How did he become this parasite?" A human heart gave birth to him, even if it wasn't remotely like what the scriptures said.
<Pose Tracker> Billy Lee Black has posed.
Billy, with the worst of the effect easing off, slowly approaches. Xander looks...*dishearteningly* chipper, and Billy passes the renewed demon host a brief look with his pale eyes. But soon he focuses on the matter at hand. "We will," he says. He slots his guns into their holsters.
First things first, though. Billy drops to one knee, and silently closes the fallen man's eyes.
"Rest now, brother," he says, hand going to his Etone cross. Even knowing how cursed the order had been...it is the icon of his faith. "Your ordeal has passed. Be at peace at God's side."
It won't be the last such ordeal. The thought whitens his knuckles, but he stands nonetheless. "Miss Ida, help me build something to carry him out, please?" he says, searching around for enough canvas.