Outside 49: I don’t remember what it looks like either

[Rebonack]

[Rolling Hills]

"Guest, you are already in possession of your own arms," the Servant informs Zabb. "The arms of the Empyrean are unlikely to be compatible with your physiology."

Arukhael picks up a Motion assault weapon and pistol. He's found that he really likes that Sphere best for offensive purposes. They're scarcely physical things, swirling eddies and flickering lights of distorted space constantly roiling upon itself giving the impression of a weapon. They foam and bubble like the waves of the sea.

The putti really don't have any rhyme or reason to what they grab. After all, they aren't aligned with any of the Spheres, not yet. And they never WILL be unless they manage to ascend the Tower to the Copper Host. Seraphs, ophan, cherubs, and malaks really have a huge advantage over them in that regard. They can invoke their Spheres and their arms are more effective, provided they are properly aligned.

It isn't very fair.

But since when is anything fair?

"Excellent choices, Aspirants! For this next quest you must-"

Dozens of shimmering crystal cubes-within-cubes begin appearing down-range from the tutorial takers! Some seem to warp and shift in shape. Others remain stationary. Others are drifting, some slow and some fast.

"-BREAK THE TARGETS!"

Makes sense.

They DID already board the platforms, after all.

Lapis cannon just sort of... mounts itself between her shoulder-wings like a turret on her back, the wings wrapped around it. The huge weapon begins spinning up as she braces her hooves against the ground, roots biting into the earth to stabilize her against the coming kick of the cannon.

Arukhael, meanwhile, takes aim and begins blasting targets apart, sending chunks of them flying off at high speed.

[bc56]

Rolling Hills

Eao happily fires away with her new sniper rifle, a sharp-edged crystalline weapon which fires crystal darts. Quiet, efficient, deadly. Just how she likes it.

Selekhael, on the other hand, turns the shotgun which doesn't entirely seem there over in her paws. It lags behind her movements, clipping through the places she grips it, but she can feel it as if she's holding it normally. Reluctantly, she takes aim, and fires at a nearby target. It's easier than she expected, a pulse of temporal power blasting out and shredding the target apart. The vanished fragments reappear a moment later.

Eao's switched to her pistol now, and is plinking away at targets. She's annoyed though, because the weapon, which seems to be made from TV static, doesn't do much to the inorganic targets. Angrily she aims and takes a potshot at a putti. A hit! The little monster suddenly collapses to the ground twitching. Niiiice.

[Arkhosia]

Innawoods

Blanche's gaze is easily acquired, although the first touch of metal does slightly surprise her. It's the sort of thing where you don't quite expect the feel of it rather than any real reaction. But despite her blushing and tipsy awkwardness, the catgirl proves plenty capable of staring back into Votsona's mismatched eyes.

"Well, er- she said you mighta gotten the wrong idea about my preferences, so I wanted to set the record straight, y'know?" Blanche studies Votsona's expression, before judging that she might need to elaborate. "And... I kinda thought you'd get the point more this way than saying it after staggering back t'your place?

[Morty]

[Journey to the Center of the Elves]

Ramuq licks his lips as some of the people around him look at him in surprise. They haven't seen him so distraught before. He's always self-important, imperious and stubborn.

"In our tale... the King doesn't come back. He cannot, must not come back," he says. "But your story... it shares some things with ours. A great, terrible ruler, betrayed and cast down." He looks to Eon. "I cannot say too much. The story of the King in Rags is taboo. But he must remain forgotten. None may speak any of his... its names. If it returns, our people will be put in bondage worse than anything you can imagine."

[Walk in the Woods - Thariza]

"You realize it could become something worse, right?" Thariza points out. "At least this damn thing looks like something I can shoot."

With that, Thariza does begin to loose some arrows at the creature. Not imbued with any particular magic for now, just to see how it will react.

[bc56]

Journey to the Center of the Elves

"Someone has definitely been spreading it, so we can conclude your people are in danger. Are there any weapons that would be effective against such an entity? Any magics that could banish him again?" Eon is thinking this through. They can't just allow these elves and probably others to be taken over by a supernatural conqueror.

[Shadowcaller]

[Walk in the Woods - Thariza]

"It could also turn into something more harmless though!" The other Ambrosia suggests but doesn't redirect any more lighting before the creature becomes even more enraged as Thariza's arrows either get stuck or bouche off its hide and charges towards her.

As its gait suggests, it moves very much like a t-rex would. Keeping balance with the help of its long tail which goes completely straight once it starts running.

But then something happens that might take the charr by surprise. Once it's almost upon Thariza its head suddenly shoots forward as its neck seems to extend far beyond what it looked capable of. Looking like how a caterpillar may extend its body as it moves.
The creature seems more adapt at fighting creatures similar to its own size however so she could potentially avoid it by throwing herself on the ground or at least ducking.

[Morty]

[Walk in the Woods - Thariza]

"What the f-" Thariza drops to the ground on all fours and scurries away in a very cat-like motion. Then she springs back up and aims. This time the bow is wreathed in orange flames and it doesn't shoot one arrow, but seven. Six of them come out of the air around Thariza and converge on the seventh one, which is aimed at the extended neck. Hopefully stretching out like this make it more vulnerable.

[Murkus]

[Forest of Flowers]

"I-I mean, um-" Lucy blinks and gives Vivi a very confused look. "You make it sound like it's a really easy thing for any goddess to do. I-is it? Because it- it sort of sounds complicated and I think this goddess was a fertility goddess in particular, sooo maaaaaybe not the right one for...whatever you're suggesting." Lucy seems a little lost here.

"Well when I hear 'goddess', I typically think they're capable of anything! Bah! Useless deities!" Vivi throws up her hands. "I was thinking she could help us with getting you... well. I think of it like this. If you're... too many minds in a single body, perhaps we simply need more bodies, don't you think?"

Innawoods

Blanche's gaze is easily acquired, although the first touch of metal does slightly surprise her. It's the sort of thing where you don't quite expect the feel of it rather than any real reaction. But despite her blushing and tipsy awkwardness, the catgirl proves plenty capable of staring back into Votsona's mismatched eyes.

"Well, er- she said you mighta gotten the wrong idea about my preferences, so I wanted to set the record straight, y'know?" Blanche studies Votsona's expression, before judging that she might need to elaborate. "And... I kinda thought you'd get the point more this way than saying it after staggering back t'your place?

[Innawoods]

"I think I've gotten the point," Votsona agrees. "...Do you want to stay here? I think we can make you pretty comfortable..."

And behind Votsona, Blanche might notice, Fidella appears to be pulling her dress off over her head. She's not wearing much of anything underneath.

[Purple Eagle]

[Rolling Hills]

Zabbaiel joins in, taking aim and firing at the targets available. He smiles at the empyreans who appear to be having just as much fun as he is... but not at Eao. Eao's icky.

[Gnrlshrimp]

[Forest of Flowers]

This has sort of come up before, hasn't it? In vague terms, at least.

A lack of time "out" might have left Lucy a little rusty on all the details too.

"I think that- well, Sylvess's mate thinks that since there was just the one mind originally and he thought us up, that I'm still not really...real." Still an uncomfortable thing to say. The words don't want to come out. It takes effort to force them out. "So that might still be something of a problem. B-but if it could be done and I could keep looking like this, it would be nice."

[Shadowcaller]

[Walk in the Woods - Thariza]

The neck is rapidly shrinking back down, or deflating is perhaps more accurate considering what it looks like, to its original size. But Thariza still have more than enough time to send her arrows into it.
As she guessed, the neck isn't as well protected as the rest of the body so the end result is a loud shriek as the arrow digs deep into it's exposed flesh.

Its maw moves around like a frenzied sharks as it shakes its prey and attempts to find the charr once more.

"Sweet moves! I'm just gonna... stop this storm while you're at it, okay?!" She can hear the other Ambrosia shout as more lighting is redirected above her head.

But the lighting has to land somewhere and she can see the environment changing in bizarre ways around her. One particular patch of land turning into lava which heat can be felt all the way from here.

[The Great Hunt - Prelude]

-Emergency communication channel open.
Please remember that your thoughts will be recorded while communicating within this space-

AgentI: We have a potential problem

JACC: Well of course, we asked you to investigate a problem didn't we?

AgentI: More of a problem. The creatures you asked me to located are indeed in Inside, hiding within its sewers. But while going through my network I learned of something else that have infested the city. Fey. They have already started to infect the local population, converting their very essence into their own

JACC: There are many beings within this world. The likelihood of these beings being connected to the ancient enemy, or even being from the same world as us, is tiny

EyesBetray: Is it? This has been out greatest concerned since operation Union began. That they would have noticed our interference isn't outside the realm of possibility

Nex(us)T(t)oGo: If they had and actually cared, we would all be dead by now

NotADemon: Insufficient data to make such conclusions, I suggest we investigate. Continue, agent

AgentI: While the initial wave of fey activity seems to have been taken care of by the populace, our evidence suggests continued fey activity. It could be big

JACC: Once Union has been completed, we will have the resources to deal with a fey invasion such as this in whatever way we would find appropriate. It would be a waste to divert resources and effort into fighting enemies that might not even be our enemies in the first place

NotADemon: But Yigoth will send forces to deal with eventually and then we will be blamed for it either way. We know this to be true. Their crusade is based on irrationality and it will likely prove hinderous to Union. Unless... we investigate these fey and prove them not to be in service of the great enemy

JACC: You just said Yigoth is irrational, why would such evidence dissuade them?

NotADemon: Since we will also provide other targets outside of the public eye. Just give them enough reason to look the other way. Yet another distraction

Nex(us)T(t)oGo: There is something to that logic

EyesBetray: We are all for investigating these fey

AgentI: Not to interrupt this discussion. But there is something else I need to report

JACC: Speak your mind then, agent

AgentI: Some of the fey have been turned into something else. Another party is involved which seems to be changing those already turned somehow. We've yet to obtain much information about it yet but the appearance suggest a demonic origin.

JACC: Fey turning into demons?

AgentI: I can't be sure yet. Possibly?

NotADemon: We already had our eyes on investigating the Inside creatures, but this is so much bigger. We must act

EyesBetray: Agreed, we must have samples of these

Nex(us)T(t)oGo: They could very much prove a threat, a scientific breakthrough, or potential allies. Either way we need to know more.

NotADemon: We're not allying with actual demons

EyesBetray: Sargon would disagree, he's in need of allies isn't it?

JACC: Was there anything else you needed to alert of us, agent?

AgentI: All the details will be in my report. I have nothing further to tell you right now. I do believe this is important however

JACC: Good, since I believe we have all just agreed to investigate Inside and thus this discussion can be terminated and taken to a more appropriate forum, yes?

EyesBetray: Of course

Nex(us)T(t)oGo: Agreed

NotADemon: Just one more thing, report back as soon as you know more, agent. We will send you more resources soon

AgentI: Very well

[Discussion terminated by admin JACC]

[Gullara]

[Journey to the Center of the Elves]

"Good idea, Korrina." Zhareen remarks, giving her apprentice a lingering look as she steps away. Just what was that girl up to now? She had her suspicions but she was going to give her the benefit of a doubt.

Besides, she wouldn't want to argue with her in front of Ramuq.

Then she starts to recount not her own version of the story but the one she was told to her by Maria:

"The version I'm most familiar with is there once was a great Drow Queen who ruled over the distant Nightlands. She was cunning, beautiful, and wise. But her shortsighted sisters were unable to understand the great benefits her policies had for their people, only able to focus on the immediate cost to them. So they turned on her and the Drow Queen narrowly escaped with her life, killing her handmaiden in her place so that her sisters would believe her dead."

"Instantly her sisters turned to infighting amongst themselves about who was most suited to rule in the Queen's place as treachery after treachery. This left the Nightlands vulnerable to attack and disorganized when the dwarves invaded, spreading through all lands with their war machines, stripping all beauty from the world to horde or to melt."

"The Drow Queen refused to let her legacy be known as the family overrun by dwarves. She took it upon herself to come out of hiding and create an alliance of convenience with the lesser races. With her great strategic mind and inescapable tactics leading the less fortunate, the Queen drove out the dwarves and forced them back to their slag pits."

Maria pauses. "This was used in my culture as an object lesson to always kill off your family all at once in order to properly consolidate your power base so you aren't left vulnerable. And to finish the job." Maria suspects they might have learned the wrong lessons from the story.

As she finishes, Zhareen crosses her hands over her chest. "The lesson taken from this by Maria's people is particularly odd. That is probably more cultural than anything, but is it otherwise anything like the story you've heard? Since I can also recount a very similar story from my own culture."

[Journey to the Center of the Elves]

Ramuq licks his lips as some of the people around him look at him in surprise. They haven't seen him so distraught before. He's always self-important, imperious and stubborn.

"In our tale... the King doesn't come back. He cannot, must not come back," he says. "But your story... it shares some things with ours. A great, terrible ruler, betrayed and cast down." He looks to Eon. "I cannot say too much. The story of the King in Rags is taboo. But he must remain forgotten. None may speak any of his... its names. If it returns, our people will be put in bondage worse than anything you can imagine."

Journey to the Center of the Elves

"Someone has definitely been spreading it, so we can conclude your people are in danger. Are there any weapons that would be effective against such an entity? Any magics that could banish him again?" Eon is thinking this through. They can't just allow these elves and probably others to be taken over by a supernatural conqueror.

[Journey to the Center of the Elves]

While the group is distracted with the tale, Korrina plunges her hand into her book up to the elbow. She extracts a mere wisp of smoke. She breathes deeply through her nose, pulling it in, and then breathing it out. It dissipates into the air, but it isn't gone. The surrounding individuals are likely to breath some of the very thin smoke in, which is exactly what she wants. Through the smoke they both breath, she seeks to gain deeper understanding. A minor mental link, so she can derive surface thoughts to gain additional context that is left unsaid. That done she simply closes her eyes and clears her mind, a blank canvas to receive and give nothing back.

[Shadowcaller]

[Journey to the Center of the Elves]

Zhareen scratches her head. This sounded bad!
Was this story connected to some greater scheme perhaps? Fey were know schemers!

"This does sound like the kind of problem the fourth tower is made to deal with. Since it sounds like this story has been spread anomalously which means that someone or something is trying to bring him back. What we must do is to create a counter-narrative to make sure he doesn't return in the first place." She strokes her chin as she considers.

She has completely forgotten about Korrina for the moment and doesn't see her ritual taking place. "Is there any creature or place closely tied to this king?"

[Rebonack]

[Rolling Hills]

The other putti point and laugh at the putti that just got shot.

So much for camaraderie.

"Please refrain from firing on fellow Aspirants until the designated phase of the tutorial," the Servant informs Eao. Man, just ruining ALL the fun. "Congratulations, Aspirants! You have completed the target practice phase of the tutorial. Now for the surprise phase."

Now that the targets are destroyed, the air shimmers again as something MUCH larger appears.

A hulking creature perhaps twenty feet tall covered in greasy black hair. It has the hooves and tail of a cow, claws like a mole, and a bear-like face with huge boar-like tusks and flaming eyes.

It doesn't appear friendly in the least.

"It is a buggane who wants to kill you! Surprise!"

With a bellow the huge faerie lashes out with one of its massive claws and absolutely pulverizes the putti that Eao had stunned.

What a great surprise.

[bc56]

Rolling Hills

"Aww, not even a little?" Eao seems vastly disappointed at the news that she shouldn't shoot other aspirants. She aims her lance at the Servant, measuring her odds of taking it down, when the buggane appears. Quickly, she drifts away from it, takes aim, then fires a crystal dart at its head.

Selekhael on the other hand panics, dashing away the creature, then flying even further. She points her shotgun shakily at it, fires, and... She's too far away.
She pulls out her pistol, a weapon made from rotting flesh barely clinging to withered bone, and fires off a few entropic projectiles with little accuracy.

[Morty]

[Walk in the Woods - Thariza]

Now there's lava. That's just great. She's not unused to lava, the Flame Legion seem to find lava everywhere they go, but that doesn't mean she likes it. She dodges and rolls backwards, which carries her further than it should in a flurry of Mist energy. She lands and puts her right hand on the ground, gathering power to summon the spectre of a Charr spellcaster, who begins to bombard the creature with chilling bolts. Hopefully that will slow it down.

[Journey to the Center of the Elves]

Ramuq's surface thoughts are loud and clear to Korrina: he's very afraid. He's confronted with his people's deep, primal fear, suddenly brought to him by a trio of strangers. He doesn't know what to do and his thoughts are scrambling for a solution. Zhareen and Eao's questions don't seem to help him much, as he simply does not know much.

"There are dark fey who yet remember him, or wish they did. Where they dwell, I do not know," he says. "Nor do I know of any magic or weapons that could harm or imprison one of the Gentry." He licks his lips. "I think you need to speak to someone else. I've already said too much and I don't know this story very well. Perhaps... our speaker, who communicates with our patron the most."

[bc56]

Journey to the Center of the Elves

"That might be wise. We will do everything in our power to help protect your people." Eon tries to be reassuring. He's a wise old man, he can do that right?

[Purple Eagle]

[Rolling Hills]

The other putti are laughing at the one that just got shot, what a bunch of jerks! Then the Servant speaks, and... wait... 'designated phase of the tutorial' implies there's a point where they'd have to fight each other. He being an Outsider, plus the sinister undertones he detected once before, they give him reason to be on his guard.

The surprise appears, and Zabb instantly recognizes it as bad news. Welp, time to practice holding back! He starts to prepare an attack when he notices the trouble Selekhael is having. Deciding to help her, he drifts over to her. "Lemme help, Selekhael! You can do it!" If she wants the help, that is.

[Gullara]

[Journey to the Center of the Elves]

Hm, Korrina was hoping to get a bit more out of that. No matter, there were others around. Her techniques won't be so necessary if they're going to start being so forthcoming now, however.

[Rebonack]

[Tidepools]

Wait why isn't this Seaside? Clearly it is because this is the coast of Outside and not some weird island somewhere.

So!

Snapdragon is out here. Getting out here was something of an adventure in and of itself. With her newly acquired allergy to iron riding Riftline didn't feel like a great plan, so Snap took a cab! Thankfully the flying saucer taxis are operated by a bunch of extra-dimensional entities and so the vehicles are made of psychic space energy instead of metal. Snap isn't sure if her allergy is triggered by other smelted metals but she would rather not find out while careening around in a flying saucer.

The gaiad is much like the others that have popped up around Inside of late. Lower body of a deer, upper body of a beautiful woman with flowers in her hair. She's wearing a t-shirt with GIANT ENEMY CRAB written upon it in bold block letters superimposed over a picture of, you guessed it, a giant crab. She's carrying a satchel full of equipment in little padded containers to proof them against her compulsive frolicking. Wouldn't want calipers getting bent now would we?

Prancing down a sandy trail to the tidepools below, Snapdragon gets right to work.

"Weeeeeell good afternoon all you crabdaddies and crabladies! Your pal Snap is here to take some very important measurements so if you wouldn't mind skittering out where I can see you all that would be great!" she yells, arms spread with and smile spread wider.

...nothing happens.

Her expression gradually wilts as her arms slowly lower.

"Aaah fiddlesticks. Hehe! Well, it was worth a shot anyway!" she laughs as she goes skipping, sure hooved, across the boulders. "Guess we're doing things the old fashioned way, Mister Krabs."

She grabs a large rock and rolls it over, revealing a varied collection of hermit crabs, rock crabs, porcelain crabs, brittle stars, and one banana yellow seaslug.

"Hey guys! Would you mind just shooping into your shell for a bit?" she says as she scoops up a hermit crab and pulls out her calipers. Measure the big claw. Measure the highth and width of the shell. Plop the crab onto the scale for weight. Once done the crab will be placed in a pool near the overturned rock and another crab is collected.

Exciting stuff, right?


[Rolling Hills]

The putti begin running and firing wildly. Their aim is pretty terrible.

Lapis draws her sword (of course she does) and charges straight toward the buggane! The huge beast sweeps its claw at her, only for her sword to flare out into a searing hot shield to block the attack! The buggane howls in frustration, pulling back its sizzling claw just in time to get brained with a crystal dart. That's followed up with several chunks getting blasted out of it by Arukhael's rifle and of course the lightest peppering from Selekhael since she ran away instead of staying close.

It's a QCB weapon, Selekhael! Okay, sure, pew at the huge monster with your entropy pistol. Sure, that works. But the temporal spread gun will work better!

The buggane isn't very happy about this at all, but seems most immediately annoyed with Eao. The crystal lance hurts! The giant fae does the only sensible thing by ripping off his own head and hurling it at Eao.

Wait, what?

The monster's head will explode in a tremendous fireball upon striking any solid surface, washing the area in ghostly, phantasmal flames. Against normal fire Eao is quite resilient, but against this impossible faerie stuff? Yuck!

[bc56]

Rolling Hills

"I've, uh, never shot a thing with a gun before, uh, today." Selekhael replies. And that buggane is terrifying. She doesn't want to go near it. "I, uh, guess I can do this?" Time. Entropy. A blast of power that tears a rift through reality to banish something elsewhere and elsewhen. But that buggane is big. She definitely can't get the whole thing inside the effect.

Eao gets burned by ghost flames! She jumps back and takes to the air, smouldering. She switches weapons as well, pulling out the growth aligned grenade launcher she took off a putti a while back. Not her preferred weapon, but a good one against the big threats.

[5a Violista]

[Tidepools]

A woman comes walking by the this area. Ordinarily, she'd probably just glance at the tidepools and look at them a bit, but just ignore them. However, she spots someone there and gets a little curious about what they're doing.

She turns down the path towards Snapdragon, and (in order to not get sand all in her shoes) gets on the boulders. She starts to hop from one to the next, going towards the gaiad. "Hi!" she calls out as she nears. "What are you doing?" Because of the topography, she can't quite see exactly what Snapdragon is doing yet; she'll have to get closer.

The woman is wearing a dark cloak with its hood up that covers most of her figure, most of her face, and...it's kinda dark-colored which is sad. Because bright colors are better. "Oh! Sorry," she says, having realized she hasn't introduced herself yet even though she already said hi. "I'm Seraphina. Don't call me Sara, though, that's my sister-in-law."

[Rebonack]

[Tidepools]

"Hello!" Snapdragon calls back, waving at the woman hopping closer. "Measuring hermit crabs!"

This is, obviously, a very important thing to be doing.

Or at least Snapdragon thinks it is pretty important.

See, she has a hypothesis about shell selection in hermit crabs that prefer hanging out under boulders vs hermit crabs that like hanging out in the open tide pools. And in order to test that hypothesis she needs CRAB DATA.

Which she is presently acquiring.

But she doesn't say all that, not yet. Though she would certainly like to! Talking about her work is fun and exciting but most people kind of disagree.

"Well nice to meet you, Seraphine, that's a pretty rockin' name! I'll make sure not to nick it up. I'm Snapdragon, but you can call me Snap-"

She snaps her fingers dramatically.

"-if you consider yourself sufficiently hip. What brings you down to the tidepools? Probably not for crab measuring."

For emphasis, she places another tiny crab on her scale and records the mass in her handy water-proof notebook.

[5a Violista]

[Tidepools]

Seraphina hops closer so that she can see the measured hermit crabs. "Sounds like a very important job."

She crouches nearby - not close enough to scare away any crabs, but close enough to see. She laughs: "I'm totes not hip enough for that," she says. "So I'll probably just call you Snapdragon."

She watches the measurement for a bit.
Then, she answers: "Just wandering around, looking for food. Maybe some coconuts, those are really good and I was hoping to have a bunch around for the upcoming holidays. Was hoping a couple fish would get trapped in the tide pools, too. Got a shelter set up over that way." She points inland. "But then I saw you and decided to come over to see what was going on."

She looks at the crabs a bit more. "Y'know, that one-" she points at a particularly large hermit crab "-looks like he might be a proud crab. Maybe if you ask him, he'll tell you his measurements himself."

[Purple Eagle]

[Rolling Hills]

Right now, Zabb's focused on helping Selekhael. "It's easy, I'll show you!" He immediately gets behind her and holds her hands steady, trying to guide her posture with the positioning of his legs. Use "Focus, keep steady, aim where you want the gun to go and fire! I got you, Selekhael! It'll work better if we're closer, especially the shotgun... but we can start from here if you prefer." He says.

Even his voice is smiling and encouraging.

[Earl of Purple]

Tidepool

There's a swell out at sea, something under the water causing it to heap up. The people on the shore should potentially start moving, as it's going to start moving away from whatever's making the lump soon.

When it does, it breaks and a battered roof emerges, followed by a steel framework home to shattered glass and a large bronze mirror, followed by a rounded stone structure, made of hefty concrete blocks covered in chipped white paint, then more and a red stripe appears, then another white, and so on for five total stripes of the lighthouse and the tip of a huge, basalt-covered shell, tipped by a pair of large eyes on a pair of stalks.

[Rebonack]

[Rolling Hills]

Eao swaps weapons! And that's about it. Kinda smoulders a bit, too? Not every exciting.

Selekhael RIPS A HOLE IN THE FABRIC OF REALITY!

Imagine the sound of a bird. The most beautiful, perfect perfect bird you can imagine. Then imagine the sound of that bird being strangled to death. That's the sound reality makes when Selekhael guts it like a fish.

The buggane falls into the rift, but it is too big! This creates a real problem for the buggane, because the rift just stitched itself shut again and took a pretty big chunk of its lower body with it.

Lapis takes this opportunity to leap onto the buggane's back, raise her sword above her head, and then plunge her weapon into the monstrous fae!

It responds by grabbing her tail with one arm and hurling her away.

"Yeep!" Lapis squeaks as she goes tumbling through the air.

Geeze this thing is huge and hard to kill. Headless and legless, though, it shouldn't be too difficult to finish it off, right?

Oh.

Wait.

It just instantly regenerated all of its missing parts. Now the monster is standing up again and charging straight toward Arukhael, who has been pewing away at it with his assault motion the whole time! He decides that now would be a good time to be elsewhere and invokes Growth and Time, stretching a single moment into several seconds as he jogs out of the way. Flee! The buggane's claws dig furrows through the earth where the cherub was a few moments prior.

"GRAH! CHEATING DEVILS! HOLD STILL!" the buggane bellows.


[Tidepools]

"You live out here?" Snapdragon asks, sounding quite surprised. "Just living off the land? Wow that's super neat. Do you get much company all the way out here or is it just occasional weirdos like me measuring crabs?"

Gotta look out for those crustacean measurers.

Snap seriously considers the largest hermit crab.

"Nah, I can't do the whole talking to animals thing like my sister Lambslaural can do. They don't even listen to me. Really, all this nature magic stuff just doesn't make any sense. I keep thinking that maybe if I did just a little bit deeper I'll start finding some sort of underlying mechanics to it but NOPE! Every time it turns out the answer is some permutation of 'just because'. I am soooooo tired of just because!" she declares. "But I won't give up! Not even to weird faerie things! I shall remain a stalwart defender of empiricism."

And then a bulge in the water, followed by part of a lighthouse.

Snapdragon gasps, covering her mouth in disbelief and glee.

"No way... is that...?"

Giant crab eyestalks emerge from the sea next.

"OHMYGOSH it is! It's the colossal crab! QUICK!" Snapdragon says, grabbing Seraphina by the arm. "We've GOT to get up on top of the bluff to watch and also so we don't get clobbered by the tidal wave that thing is THREE MILES WIDE it displaces a ton of water."

She'll try pulling her new acquaintance toward the safty of the tall bluffs overlooking the beach.

[bc56]

Rolling Hills

Oh no! The monster somehow grew all its limbs back! Selekhael shakes free of Asher's assistance and channels growth and entropy at the big thing, hoping to weaken and rot it away. "Why does this, uh, tutorial have to be so dangerous!?" Really, she's worried they're all going to be killed.

[5a Violista]

[Tidepools]

Seraphina nods. "Not sure where else I should go," she says. To be honest, it's not that hard to just live off the land. "Not that many people, but you're definitely the first weirdo I've seen measuring crabs."

She nods some more.
Yeah. Okay. Makes sense. Nature magic stuff. Faerie things. Actually talking to animals. Yeah, makes sense. "Yeah, empiricism is pretty important."

She glances at the emerging lighthouse. Not really sure what it is, Seraphina blinks and stares at it. "Some kind of turtle...?" she suggests, before seeing the eye stalks.

Her left arm's grabbed. (By the way, completely irrelevant, but that's the arm that has a pink-and-black ring on a finger.) "Why do they even come in that size?!?" she shouts as she gets pulled along. Once getting her footing again, she does her best to run along - with her other hand holding her hood down so it doesn't blow off or something as they run.

Seraphina isn't quite as quick as Snapdragon, but she does her best to keep up. She only glances back at the giant rising crab a couple times.

Once they get to the top of the bluff, she looks at it more, because, "Honestly, that's not a crab: that's a mountain." Are they high enough? Do they need to go farther inland?

[Purple Eagle]

[Rolling Hills]

Zabb (because he's never been Asher, due to retconjuration) isn't surprised that Selekhael's rejecting his help. That seems to be a running theme with empyreans that aren't Lapis. The 'do-it-yourself-without-help and then wonder why your efforts are in vain' deal.

If she refuses his help, then who is he to force her? He drifts away, leaving her to figure things out alone.

So that he'll participate, he takes aim at the buggane's head and fires a beam of white-hot fire. It won't take a straight path, though, instead bending at right angles, much like Darkseid's laser beams.