Silly Plots 4: It's not particularly silly, is it?

[bc56]

The House that was Won

Two more rock creatures are destroyed. The passage they were guarding is easily accessible, except... It looks like it would be a tight squeeze for Edgar. Maybe his strength and grace would help him get through? Or maybe they should explore some of the nearby passages to see if there's an easier way into whatever the creatures were protecting? That might involve another fight.

[Deathkeeper]

[The House that was Won]

Edgar peers at the crystal-flanked passage.
"Hey, uh. Aethiir? I don't know if I'm gonna fit in there. And if I do, I'm definitely going to be rubbing against all these crystals. Should we find a way around? If I squeeze through we might have a lot of monsters on our hands from touching all the crystals."
Edgar is pretty sure he could suck in his gut and squeeze through. But crystals can be pretty sharp, and these attract monsters. That's not a good combination.

[bc56]

The House that was Won

"Either way we might encounter a bunch of them. That's probably their nest or something. Maybe we can make it easier to slip through? Do you have grease or something?" If Edgar leaves to find another way, Aethii will follow.

[Deathkeeper]

[The House that was Won]

"Does it look like this uniform has pockets?" Edgar grumbles. Alphonse hadn't given him a bag of provisions like he'd offered so his only options are to brute force it.
Edgar has one other thing to try: he finds some of the bigger crystal growths and chills them before scraping his club down. Maybe if he makes them brittle he can break off some of the bigger chunks and widen the opening a little. Either way he'll try to squeeze his way through.

[bc56]

The House that was Won

Edgar can wriggle through the passage. If he uses his ice powers, he could probably make it a bit slipperier and squeeze through more easily. But regardless of whether he gets through easily or with difficulty, he'll find himself in a much larger chamber, roughly spherical. A number of the creatures are drifting about the edges of the chamber. However, at the center is something more threatening. A blob of magma and crystals hovers in the middle of the chamber. Spherical bubbles are forming on its surface, about the size of the other creatures.

[Deathkeeper]

The House that was Won

"Okay plan: we split up, take out some of the guards. Then you cover me while I try to freeze that spooky core thing." Edgar whispers.
He's not very good at complicated plans, but sometimes simple plans work better anyway.

[bc56]

The House that was Won

"Got it. Hey lava things!" Aethiiraxa flies away from Edgar, blasting the nearest rock creature with water and then diving towards it with her sword. That distracts a number of them, but not all of them. One flies towards Edgar with tentacles outstretched.

[Deathkeeper]

[The House that was Won]

Edgar strolls forward with a deep breath. Raising one hand he blasts the orb with another gust of icy wind, while raising his oversized club with the other for a crushing overhead swing.
It's simple, but it worked last time.

[bc56]

The House that was Won

The combo works again. But it attracts attention, and two more rock creatures dive at Edgar from opposite directions.
Meanwhile, Aethii chops one of them in twain with her blade and whirls around to slice off a tentacle that was coming close to her.

[Murkus]

[The Enchanted Forest]

Adir raises his weapon to aim at the kelpie's head as if to indicate his skepticism about hitting poor Will, but the fact that he doesn't shoot is telling enough. He circles the horse creature and starts to backpedal at an even pace. When he reaches what's left of Owlteeth, he'll crouch down to retrieve the item. He tries not to take his eyes off the kelpie for more than a couple seconds.

"Now I've stolen it," the stag calmly informs the horse. "So if there's some truth in what you say, spit Will up. Now. And I should warn you, you've gotten my hopes up now. He had better be breathing."

[Rebonack]

[The Enchanted Forest]

The horse gives a deep sigh when Adir claims the bridle.

This just isn't going to stop being an unpleasant day for him, is it? At least with Owlteeth gone there's SOME change he'll get his freedom again.

An awful retching noise comes from the horse as a huge lump travels up his neck and his jaw unhinges impossibly wide.

*BLEGH!*

A massive blob of dark colored mud, murky water, and water weeds splats against the road. Then the horse takes a deep breath and blasts the mud heap with a stream of water from his mouth. Just hosing that mud down. And as it gets hosed there is revealed a young human boy! Maybe six years old with dark hair, a few pond weeds still draped across him. He's wearing a green tunic and trousers with a little silver amulet around his neck. He coughs a few times, dripping wet.

"There now, see? Right as rain," the horse says amiably. "Now if you could just give me my bridle back I'll be on my merry way."

What a helpful carnivorous horse.

[Deathkeeper]

[The House that was Won]

Edgar launches himself to the side, landing on his side and somehow rolling up onto his feet.
He has absolutely no idea how he did that. He blames the grace. There are a number of crystals painfully poking into his skin from that stunt, but he isn't on fire so mission accomplished.
Edgar lets out a withering blast of cold at his assailants. He should really learn how to throw around actual ice.

[bc56]

The House that was Won

The two creatures begin to crack and solidify, but they keep moving towards Edgar. If he doesn't smash them or dodge again, they'll slam into him, but being hit with rocks is definitely preferable to being hit with lava.
Across the room, Aethii narrowly dodges a lava tentacle and flies back away from a cluster of creatures so she can spray them with water.

[Deathkeeper]

[The House that was Won]

Edgar takes a swing at the first rock, but finds the club far too cumbersome to swing again immediately. The second monster charges right into him-
sending him onto his bottom but really not nearly as injured as he expected. It was...very unpleasant. And there's several crystals now very painfully lodged into his skin back there. But...well it's just that he was expecting bones to be broken, not a rather unpleasant shove with most of the harm coming from the floor.
Well, he'll have time to think about that later. He goes to whack the other rock with his club as he stands up, swinging up diagonally.

[bc56]

The House that was Won

Edgar smashes one rock and the other hits him. Once it bounces off him, it flies away, back up to the central blob, and submerges itself in the magma there. He has a brief breather, but another creature from across the room is starting to turn towards him, and Aethii is surrounded and desperately hacking at the creatures with her sword.

[Deathkeeper]

[The House that was Won]

Edgar runs over to Aethiir, roaring as he sprays the monsters around her with cold and giving the nearby one a good whack.
"We're gonna be at this all day if we can't blow up that core thing! " It's not like he has any real bright ideas for that though. His only idea is to freeze that thing too, and he can't really do that when they're so many monsters swarming them...

[bc56]

The House that was Won

Three monsters freeze and one of them is summarily shattered. "Blow up? Don't mines normally have explosives of some sort?" That might actually work, if they can retreat, find some dynamite, and then get back in here.

[Zefir]

"The ship wasn't a priority until you volunteered to help."
"But we can dig in."
Spike's Hound, the smaller creature named 'Spot', leaps to the spot Mia pointed out and begins tearing into the ground with its claws. In short order they will all be able to go through the dug-out area and enter the wreck.

They're in the port battery. Several floors, up and down, each with row and row of big lasers. Near the front and back they're more smashed, but near the middle they're intact.
Of course, one major thing isn't working - the power. Lights are off, screens are dark, basic hatches are shut.

[The Underground]

Mia will follow them up, not wondering while Spot can dig so well or at least not showing. Those good demons are still somewhat strange.

Inside Mia will examine the computers. she wants to find out where to look next for the powetr source. She sure got a small one at hand, so in case she can't make it out by studiying the electronics she has to awake one of the terminals.

[Deathkeeper]

[The House that was Won]

"What, just lying around? What are the odds that there's dynamite just lying around? I can't squeeze through that passage with these things trying to kill us!"
Whack! Whack! Please let these monsters let up soon. He can only take care of so many adds.
But he does take a quick look around. The giant core is giving off so much light it wouldn't be hard to spot a thing or two that the miners might have left behind.

[bc56]

The House that was Won

"Then maybe you can bring this place down on them? I doubt even that thing can survive that kind of hit." There's a temporary reprieve in the monsters for now. The surviving ones are clustered near the core in defensive formation, warily avoiding the heroes. Unfortunately, there's no dynamite or equipment of any sort in here.

[Deathkeeper]

[The House that was Won]

"I have a stick and I make things cold, how in the hells are we gonna do that?" Speaking of, Edgar sends his chilling winds at the core and its protectors now that they're all in one place. He can probably keep that going for a while at least. He'll just have to find out if it's any effective at all on the core.
"If you summoned that sword can't you get something else from your hoard to throw at it?"

[bc56]

The House that was Won

"No, it's just a property of the sword." The core and its guards begin to freeze. This is more significant for the guards, as the core is slowly resisting. Aethii joins in, and where her water breath meets Edgar's cold, it creates layers of ice over the guards. They're thoroughly immobilized now and begin crashing to the floor.

[Deathkeeper]

[The House that was Won]

Edgar turns down the temperature as far down as he can. He really isn't sure how long he can hold it. He even lets the club drop to the floor so he can use both hands.
"I'm hitting it with all I got. You're gonna have to whack it or something to finish the job!" Maybe? He's really new to this sort of thing. And it's kind of disorienting that the better they do, the darker it gets in the room.

[bc56]

The House that was Won

The creatures keep solidifying, giving Aethii the perfect opening, diving from above with her sword. She drives it into the core and begins cutting into it, sawing through the outside and exposing more interior magma to be frozen. The black sword shows no signs of damage from this abuse. This process is slow, but the core has no real way to resist. The question is whether Edgar can keep this up long enough. The magic draws on his stamina, so if he has enough, he should be able to do it.

[Deathkeeper]

The House that was Won

Here is one thing becomes very clear: Edgar’s appearance completely belies his abilities. He looks like someone who has never worked a day in his life and has instead sat around and gorged himself. But in reality he is incredibly strong and durable. While he has no training and no finesse aside from the supernatural movements, he has surprising stamina.
If he had to do anything more complicated than what he’s doing, they would be doomed.
Just holding his current position? He can do that.
That doesn’t mean it’s pleasant, though. He’s panting in seconds. He can keep going but it’s an incredibly strange, taxing feeling.
”Just keep going. Taaaaake your time.” he growls. He’s clearly not angry with Aethii, just grumbling at the strain.

[bc56]

"Sheesh! Not even magic swords are made to cut rock," Aethii replies, but she manages to shear a large chunk of solidified outer shell off, where it crashes to the ground, revealing an unusual sight in the center of the core. A single crystal, roughly spherical, floats in the center of a ring of other crystals like a geode. "I bet if I stab that, it dies." So she does, and immediately the remaining creatures cease their struggling and the core slams abruptly into the ground in an explosion of rock dust and crystal shards.

[Deathkeeper]

[The House that was Won]

Edgar lets out a breath in relief. He almost sinks to the floor before he remembers it's covered in pointy crystals and catches himself.
"Nice going, Aethiir. We really gave it something to think about, huh. Do you think uh...that's it? Because I might need your help with something."
Wow it sure is dark in here without the glowing lava monsters. Maybe he should wait until he's outside to ask but he would really rather not wait.

[bc56]

The House that was Won

"I wonder if these are valuable?" Aethii says, picking up one of the crystals. Then she hears Edgar's talking and turns back to him. "Yes? What do you need?" She looks around, but doesn't see any new threats. "It should be safe. I think that thing was controlling all of them somehow." She doesn't know what a hive mind is, so has no reason to suspect one at work here.

[Deathkeeper]

The House that was Won

”Um. When that thing slammed into me I got knocked hard against the floor. And all these crystals. And um. They’re kind of pointy. So I think I’ve got some Uh. Splinters.”
Edgar points to his lower back and posterior as best he can. With his current shape reaching back there is all but impossible.

[bc56]

The House that was Won

Aethii looks. "Hey, nice piercings." She laughs a little and then reaches down to start pulling the crystal shards loose. No doubt it hurts. "That should be all of them. Feeling better? You did well back there." She realizes something and quickly covers. "But now that you're an adventurer, don't get any funny ideas about my hoard."