NPF Avatars IV, Chapter II: The Doom That Came to Earth Temple

[Arhra]

Arhra, hearing Toastburner's pronouncement, stepped back to a judicious distance from Premonitions and slipped on her laser viewing glasses. "Well, if you need that last test, let's get it over and done with so we can get going." Arhra paused for a moment and then said to Rhiya, "You might want to shift forms so everyone wanting to go on dragonback can get ready to go."

Yuri was already departing. Arhra had a Plan B in case her first scheme fell through and she'd entrusted Yuri with the details of it. Really, the less people knowing about it the better. That could compromise her chances. Yuri should be able to get it ready with relative ease. Of course, it was only a fallback - Arhra didn't see the probability of her first plan failing as being very high given what she'd seen so far. She smiled at the thought and settled back to watch the show.

[GARUD]

Garud swept his hair back, and unlatched his rod. He knew it was time. The demonslayer concentrated, crafting his will carefully, and two black raven wings sprouted from his back.

"Nifty. I love sorcery."

Garud took to the skies... and fell. He tried to take off multiple times, but the new wings weren't strong enough. That, and the new weight on his back really was not fit for his spine. Slowly, he reshaped his spinal chord, developing and melding bone. The wings were only temporary, but there was absolutely no way he could fly without the proper support. Finally, after satisfying his needs, he tried to fly again. Success! He was able to stay off the ground. It was a good feeling too. However, his flying was wonky.

"Guess it'll come with practice. Well, they'll do. Ready to go guys?"

[Raiden]

Raiden looked at all those that wandered over to the car.

"Oh come on. That's just taking the easy way out." Raiden latched onto Rhiya, squeezing the girl in a hug.

"I'll ride with the dragon girl!"

[FenrisWolf]

"Sure, it might be taking the easy way out, but unlike some people here, if I die, I don't come back," Fenris said, looking at Raiden.

"And I was going to ride the Rhiya, but then Toastburner showed up again and this time with a car that will both get me there, and keep me alive on the way. So, the way I look at it, this is likely the safest way for me to get there. Besides," Fenris continued, "This is one hell of a comfortable seat."

[Premonitions]

"Is there any more space to cram me in there, or do I have to ride on Rhiya?"
Premonitions hopped no the floating carpet and chuckled. "well, if you're not worried about one of our friends attacking us, you could just relax here on the "Magic carpet"porbably seats about two, but It could stretch to four.

[Skyshot]

Skyshot yelled, "Dibs!" and moved over to the floating carpet.

"So, uh, how do you ride one of these things? And what do you suppose would happen if I cast Levitate on it? Or myself?"

[Rhiya Ravenwing]

Rhiya was happy. More morse-- passengers! This was going to be a FUN roadtrip, she just knew it!

Extracting herself gingerly from Raiden's bearhug, Rhiya gave a squeal of delight as she bounded into a clear patch of grass in Arhra's front yard.

The shapechange was gradual, but dramatic. So dramatic in fact that several spotlights switched on and fixed them on her as she expanded into her second, god-given form.

Rhiya's skin took on a hard, glittering sheen, darkening until becoming a pitiless black that glowed with a deep, blood red from within. Rhiya's clothes melted into this as her body lengthened and enlarged, spikes moulding from limbs and erupting in full horrifying splendor. A patch of Petunias on Arhra's garden lawn perished under one of four wickedly-gleaming paws armed with chaos-diamond talons. Half a tail gave way to a glorious sheath of razor-sharp spikes. Deep, dark eyes gazed out with mild amusement from a smooth draconic head crowned with thorns.

If Rhiya's sketch of her draconic form was ANYTHING to go by, seeing Rhiya take this shape was by far more terrifying since, well... the image would've been blown up to more than a hundred times, and well... there'd be more spikes. Standing with her head just sweeping over Arhra's mansion, Rhiya was a sight to see.

Rhiya grinned and crouched down.

"All aboard," she rumbled.

[PyrosNine]

Pyros sighed. "Oh, nevermind then. Not my world. I suppose when in rome, do as the crazed lazy and pompous romans do."

It seemed that despite his own feelings about the subject, some still chose to ride the dragon girl. Including what appeared to be a thunder deity of some sort. Come to think of it, the deity system of this dimension was quite different, as while this god seemed to lord over thunder, Pyros could sense many others as well. Pyros supposed in a chaotic world, there was no such thing as a united order of elements, like Undine and Co back home.

Though he was quite sure Electrico would have rode any and every dragon on a heartbeat if the whim struck him, and then would do it again 127 times in less than 2 minutes before he got bored and moved on to something else.

Pyros did admit the sight of the Dragon-girl going all dragon was impressive, but it also seemed a bit over the top as far as dragons go. He preferred a middle aged, brown skinned flyer anyday. He wondered of course if he should ride upon the car and follow along, but he had neither been invited upon this quest nor had any of them asked for his help. He would not intrude until he felt a need to, so he'd just keep watching.

He'd just have to wing it and follow them the old fashioned way. While back at home he'd forsworn never to fly upon the earth on which he lived, this earth wasn't the one he lived upon and he doubted anyone would rebuke him for it....Hopefully.

With a slight rearrangement of his armor and moving the blue adornment, Pyros's wings emerged and unfolded. They were white, but a unique white. They were like clouds, pearly white yet with an outline of blue. They were unlike the Fallen's black bat and crow like wings, and Yuna's blood red wings. Meta's own wings were almost like a butterflies, with shades of white and grey.

With only the slightest wing movement, Pyros left the ground, and hovered a bit over the mansion and the draconic bulk of Rhiya.

He would wait for them to leave, and then follow.

[Rhiya Ravenwing]

That is... until Rhiya swung her deadly head around unexpectedly and nearly smashed Pyros out of the sky with a snap of her toothy jaw.

"Don't fly so near me. I tend to snack on small fry that orbit my bulk," she rumbled again, this time a bit more hungrily than before.

[PyrosNine]

"Forgive me for being tiny." Pyros said sounding almost cross, as he flew a bit higher up. As he settled on a safer distance away from her jaws, he calmed down again. "Perhaps I could find you something to eat?"

[Rhiya Ravenwing]

Rhiya-the-dragon perked up, running a serpentine tongue over her large teeth. She grinned - having lack of lips currently - and looked down.

"Well... for starters, anybody that isn't riding me would be a nice snack...."

A bit of saliva splashed onto the ground, sending droplets flying in the general direction of everybody. Rhiya's eyes flashed deviously as she looked down.

"Making myself big-sized takes a lot of effort and energy...."

[Dragonsbane]

A droplet of glowing red magical energy dripped from nowhere onto the ground, flowing into what looked and spread like a pool of lambent blood. Scorched, torn corpses floated to the surface of the pool, spines ripping free from backs like gruesome centipedes, bones wrenching themselves from flesh, to form themselves into a hideously magnificent throne of bone. Suddenly, a living figure lounged in the throne, legs hanging over one skull-capped armrest, black eyes glittering in intense amusement. Dragonsbane favored Rhiya with a wave, a wicked grin, and a gesture that indicated the corpses.

"Hungry?" his tone was a cordial invitation to feast on the mound of still-warm flesh and meat, while the four insectoid-looking bone legs of the throne raised his it out of the mass, and carried it toward her. It was apparent that it could also be used as a saddle.

[Rhiya Ravenwing]

Rhiya's draconic eyes narrowed to slits at the approaching Dragonsbane. Her body lowered itself to emulate that of a leering sneer.

"You think that you can saddle me by sating my hunger? I may willingly carry creatures, but there are consequences to be seated upon me on a bony throne," despite her comments, the others could clearly see that Rhiya was definitely salivating a bit more. Another globe of saliva hit the earth with a resounding Thud!

[Dragonsbane]

Dragonsbane sighed, rolled his black eyes, and patted her on the snout, "Just eat the damned food, Rhiya, it's still nice and warm."

[Rhiya Ravenwing]

There was a moment's pause inbetween Dragonsbane's words and Rhiya's next action. The dragon started off with a draconic, rumbling laughter, then nudged the mage playfully, causing the throne to skitter sideways awkwardly.

"Thanks for the free meal," she chuckled as she stretched forward and plunged her jaws into the fleshy, still-warm mass.

"Awww, you've even included Flamers and Troll meat! How sweet," she said through intermittent chews.

[Dragonsbane]

"What can I say? I have a soft spot for dragons and creatures of mass destruction." He replied cheerfully, smiling despite the draconudge and scritching under her jaw, "You eat it all, plenty of energy for you, dragon-girl."

His throne clambered forward, onto her back, with the legs extending and locking around her like a harness...or a decorative bit of armor. He pulled a lever made from a human tibia, and it reclined, allowing him to sit comfortably while the dragon fed

[Mesden]

And with the comfortable seating came a very uncomfortable poke from a very pointy, golden sword.

When Dragonsbane looked at the annoyance, there stood Mesden in all of her suprising lack of glory for a Goddess over something that's as flashy as ethereal energy.

With a small, odd look she spoke to the Mage, "You're dammmmn creepy, you know that?"

She gestures towards the chair...made of bones. And the mass of meat the gurgled its way into existance.

"I mean, seriously. This stuff is just plain creepy."

[Bailey]

Hearing the comment about energy, Syttulg spoke up.

"Hey Rhiya, remind me some time that we aren't busy saving the world to make a batch of the symbiotic algae that's in my skin to give to you. The stuff is delicate, so it takes a day or two to make if you don't want it eating your internal organs, but it might help with your energy situation."

[Truce]

Ecurt was still in the crater, though he had inexplicably healed his wounds for quite a while now. He just didn't feel like going back inside since it would mean that he would be greated with death, destruction, and rainbows. Instead, he just waited until everybody was about to leave.

From the beginning, he hadn't planned on going with the rest of them. He would trail them, as it was his duty to be on damage control. It didn't look like Earth itself would be in too much danger this time, but you could never tell what the NPFers might actually do, and with Nein around chances were that he was going to be blamed for it all.

[Toastburner B]

"Alright, I think that's all the seats I have." TB said. He then gazed over at Premonitions.

"Oh, come on, do you have any ground to be whining about being attacked? I seem to remember something about a sword and me exploding...I mean, if you're going to kill me, at least be unique about it. I've been stabbed and blown apart more times than I can remember...the reason why I'm not mad at Garud is because I've never been hugged to death before...it was unique...original. If you're going to TK, at least TK, in style."

TB stopped to consider his own words for the moment. "You know...lasers aren't very stylish." He pushed a button, and the lasers popped back down into the trunk, whiched closed. "Of course...death is not the only punishment I can inflict." TB said with an evil grin, as he reached into his pocket. He pulled out a small radio. "May I suggest we get moving? Or at least plug your ears...you aren't going to want to hear this...it's the John Lennon Hour on K-HELL radio." Flipping the power switch on, TB threw the radio at Premonitions, and dived into his car.

The radio came to life with a most horrid sound.

TAKE THE LAST TRAIN TO CLARKSVILLE, AND I'LL MEET YOU AT THE STATION! YOU CAN BE THERE BY 4:30, 'CAUSE I MADE YOUR RESERVATION! DON'T BE SLOW! NO NO NO NO!!!...JOHNNY, WHY AREN'T YOU SINGING?!

I'm not singing because I don't know the [Expeletive: Something about a bartender, a horse, and a priest] to the [Expeletive: Involving a pair of scissors, a pianst, and a physically impossible act] song! It's by The [Expeletive: The Queen of England, an electrical socket, and Godzilla...you make the connection] Monkees! How am I suppose to know words to a sing I never [Expeletive: Some rubbish about a car battery, the Hoover dam, and a Great White shark]?!

OMGOMGAreweontheair?IlikedTheMonkees,butnotasmucha sIlikedyouandtheBeatles,John,atleastuntilyouandthe witchovertherebrokeuptheband.ButIlikeyouanyways,ev enthoughshekilledme,andIkilledher,andnowwe'reinHel l,butIgettobeonyourradioprogram,whichisgreatand-

Oh for the love [Expeletive: Something about the Creator doing a genetic unwise act]! I thought I got a restraining order against you!

"Quick, get in and lets go before Yoko Ono starts singing again!" TB yelled.

[Premonitions]

"So, uh, how do you ride one of these things? And what do you suppose would happen if I cast Levitate on it? Or myself?"
Premonitions gave his new companion a rather unsettling smile "You, just sit somewhere. I'll have to stand, I'd suggest using that spell of yours, might make it last longer. Ohh, and uhh. get ready to jump if it starts fading."

[PyrosNine]

Somewhere out there in the great wide dimensionverse o'fun, PyrosNine sneeezed.

"Damn...I feel like someone else just stepped on the grave of one of my own jokes..."
---------------------------------------------------------
Meanwhile, Somewhere in the Alps...

"Helen, do you think that the memories we have shared together on this cold mountain, will remain with us forever to warm our hearts?"
"Oh Phillip..."
"And yet, I want more than memories, for they are only lavish pictures to be hung upon the gold embroidered walls of our minds, and to be leapt in during our dreams."
"Oh Phillip! More than Memories?"
"Yes. I want to be with you forever, so that I won't need such things to idly gaze upon in my olden days! FOREVER!"
"Oh Phillip! Forever?"
"Yes Helen. And the only thing that can bind young birds of love such as ourselves for all eternity is...marriage!"
"Oh Phillip!"
"Helen....Will you marry me?"
"Oh....PHILIP! There's someone watching us!"
"Wha?"
"I see a red light up there and I see the outline of someone's head!"

Asheth winced. She'd been spotted. As she remained in the ceiling space clinging to the AC system, her tape recorder's recording light must have been seen.... Perhaps she could just cover it up, and they'd keep going...

"What? I don't see anything!"
"Look right there Philip! You can see where it's lighting through the flesh of a hand!"
"Oh...Now I see it. HEY YOU! Get out of there!"

"Oh Phooey!"

Asheth slid away a ceiling panel and slowly eased her way out, hanging upside down with her ankles wrapped around the AC ventilation. Fortunately she was wearing a climate appropriate clothing for the area other than her normal persian garb, or else there would have been indecent exposure in this act.

"Oh...Forgive me Darlin's, I'm afraid I needed to use ya'll for some re-search, and had to go under them covers. Y'know!"

"What? You just come down from there and go! You've disturbed my ladyfriend!"

Asheth dropped down and landed gracefully on her hands, then went from a handstand to a roll to a stand, using every bit of those 3 years of Gymnastics World.

"OH Come on! I'm needin' some juicy romance talk so I can lasso me one of my own for sugar talkin'!" Asheth got down on both knees to beg.

"What? Get lost, you weirdo!"
"Actually, I happen to have this "Get hitched in less than 30 days" book you could probably use then."

The man who had been called Phillip held up a 'Complete and Total Idiot's guide' in the dim lighting of the nighttime ski resort. "I picked this up in the lobby and it's been working fine for me."

"True like honeyed oats and butter? Can I have it?"

"The lobby? Have you been reading from this book? Why would you need a thing like that, Phillip?"

"Umm...Umm..." Phillip flipped through the book quickly and got to the page entitled 'What to do when you've blown your cover and revealed this book's existence':

Step 1: Get rid of the book, you ditz!

Step 2: Stop reading, and DO IT NOW!

Step 3: Also, DUCK!
"Wha-" SLAP!

Phillip got a red handmark imprinted on him by Helen. She was indignant.

"I can't believe you Phillip! And to think I was this close to marrying you after you used some cheap dirty book!"

"I know! I do declare, that boy's dirtier than a two-timin rat that done fallen in the manure pile!"

"Well, Actually the book was a good $50 bucks at retail..though I think I might have overpaid a bit....but at least it was working!"

Step 4: Shut up you, you're not helping your case!

Step 5: Also, $50 is a fair and reasonable price, considering how much you actually pay to be here in the Alps. Can you believe a martini in any Swiss Alp's resort costs over $100!? It's highway robbery, believe you me!

"If this is the basis of all our love, then I know when to give it up! Goodbye Philip! I hope I never see you again!"

"You go girl!"

Helen stormed off, leaving Asheth and Phillip alone in the Resort hall as it overlooked the rest of the mountain and the quaint easily snow buried cottages.

Phillip sat down upon a nearby bench and sighed. "Well, darn! I rented this Alps resort for the honeymoon too! Now what am I going to do?"

Asheth playfully wrapped her hair around her finger and blushed. "Well, you are here with little ole me...I'm quite the available."

Phillip looked Asheth over, then decided to check the book on this one:



Step 1-10: RUN! RUN AND NEVER STOP! RUN LIKE A SNOWMAN OUTTA HELL!


Phillip bolted down the corridor just as the snow began to come down, laying a gentle white blanket upon the still sleeping resort, through which Asheth ran after Phillip in the pale light of the moon as it peaked through the clouds.

"Oh darlin, don't be that way! Come back!"

Step 11: RUN FASTER!
------------------------------------------------------------------
(back at Arhra's.)
Pyros was a bit miffed that this Dragonsbane person was now feeding the dragon lady dead corpses and had saddled her with bones, but at least she wasn't snapping at him anymore, and she seemed happy about it all.

But he did realize the fellow he crashed into was still hurting from their earlier encounter.

Pyros flew down to Ecurt and picked him off the ground.

"Oh, do forgive me, I'm afraid I forgot about you. This world's chaos doth make me absent minded. Are you alright?"

(Addition: Also, Ecurt, if you're ever going to be Esheth again, If you don't want to talk like Rogue with the Louisiana drawl like you did before, I found a link on Southern American English! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_American_English))

[Truce]

"Are you alright?"

It was supposed to be such a simple question, but Ecurt was having trouble finding the answer. Though, from one perspective, his body was in working condition, a person had to take into account that he had been through a lot since Christmas. His life was a train wreck, the world was about to be destroyed, and most of all he was sure that Pyros was acting...normal.

"No, I don't think I'm alright. I'm not alright at all. Then again, when has that ever stopped me?"

Standing on his own feet, he brushed the dirt off his clothes, before looking up to the sky. It was a beautiful day outside today, and one would not ordinarily assume that beyond those cloud free heavens was a multicolor armageddon heading their way. If he focused though, he could sense the disturbance, somewhere in that black abyss.

It gave him the same feeling of dread that Asheth gave him, truth be told.

"It's time, I suppose."

With motions not unlike a conductor, Ecurt willed the invisible threads of reality to be woven together. First he formed a concept in his mind, imagining what the object would be, about what it would look like and what its purpose was. Then he focused on the tiny details, such as the details of its construction, its dimensions and capabilities. Finally, dramatically pointing to the ground that was in front of him, he called forth his creation with a single word: "Prodeo."

Without a flash or a bang or any effects of the sort, it simply appeared, as if it had just been pasted into the world. His almost forgotten motorcycle, from way back in the original NPF Adventure, had returned, if modified to be fit for use by a human, as it's first design had been designed for a duck. Bigger, sleeker, and with a new sidecar in place, this cruiser also sported a new emblem, a symbol that inspired fear everywhere except the hardiest of fools--Asheth in a wedding dress.

"Get in," he said, putting on a helmet that vaguely resembled the head of a mallard. "And you'd better buckle up nice and tight."

[PyrosNine]

"Me? You desire my company? Very well then, I shall come with you." Pyros said, always happy to make new friends. He enjoyed the way this motorcycle looked as well, and the picture of the woman in the dress, while a bit girly for a motorcycle, was a pretty sight.

She did seem familiar though. Maybe Kings would know...never mind.

Pyros, always the goody two shoes, buckled up tight, and even then made sure both hands and feet were in the vehicle at all times. He even put on the helmet that had been in the side compartment, which looked like a stuffed cat with long hair. It seemed like something a child would where, with it's plush fur, but Pyros just assumed that this was the way helmets were in this world.

"I am ready for vehicular travel, Mister-...by the way, what is your name?"

[Truce]

Ecurt paused for a moment, wondering if something was wrong with Pyros.

...it was a really short moment.

"I'm Ecurt," he said as he settled into his own seat on the motorcycle. He had no reason to lie, or ask any questions that may initiate any change from this much less chaotic version of Pyros.

[Skyshot]

You, just sit somewhere. I'll have to stand, I'd suggest using that spell of yours, might make it last longer. Ohh, and uhh. get ready to jump if it starts fading."Sure thing," Skyshot answered. "This lasts about an hour."

He silently focused on the carpet a moment. "Levitate."

(OOC: Premonitions, it's your carpet, so I'll leave the result's description up to you. Levitate, on most targets, just makes them float a foot or so above the ground.)

After he finished, he wished he hadn't cast it. He had been below his maximum mana reserve before he arrived, and given that he was about to be thrust into a life-or-death situation with no apparent tactical plan in place, he was going to need every bit he could manage.

Oh well. He could meditate along the way. Hopefully that'd get him where he needed to be for the coming battle.

[FenrisWolf]

As the car sped off, Fenris leaned back in his seat and sighed.

"Finally, after all this time, I'm starting to actually be useful again!"

'Psh, you haven't even done anything but be poisoned.'

'Oh, leave him alone.'

Fenris looked around, startled. "Did somebody just say something?"

(OOC note: No, nobody just said something.)

[Premonitions]

It came, screaming out of nowhere, the horrible sound Came crashing down upon them. Premonitions jumped off the carpet and screamed madly"AHHH KILlITKILLITLKILLIT!" He kicked it into the air and whipped out his laser pistol. He fired as amny shots as his trigger finger would let him. And waited for it to hit the ground, then fired into it again, the horrible screeching and drunken cursing filling his ears.

Premo growled and produced a rather large bomb. He lit it with a laser blast and ran to the carpet. He stood up and shifted his feet. The carpet shot up into the air, Skyshot barely clinging to the fabric beneath him. the stopped abrubtly high above the mansion. Premonitions sank down on the flying carpet with a heavy sigh as he heard the bomb go off down below. but then.. a noise, like.. like.. something they'd play in hell, like music, but evil, like...
"OH GOD-DAMMIT!"
flying up towards them. He had precious little time, He whipped out the Home-run bat "Come on. Come on" The speaker came zooming into view. Prem tightened his grip, gritted his teeth and began to charge,the bat sparked and he began glowing. He Held his breath as it came, screaming something about walruses, "NOW!" he swung the bat, It connected with a loud crash and sent the bringerof pain flying over the horizon. He sighed deeply once again and dropped the bat over the edge. It clunked down somewhere beneath him and he faintly heard what he thouhgt was a voice cry out in pain. He got up and shifted his feet again, his right one pointing forward, the carpet shot off.

[PyrosNine]

"Very nice to meet you, Mr. Ecurt. I am called Pyros. Though some call me Pyros of the nine, and on one continent of my world they call me Efreet. But that's just because me and Ifrit are still gotten confused with due to some races not knowing about the passing of the torch."

Pyros caught himself. There he was, telling so much information to a new acquaintance, information that this person wouldn't understand in the least. Perhaps he could just sum it up.

"I'm from another dimension!" Pyros blurted out.

[Tarrin]

Tarrin looked on with an exasperated look on his face, He had seen the large dragon swipe at piros and had decided to fly a little higher from Rhiya's area.

[Flarecobra]

I took off after them, having to use quite a bit of speed in order to catch up to the others.

[Dragonsbane]

And with the comfortable seating came a very uncomfortable poke from a very pointy, golden sword.

When Dragonsbane looked at the annoyance, there stood Mesden in all of her suprising lack of glory for a Goddess over something that's as flashy as ethereal energy.

With a small, odd look she spoke to the Mage, "You're dammmmn creepy, you know that?"

She gestures towards the chair...made of bones. And the mass of meat the gurgled its way into existance.

"I mean, seriously. This stuff is just plain creepy."


"Mesden, I'm evil. I'm a horrific, ancient being of untold power devoted to destruction and conquest. I burn peasant villages, I sack cities, I ride dragons. Of course I do some creepy things." He flicked her sword away, his robes as protective as plate armor despite their soft, silky nature.

[Darth SS]

Darth was on Rhiya. Near the back. Specifically, at the moving, thrashing tail. It was quite a fun ride, akin to being on a bull machine, or a real bull.

"Are-"

He gagged as he was thrown around some more.

"-we-"

Some more thrashing, Darth almost fell, and he could swear he took a bug to the face.

"-there yet?"

[Mauve Mage]

Unlike Darth, Mauve was quite comfortably seated in the ToastMobile. She buckled her seatbelt (Safety First, you know) and put her hat on her lap.

Fenris looked around, startled. "Did somebody just say something?"

The mage looked over at him and shook her head.

"Nope," she said. Her eyebrow rose. "Why, are you hearing things?"

[FenrisWolf]

"Nope," she said. Her eyebrow rose. "Why, are you hearing things?"
"Oh, uh... Nope! Everything's fine here!" Fenris said hastily, and looked down at his lap, with a long look on his face.

'What the fuck just happened?' he thought to himself, and pondered over the issue.

[Skyshot]

Skyshot hung on tight until Newton's laws allowed him to sit somewhat comfortably on the carpet. Once he settled himself and felt partially assured his companion wouldn't slaughter him on a whim, he began to silently think through his list of spells. He figured he could cast Armor, Bless, and Sanctuary before he arrived and still recover enough mana to battle whatever was ahead. Of course, since this seemed to be an earth-based being, he would have to cast Levitate on himself and anyone who asked when he arrived. Fortunately, Levitate wasn't that costly a spell, at least in small quantities.

He closed his eyes, slipped into a meditative state, and prepared to commune with the gods. Despite anything the skeptics had to say, there was nothing like it. A faint smile crossed his lips. A good, solid, battle to the death right after a brief time of refreshment. He hadn't had one of those in years.

[Mesden]

She shot a despising look at Dragonsbane, one that would melt most mortal being by the sheer contempt the welled in her burning red eyes.

"YOU'RE one of those bastards that's always sending HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS of people to 'oblivion' every other day, aren't you? FUCK MAN! You know how much work that is for me? Oh, and casting beings straight into the void is a LOT OF FUCKING WORK for me to drag out. Sadistic megalomaniacs HAVE to be one of my peaves and you just embody it, don't you? Oh, and drop the 'I'm age old and uber powerful' dealie. Gloating's unbecoming for frail little mages."

Everything she said seemed to just get angrier and angrier until that final point, where she shot a snide remark right at him.

She replaced her sword in the temporal hold it seemed to have at her side and kept her own seat atop Rhiya, not opting for some magnificent self made chair since, well, show offy is overdone.

[Arhra]

And so the 'heroes' set off in their diverse means of transportation. To say the trip, only an hour or two in length, was entirely without incident would be a damn lie. The people and animals who lived in the area had significant experience with the NPF'ers, so they knew to seek shelter when they saw them coming. The amount of collateral damage they could inflict when out on a quest was the stuff of legend. They were treated with the kind of wariness given to any kind of free roving natural disaster waiting to happen.

Mumblings about how most living things run away screaming at the sight of organised groups of NPF'ers aside, Arhra had everyone make a landing some distance away from the Gate. It had been proven to be cradled in a ring of mountains and was miles across. Their erstwhile leader had made it very clear that flying too close to the Gate itself was suicide.

With much grumbling about the trek across the rough terrain, they crested the top of the ridge and looked down into the valley the Gate was built in and got a nasty surprise. There, swarming like vermin in makeshift encampments were what could only be described as cultists.

Looking a little closer, it seemed they were trying a little too hard to look like cultists. Some were clad in makeshift robes, black, deep red and purple predominating. They were absolutely bedecked in garish trinkets, some truely bizarre and horrible looking talismans right alongside what looked like cheap plastic. A profusion of different, supposedly diabolically significant symbols clashed with no thought or pattern to their organisation.

These were not cultists, these were cultist wannabes. Deemed unfit to join even the most accepting of cults, even as cannon fodder and general minions. Despite their overwhelming passion for forbidden lore, they couldn't recognise it if an Elder God wandered up to them and dumped a book of its maddening prophecies in their laps.

Still, they didn't pause to ask questions, a number raised a number of assorted weapons (genuine sacrificial knives the magazine said!) and charged. Others chanted nonsense while they scuffed inlegible designs in the ground, grabbed at talismans, mumbled poorly spelt phrases from tomes and generally looked like idiots. It was going to be a bloodbath...

OOC: Apologies for the slight delay. The swarm of cultist wannabes (http://forum.nuklearpower.com/showpost.php?p=421096&postcount=14) is a Cakewalk. Feel free to bathe in their blood.

[Skyshot]

Muffled laughter was heard from Skyshot, who looked with both amusement and bemusement upon the hordes of weirdos heading their way.

"What god or gods do these people think they serve?" he asked nobody in particular, nonetheless hoping for an answer. "Well, there's only one way to deal with a horde of fake cultists."

"Point and laugh?"

"Beg for a handout?"

"Introduce them to your gods?"

Skyshot took up Nightstorm and gripped it two-handed, awaiting the swarms heading their way.

"Vigorous caning."

[Flarecobra]

I landed, and chuckled. "Awwww....How cute! Perhaps when we're done we can take some home as pets. Or slave labor at least." I said, getting my spear.

[PhoenixFlame]

Phoenix exited the car and took a gander at the cultist wannabes hanging out in the valley's makeshift encampments. They were, as Flare had said, almost cute, but something about cultists made them less so than fluffy bunnies and small puppy-dogs. Vampire-Phoenix strode foward with an almost cordial glee toward the cultists, her massive handgun swinging playfully in hand like a cheery schoolgirl.

"Watchy'a doin?" she cheerily asks the first cultist she came across, a haggard young man in a crimson red robe, perusing a bookstore copy of "The Necronomicon" while chanting something in sumerian over a very un-perfect circle. In addition, his sumerian was very poor.

"ECAH... Um... Uh, IA! SHENBUNNINUG GWUI!" the man tried to proclaim, glaring angrily at Phoenix.

"Oh-kay!" She cheerily said, shooting the cultist wannabe a thumbs-up, and jumping inside the red sidewalk-chalk pentagram etched into the stony ground.

"H-hey! You're messing up my Ctulthu summoning!" the man whined, drawing a silver dagger... Okay, so it was a silverware butterknife, which, not being silver, was rather nickle-plated stainless steel. But the cultist in question THROUGHLY believed it was silver. "Now I've gotta start all over again from gate one. Man, you suck!" He whined some more, his overly-overdone goth face-makeup running down his cheek as he appeared to fight back tears.

Phoenix smiled.

"Oh! I'm sorry." she replies innocently, "Here, lemme give you a hug..." extending her arms.

"Nobody loves me..." The cultist moaned, and lurched forward to hug Phoenix, who promply sunk her fangs into his neck. "Ghkt!" he exclaimed, and began to feebily struggle. Years of mountain-dew consumption and corporal morfication left the poor man very unable to combat a powerful vampire, however. His blood tasted something like rotten motor oil mixed with soy sauce, but Phoenix took what she could get. After all, it was probably the last time she'd get to feed for quite some time.

[FenrisWolf]

When the car landed, Fenris got out, and being the gentleman that he is, offered Mauve a hand to help pull her out of the vehicle. (OOC: Mauve, if you want or don't want to accept it, either way is fine for me.)

Fenris stood by the car, and surveyed where they had landed, and he surveyed the wannabe cultists.

"Oh, great, we're already getting into a fight. Barely even have time to stretch our legs..."

[Flarecobra]

"Come on, it's not like they are any REAL threat." I said, grabbing one, spinning him around, and grabbing his wrist, while trapping his other arm between his body and mine. "Hell, his knife is just a rubber one painted Silver!" I kicked him away. "Come back when yoOW!" I said as I felt a shock. I turned, saw another one mumbling, as I nailed him in the face with a fireball, the Tazer that he hit me with flying.

[Dragonsbane]

"CHILDREN OF DARKNESS!" Dragonsbane boomed in a magically amplified, world-shaking voice, deep and roaring like some mighty behemoth, "Know thy master, for I have come to instruct ye!"

He ignored Mesden, pillars of eldritch green flame erupting from the earth at the feet of the cultists. Dark shapes stirred within, forming themselves into immense, winged figures holding massive swords, clad in molten armor.

He raised one hand, and continued, "Yet...only one thing prevents this. You must first toss off the shackles of life. Fortunately, I am here to help." he gestured, and the Doomguard, the demons he had summoned, tore into the cultists, taking care not to damage their bodies too greatly.

[Mesden]

"Why're we even bothering with them?" Mesden said, walking right into the crowd.

One of the cultists lashed out and assailed her with his seemingly exquisite katana.

...which kind of just hit her shoulder without so much as a noticeable crease in her dress.

"They're using fake weapons! What the hell!?!" she said, snapping the wouldbe weapon in two with her fingers.

With a thrust of her palm, the cultist wannabe keeled over. With a snap, the next one to assail her fell lifeless.

"Oh GOD! They're sentient and so pathetic they can't even hold on to their souls!"

After he last display, she just kind of made her way aways from the mass, only opting to kill those that assaulted her.

"You guys are idiots if you expect me to fight those...things."

[Darth SS]

Darth was a bit wobbly. He ran over to an open chunk of ground and punch out a small crater. Then he threw up into the hole, filling it up to the brink. A small cultist was running at Darth, so Darth just back handed him. Unfortunately, the cultist landed in the little bowl of vomit.

"Oh...oh god..." said the cultist, "Oh GOD, it's everywhere...it's...oh god, it's in my ceremonial cuts...oh god..."

The sheer grossness of this just made Darth vomit more. And, unfortunately, he didn't have another hole, forcing him to reuse the same one again. This, obviously, compounded the problem. Darth spun and ran away from the horrible icky mess he'd created.

"Clean up on plane of existence 4!"

Of course at this point, Darth noticed the rest of the cultists. His hand drifted by his handgun. Nah. He opted instead for his katana.

"Tremble, ye little men, lest ye find thyselves in a punch bowl of stomach contents, as your friend has!"

The first cultist was actually submerged and drowning. In the vomit. It was a...horrifying sight, one assured to haunt Darth's nightmares for years to come. The rest had the fight taken right out of them.

[Tarrin]

The NPFers were in fine form, Not one of the offending wannabes stood behind the line of scrimage.
Tarrin looked to the left where a bunch of the enemies were massing ....Kind of massing, A more acurate way of describing it would be huddeling in fear, But details arn't important.

"You know the others can clear them out just as fast without ou help for this encounter" the spirit guide whispered in Tarrins ear.
"Meah...But i wanna help" Tarrin answered the voice, Spirit melding a natural set of armor weld up on his body, Reaching thru the thin veil of the astral plane he pulled out his spear and headed into the masing group of cultists.

[Steel Shadow]

Steel was merrily slicing his way through the "cultist" masses. Unfortunatly he wasn't paying all that much attention, the exploits of his fellow NPFrs far more interesting than this lame excuse for sword practice. This was unfortunate because, although the cultists were laughingly pathetic, it was possible one of them had half a brain-cell somewhere amongst their masses.
Steel was watching a particularly skillfull gutting-and-stragling-with-spleen (and trying to ignore darths whole vomit thing entirely) when a rock bounced off the back of his head. In case you've never been hit by a rock before, I'll tell you this. It hurts. Not as much as say, a building or a particularly heavy breadbox would if it was thrown at you, but there's still pain involved. And Steel did not like pain. After all, who does?
He turned, anger welling up. Now he was paying attention. And that meant that he was focused on the fight. And so, his blade became sharper. A lot sharper.
"Who threw that?" He said in the kind of way that no one could misinterpret. Someone raised a hand. Almost no one.
The crowd between Steel and the soon to be ex-cultist cleared rapidly. Those that weren't smart enough to move, which was admitedly most of them, were suddenly missing some very important life preserving limbs.
The rock thrower, slightly smarter than those around him, began to realise that here was not a good place to be. He turned to flee, a harvest of flying limbs following him.

[Flarecobra]

"Hey Dragonsbane!" I called out. "Seems some actually have brains and surrendered....after seeing one burned into jerky." I said, gesturing to the smoldering remains, while five more were tied up with my spear, looking quite subdued. Then three of them came up and tried to attack me, but ended up tripping over their robes. One cracked his head open, while the other two were tangled up.

[Bailey]

Syttulg clapped his hands over his ears and dove into the car, slightly bruising himself in his haste. He quickly buckled up and began to writhe into a position in which he could block out all sound.

Once they arrived, he looked around at the group.

"Mother, do these sad excuses for life count as sentient?"

It was while he was saying this that a strange energy emanated from a cultist who was singing the alphabet while standing on his hands (no, really standing on his hands, not just upside-down using his hands as feet) and arced out to strike the cultist who was drowning in vomit.

The hideous half-digested creature that emerged could only be described as alpha-bits made out of meat and suspended in cottage cheese. It oozed over to the still-chanting cultist and swallowed it whole, then turned its sights on Syttulg.

"Nevermind, they're probably sentient, just incredibly stupid."

He charged forwards and drove his left hand into the creature, intending to run a current between his fingertips, but he pulled his hand back out almost immediately, and gripped it in pain. As the nannites set to work, he called out.

"Does anyone have anything on the incredibly basic end of the Ph scale?"

[PyrosNine]

When the Duck-Cycle arrived, Pyros was aghast. "What in the BLAZES are you doing? They've not done anything wrong! Nor are they even capable of it!"

He leapt from the vehicle and drew his sword. The viciousness of the attack done by those he traveled with was just appalling. Cultists lay left in right, in agony or in bloody pieces.

Something had to be done, or else Pyros would go mad. With a light start, he was a blur that bowled into the cultists. Like the many times before, he'd have to 'save' them. With a sweep of his blade into the ground, the resulting tear of wind and earth swept dozens of the cultists away like a wave. With right and left movements, he continued using the ground sweeps like a broom to gather the poor cultists into piles that could safely be tucked away. Maybe he could find a giant rug or something...

[Darth SS]

Darth looked at the hideous vomit monstrosity that was, partially at least, his fault.

"Groovy."

He fumbled around in his stash of stuff. There were some things he always had with him. Duct tape was on. A little bottle of febreeze was another. Baking Soda was the last. Unfortunately, he only had a little baggie with him.

"I got a baggie of baking soda! Will that help!?

He backhanded a cultist with his invisible arm. The cultist was waving around some kind of reliquary. Darth took this time to notice that there was, in fact, a hand protruding from the cultist's stomach. Some hideous monstrosity pulled it's way out, and Darth noticed it kind of vaguely resembled Pyros. Truly hideous.

It look at Pyros and growled "Mama." Then it noted Pyros was killing everything. Cultists, women, children, testers. It decided to imitate Pyros, and pounced onto Darth. Darth flung the baggy of baking soda to Syttulg, then got his hands up to hold the hideous beast's fangs away from his throat.

He rolled to the left, then to the right. As he did so, it freed his ghost arm to grab his combat dagger. He rolled back to the right, placing the blade up to the thing's stomach. It sliced the stomach open, letting entrails slough out. Darth stood as it convulsed in pain and punted it into the vomit creature.

"Hey! Wait a minute! I ordered the chicken! That is clearly beef in there! The restaurant lied!"

[Premonitions]

well, what exactly did you think was going to happen? really?Do I even need to describe the violence that took place when Premonitions arrived? oh all right. uhhh.... he jumped in and started cutting up anything he could find, then he started firing wildly in all areas, then he fire dashed through a row of them, typical maniacal laughter, then more sword slashing, then he stopped to eat an apple, then more slashing, still more slashing more slashing, then he jumped back on the carpet and ate another apple. Jeeze, you'd think you we'rent paying attention the last few RP's

[Mauve Mage]

Mauve grasped Fenris' offered hand and exited the vehicle, delicately stepping around the little puddles of blood that had already been spilled by her friends. (Some of it appeared to be red paint; it seemed as though the cultists had been drawing some summoning circles before the fight began, but were too squeamish to use the real stuff.)

"Thanks, Fenris," she said as she placed her hat back on her head. "Oh, watch out." Calmly she yanked his arm, pulling him sideways as a chunk of gore flew through the space he had just occupied and impacted with the car with a messy shluck! sound.

"See, now that Krylo's not around there's no chance I'll get splattered with carnage," she said. "Meaning I'm better at dodging it. I think I could get to like this."

Her eyes washed over the crowd of cultist wannabes, and the NPFers who were currently slicing through the masses like warm knives through butter. Mauve grimaced slightly as a lone arm landed at her feet, detached from its body. Warm knives through bloody, organ-filled butter.

"Well, let's start the carnage-fest," she said briskly, rolling up her sleeves. She made a motion as though throwing some invisible baseball at one of the cultists. A ball of flames left her palm and sailed through the air, growing larger and larger until it impacted with a black, spider-print robe. The unfortunate cultist ran around screaming as his clothes burst into flames, waving his arms around his head. The flames hadn't even penetrated the fabric, but he acted as though his skin was melting.

"Hehehee. Just like Star Wars Bounty Hunter," she said to herself, remembering the only redeeming quality of the entire game (namely setting random civilians on fire with Jango's flamethrower).

[FenrisWolf]

Fenris looked at Mauve and laughed.

"Thanks, I owe ya one."

He then turned to the wannabe cultists, and pulled out his hammer and longknife. He extended the knife to about the length of a katana, and jumped into the fray, basically making sure that he hadn't rusted any since he last had to do combat.

[Tarrin]

Three more cultists fell to the ground, To look at them noone would tell how they died, Not a mark was on their bodies only the empty look in their eyse gave the hint of their demise.

Tarrin swung the spear again, The cultist watched it pass thu his body no mark left by it's passage.
No sooner had the spear passed the victim than his soul was destroyed and the physical body fell an empty hust and nothing more.

"Graaaa....Tink" A cultist stabed into Tarrins stomach, Pulling back the blade he could see it was bent,
"Even if i wasn't melded with an armidillo right now,Tthe fact that you just stabed me with a pewter dagger is rediculis." A backhand hit the foe in the jaw snaping his neck with great force.

[GARUD]

Garud spotd the jiant mob, hoo wheren't eve n desreving o god speling and gramor...

...but they would get it anyway. Garud held his will in check and swooped in the centre of the giant group of cultist wannabe's. There, he formed a dark aura using sorcery and decided to start absorbing their life energy. Now if only he could provoke them...

"Hey, you guys are so terrible that Scientology won't take you in!"

That did it. The demon slayer was targeted and attacked from all sides. But these guys were weak. He beat them down with his staff, and used their own jagged sacraficial knives to rake out their intestines, following by feeding them with it.

"Oww... my neck."

"Why, dark Magus, why?"

"Mmm... tastes like sausage."

With every death, he gained sacraficial energy for a ritual, which would result in a big spell. In other words, the cultists were screwed.

[Bailey]

Syttulg threw the baggie into the creature with his unwounded hand, and watched as a tiny erruption occurred.

Overall, however, this only seemed to make the puke-beast angry.

Syttulg outran the sluggish monstrosity until his arm was healed, at which point the nannites set to work producing more baking soda for him to throw.

After a series of miniature eruptions, all that was left of the creature was the skeletal remains of the cultists who had accidentally summoned it.

"Thanks for the help there!" He called out to Darth SS.

[Dragonsbane]

A dark ripple of necromantic energy, a faint black smudge in the air, spread out from the center of the massacre, blighting the ground and sinking into the corpses. One by one, zombies rose, their robes swaying in the sudden, deathly chill, breeze.

Dragonsbane smiles, as the zombies obediently walked past to form neat, disciplined rows, directing a grin at Flare, "Wonderful work, General. I am very proud of you."

[Flarecobra]

"Eh, figured that they'd at least make good training dummies for new recruits." I said, smashing one across the chest with my tail, and sent him flying back into Syttulg.

[Arhra]

OOC: DB, I won't go so far as to give a full warning, but what you have done so far is above the acceptable level of power. Incidently, its more the demons than the undead that's the problem. Be more careful in the future.

Arhra almost sighed as she saw the cultists approach. She'd had enough of hordes of crappy enemies. While variety was good in that she might learn a new ability, the only power she might learn from these wretches was the power to suck. And not in some sort of fun black hole style way.

As Arhra pondered the various upsides and downsides of being a singularity, the cultists attacked and she found herself being clumsily swiped at with what appeared to be a heavy thurible by a cultist who loomed over her.

Of course, it was quite easy to loom over Arhra. Bringing much attention to this fact wasn't very wise though. Obviously this cultist had picked her out as she was the smallest in the group seeing how much looming he seemed to be trying to do.

Rather than strike fear into her though, it had quite the opposite effect. His very height was an insult to her! But she'd be the last one laughing, mainly because the other guy would be dead. Petite frame galvanised into motion, Arhra summoned up her chaotic magic.

Now, Arhra's magical strength varied with with her incarnations and was weaker in this physically powerful form than her more magically inclined ones. Still, while not the best magic in the world for killing a great many foes at once, Arhra found it more than sufficient to add that touch of extra spice to her attacks. She formed her intent around a single word and cried it as she released her power, "Kasplode!"

Technically that wasn't a word, but it worked for her purposes. Indeed, the virulence of the effect surprised her a little as snakes of chaotic energy bored into him, seeming to feast themsleves on his blood before exploding. A few tiny ones cast off by the explosion even latched onto to other cultists and began the process anew.

A flickering corona of energy dancing around her head, Arhra turned to regard the next closest cultist who had stopped at this display of power, "Hail Endbringer!" they cried, prostrating themselves. Arhra looked at them quite blankly. It really was the last thing she expected to hear in this kind of situation. It wasn't like she'd done anything particularly impressive either. Somewhat confused, Arhra defaulted to violence.

The problem, she mused as she clubbed a different cultist to death with a fistful of vertebrae, was that the clueless could really surprise you at times. Probably because they were so stupid.

Take for instance that cultist over there who'd someone managed to get a summoning rite so wrong that the spidery horror that presumably was what he'd been trying to summon was crawling out of his brain. Arhra realised that perhaps she should do something to stop it and headed over there. Spindly legs supported it and strange liquid sacs making up most of its body slowly inflacted as it freed itself. A set of mixed eyes opened in its shifting mass turned to fix on Arhra and an air bladder inflated to wheeze the word, "Arhra?"

Arhra's eyes widened in recognition, "Xrx'crgth'lk!" she said, somehow pronouncing the name, "Still as indescrible as ever I see! How have you been?" And then Arhra went on to talk about old times with the chaos spawn in a conversation punctuated with violence towards cultists.

[Rhiya Ravenwing]

OOC: sorry, a little pressed for time right now. I'll work up a suitably violent and bloody meal later on.

IC:
All throught this while, Rhiya was still in dragon form.

And enjoying it immensely as she stomped and waded around.

"Eewwww, they're blood is clingy," she rumbled at one moment when a particularly nasty squelch caused Rhiya to pause in her rampages to scrape off a bloody pulp from the back of her toe. Shaking the paw slightly, she caused the corpse to go flying into the midst of some more cultists, bowling the more unfortunate over with its fleshy, bloody mass.

After a while, Rhiya sat down on her haunches (invariably, a dozen cultists didn't get out of the way quick enough, and their screams were cut off as their windpipes were crushed and their body reduced to sticky, red smears on the ground) and yawned. Her tail lashed, sweeping a few tryhards off their feet and impaling dozens more on their deadly spikes.

"Mmm... Cultist Kebab," she said as she picked the flailing figures off her tail with lazy luxury and popped them into her mouth. The everwidening circle that was surrounding Rhiya widened a little faster when the crunch of bones and the messy spurt of still-living blood was heard.

[PyrosNine]

Pyros continued "saving" the cultists, despite the insanity and the murderous impulses of the others. Using the ditches he had made with his sweeping, he rolled the still living cultists into them and covered it with loose dirt. Hopefully they'd figure out how to breathe through it quickly, and that none of the others was so bloodthirsty as to seek out cultists to kill.

PYros personally found the efforts of the Forumites sickening, and if it weren't for the fact his own vomiting would have made the entire situation worse, he'd have done so twice.

He continued his crusade.

---------------------------------
Sub-Pyros was there, in the shadowy abyss where the body is as nothing, and only the mind holds any presence. Those strong of body yet weak of mind fall into nothingness when they venture here, and those frail of body yet powerful of mind gain something more.

Here, some minds lashed out at others, some controlled and even devoured other's thoughts, but beyond these, there were those whom the lessers could not touch, and used their mental energies for greater things, and only used their mental energies against each other for sport.

Like Poker.

Sub looked around the table. His opponents had changed their way of perception to appear as a motley of dogs, to both make a laugh of art and to intimidate the feline newcomer. But Sub was not worried. He'd show them.

In this poker, it was difficult. Because it did not matter what cards you have, but rather, what cards you didn't have. Cards could be easily manifested here, a king, an ace, a full Royal Flush, when needed, and those who were unaware would find themselves always losing. The real strategy was ensuring that what cards you had, the others didn't.

You had to make sure that no matter what happened, the total number of cards in play was the same as a normal deck. That there were no duplicates, and still have the winning cards. Making this work entailed using logic to prove that your own duplicates cards were more original than other duplicates, and beyond that more original than the originals.

While poker could be considered a game of liars, this poker was a game of Mind reading Liars.

Sub had a royal flush by draw, but he knew that 2 of the cards were duplicates put into his draw by the rottweiler across the table, and that the doberman had the exact same draw, with 3 duplicates, and he had seven originals under his hind paw. The Retriever was using a second deck, and the others had some odd mixture of original and duplicates and were doing their best to hide their cards, by switching their hands when the others weren't looking.

The poodle however, was the most tricky by having an almost anthropromophic figure, and hiding her hand in her cleavage, which by far gave her the greatest edge over all the other card players. But Sub had been behind Asheth's mind so long he figured he could be able to trump her...

Sub played 4 "2's".

[Dragonsbane]

Dragonsbane watched Pyros, and began shooting bolts of black fire through the dirt into the cultists, calling out the names of the body parts he was aiming at.

"Heart! Right lung! Liver! Brain! Uvula! Spleen! Removed appendix!" he cheerfully cried out, his words punctuated by the sweet sounds of anguished screams or gurgles. He noticed Rhiya was having fun too, and the sight of the trampling dragon enjoying herself only increased his destructive glee.

[Flarecobra]

"...You do relize that last shot's going to a hospitol, or that guys home, right?" I said, before knocking out another one with my spear. I'm not even bothering trying to kill them, as they wern't even worth it. "Fuck it, let's call in some airship support, have them blast these cockbites into the next universe or something, as well as pick up those prisioners."

[Skyshot]

Skyshot held his ground patiently. Quite a few cultists headed his way, and each one that came close enough received a hearty crack on the head.

At this point, he wasn't going to exhaust himself using spells (aside from the Refresh spell he used to ward off the fatigue), but he did occasionally kick dirt into their eyes and thoroughly incapacitate them that way. Most people he'd fought would have kept on despite the temporary blindness. He occasionally considered putting Nightstorm back and using one of his daggers, but it didn't seem right. These people were too helpless to kill in such a gory fashion. With solid hits on their heads, he could convince himself they were simply unconscious and let his conscience rest.Fuck it, let's call in some airship support, have them blast these cockbites into the next universe or something, as well as pick up those prisoners."I could cast Earthquake," he yelled. "I'm not sure what would happen here at the Earth Temple of all places, but it'd be quicker than getting someone else in here. OY!" While he was distracted, a cultist had moved in and poked him very hard with a plastic sacrificial knife. Skyshot answered him with a quick stroke across the temple from the lower tip of his staff. The cultist staggered from the impact, leaving his already negligible defenses open for a lethal beating on the back of his head with the knobby end. When he finished, he asked, "What do y'all say?"

[Arhra]

"There's one slight problem with that plan." Arhra interjected, having had her conversation with Xrx'crgth'lk abruptly cut off when the summoning spell that had called him/her/it up ran out of power.

"Oh?"

"They're all dead." Arhra said, indicating the corpse strewn battlefield with a sweep of half a broken staff that she'd taken off one cultist, clubbed some others to death with and then finally snapped on someone's head. Realising she was still holding it, she dropped it.

Dusting her hands off she said, "I wonder how these would-be cultists found out about this place. Its not that widely known." Arhra thought about it for a moment before deciding that it probably wasn't worth it. "And now we just have to walk another mile or so and we should be there." Arhra turned to face the dome of strangely misty, unfocused looking air in the distance that she'd said was the sealed Gate and started picking her way fastidiously across the ground, grumbling about the mess that everyone had made.

Brutally slaughtering enemies wasn't quite as glorious when you had to walk through their corpses and various splatters afterwards. Not to mention the various messes one tended to get on oneself. Arhra felt glad about having decided to wear black. A pity it didn't do anything about the smell.

[Flarecobra]

I used a low-level fire spell on myself, turning any gore and blood on me into ash, which I then started to wipe off. "Anyone know any water attacks to wash off anyone else?"

[FenrisWolf]

"Sorry, Flare, I can't help anybody. I'm used to being dirty, so I'm fine, although I wouldn't object to being cleaned."

Fenris went over to a dead cultist, tore part of the robe off of him, and used it to wipe off the knife, the hammer, and his face.

[Skyshot]

"Huh. That was quick." Skyshot took out the alchemy jug he always kept handy. "Anyways, I generally keep this full of drinking water. Anyone who wants it can use it. Rest assured, there's more than enough for everybody. Just keep the rest clean. Levitate." He felt himself rise a foot or so above the ground. That would keep the gore off his boots. "Anyways, Fenris, keep near me. Your hobo-smell should mask this bloody mess."

Great, he was getting rude. A clear sign his mana had had the top skimmed off, so to speak. Oh well, he still had plenty to go. He started off after Arhra, occasionally stopping to strip the corpses of any real-looking amulet or finery. A man had to support himself, after all.

[Bailey]

Syttulg followed along behind Arhra, and looked up at the sky. He cracked his back as he walked and then twisted his body to present as much surface area to the sky as possible.

[Tarrin]

Tarrin looked down at himself, No blood had splattered on him, His opponents haden't even bled, Thank the spirits.
Something like the slaughter here would cost the NPFers a dime or two in drycleaning.

Tarrin picked his way thru the mess of bodies and followed the others to the seal.

[Mesden]

Mes followed, kind of gagging at the smell of, like, every single person there aside from a couple.

Cultists have nasty inside, you know. What with the "Ritual smoking" and "Sacrificing of dead cows through the catalyst of their stomachs".

You know, gross insides.

[Steel Shadow]

The post-sluaghtering silence was suddenly shattered by a loud yell.
"Come back here!" Steel was still chasing the somehow still alive non-cultist around the field of bodys. The damn thing just wouldn't accept when it was time to slow down and die. It turned around and stuck it's tounge out at him. Of course without it's attention on where it was going, accidents were bound to happen. The cliff was a blessing really. Compared to what Steel was going to do at least.
Skidding to a stop, Steel watched as the cultist sailed out of sight. Sighing, he sheathed his sword and hurried after the others. Next stop, earth temple.

[Darth SS]

Darth was not gagging. Oh no. Darth took a bandana out of his pocket and used it to cover his face. The bandana smelled like Grapefruit.

"So, how's everyone beeeen? It's been a while since we last saw each other, RaidenIhopeyourcrotchhurtssomuch, and I think we should take this as a chance to reaquaint."

[PyrosNine]

Pyros turned an irate eye towards Dragonsbane. "In all my life I've only seen such wickedness from hellspawn and Kirakiri's ilk, and to think the likes of which thrive in this world. Should I call thee ing, and forever seperate this world from mine to protect it from filth such as yourself?"

Honestly. He even attacked organs that had already left the body, just to insure total annihilation. Pyros would have to be wary of this one, and guard himself against losing his cool and simply beheading the fiend.

Fortunately, Pyros had no need to cleanse himself of ash and gore, for he created neither and regardless, he would still look good anyway. There seemed to be an unspoken law of the world that Pyros would always look good, and Pyros had always thought it was just the devil's way of mocking him, God testing him, or the result of an unconcious desire of his family to always appear so.

Pyros did whipe his sword clean of the dirt, and sheathed it, lest he commit wickedness with it.

[Rhiya Ravenwing]

A fully sated draconic Rhiya changed as she lumbered towards the other NPFers. Her stature shortened, her body posture became more upright. As the final changes took place, she was once again a woman with four wings.

Unfortunately, there was still a lot of blood and gore splattered all over her clothing, hands and mouth. Rhiya took a moment to spit part of some nasty cultist kidney out of her mouth, and looked at the mess she made in disgust.

"Damn... I don't even know what comes over me when I go dragon," she muttered after a moment of checking the damages. Blood, bile, and bits of flesh stuck to her everywhere. She was literally drenched in the gore of her victims. After a futile moment of trying to clean even part of her face off, she shrugged.

Her dark wings changed shape around her, writhing down and up her body, digging into every small cranny and nook that was her body and grasping the offending, smelly gore. It took Rhiya several minutes before her amorphous wings managed to clean the dirt and grime off her body and face, but at least she looked clean again.

"That was fun! Can we do it again?" she asked Arhra sweetly.

[Mauve Mage]

Mauve brushed some dust off the hem of her skirts. She had to bend over slightly to do so, which brought her into scent range of the dead and dying bodies littering the ground around her.

"Blech," she said, grimacing. "I thought these guys smelled bad on the outside..."

"It's our SPELL COMPONENTS!!" snarled one of the not-quite-dead ones indignantly. He was going to argue further, but luckily he died then and there of a heart attack. (Too many bacon cheeseburgers are bad for your health.)

Mauve ignored him and wove her way around the fallen corpses to Ahrha, taking care not to step in anything too gooey. These were, after all, her second-favorite pair of boots.

"Well, I for one am feeling rather good about how today is going so far," she remarked conversationally. "Bring on the next challenge. Where's this temple, Ahrha?"

[Toastburner B]

With a creak of metal and a scream of a rusty hinge, the driver's door on the Toastmobile opened, and Toastburner fell out. "What sort of idiot puts a child lock on the drivers' door!" He demanded to no one in particular, as he he stood up and dusted himself off. He walked over to where the rest of the group was gather, and asked. "So, what did I miss?"

Then he looked around. Lifting the goggles from his eyes, he looked around the bloody and gory area. "So, what was this," he asked, "Did you guys run across a girl scout group selling cookies or something?"

[Darth SS]

Darth looked straight into Toastburner's eyes.

"Yes. Yes we did. And we tied them up, at their cookies in front of them, then let Dragonsbane have his way with them."

[Toastburner B]

Toastburner gave a shocked gasped, and looked at the group. He then looked at the carnage, and then the group, the carnage once more, and then the group again. Tears welled up in his eyes. "And you guys didn't save me any cookies?"

[PyrosNine]

"There were no cookies because Darth is full of Lies and evil." Pyros spoke up, standing over the corpses with grief.

"There were no girl scouts, because none should and shall ever come here as long as I have life within me to enforce it. And while I am aware there are evil sects of Girl Scouts with cyanide laced cookies, even they don't deserve the deaths given to these poor confused cultists."

Pyros reached down and picked up a wallet. "They had wives and children too! And this one's wife seems to be possesesed by a deceased family dog used in botched ritual, and he had a litter of 21 pups, 4 kids, and 2 horrible sins against nature!"

Pyros could no longer bear to hold the wallet, and let it drop into the bloodsoaked earth. "Those poor souls! Weep for them, Cry, cry, Mother earth, for they are no more!"

[Rhiya Ravenwing]

"I have cookies!" Rhiya said with a bright, mad grin. Handing them to Toastburner, she absent-mindedly brushed her hands on her pants, leaving bloody red smears in their place.

"They're a little bit dirty though... I found them on one of the cultists, and they taste of pain," she added, a shade bit doubtfully. Then, nibbling on another Cookie of Pain, Rhiya wandered elsewhere.

[GARUD]

The still glowing Garud approached Pyros.

"Those poor souls! Weep for them, Cry, cry, Mother earth, for they are no more!"

"BWAHAHAHAHAHA."

Garud was on the blood-stained floor laughing with glee. He laughed at the death and destruction, and Pyros's comment which was obviously a joke, considering his nature.

"haha...ha... phew... hehe... Pyros, I... the... BWAHAHAHAHAHAHGAHAHAHAHA. Oh that's good, haha, that's rich."

Still reeling from the laughing, he picked up various limbs.

"Hey, Pyros, now that that is out of the way, let's find ripped off limbs, and beat each other with the soggy ends. It'll be fun!"

[Dragonsbane]

Pyros turned an irate eye towards Dragonsbane. "In all my life I've only seen such wickedness from hellspawn and Kirakiri's ilk, and to think the likes of which thrive in this world. Should I call thee ing, and forever seperate this world from mine to protect it from filth such as yourself?"

"Aww...thank you." Dragonsbane wiped his bloody hands on Pyros' shirt, a cheerful smile adorning his face as unholy pulses of negative energy spread out from him like an unholy blight upon the land. This energy reached into the corpses and seized their tainted souls before they could escape, corrupting them horribly into a perverse mockery of animating life-force and ramming them back inside their broken shells.

They rose up as a small army of zombies. He could have made them something better, but they didn't have the potential to be ghouls or wights. So...zombies they were.

"Filth, you say? Why, let me take care of that." He absently waved a hand, and the dirt and gore covering him vanished instantly, not even leaving his hair tousled or his boots damp with blood.

"Now, let me get the Girl Scout Vampiresses out here, and we can REALLY liven things up."

[Arhra]

"I really don't see why you're bothering with zombies." Arhra said, "Zombies suck. It is a scientific fact that one moderately heroic individual with guns and/or fu can beat any number of zombies. And these are hardly made from quality components." Arhra prodded one in the arm and watched the entire limb fall off. Trying to look innocent, she nudged the arm out of sight with her foot. The zombie just moaned slightly.

Seizing on Mauve's question about where the temple was as both something important to answer and a conveient distraction, Arhra boldly proclaimed, "This way!" and struck yet another pose. When most of the people did nothing, Arhra was forced to resort to desperate measures.

"This is no time for cookies!" Arhra snarled in leaden tones of doom. And then she took the cookies and she cast them down into the muck, grinding them into the mire with her heel. The cookies were no more.

Into the shocked silence, Arhra dropped four words, "Let's get going then." and set off with a purposeful, confident stride.

Some time later, Arhra's walk still managed to look purposeful and confident, although the erratic, looping route she seemed to be taking raised questions of whether she had any idea of where she was going. It would be a cruel irony to get hopelessly lost before their quest had truely begun.

Any doubts were abruptly quashed when Arhra had them sidle into a canyon and lo and behold, a large, intricately carved stone door awaited them there. The massive stone disc seemed to have living plants inlaid into it by some ingenious artifice, filling the carvings and throughing them into relief.

Arhra headed over to the door, a grim expression on her face. It seemed her old archnemesis was waiting for her. Pacing in front of it menacingly, she said, "Well, door, are you going to go quietly or do I have to get persuasive on convincing you to open?" She'd fought doors before and she was quite confident of her chances.

"If you answer my riddle, the way will open." came the musical reply.

"A challenge is it?" Arhra replied heatedly to the door, "Well I won't be outdone by an inaminate gate!"

A cough came from up above, "Uh, I'm up here." From the overhang, what was unmistakably a sphinx padded into view. The female head, eagle-like wings and body of a lion were a dead giveaway. She sat looking down at them from the mantel above the door and looked at each of the NPF'ers.

"My riddle is this:"

"What may be born from a fiery womb or have a thousand, thousand parents? What may find new form in the burning, crushing depths? What may be the sound of awesome?" The words rolled off the sphinx's tongue as she sat there reciting her puzzle, tawny eyes half closed. Finished, she blinked, yawned and added, "You can discuss your answer amongst yourselves. If you get it wrong, I eat you."

Arhra looked blankly at the sphinx and then turned back to the others, "Ok, I've heard about this kind of thing before. Apparently the answer is always 'teeth'. What do you think?"

[Steel Shadow]

"Do teeth really sound awsome?" Steel asked. "I always thought they had a sort of dull clack sound." He thought about it for a minute. "Sounds like it could be "life", but again, awesome? Maybe it's some kind of shrimp. They're pretty awesome. Especialy with ketchup."

[GARUD]

Garud had one thought come to mind.

"Does a Pheonix sound right guys?"

[Skyshot]

"Usually it's something kinda either surprisingly prosaic given the florid nature of the riddle, like 'a fish,' or something vaguely poetic and meaningful given the prosaic nature of the riddle, like 'life,'" Skyshot said. "'Womb' can mean a number of things, least likely something biological. A thousand times a thousand is a million. 'Burning, crushing depths' could be physical, emotional, or spiritual.

"I'm thinking something like 'coal' or 'diamond.' Since they're made of decomposed carbon, they can come from a million former bodies, and anyone who has played Zork knows coal turns into a diamond in the burning, crushing depths. And a diamond is a girl's best friend, so..." He turned his face to the sphinx. "You up there? You're female, right?" He turned to Arhra and whispered, "Do you have any more poison? We could load someone full of it, have them give the wrong answer, and let the sphinx eat them and die that way."

[Flarecobra]

I lean in close Ahira. "Let me just take it out with a Terraflare.....It'll take care of our sphenix friend and open up the temple...."

[PyrosNine]

Pyros's eyes glowed red at Garud, then patted him on the shoulder and made a small prayer for his soul. When Dragonsbane rubbed his bloodied hands upon Pyros's clothes, the blood immediately burst into flame and dirtied the fine thread of his armor no more.

"Ing, I shall definitely call thee."

What may be born from a fiery womb or have a thousand, thousand parents? What may find new form in the burning, crushing depths? What may be the sound of awesome?" The words rolled off the sphinx's tongue as she sat there reciting her puzzle, tawny eyes half closed. Finished, she blinked, yawned and added, "You can discuss your answer amongst yourselves. If you get it wrong, I eat you."

"Beware. I know not the rules of this world, but in all things there is a force known as 'the narrative' that gives these creatures special powers. While it may not seem to pose a threat, usually the laws of the world make it so that if one were to fail the riddle, for some reason or another he loses the will or the ability to fight in the face of the sphinx."

Pyros's hand twitched as caught a glance of Dragonsbane's wicked smile, and momentarily rubbed against the hilt of his sword before he continued.

"While the 'phoenix' answer seems right, however, I have heard tales of another method in which one avoids answering the question entirely, and tricks the Sphinx. There once was a pharaoh by the name of Teppic you see, who managed to use the fact that the Sphinx is, by nature, not very social and therefore not so skilled at dealing with people and their lies. The sphinx itself is an overendowed creature anyway to do much damage or put up much of a chase. Also, as Teppic put it, it's bosom will get in the way, even if it's brain doesn't."

At that last comment Pyros blushed. "Notably, Teppic was a chauvanistic pharaoh with 130 wives, and was around before Sexism was invented..." He apologized to the female party members.

[Rhiya Ravenwing]

Rhiya was pissed. She was quietly fuming on her way to the temple doors, and when the sphinx appeared, she wasn't in any better of a mood. She was mad that Arhra destroyed her Cookies of Pain. So mad in fact....

RFS: 79.... 80..... 85.... 84.... 85.... 86.... 86..... 86.....

When the sphinx gave the riddle, she fixated it with a wrathful glare of doom. Even if the sphinx barely flinched from the heated gaze, Rhiya's anger abated.... slightly sliding down to 85.

"I know what we can do," Rhiya said at one point. The hiss of her chaos claws unsheathing was barely audible in the hubbub, but still managed to make itself heard above all else - such is the power of narrative.

"I've relied on violence from the very start and it still hasn't let me down yet."

[Bailey]

Syttulg jumped up and down, waving his hand.

"Oh! Oh! Is it explosions!?"

[Arhra]

The sphinx sighed, running a paw softly over her face. "You're standing on it!"

Arhra gazed down, looking at her feet. No, it couldn't be...

[Raiden]

A large fist came from the side, connecting with Newb's temple and sending the man flying away. Raiden stepped in his place.

"No, it's not explosions. I know the answer."

He pulled a detective hat from behind his back, putting it on his head. He then pulled out a large pipe, giving it a puff.

"The answer, my good Sphinx...is Rock."

[PhoenixFlame]

"Oh! Oh!" Phoenix yelled, having finally tossed off her cultist-snack and waved her hand like a schoolgirl, "I've got it! It's a Gamma Photon Pluse Packet!" she says.

"It's obvious really. You see, the GPPC's firing packet is first energised within a triflagurized nylionated tube heated to approximately 900 kelvin, or, as the Sphinx would call it, a womb of fire. THEN, the packet is infused with exactly one million plasma injector tubules to actually FORM the packet, and is finally changed within the burning, crushing depths of the accellerator core into a superheated photon pulse."

Phoenix smiled wryly as if she knew all the answers.

"And the sound of awesome, my dear sphinx, is when said packet impacts the hull of the opposing vessel. I just can't get enough of that sound..."

[Toastburner B]

TB looked at Pyros, confused.

"You know," Toastburner said, "Most of the time, I would be thrilled to have someone less homicidal towards me...but this just seems wrong, somehow. So, I just have to ask: What the heck did you guys do to Pryos on the last little outting?"

He then watched the flying Newb, and observed Raiden. "Ah, the Thunder God is here...my life span just got cut in half."

[GARUD]

"Is it plants?"

Garud looked around.

"It makes sense. In Australia, we have bushfires. There are plants that rely on these fires to open their pods so they can distribute the seeds. Those seeds have natural resistances to fire. Anyway, plants can find form in the crushing depths. That, and plants are awesome. However, Raiden's answer makes sense. After all, we are going to an earth temple."

[Arhra]

The sphinx seemed to have fallen into a light daze while the NPF'ers argued. She suddenly blinked back to attention. "Correct!" she said, "The answer is rock (you retards)." She stretched, catlike, before standing and adding offhandedly, "I'm surprised you didn't try 'teeth'."

Looking at Phoenix and Newb she scrapped a claw on a rock to test its sharpness and added, "Now, by addressing me with your answers to the riddle, you entered a binding legal contract. Two of your number have forfeited their lives with their incorrect answers. I'm feeling lenient though. I'll just maul you two a little," the sphinx languidly pointed out Newb and Phoenix with a claw, "and then you all can go in." What the sphinx didn't admit was that this 'leniency' was due to a paranoid fear that eating them would make her stupider.

[Mauve Mage]

Mauve tapped her fingertip against her lower lip, contemplating this sudden turn of events.

"You could probably try to maul them," Mauve commented blandly, her eyes rolling upwards to examine the clouds as if nothing else really concerned her. "But considering that one is a vampire and the other is a..." -Her eyes flicked over to Syttulg for a moment, trying to discern his species- "...thing... I don't think you'll have that much success."

She paused for a moment to dig through her Pockets of Near Limitless Holding, until she found a package of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. She unwrapped one and chewed it thoughtfully, eyeing the nutrition statement.

"O' Course," she continued, her mouth somewhat full of peanut butter and chocolate, "Most of us don't take kindly to being mauled... Rather inconvenient, you know. And we really don't like being pushed around. It irritates us. And when we're irritated, we have the unfortunate tendency to destroy things. Ask Santa Claus, and Posiedon, and probably half of Gaia."

She tossed the wrapper back in her pocket, her MP levels refreshed. She swallowed and dusted her hands on her cape.

"Seriously, madam, I'm trying to help you out here. This is about as diplomatic as we get. You could try and maul them, but I'm telling you it'll be the last thing you ever do. But y'know. Your funeral, your choice, and all that."

[Flarecobra]

"Wait, what kind of contract?" I said, looking skeptical.

[Bailey]

"Mauve, I think the term you're searching for is 'New Treefolk'" Syttulg said, arcing some electricity from one hand to the other.

[PhoenixFlame]

"Ah! Wait one moment." Phoenix said, raising a finger.

"Technically... You didn't explain why my answer was wrong, and furthermore, the riddle had already been answered." she continued, reaching into her coat pocket to slowly, methodically draw the giant chrome form of her 30mm Rocklet Revolver before snapping it on-target with the Sphinx's left eye.

"And third, this is *really* going to hurt. Would you like your eye perforated or well done?"

[Tarrin]

Tarrins eyes rested apon the Sphinx, An awed expression covered his face.
"Their real, Sphinx's are real....that means" A smile played apon his lips.

"I could have told you that you know" his guide chimed in
"Why didn't you then" was Tarrins curt reply
" Well...you didn't ask did you" The spirit was starting to wear Tarrins patents thin, "Ok answer this then, Are Hydra real?" Tarrin looked at the ancister that he spoke to.
"You'll have to find out by your self, It's always better that way" the spirit smiled at it's charge.
"So you dont know, You didn't even know about the sphinx did you?" Tarrin snaped, However no reply came from the empty area where the spirit had been.

Turning his attention back to the group and the words maul two of you he paniced a bit, Just a little you know the way homer does when he thinks the boogeyman is coming.

Jumping behind Raiden and poking his head around his torso Tarrin screemed at the sphinx "Take the god, take him he's had a good life, IM TOO YOUNG TO DIE" the end of the rant raising a half dozen octaves and decibels.