tushanshu_logs | EVENT | LANDFALL | KITHIKA

EVENT | LANDFALL | KITHIKA | DRAGON

Characters: ALL!
Date: February 12th - 28th
Location: Keeliai
Situation: The discovery of an artifact from the first war against Malicant reveals the land of Kithika within a dimension of the Death Plane... and just happens to be contained inside a bottle.
Warnings/Rating: Please indicate content warnings in subject headers as applicable.

OOC INFORMATION ♦ CITY OF KEELIAI ♦ INSIDE THE BOTTLE ♦ THE WORLD EATER
For nearly two days the brave quest takers have been sequestered at the sullied Temple and its grounds, the thick jungle and swamp preventing them from leaving. There are faint tremors that run through the ground and in the middle of the third night, the ground gives a great heave, jostling everyone from their rested states. In one of the Temple rooms, a sinkhole has appeared to reveal not spongy ground beneath, but a dark tunnel leading down into the earth. It doesn't take much to widen the entrance and follow the gentle downward slope that leads out to the north, and a walk of about two hours (which surely would feel like longer to those who don't enjoy being trapped in low, dank places) leads them under the swamp itself. By the time the tunnel slopes upward, the muddy ground has turned hard and packed with small chips of rock and sand; the terrain above is changing and as they emerge upward through a fissure in the ground...

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OOC NOTE: The Aftermath comment will be unfrozen and its direction posted on February 23rd, based on the outcome of the other threads.

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With each pustule destroyed, there will be a brief eruption of a blisteringly hot goo that will cascade down around the combatants. Once upon the ground, the goo will begin to amalgamate, the corruption reforming into a multi-legged creature that will try to latch onto the dragon (or the nearest living thing) and overtake it. Its bite is a poison of the mind, darkening thoughts with uncontrollable rage and blinding the victim's perception of friend or foe. Everyone becomes a foe and they will fight until the creature that has attached is killed -- a strike to the heart is sufficient.

If, however, the creature is left to feed upon the dragon or another victim, it will shrink as it feeds itself into the body, forming into a pustule that will require a renewed attack in order to dispatch it.

No one can say even the youngest members of the Invaders aren't doing their part to help fight the corruption overtaking the dragon. They're not the most powerful beings out there, but they're tenacious and determined. They've been working on one of the oozing black pustules between the two of them, barraging it with fire and bullets and strategic knife slashes. It's taken a bit, but eventually it bursts, spraying burning goo. "Take cover!" Bucky shouts to Toro, trying to lunge out of the way of the explosion, his arms over his head trying to protect himself.

Toro has been putting fire on the thing as much as he can without making it too hot in the area for Bucky and anyone else around. When it finally bursts and spews that gross goo all over, he flies up and out of the way, but immediately starts looking around for Bucky.

"Buck, are you okay?!" he calls out, because he can't tell at first if he managed to get back far enough to avoid the spray.

Bucky's dive doesn't take him quite far enough when his boot slides against a splotch of the goo - it drives him to his knees, and another splash of it hits his back. It burns, even though the layers of thick fabric, and he lets out a grunt of pain through gritted teeth. "It burns, shit-" And that's about all he gets out before it becomes a garbled half-scream as the puddles of goo around him start to join up together again, forming into a hideous... creature of some sort, dark and vicious looking. And it forms right onto Bucky.

"Bucky!" he yells loud and he's already zooming down to get to him, but whatever that dark mess is has already covering him. He puts out a burning hand to try and heat it, pull it off of him. Whatever it is, it can't be good and Toro doesn't know if it's alive or a really ugly looking statue trying to suffocate Bucky on the inside.

"Get off of him!"

It only makes an unholy noise when he gets near it with flame, but it's determined to sink its many irregular limbs into the thrashing Invader. Bucky's scream comes out a gurgle as he tosses his head back, jerking around unnaturally for a moment before he turns wide eyes on Toro. They're blank, and they're angry. He practically howls before he's lashing out at his best friend, blindly and devoid of skill, though it isn't long before the knife appears in his hand. The sounds he makes aren't anything resembling words, just shrieks and howls of fury and pain as the thing pulsates on his back.

Toro jumps back in surprise and fear--not for himself, but for Bucky whose eyes are empty and full of rage at the same time. He's not moving as easily as Bucky normally does, but everything about the look on his face says that hurting anything that gets close is definitely on his agenda.

"Bucky, focus! It's trying to take you over, but you can fight it!" He says this with the hope that Bucky can hear him, that the monster's control isn't complete yet.

The only thing on his mind is anger, attack. The words are distant, and it's hard to tell what's going on in his head with the pulsating goo trying to attach itself to him more firmly. The noise he makes, deep in his throat is half a growl and half a gurgle, and there's a pause in his movements before he lashes out, jerky but purposeful. There's a knife glittering in his hand, gripped tightly - it's the Atlantean knife Nita gave him for Christmas, made of some kind of material that isn't metal, razor sharp, and he's trying to plant it right in Toro.

The knife is definitely going to be a problem since it's not metal Toro doesn't think he can just heat it up, but he doesn't want to ruin it either. He's at a huge disadvantage because of avoiding to hurt Bucky whereas whatever's been done to Bucky sure doesn't have a problem hurting him. And so he dodges, but still manages to get a cut along his arm. Not deep, but criminy does it sure pack a sting.

"Buck, come on Mister B, listen to me," he tries again. "I know you're in there. I don't wanna hav'ta hurt you!" He throws a punch at him, hoping maybe it might knock some sense, break the creatures hold on him.

If it came down to the knife or their lives, well, it'd be an easy choice and Bucky probably wouldn't be too upset about it. And it might come down to that. The creature pulsates on his back, jumping when the punch knocks Bucky back, but it stays attached, writhes angrily and flares up. It only seems to increase his rage, and he screams as he lunges at Toro again, whaling away with the knife, lacking his usual finesse and accuracy, thankfully.

The lack of skill is obvious, but Toro is so surprised by the force of the rage that he almost trips himself trying to dodge. He's never been in the position before where he was the one trying to not hurt his friends. He remember when he and the rest of the Invaders were brainwashed by the Red Skull and Bucky was the only one who could save them. He remembers going up against Lady Lotus and being able to solve everything with a razzle dazzle.

But instead he's dodging and punching, feeling as that knife cuts into his arm as he tries to grab it and wrench it out of Bucky's hands.

He's slower like this, with the thing pulsing and writhing on his back, feeding him uncoordinated, unfocused rage. That's probably the saving grace here, that he's so unskilled like this, because with Toro unwilling to hurt him and Bucky controlled into wanting to kill, well... When he goes for the knife, Bucky roars, getting up in his face and thrashing, trying to jab it into his side and keep hold of it at the same time. Whenever a punch lands on the black ooze, though, it makes a horrific noise and flares up almost angrily, as if it's afraid Toro will knock it right off its host.

This whole thing felt frankly stupid.

Not that they had ended up fighting the dragon; that was actually refreshing. Something like that was what Frank had been expecting, what he had anticipated. A big bad evil against whom he could give everything in a fight, who was bigger and more powerful than anyone in Frank’s team would ever be and who would destroy the world if they failed. It felt familiar in ways Frank was honestly afraid to delve into, so he just decided to enjoy knowing where to stick his arrows and ho with it.

“That black goo thing seems to be vulnerable!”

But he was still following the man he was supposed to impress into teaching him how to be a leader, how to be more assertive. So the main thing going through his brain at the moment was: ‘way to go’. But he guessed that kind of vibes were what made one such a good pirate. He still thought heroes were cool, but he had to admit the thought that he had basically been investigating around a place with an actual pirate made him a little excited-

And then one of his arrows went straight to the pustule at the right angle, at the right time to make it explode, and make it splash all over, Frank himself included. One would think that was the advantage of long-range weapons.

“Wow. At least monsters turned into dust when you shoot them, they didn’t-”

Wait, was it- regrouping?

Kidd bunched a fist in the fabric at Frank's back, and made a damned effort at hauling him back, but it wasn't quite enough to make a difference. "It's damned acid, man, lose the shirt!" There wasn't time or room for a kinder way to say it, and the plate armour Frank wore across his chest wouldn't save him for long. Kidd flicked his wrist and slit the straps holding the breastplate in place, and fair tried to yank Frank rather unceremoniously out of it. In doing so, however, he was quite oblivious to the creature rising up from the nearby muck.

Frank had honestly been too entranced by the goo-thing regrouping to really notice the acid burning through the breastplate at first. It looked so much like a monster would do back at home until they saved death from its chains, turning from dust and being born again.

And then he was being unceremoniously yelled at and pulled out of the breastplate and he came back to his senses, giving the older man an apologetic look as he helped get it out. He felt unprotected without it but he wasn't going to let the acid burn through his skin just to protect some cheap metal, he would get some more when they got out of the bottle.

But while taking it off he'd given the remains of the pustule his back, and he wasn't really paying attention to the multilegged creature until it jumped towards him.

The creature hit Frank hard enough to knock Kidd askew, and they both tumbled backwards. Kidd, at least, was well used to situations that warranted exceptional balance and so stayed upright, turning to face this new threat with a pistol in one hand and a sword plainly in the other. The creature had knocked the boy to the ground, and was busily trying to dig its claws into him.

No time for further warning, Kidd fired off a shot at the creature. The bullet hit, but there didn't seem to be anything that followed, no ichor or blood or reaction at all. Kidd swore under his breath, and took a step back. If they both got knocked down now, there'd be no getting up from it. Rule of thumb was, if a man got knocked down on a deck during a tussle, he was probably dead or damned lucky if otherwise. But Kidd couldn't just leave the bloody lad, and so tried to catch the creature in what approximated for its ribcage with the toe of his boot.

The pain of the claws digging into his skin felt like needles, like a nurse that was particularly bad at taking them digging deep inside his skin trying to find a blood vessel. It was still sharp enough to startle Frank back into his senses- but he couldn't really reach for it to pull it out, since it was latching right on the back of his back. He heard a shot on the background (had that been Kidd? Was he shooting at the monster?) but it didn't seem to have any effect- the creature's claws were reaching under his skin, and he was pretty sure it was trying to get inside him. Maybe if he changed shape, it would get unattached but-

And then that didn't matter anymore.

Frank saw red and anger filled him, pulsing through his veins like it had always been there, like it belonged there and Frank had only been postponing what was unavoidable in the end. He was on his feet in a single jump, kicking Kidd's boot away and reaching for the spear he had dropped nearby with the kick.

And then he was running towards the pirate with the spear in his hand, pointing towards the man's heart.

Transference. It made sense, pure enough. Men - and dragons, evidently - driven mad by the depths of this corruption. Kidd didn't waste time trying to reason with the boy or talk sense into him, he just reacted. Regained his balance, and threw himself back and away from that spear. Spears are dangerous, aye, but unwieldly, and they're shite against a nimble opponent, much less one as learned as Kidd. The next jab the boy makes, Kidd drops the heel of his boot down against the tip, behind the head of it. The intention is to drive it down against the ground and break it off, but it-- doesn't work, and there's a bare moment where his right side is completely exposed, vulnerable in the aftermath of the failed plan.

The fact that he's trying to break the spear would made Frank laugh if it wasn't making him so angry on top of everything. Didn't he know the spear was cursed, just as Frank himself was? Everything touched by the war was, and they weren't any different.

But Frank couldn't process his surrounding, couldn't process who he was fighting with, all he could process was the pure unadulterated anger... and a sort panic, at everything and everyone. Panic that made him take the opening as soon as he saw it.

He didn't lose any time either, grabbing one of the arrows and stabbing him right on his side. The angle was awkward, he didn't have much strength behind it- but all Frank wanted was to do some damage, all he wanted was to lash out.

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EVENT | LANDFALL | KITHIKA | DRAGON

Soul's Poison

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Closed to Kidd

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