Day 2: Monster Arrival

Afternoon: 12:00noon - Evening

[ IRL Timeframe: April 1st - April 14th, 2019 ]

Unfortunately for the heroes, only one of them has an easy time when the monsters arrive. In the history of the wizard fights, it was rare but not unheard of for multiple monsters to arrive. Years 12, 22, and 30 had featured three of a monster but only one was real. Year 9 had featured the tenth monster as ten individuals that all came together into one. And, most strangely, years 4, 13, 26, and 37 had featured a monster that had an active and an inactive body.

This year, the second monster appears in two places.

The first arrives in Craydon, its massive body just a ball of metallic spikes with two bright orange eyes in the middle. It looks like a massive urchin, its body easily close to ten feet across where it's sitting on the train tracks ahead of the train arriving. Its spikes stick out easily another ten feet in every direction, making it a gigantic terrifying ball. The party train's arrival to its 12:25pm destination ends with the conductor locking up the brakes to bring the train to a stop. This sucks!

The second arrives in Bamborough, its massive body easily sixty feet up in the air suspended atop dozens of small, thin metallic spikes for legs. Its two orange eyes scan down at the world below, its spherical body covered in smaller spike nubs on all other sides. The eyes aren't fixed in place, either, and they're scanning the oceanfront as it moves around. It's definitely looking for something and it's visible for miles. Good luck, everyone!

Monster Fight Opportunity: Craydon: Luka, Gyre, Web, Olivia, Joanna.
Monster Fight Opportunity: Bamborough: Haizea, Seth, Garrot, Gail, Zafika, Terrence, Matilda.

The Weather
Windy.
61°F / 16°C
The trees are rustling, leaves flowing through the air.

Prompts:

12:25pm Train Arrival: The party train comes to its final destination in Craydon at 12:25pm. The reason that it's a final destination is due to the monster on the tracks. Oh god, it's right there? Oh god, oh GOD??? When the train comes to a screeching halt, all the non-heroes quickly scamper out of the train to flee for safety. Good luck, heroes!

12:30pm, Ramen, Far Haven: Social Media is abuzz that the Wizard has left the power plant and has gone to one of the chain ramen restaurants in Far Haven. The restaurant is known for its decent ramen, but everyone knows it can't compare to the local shops around the island. This is the "I just want to eat" ramen restaurant. But more importantly, this one has some sports bar qualities and has TVs up on the walls to watch. The Wizard is here, seated close to one of the TVs, and she's watching the events unfolding in Craydon and Bamborough. How is she doing that? Who's recording?

12:30pm, The Bamborough Monster: Out on the waterfront boardwalk, the monster is lumbering its way along the wooden walkways seemingly in search of something. The few shops that were open are closing up as quickly as possible, the last thing they need is their already minimal business ruined by a visit from this monster. Please, someone come help.

??:??pm: Unknown What happens next?

Procedure:

Reply to the appropriate toplevel comments for events below. Indicate if a post is a private conversation with "Private" in the subject otherwise all threads should be open to interaction with others. Plan OOCly how you'd like to toss everyone around.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Monster number two will remember this.

The first thing that happens, of course, is that it slows down in the face of all the wind. It squints its two eyes as it attempts to push forward. It wants! To kill! This wind knight! As it leans forward, it slams all of its leg spikes into the ground to anchor itself. Wood and stone splinter up around its legs and it stays fully in place.

And then one of the spikes on its back shifts, aiming forward as if it's going to shoot at Haizea. It's lining up the shot, very clearly preparing to be aggressive here in a few moments. Do or die time, Haizea? Stay and get spiked, or panic and run?

Seth rushed around the boardwalk to find something sturdy, to his relief finding a small resting spot with a roof supported by reinforced concrete pillars reasonably quickly.

Manifesting wires from the tips of his fingers on his gloved hand, he spun the wires around one of the pillars loosely several times first, then, looking towards where the monster was, sent them to wrap around the monster's feet.

He took a quick breath, and alright, here we go, with a quick motion of his wrist, he wrapped his gloved hand firmly in the wires, then grabbing them for good measure, holding onto the wrist with his non-gloved hand, and at the same time he pulled to tighten the wires, he started reeling them in to make them tie around the monsters feet. Yikes that was an unpleasant sound as the wires scraped against the concrete.

[Seth has wrapped wires around the monster's feet and is attempting to tie them up using his knight made wires and a reinforced concrete pillar for support to protect his hands.]

Haizea has no qualms about running from a fight she can't win, but she's not ready to bail yet. When she notices the spike taking aim at her, she starts darting around the boardwalk. The wind continues from the same direction she originally summoned it in until she pauses in her darting to summon it again, hoping to keep the monster on its toes and its attention on her.

Keeping the wind going at this speed as she runs is taking a lot of concentration and she's not fully aware of how dark the clouds above are starting to get. She's hoping Seth gets it tied up soon.

[Haizea runs around the boardwalk and changes the direction of her wind several times to make herself a harder target and keep the monster distracted]

Haizea succeeds at keeping the monster's attention, it doesn't take its eyes off of her and it certainly doesn't notice Seth's wiring shenanigans. It does, however, decide to take the shot anyway. But given the amount of distractions and wind in its eye, it's hardly going to be accurate.

But the spike still slams into the ground less than a foot away from Haizea. It hits with such force that wood chunks and water from beneath the boardwalk splash up and over her.

In the instant that it takes for it to notice it missed its attack, the monster suddenly starts to rush forward...

Only to slam eyes-first into the ground. The wires tangle up its spindly legs and they're not strong enough to pull free of them. The monster's entire body falls forward, landing with a pretty awful crunch on the wood. When it lands, bright green blood from its earlier top wound oozes out from between its spikes. The stab made by Zafika earlier is clear as day from this angle.

Seth stares in awe for a moment as the monster falls, and suddenly he feels kind of proud of himself! He can only barely believe he just did that!!

Then, realizing better to be safe than sorry, he sends more wires from his non-gloved hand to further tangle the monster's spindly legs.

[Seth tries to ensure the monster's legs stay tied up.]

The water doesn't bother her, but a piece of wood does hit her, leaving a bloody gash on her upper arm. She barely notices though, her pain tolerance has always been real high.

Haizea cheers when the monster goes down and thinks fast. Normally, she'd want to pummel it bloody, but with it covered in spikes she'd rather keep her distance. She quickly calls Fumicq and swaps out her brass knuckles for a long spear; Fumicq gives her a naginata with a wicked blade. She's never used a weapon like this but she's gonna do her best.

"Keep it tied up Seth!" she calls before charging, spear lowered. She's aiming for one of its eyes, but she'll see what she can get away with.

[Haizea charges the fallen monster and tries to gouge its eye out with her knight weapon, a naginata]

If the Monster had a mood calculator, its current status would've switched to rancorous.

Seth will find that it's shockingly easy to keep the monster down because it's not doing anything just yet. If he's paying attention, the leg spikes are slowly, steadily contracting into its body to become the same length as all of the others. But that would only last so long.

Fortunately for Haizea, the monster's predicament leaves it wide open to a stab as she charges forward towards it. She succeeds in stabbing into one of the two eyes, the effort resulting in a blorch of neon green blood over her.

Unfortunately for Haizea, the monster isn't totally defenseless. If she's not careful, she'll get stabbed by one of the spikes that the monster lines up like a javelin. It starts extending the spike towards her, making certain that she underestimates just how close it'll get with it.

Will she see it and dodge, or will she join the second monster's stab party? No matter which way it goes, the monster is now screaming. A horrible cacophany of two screams, high and low, mashed together into one voice as it bleeds.

It takes a moment, but when Seth notices the monster's leg spikes contracting into its body, he basically just wraps the wires more firmly around the pillar before disconnecting them from his non-gloved hand so he could hastily type. He's certainly wincing at the screaming and has to turn the volume of his phone to maximum for even a chance Haizea will be able to hear.

"Haizea, look out! It's definitely up to something, it's contracting the legs I tied up!"

Edited 2019-04-14 01:41 (UTC)

Haizea actually recoils, both from the wave of gross blood and the high pitched screaming, but keeps the naginata lodged in its eye, shoving it deeper if she can in grim determination.

... Until she hears Seth's text to speech. She can barely make out what it says but she figures if it was important enough for him to type it out, it was probably a warning. She doesn't bother to pull out the naginata but just jumps back and puts some distance between herself and the monster, calling the wind to swirl around herself protectively.

[Haizea shoves the naginata deeper in its eye then leaves it there and retreats, calling a strong wind to guard herself]

The monster! Hates! This!

And uh, at this point its tired of Haizea attacking it? As more blood gushes out of its stabbed eye, it brings even more of its spikes forward towards her. It ends up open to attack from every other side. The spikes line up and then it starts firing them directly at Haizea.

Wind shield or not, it doesn't care, it's shooting spikes right at Haizea! One dozen spikes one at a time!

Seth's eyes widen in fear as he sees the monster about to attack Haizea, leaving him momentarily frozen in plance, before he sends wires from his none-gloved hand's fingers, first wrapped around the pillar of course, he wasn't being a complete idiot thankfully, trying to wrap them around the monster inbetween the spikes and around some of them to try and hinder it's attack, grabbing the wires and pulling on them again as he starts retracting them to tighten them, gritting his teeth and swearing internally from the pain of the wires cutting into the palm of his hand.

[Seth tries to hinder the monster's attack (and cut into the monster with the wires but he's not really thinking about the latter)]

'Ah, this is bad' Haizea thinks as spikes start firing at her. She swirls the wind around her with as much force as she can muster and manages to deflect some of them, while others seem to pull back away from her as if yanked back by... wires? Thanks Seth!

However, one of them does manage to strike her, though thrown off course as it is, it's not fatal. The spike glances off the side of her head, the side shaved close to her head, and while it's not deep, it sure does start bleeding something fierce. Again, she doesn't really notice, not until she feels the blood drip onto her shoulder.

She touches the blood on her shoulder, then the side of her head, as the dark clouds above finally open up in a downpour, the wind still swirling around her stopping most of the rain drops from landing on her.

[Haizea is injured and makes it rain while keeping up her wind shield]

This is exactly the kind of content the monster signed up for! It wanted exactly this! Perish, knight, bleed everywhere!

Or at least, it would keep trying towards that end... except the rain starts up. Almost immediately, the monster's body starts vibrating in place and all the spikes start retracting towards it. It starts backing up, moving away from these two knights. The water is mixing with its blood and making it drip out more and more all over everything. It looks like it's bleeding more, actually?

Time to slowly shuffle and run away, peace out knights! See if you can catch this incredibly slowly moving monster! Never gonna happen!!

Seth stares in shock at the way the monster reacts to the water, for a moment frozen in place...
And then he's awkwardly typing on his phone while still trying to hold on tight to the wires wrapped around the monster and the pillar and continuing to internally curse because, ow, ow, the wires are still digging in his skin.

"It doesn't seem to like water Haizea! We should try to get it into the ocean!"

“Oh no you don’t!” Haizea grumbles as the monster tries to lumber away. Starting the rain had been almost instinctual, she hadn’t expected it to hate water so much. But now that she knows... She runs after it, willing the rain to fall harder, and angles herself to its side before calling another huge gust of wind, aiming this time to try and knock it off the side of the boardwalk into the ocean like Seth said.

This effort is taking a toll on her, she’s losing blood and concentrating as hard as she can. Eventually, she reaches a breaking point and falls to her knees, focusing only on her powers and trying to kill the creature that hurt her.

Finally, she collapses, a single peal of thunder the only warning before the clouds above let loose a bolt of lightning. She doesn’t have the power to aim it currently, but if her metal naginata is still lodged in its head then... isn’t that similar to a lightning rod?

[Haizea ups the intensity of the rain, tries to push the monster towards the ocean with wind, then collapses as she summons a bolt of lightning in hopes that it will hit her metal knight weapon lodged in the monster’s head]

Garrot didn't like that the monster almost fucking dead-dropped him to death, but Gail and Terrence did one hell of a job. He'll have to thank them later, when he's not covered in fruity, woody, eggy blood. What the fuck. But as the monster pinballed away, he followed suit while shaking and brushing off as much of the blood as possible. The rain helped, but the sudden sound of thunder doesn't really help his nerves.

So when he turns the corner to see Haizea bloodied and on the ground, Garrot is not happy. At least Seth isn't also in the same shape, against all expectations. He has two choices: make sure the monster can't hurt anyone else, or protect his allies, his friend. He could be reckless and try both, but the Monkey Knight knows there wasn't really a choice to begin with as he runs over and squares up his stance in front of Haizea. No cheap shots for this spindly motherfucker.

"You're okay, Zea." And then between poleaxe Garrot and Haizea, a swirl of golden-brown sparkles coalesce into a second doctor who immediately snatches the prime version's medkit to start dressing the wound, if only to stop the bleeding. "I promise." But then his eyes glance to Seth, that phone in his hand, and with an annoyed little scowl he emphatically gestures towards the monster with his head as if to say go on, Seth! Someone has to do something about that thing and Garrot's a little busy.

Seth kind of panicks momentarily when Haizea goes down for the count pretty much...
And then suddenly there's a wild Garrot between the monster and Haizea and then suddenly there's...two Garrots??!! What.

The annoyed scowl gets him to mirrow it with his own though, rude, he's been doing his best, and quite a good job here, as he disconnects the wires he's sprouting, to make new ones while the monster is still dazed from the lighting that hit it.
These ones he sends to wrap around the pillar once for support, go under the railing on the boardwalk, then around to wrap around the dazed monster.

And then without waiting, the moment the wires are around the monster he starts retracting fast, wincing and gritting his teeth since the speed is pretty painful on his fingers but this is kind of a life or death situation here, and his set-up works like a pulley system and just, pulls the monster over the railing, and sploosh into the ocean, at which point Seth lets the wires disconnect again, gingerly putting his phone away to his bag so he can rest his sore fingers and look how badly he managed to hurt his left palm. The answer was pretty bad, you could easily see all the pretty deep cuts from the wires cutting into his palms when he was retracting them while holding onto them without any protection.

At least he's relatively dry since he was under the roof the pillars held up the whole time.

Um, excuse you, knights? Referee, can you call foul on all these shenanigans taking place? There's uh, some definite tomfoolery here and the monster is straight-up Not A Fan of any of it! More importantly, the monster isn't even able to take advantage of Haizea's weakness because she strikes it with lightning. Fucking ow, excuse you?

Which is to say that by the time Seth is working his wire magic, the monster's sense of where it is and what it's trying to not do are totally confused and-

-and then it's just underwater.

A few moments after the monster hits the ocean, bubbles form up around its body on all sides. The bubbles are replaced by this thick, awful, viscous foam a few moments later. Then, as if the second monster was just a bomb, it explodes in the water. Massive chunks of horrible neon green goo mixed in with ocean saltwater splash down all over the boardwalk. No one is safe from the deluge of horrible blood saltwater, they all get soaked in it. Lime, copper, wood shavings, scrambled eggs, and ocean scent all mix together and soak into everyone's clothes. Enjoy that nightmare, knights!

Haizea doesn’t pass out when she collapses, but it’s like all the strength just leaves her body in a way she’s never experienced before. Who knew creating LIGHTNING was so exhausting! She’s both happy and embarrassed to see Garrot when he shows up, she’d really rather he not see her looking so weak. His clone manages to bandage up her head before she starts swatting him away.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” she mumbles, just in time for the monster to explode out of the ocean in a shower of seawater and blood. The seawater she likes, the blood not so much. The rain she summoned earlier hasn’t let up and she’s not about to make it stop, hopefully that’ll clean up the blood a little bit at least.

“So... I guess we won?”

Seth makes the most disgusted face at the bloodinfused ocean water getting all over him. Thank god Abigail was in the bag, and that it was water proof. Without even hesitating he steps out from underneath the roof because he'd much rather the rain wash away the worst of it.

Taking off the glove he gives it to Qus, since he doesn't need it now. Sorry Qus, he is not dealing with cleanign up the glove so uh, you gotta deal with that.
He'd probably type something snarky out of annoyance at Haizea, or sign, but his fingers hurt, and so does his left palm, which now stings super badly too.

Haizea swatting his medical skills away was frustrating enough, but the explosion of bloody saltwater hitting both of his bodies was just too fucking much after watching one of his friends be so close to death. Normally he'd be happy, he'd be leaping into the air and cheering because they were all so awesome. Especially Seth, holy shit! But no, none of that.

"Yeah we did, Zea!" He sounds sarcastic. Furious. The original Garrot, the one holding the poleaxe, disappears into a cloud of golden-bronze dust and takes the weapon with him. The doctoring Garrot is undaunted by this. "And I'm gonna have to redo these fucking dressings 'cause of that spiky fuck, or they'll get infected!" Garrot is so mad, this is making his job so much more difficult than it needs to be! But then he sees Seth, and-

"What the fuck, kid?!" He's yelling, sorry Haizea's ears. "What do you gotta worry about if you can do brutal shit like that!?" This is the closest grumpy Garrot will get to a compliment, but it's still pretty overt. That said, he's putting his attention more towards Haizea's head wound since she, well, collapsed.

“Lay off him,” Haizea says, struggling to sit up, “I’d be dead if he wasn’t here. He ain’t used to fightin’ like us, but he did a good job.” She’s a little dizzy from all that but manages to stay sitting up. Her wounds definitely need attention, but her high pain tolerance has yet to fail her. Just... don’t expect her to walk just yet.

At least the rain is doing a decent job of washing away most of the blood, and Haizea noticed her naginata is lodged in the wood of the boardwalk some distance away. It must have been shot out of the water along with all the other monster bits.

“Are... the others okay? There were two monsters, right?”

Seth give Garrot the most 'what the actual fuck' expression he can give, even lifting his hands to try and add to that, but he also doesn't know how to emote so what the expression ends up actually looking like is anyone's guess.

He's soon too busy gritting his teeth though because ow, ow his fingers and palm hurt, shouldn't have done that, no it's not anywhere near as bad as what Haizea's going through but he's a wimp so...

Haizea definitely gets some more respect and likability points though for trying to get Garrot off his back. Basically all he did was what Haizea told him and...panic. He doesn't really even coherently remember the last 10 minutes or so, it's kind of becoming a blur now that he's slowly edging out of the panic.

"I haven't received a response back, yet, but I've informed the others of our victory," Terrence shouts over while stuffing his phone back into the pocket of his jumpsuit (of course it has pockets!). Though he and Gail were keeping some distance, the instant the creature popped he started to run over and is only just now arriving.

"Goodness, is everyone qui-" is all Terrence manages to get out before the rabbit knight is hit with the smell. It causes him to visibly retch momentarily before he can regain composure and turn back to the others, lifting the collar of the jumpsuit over his nose and mouth like a makeshift gas mask. His own sweat isn't exactly appealing either, but certainly more so than that. A cough, "For anyone exceedingly injured, I believe I may have an idea..."

"Whaddaya mean, lay off?!" He sounds offended that Haizea would even suggest such a thing. "That was killer! He doesn't need to be used to fighting like us if he can do that." And then at the sound of Terrence retching, Garrot is snapped out of his grumpiness. Dragon is hurt, Rat is distant, Rabbit is about to be sick. Focus.

"I'm all ears!" Garrot utters the words, and after a beat stifles a laugh. His ears are big, but not as big as Terrence's. "I mean, I guess you are too." Because jokes are good. Jokes defuse tension. Maybe it'll help things now that he's gesturing for both Seth and Terrence to get closer to Haizea and himself.

Medicine takes time, and he's more than a little worried about Haizea. It's only the second day...

The Weather

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