Latest revision as of 02:09, 31 January 2022

Participants

Date

30/1/2022

Log

T'is a cold and harrowing night in the distant woodlands. The moon shines full and the ferals have taken refuge, all that remains is what few enduring beasts of the shadows lurk around seeking easy prey. To those whom had answered the mysterious summons, the coordinates listed would take them far into the blackened woodlands abyss. Those feint of heart or unwilling to brave the bitter cold would have no doubt turned away, yet those resolved to learn more of a looming threat to the new world they'd built for themselves may yet remain. Strangely enough, the provided location was very specific, so much so it had a margin of error smaller than the gap between a crystal avian's overgrown chestmounds!

To those with the technical and navigation acuity, soon enough the faint flickering of a campfire amidst the woodlands would present itself. There, several logs would encircle a stone fireplace, intended to be used as two to three-person benches. Upon them a sole feline rested, dressed in a long brown overcoat, his head capped by a warm woolen headcover, and his neck guarded by a cozy scarf colored brown and green. He'd be poking at the firepit with what seemed to be a branch he'd picked up from somewhere, and idly passing his time, waiting for whomever it was would arrive. Aside from that, the scene was peaceful, tranquil even. Eerily calm with naught but the sounds of the winter winds and crackle of the fireplace breaking the otherwise deafening silence.

Fenris chugs gamely along through the woodlands. Literally. The tanuki has assumed an odd form today. He is still obviously a tanuki, but he seems to be constructed of brass with ornate samurai armor grafted to it. The sound of metal sliding on metal accompanies his movement, along with the occasional chuff of steam from the intimidating dragon grille over his brass snout.

He clomps to a stop at the campfire and waves, opening the front of his helmet to reveal a pleasant little smile on a round, coon-masked face. "Heard there was adventure to be had!" he says in a warm tenor, steam rising from his lips.

Yejian was no stranger to woodland navigation. She lived here, after all, and the knightly rabbit wasn't about to have spooks befouling the place. Trotting through the trees, rather quietly for her heavy armour, the spear toting woman draws near the campfire and leans over to place a smooch atop the feline's head. "So it would seem."

Circling high overhead the campfire is a shadow in the night sky, blocking out the stars for a brief moment as it moves. It seems to be hunting for something, passing by once, twice, and then seems to home on the gathering location. It makes as close of a flyby as the tree tops allows, with large wings flapping to take back off into the sky. Moments later it approaches again, having found a large enough opening to come in, the large creature gliding in fast!

A roughly eight foot tall large male shadow dragon lands near the spot with a muffled thud, his wings flapping a little for balance. Looking him over, he is covered in black as night scales, but carrying an equipment bag, and has a collar on his neck, with an ID badge. With a deep sigh, he looks around where he landed to check for threats, and then walks over to the campfire.

Currently shifted into a Storm Dragon with a fan of tails, Willy's journey through the forest has been one done cautiously. While his home was in a Lodge at the forests edge, the maps listing was not something to be trifled with. Reaching the location, he smiles and lets his gaurd down a bit, and smiles "I was told to come here to be of assistance to a mission" he says to the cat, before spotting Fenris giving a wave, and nodding to the others.

As long as it wasn't actually underground, there were no issues at all finding it. The distant light through the trees the only beaming beacon to be seen, aside from herself as she chose to be. Strolling through the forest with a stubborn appearance of being headstrong. Or proud? Glowing, fur and dress lit, casting a pink glow all about her. Eying the others. But she did not sit, tails behind her curling and waving about, some even supporting her slightly upon the ground. 40 tails trailing afterimages behind her, as she made no attempt to truly hide herself. Ascii arrived late, having been unsure, and as such only leaving at the last moment.

The glow faded from her, all except for the green markings on her neck, the pink glow of her eyes, and that of the streamers attached t othe end of each and every tail. There was nothing orderly to how her tails had settled though, wild in their actions, fighting against each other as much as seeming to stare in random directions. Steadying her balance moment to moment despite everything. Dress worn tight over her, like armor, garnished with dives at either shoulder, tied into a sling at her right side, and connected into a double holster for short barreled items, and what appears to be a music player..? Arms crossed as she tilts her head, fennec like ears perked, arm raised holding her hand up in greeting amidst unfamiliar faces.

Two arms wrap around Yejian's figure, the feline pulling her in for the warmest of embraces, portraying naught but boundless warmth and appreciation for the woman that'd approached him. "I had a feeling I'd see you here. Can't leave well enough alone if the people's safety is suggested to be endangered." He'd tuck his head under her chin, likely one of the few places he could make direct contact given her battle-readied ensemble. The softest sigh of contentment parts his lips when he feels her warmth against his, before pulling away with that same familiar smile tugging at his feline muzzle. "Well, there is yet work to do. I've little reason to think others are coming."

Fenris, he wasn't just a person, at this point he'd become a bit of a brand for his patron. Ever the enthusiastic enigma, Magnus has no trouble recognizing him at even a glance. "Look who's here! You I didn't think I'd be seeing! Or do you make a habit of being elusive just for the sake of mystique?" He casts the raccoon dog a wink, then gestures towards the surrounding seating accommodations. "Please, if you'd be so kind. We've much to discuss before I show you anything, or take you anywhere." Then there's that soft sound made known when their shadowy of dragon friends makes his appearance. Randel, was it? Magnus had only seen the fellow once before, and t'was most definitely in a body like this. Still, the lingering scent he carried was familiar, yet not so much that he could identify the therapist at a single whiff. He'd greet the male with a wave of one hand and a gesture to make himself comfortable and warm around the firepit, where they were to convene before any actual hunting was to happen.

Willy, he was a stranger. At least so far as Magnus remembered, this person... was unknown to him. Even so that was unsurprising, he wasn't solely expecting familiar faces, though the body he wore definitely piqued some interest. A fluffy dragon of all things, such a novel concept. Magnus knew of only one other furred dragon, cast black with a white-striped tail... he feels a sudden tinge of melancholy, for they'd not seen one another in a while. Perchance it was time to resolve this. "You are in the right place. Welcome. Warm yourself by the fire." The feline nods, and passes a few moments until the final of their group arrives. She was... unlike anything else. He could scarcely understand the business occurring with that overwhelming cacophony of tails there. Goodness, yet she seemed quite confident in herself. One can only hope that t'was not overconfidence. He'd greet her with a nod and a kind word, then gesture for her to take her place near the fire.

"Right..." The feline stands, then begins to pace around the flickering flames. "First and foremost, introductions as courtesy necessitates. I am Magnus Persival Ottkins. I have gathered you all here to address something that I've made it my business to combat for the better part of last year now. Something quite alien to all but those familiar with the otherworldly affairs on an intimate level. Well... for the lack of a better word." he'd snerk and rub his hands together. "Ladies and gentlemen, I will not sugarcoat it. I am fighting a losing battle... lest I gather aid in my pursuits, I am fearful of what may well start plaguing our city, our homes, our lives, our families. Though I already know some of you have the strength and resolve to face the dangers ahead, I am willing to trust that your presence here signifies this holds true for all of you. To those unwilling to involve themselves in such affairs however, kindly rise, and walk away now."

Fenris sits by the fire with a THUD and listens to Magnus, nodding along and focusing on the most important parts.

"Your name is Ottkins?" the brass tanuki asks incredulously.

"Of course I can't. This is a knight's calling, after all," Yejian replies to Magnus with a wink. Once parting from the contact, she rests the butt of her spear on the ground and hooks an arm lazily around it to listen and observe the others. "I'm familiar enough with such things. Not as much as my mother by far, but enough, and you know me well enough by now that I'll not back down from a challenge like this."

Willy nods to this and sits down at the fire with a rumbiliing "Thank you" he says, before listening in to the plan. He nods slowly and keeps a calm look, with a minor swish of his tails here and there. Once finished his smiles "I've worked more than enough and hard enough to be able to take strong missions. This do me is no bigger a challenge and I am happy to help out." he says with a smile.

The stoic looking dragon gets to the campfire and sits down. Despite being in just scales, the chill of the night doesn't bother him. Suddenly there is a look of surprise as he sees the Tanuki and mutters, "Wait, Fenris?!" but then keeps to his professional self. Getting a closer look at the collared almost natural looking feral, people can see his Zephyr ID badge. It is in fact Randel, 'of Zephyr', from the Psych Department. The same pleasant, accommodating, mutant therapist and reluctant government desk jockey; out here of all nights to help with a rather dire sounding mission. Those that know, he's had a 'wild life' and rough career during the chaos of P-Day and the months following, and now is showing some of himself former self now. Even one of the six pictures on the badge shows a shadow dragon, matching his face perfectly.

"Oh good, I thought I was going to be late," Randel says in relief, "Had to make a detour to the mountain to check on something." There is deep draconic chuckle before he states, "You know I can't really pass this up." and then adds in an emphasized tone "It'll be just like just like the good old days, when P-Day hit." He opens his humble equipment bag, and says "Sorry, I.. uh, am not much on gearing up. But I did bring medical supplies." And shows the stash of canisters of powerful medical nanites, among other basic gear most agents carry.

Ascii nodded, staying quiet, for the moment. Listening as she sat down, tails resting out with her. Looking like a bunch of lazy snakes behind her now, like that. "I've dealt with such things, before." She admitted, eyes shifting aside as she wasn't speaking to any one person, though she neither rose, or left. Maybe there was a tinge of anger slipping in at that too. Eying lengthwise across the space, and then behind herself, tails lurching to action! Just to settle down again as she turned back towards the fire. Adjusting the skirting of her dress enough to bring note of the gray thermal garment pressed to her legs beneath it. "Ascii. I'm Ascii, Ascii Lyneston, prior microbiologist, then former police officer with RSX, now civilian information broker. Co-owner of the Morning After tavern. And owner of the Afterthoughts shop.."

The feline continues to circle around the campfire, nodding shallowly to his companions' responses. When they'd all finished expressing their willingness, he halts in place, and looks around the motley crew of diverse talents and eager bodies. This was encouraging. "Then in that case..." he'd wave towards the stack of firewood behind the log Ascii had sat down on. Seems like a few of these logs were purposefully set aside and primed to be used as torches. "Kindly grab one torch each and follow me. T'is merely a precautionary measure. The beasts of the night are avoidant of fire. We'd have an easier time crossing the woodlands without being pounced by a hungry critter." Magnus notes, then does so himself, snagging one of the prepared torches and setting it ablaze upon the firepit. He'd then turn towards Fenris and smirk. "The name was given to me, my father didn't have a last name and I needed to register somehow with RSX when I still worked for them. They're terribly stingy about their paperwork. It stuck, so I made it official." He'd shrug deeply and take a few steps in specific to the north, then pause and wait for everyone to ready themselves. It is only then that he'd lead the way towards wherever it was he intended to take them.

Sure enough, should everyone grab their torches or not, he'd proceed onwards to lead them through the thick and twisting depths of the dark forest. Here, silence reigned supreme, barring any spoken words, the only noises permeating the air were the party's footfalls and the crackling of their torches. Eventually however, something comes into view... there between the trees, large and amorpheous, hovering over the ground, cracking with electrical energy and radiation. T'was not enough to cause them immediate harm, but even at a distance of twenty feet it made any nanite creature in the area feel slighlty... off, as Radiation tended to do. To best describe it, the anomaly most closely resembled a rip in the fabric of reality. As though someone had slashed at the open air and exposed something beneath it somehow. Glowing a faint, sickly greenish-purple-red-yellow... it never seemed to settle on any one specific color, though most strangely of all it appeared to warp the space around it, forcing random distortions in the air, akin to those one might see over a hot surface, though much more intense. It exhimed a sickly humming and crackling, all together appearing foreboding.

"Ladies and gentlemen. THIS is a an extraplanar tear. Not to be confused with a wormhole, which is an INTERplanar tear, research is still unsure if those exist. Anyway! I understand the lot of you are likely confused right now, but permit me to elucidate. No doubt all of you are well acquainted with the various other realms now within our reach thanks to Zephyr's undying thirst for profit. They exist... so how about this thing? What caused it and its brothers to just suddenly start popping up?" He'd pause, then huff out his nose. "The fact of the matter is, they've always been trying to open. Our plane is simply such that it hates things like these. They are unstable, and spacetime prefers to remain uniform. In the past, were one to rip open?" He clamps his hands together for emphasis. "Snap. The universe cleans itself up. So then, what changed? What happened that we are seeing this one, very much un-closed?" Another pause... "Loki happened. Odin... happened. Ixchel... happened. Inari happened. Artemis happened. The solar dragons, the lunar touched, the phoenixes... ALL of them... happened. Right here, in our little nook of Fairhaven. More and more extraplanar entities throwing the natural balance of power into flux, and here we see one of the symptomes."

Magnus shakes his head and exhales slowly. "Even so, such tears are temporary, they last no more than an hour or two from my observation. I've yet to discover a way to close them, but we were either lucky or UNlucky that this one popped up before our meeting was to commense. I had initially a presentation to show you, but... why do that when we can see the real thing. I am afraid I have little in terms of answers for whatever questions you may have, but I want you to know what happens sometimes when these things emerge. Sometimes, things crawl through. Accidentally, intentionally, I don't know and I care not. The past year I've done little else than hunt every single of these atrocities down as much as my reach permits, but... the overabundance of magic use is increasing. With that, so will these tears, and so will the unwelcome invaders they let in. This is what I need you for. This is why I've summoned you."

Fenris takes up a torch when they are offered and follows along, nodding as Magnus explains. Warm, orange light peeps through the seams of his armor, along with the occasional puff of steam, hinting at some kind of inner workings.

As the rift becomes more evident around the group, the brass tanuki quietly unslings the long bladed spear from his back. A soft, yellow green light forms a barely visible halo around the blade. "These the ones that have been following you around?" he asks, his tone pleasant, but his eyes wary.

Taking a torch, Yejian sets off to follow. The odd rift in space promps a curious once-over, as she nods along with Magnus' words. "That sounds about right, to my understanding of it. They've always been around, but every time one gets a foothold on the world it makes it easier for others to follow suit. Still, the reason for it matters not to me. What does matter, and what I do have the power to deal with, is whatever comes out, like you said. And unlike people, it's a threat I don't have to feel reserved about fighting."

Randel nods in agreement to the choice of lighting, knowing personally how the creatures of the area operate. As he grabs and lights the torch, he nod's Magnus' comment about needing a last name, pausing to reflect on his own missing family name. With the medical supply pack looped over a shoulder and covered by a wing, he follows Magnus. Shortly after walking he asks, "Huh, I need to know for certain, who's in charge of this mission, Magnus or one of us? Just want to make sure nothing gets confusing upon first encounter". Further in, when the team reached the rift in reality, the heavily augmented Nanite Adept pause with a worried look, just like the other ferals nearby, feeling the radiation hugging his body with a sickly embrase. Overriding his fear he carries on and listens to the explanation. The dragon can't help but nod in unamused agreement that Zephyr is mainly about profits, but there isn't much he can do about it, or he would. There is also a sad nod when given the explanation of the rips in reality, looking uncomfortable about it, as a kid about a test in school he completely failed to study for. He was an infection form researcher, not a paranormalist! Still, he found himself at the doorstep of madness himself, expecting to get schooled, one way or another. When hearing Yejian's comment about not feeling reserved about fighting what horrors may come out, he smiles again and states, "Oh good... I think I have over a hundred feral mindsets that would love to stretch out and... 'meat' some of them." and widens his clawed hands, itching to tear into something. Then he straps his equipment bag more securely on his bag and then looks around for any threats, either from the portal, or for anything that has already crawled out.

Willy Looks at the tear ever a bit befuddled. He had heard about such going on in the world, but by this point, he had largely lead it to be of more having to do with the reality bending of the nanites themselves. True magic though, that was a surprise. Blinking a bit, he looked back to Magnus. "I see where this could be back braking to whats going on...though I don't exactly understand what is your request...are you speaking in something to stop them...or is this more, defensive preperations?" he asks as his draconic cat ears twitch a bit.

Ascii kind of hesitated to take a torch for herself, she was normally brighter than a torch anyways. But followed suit. Retaining one for herself, and an extra under her opposing arm just in case should there be enough. Only to see something she had seen before, possibly a number of times, stomach turning tense at her proximity, tails agitated much more dramatically now, waving about behind her as if hiding behind her from it automatically. She couldn't help it. Dropping the extra torch and instantly taking up her more comfortable implement offhanded. What looks like a small pistol with no opening at the end of it's barrel, and no lunes marking a slide, appearing to be solid. turned down to the ground but kept at the edge of her own vision. She couldn't look at it though. It brought back some bad memories. Instead choosing to look over Magnus and keep her eyes upon him instead, he was the speaker after all.

"Hm? No. Well, not always. Pretty much anything can emerge from these. I've seen and disposed of mindflayers, spore husks, and gloomtreants, but all the same sometime all they puff out is radiation, some strange inorganic goo or something from the pleasant plains, like a pink fluffy unicorn. Those I just take back to Zephyr and chuck into their home, just in case." Magnus handwaves and nods in acknowledgement to Yejian's observation. "Astute, and now I fear we've started to veer over a dangerous precipice. If thinks keep going the way they've been going with these otherworldly entities, we'll keep seeing bigger and more volatile tears forming, letting stars-know what else into our realm..." He then turns towards the next spoken question, "For starters, awareness. Getting the opportunity to show at least the lot of you what's happening in the background is a huge enough help already. But if I can actually recruit willing souls to combat these otherworldly ills, not the tears at this point... but the beasts they spawn, then... that would be an immense help. Our world is no place for them, here they come to ravage and loot with no natural predators of their own, if no one keeps them under control, we may well be overrun in a few years time." His glance then wanders towards Randel, "Then I encourage you to do so, but also to be careful of what you encounter. I've amassed a great deal of knowledge about many of these entities, and I wish to share it with those willing to make a difference." His compassionate glance falls on Ascii, one hand reaching out to take her shoulder. "It's alright. This is for demonstra-"

The feline's words are cut off at the ironically most opportune time for fate to make its point. The tear they'd neared violently crackles, its brightness intensifying for several seconds as radiation gushes forth from within it depths. Spacetime around it seems to ripple and swirl for a few seconds more, before it fades into oblivion with a nauseating crunch. Ascii, Yenian and Willy would all feel momentarily dizzy, but their stamina shoves the daze aside in mere seconds. Randel and Fenrishowever feel their stomachs churn, bile building up and their knees going momentarily weak. They suffer a brief incapacitation trying to keep their lunch down, but would otherwise be up on their feet again after a few seconds. As for what remained there, where the tear once resided, a tall, gangrenous humanoid with pale skin and bloodshot eyes lay curled up. Its bones crackle as it moves to sit up, disjoined maw opening wide uttering an unearthly gurgle. Its limbs are outlandishly long and capped with blackened scythe-like talons, its feet digitigrade and skeletally thin as though it had not eaten in months. It would turn its horrid face and stare wide-eyed at the group, then slowly begin to turn and face them as drool leaks out its fanged maw.

Fenris stops for a moment, seaying on his feet. "Oog," he groans, "I felt that." He bends over, holding his knees and taking deep breaths for a moment before straightening to see the abberation from the rift.

"Oh," the tanuki says, "I don't like the look of that." He raises his spear in preparation.

"And that's one to test our mettle against, then." Yejian drops the torch and swings her spear into a ready position, braced and sturdy. "Been a while since I felt that kind of feeling." But with it passed, she was far more prepared to handle threats of a physical nature.

"And that's one to test our mettle against, then." Yejian drops the torch and swings her spear into a ready position, braced and sturdy. "Been a while since I felt that kind of feeling." But with it passed, she was far more prepared to handle threats of a physical nature. Claws she could deal with. Like anything else that fought with tooth and fang most likely, even if it looked or moved weirdly. She takes a step forward, ready to take the brunt of it as was her habit.

Randel's eagerness to dispatch whatever monstrosity that comes through gets taken down a notch or two as the spike in radiation punches him right in the core, dropping his torch. "Fuck mefoe he cures while staggering, unaccustomed to radiation, and reflexively pushes out a call to the nanites around him to help cure the sickening feeling. It still doesn't counter the sickening effects fully, but for everyone in the area, they can feel the nanite density build as the feral looking Nanite Adept summons them closer and replicate. When coming to, he looks at the beast, eyeing over the monster for a moment and states, "If that thing is like a night stalker, those long and thin bones are likely very strong, despite appearances, and it looks about as slash happy as one too." There is a long growl before saying "Just a guess, but if physics isn't broken, those long arms have great swing leverage, but terrible starting momentum. Fuck, that means someone has to get close..." He then looks around for anyone else wanting to get close, and readies a charge on the long limbed monster.

Willy listens quietly listens to Magnus' response, before the creature enters from the void. The Dragon grits his teeth as he feels the radiation brush off him and his armor, before shaking off the effect. Growling, he begins to build up electrical charge on his fur, and looks to it, before taking a hedgehog like plush from his pack. Pressing it's nose, he tries to sling it at the Monster, with a hidden heft it wouldn't show from when it was in his hands.

Ascii hardly registered the new shape before her torch was on the ground snuffed under a foot almost before it hit the ground as she cleared her aim. She didn't take an air of leadership unto her actions. But authority was there, moving with great purpose to step to the side as her glow lit up once more. Not in one place, but two, and then three. And then four. Soon there were six figures pointing at the creature with the pistol like device. Five of them disappearing if one should look directly at them. Bracing her main hand grip with her off hand now, just to lower her off hand, a soft clicking noise coming from the base of her dress. "Watch the claws for poison-" She was ready to knock it on it's ass the moment it tried to move, but wasn't able to take initiative thanks to practice, and habit. Prepared, and with aim locked onto the target. On one knee, sonic boom canon braced. She finally manages to fire, and waiting her weapon's charge, pulled something from her dress's skirt and whips it forwards, or nothing? It's like she'd thrown something and it disappeared.

Whatever found amalgamation they were facing had been expunged into their world, it slowly moves its eyes around the group, then hisses a gurgling threat at the one that'd tried to take a shot at it, perhaps registering its hostility. *ploink* The strangely shaped grenade bops it right on the forehead, drawing its attention for a moment, before *BOMF* exploding in a big cloud of horrifically toxic gas! It covers its face and shrieks in... pain? ...before making a mad lunge for the party, its savage claws aimed directly for its attacker! UNfortunately for it, Willy proves too slippery for its motions, even so it moves fast. Much faster than one might have assumed! Easily covering twenty feet in under a second's time! *CLINK* those massive talons impact Fenris' guard, not quite able to slice through but leaving behind a notable scratch that immediately begins to fester, the material starting to decompose into some form of dry crusty ash. Its gangrenous jaw opens wide and *CHOMP* latches right onto Fenris' shoulder, the pressure intense enough to buckle his armor, yet not force past it. It remains latched onto the armored tanuki, trying again to chew through his guard. One can only imagine the consequences of it succeeding to do so~

Fenris grunts as the monstrous thing latches on to his armor wrapped, brass arm. "Outerplanar origin," he comments, flourishing the torch in his free hand and jabbing it directly into the face clamped on his thick arm. "Best choice is to burn it with fire or upper planar energies." Too bad he can't test his own extraplanar weapons in these close quarters.

"Right. Beware the claws," Yejian reaffirms upon seeing the effect. With Fenris keeping it distracted, the lapine knight steps forward and drives her spear true and through. No flashy stunts or weird weapons from this one, just some solid, well made armaments. Hopefully it would be enough.

The shadowy dragon, ready to charge with anyone else at the monster, sees the beast choke on the poison cloud in one moment, and suddenly leaps forward the next! Feeling just as good a time as any, he pounces in response, grabbing the arm that swung, hoping to disable it while it is occupied, and whining slightly from a likely counter attack. With a leap he's got the creatures arm, but he swings haphazardly, wings beating behind him to keep stable as he tries to damage it. While his claws sink right into its flesh, liable to gut most any normal human, his clawed fingers feels like they are just sticks flowing through thick mud as the creature's body regenerates from the lacerations. "It heals!" he roars with anger and worry, "Of course the damn thing would heal!" before muttering "Where's your damn tendons at you-"

Willy was only able to get out a spry smile before gaurding himself as he dodged the coming attack with a push of his wings. Looking up, he sees the Monsters attack having gotten stuck in Fenris' armor, and decides to take advantage of it. With a quick dash and heft of his wings he draws his shotgun from his pack and yells "Sorry if I make your ears ring!" he says before sliding up and firing a shot with a thunderous CRACK into the creature, as loud as if lighting struk where he stood.

When Ascii pulled the trigger and there was nothing but a soft buzz on the air, her eyes narrowed.. She'd not been in action too long and didn't check her pistol at the campfire, everything but it. Of course she'd forgotten to set it to charge. So while she garnered a callout from the beast acknowledging her action. And a "Fucking shit" From Ascii. Nothing to do about it. nothing but watch as it charged into the mess of things. And she just casually underhand tossed a grenade type canister over to the two in close proximity with it. This one won't affect agents either so. Minding the rock she threw to test her arm earlier. This should at worst do nothing. Simply choosing to study it, and watch for other threats. Not like ferals wouldn't hear all of this after all. Last thing they needed was that too.

Things only got from bad to worse, this... thing, it simply refused to die! Yejian's polearm spears it once, twice, thrice even, impaling through its neck and torso, even poking a big hole in its head, yet the injures kept re-sealing! Willy comes in and takes a calculated risk, and likely saves Fenris a LOT of trouble when he aims his shotgun directly at the attacker's face and *BOOM* in a spray of blood and viscera completely splatters it into ground paste. THE ACCURSED THING LUNGES OFF OF FENRIS, WHILE STILL LACKING ITS HEAD! Those more astute would notice the flesh and bone reform, emerging from its neck and reconstructing its skull in mere seconds!

Fenris however seems to have struck something of a great idea, the lingering burnmarks upon the blasted ghoul's body after being thoroughly pelted with a lit torch remain, charred gangrenous skin still present, but rendered unusable by the flames. What Ascii does however is something else indeed. Her grenade bounces off the retreating atrocity's back and explodes into a semitransparent cloud of gods-know what! It prompts the creature to shriek out in abject terror as its eyes, still mid-regeneration, melt away and leave it blinded. It flails its clawed appendages at the first thing within sensing distance, its efforts proving futile when its accursed monster's strikes rebound clean off of her, be it her armor or shield, neither permits that she suffers harm.

Magnus had, for the most part, merely kept observing, uninterested in getting involved likely such he can see how they deal with the situation. Unfortunately, it seems they came unprepared for this particular kind of beastie, and he felt he need get involved, if just a bit. "Hold him back!" He'd yell to Yejian, then draw what appeared to be a ceremonial curved blade from its holster at his hip. He drives it across his free hand, muttering something under his breath, a charm or a curse of some sort perhaps. Where blood would have leaked out his injury, a thick mist gushes forth, directed by the will of its caster. Moments later the condensed affliction swarms whatever this... thing they were fighting was, seeping into its yet unmended injuries, cutting into the prior efforts of the others and searing its wounds closed, corroding what remained of its efforts to reclaim its missing flesh. "It's gonna take more than that! Anyone have anything to keep the blasted thing from re-growing itself?!" The feline calls out~

Fenris wastes no time fretting over the ruined head as it drops from his arm. The burly tanuki throws himself at the beast, grappling on and producing a sudden surge of electricity!

Yejian batters away the swinging of claws, between gauntlet deflection and swift parries of the spear she keeps the creature at bay. "Unfortunately not," she calls back as she continues to rain assault down upon it. She remains calm and focused; This thing might be able to go a while with its regeneration, but so can she. This bunny knight was suited for protracted battles, if it came to it. "Best I can do is keep it busy."

Randel makes a monotone "Ouch" as the point blank shotgun report hits his sensitive ears signaling it was at least uncomfortable, but keeps focusing on surgically dismembering the bio-horror's weaponized arm, or at least one of them. "Why won't you stay sliced?!" the dragon roars back franticly before sinking both claws into the unnatural flesh and channeling his nanites right into the arm, which figuratively explodes hostile nanites into the horror's body; his own flesh reforming nanites helping to disrupt the creature's regeneration. There is a mad glint in the dragon's eyes, seeming dead set to butcher the thing. The Nanite Apept's body suddenly grows... thin and gaunt?! Features on his face turn flat and wings degenerate back into his body, turning into a horrid Night Stalker he referenced earlier, with his own long limbs and long pointed claw-like fingers as he uses a Woodfield mutant form to mimic the monster's build. Shortly after the shift, his limbs and torso lengthen even more to match the horror, with his grin growing wider as he feels his attacking nanites work over the Outer Realm monster's body. He can feel the stress of the shift on his body, but he doesn't show it, he doesn't seem to care right now, other than to state his form's want of blood.

Willy grumbles "Nothing that comes to mind unfortunently" he says, sliding back after the attack. "I can cast a Curse, but it's gonna affect everyone..." he says "I can do it if you think it will work though...or a form that might have something I can access." he says quickly pulling another of his Plushies out and trying to read a clean shot line.

Ascii shrugs earnestly. "I'm not geared for single targets.." Somehow though, she doesn't seem too worried either, even as she's thinking.. But she doesn't know what type of chems would work. Assaying as she steps a bit further away, though trying not to get too far away and make a target of herself. "Unless someone wants to lose fingers." All of her gear's been put away as she thinks intently. Trying to figure.. something out. A sigh, she throws up her arms. "I refuse to hit one of you. I've got nothing. Closing her eyes. Well. Guess the only other thing she could try would be, as silly as it sounded in her head. Laughing to herself. Eyes opening lit lime green instead of pink. As she works her jaw. Giving it a waking nightmare. She could only wonder what it feared. That it was inconsequential, could do nothing, that everything around it was an insurmountable effort, and it would die, starving before it could even reach them again. The only misery it's own? She reached out, did not touch it, merely, inflicted upon it, in-consequentiality. If it could process malice, it could proccess this.

It didn't take long for their combined efforts to start wearing this abomination down. For several people, surely just one of these fiends was an easy enough kill, right? Well... YES! As a matter of fact, in between the various burns, the electrocutions, the repeated stabbings and gunfire wearing down what resources it had to work with, this... thing, this... monster, this... flesh-craving atrocity was starting to lose its footing. Barred from regenerating and too injured to do much other than slash haphazardly with its senses erased, it knows only the presence of Yejian, who seems to be having an easy time repelling its swipes. Were they out of the bubble, Randel's efforts would have proven futile, however this was not the case. Like a swarm of mosquitoes searing into its already patchy flesh, the ambient nanites come together to... well, fragment. Its bones weaken, its swipes slow and it tries to make a run for it. Not nearly as fast as it once was however, the damnable thing wouldn't be getting very far at all! Its mind wreaked by the sudden intrusion of Ascii's mindgames send it crashing *THUD* straight into a tree. Vulnerable and exposed, there was nowhere to run now...

Fenris lets go of the tormented monstrosity, and staggers back. The armored tanuki checks his wounds from blocking the thing earlier. He looks at the others closing in and steps back to join Magnus.

"Bodaks?" he asks incredulously, "We're importing straight up demons out here now?"

Yejian gives her spear a twirl and braces herself, looking for an opening... As soon as the creature stumbles into a tree, she sees it. And takes it. With a charge and a lunge, she drives her spear forward to try and impale it to the wood.

Like the feral Randel is channeling, the large Night Stalker single-mindedly goes after his prey, chasing and leaping towards the Outer Realm horror with long bloodied claws, because if it is still moving, it is of interest to the nanite-made monster. Unfortunately his body is getting overtax, having not taken even a second's break during the attack. He went all in too quickly and is too sluggish to grab the monster in time as it runs out of his grasp, making him yell out in anger before giving chase.

Willy seeing that it's regen is starting to come under control, Willy decides to go for a finishing blow. Flexing up a little to push his Muscle Enhancers, he charges it and full speed, and ducking to behind it, grips it at the back. Using all the strenght his juggernaut body and his enchanes can give, he pulls the creature at the shoulders and tries to bend his spine in not so nice ways.

Ascii, with so little to focus on continued looking for things to do, so as randel, obviously worn down charged past. She tried to get his attention, with a "Hey slow down a sec there!" but nothing. Another sigh. Who really was the one left feeling inconsequential? This gal, right here. So she shrugged, said heck it. Eyes back to pink. She, didn't exactly run. But her scales beneath her fur all looked a bit, red now.. As Willy attempted to snap the thing in two. There was suddenly a burst of light, thanks to all of Ascii's tails glowing, 8 arms joining the fray of limbs, working with Willy intently as she cursed. "Fucking die already!" Voice cracking as she screamed at it.

That seems to have done it. Most assuredly so, stricken through the chest and pinned to a tree, ripped asunder with no way for its gangly body to continuously regenerate, it just sort of.... goes limp. Not only too, with its malignent magicks overpowered, it falls apart entirely, reduced to naught but a pile of mushy bile on the ground, not even bone remains. Magnus is the first to put his weapon away, a deep sigh parting his muzzle. "I do believe, that's done it." he notes the somewhat plainly obvious. Gaze wandering among his companions, he'd dust his hands off and note "Well, I'd hoped this was one of the more benign tears, but... seems fate was against us today. What you saw was one of the lesser fiends of the Outer Realm. With any luck, we'll never have to encounter one of the greater ones, but if nothing is done about the encroaching threat, well... the tears will get larger and more stable. Who knows what can flop free from one of those." He'd shake his head lightly. "We've overextended our stay as-is, I recommend we make our return to the city. Now that you've seen what I've been dealing with, it is my hope that through you, others will rise to take action against the looming threat. We will discuss your payment on the way."

Fenris checks his armor and frowns at the acodoc scores left by the beast. "Oh yes," he says, "Definitely something to look into."

Willy lets go of the beast's remains with a sigh and a stretch. "Let...me know if you need my help agian, I'd be glad to work it. But I definittly need to plan for next time...guess some form research would be good..." with that, he gets up and heads back out of the forest.

@@ Line 12: / Line 12: @@
 </div><div title="Magnus" style="margin-top:2em">	 Two arms wrap around Yejian&#39;s figure, the feline pulling her in for the warmest of embraces, portraying naught but boundless warmth and appreciation for the woman that&#39;d approached him. &quot;I had a feeling I&#39;d see you here. Can&#39;t leave well enough alone if the people&#39;s safety is suggested to be endangered.&quot; He&#39;d tuck his head under her chin, likely one of the few places he could make direct contact given her battle-readied ensemble. The softest sigh of contentment parts his lips when he feels her warmth against his, before pulling away with that same familiar smile tugging at his feline muzzle. &quot;Well, there is yet work to do. I&#39;ve little reason to think others are coming.&quot; <p style="height:0.5em;margin:0"></p><p style="height:0.5em;margin:0"></p>	 Fenris, he wasn&#39;t just a person, at this point he&#39;d become a bit of a brand for his patron. Ever the enthusiastic enigma, Magnus has no trouble recognizing him at even a glance. &quot;Look who&#39;s here! You I didn&#39;t think I&#39;d be seeing! Or do you make a habit of being elusive just for the sake of mystique?&quot; He casts the raccoon dog a wink, then gestures towards the surrounding seating accommodations. &quot;Please, if you&#39;d be so kind. We&#39;ve much to discuss before I show you anything, or take you anywhere.&quot; Then there&#39;s that soft sound made known when their shadowy of dragon friends makes his appearance. Randel, was it? Magnus had only seen the fellow once before, and t&#39;was most definitely in a body like this. Still, the lingering scent he carried was familiar, yet not so much that he could identify the therapist at a single whiff. He&#39;d greet the male with a wave of one hand and a gesture to make himself comfortable and warm around the firepit, where they were to convene before any actual hunting was to happen. <p style="height:0.5em;margin:0"></p><p style="height:0.5em;margin:0"></p>	 Willy, he was a stranger. At least so far as Magnus remembered, this person... was unknown to him. Even so that was unsurprising, he wasn&#39;t solely expecting familiar faces, though the body he wore definitely piqued some interest. A fluffy dragon of all things, such a novel concept. Magnus knew of only one other furred dragon, cast black with a white-striped tail... he feels a sudden tinge of melancholy, for they&#39;d not seen one another in a while. Perchance it was time to resolve this. &quot;You are in the right place. Welcome. Warm yourself by the fire.&quot; The feline nods, and passes a few moments until the final of their group arrives. She was... unlike anything else. He could scarcely understand the business occurring with that overwhelming cacophony of tails there. Goodness, yet she seemed quite confident in herself. One can only hope that t&#39;was not overconfidence. He&#39;d greet her with a nod and a kind word, then gesture for her to take her place near the fire. <p style="height:0.5em;margin:0"></p><p style="height:0.5em;margin:0"></p>	 &quot;Right...&quot; The feline stands, then begins to pace around the flickering flames. &quot;First and foremost, introductions as courtesy necessitates. I am Magnus Persival Ottkins. I have gathered you all here to address something that I&#39;ve made it my business to combat for the better part of last year now. Something quite alien to all but those familiar with the otherworldly affairs on an intimate level. Well... for the lack of a better word.&quot; he&#39;d snerk and rub his hands together. &quot;Ladies and gentlemen, I will not sugarcoat it. I am fighting a losing battle... lest I gather aid in my pursuits, I am fearful of what may well start plaguing our city, our homes, our lives, our families. Though I already know some of you have the strength and resolve to face the dangers ahead, I am willing to trust that your presence here signifies this holds true for all of you. To those unwilling to involve themselves in such affairs however, kindly rise, and walk away now.&quot;</div> <div title="Fenris" style="margin-top:2em">Fenris sits by the fire with a THUD and listens to Magnus, nodding along and focusing on the most important parts. <p style="height:0.5em;margin:0"></p><p style="height:0.5em;margin:0"></p>&quot;Your name is Ottkins?&quot; the brass tanuki asks incredulously.</div> <div title="Yejian" style="margin-top:2em"> 	&quot;Of course I can&#39;t. This is a knight&#39;s calling, after all,&quot; Yejian replies to Magnus with a wink. Once parting from the contact, she rests the butt of her spear on the ground and hooks an arm lazily around it to listen and observe the others. &quot;I&#39;m familiar enough with such things. Not as much as my mother by far, but enough, and you know me well enough by now that I&#39;ll not back down from a challenge like this.&quot;</div> <div title="Willy" style="margin-top:2em">Willy  nods to this and sits down at the fire with a rumbiliing &quot;Thank you&quot; he says, before listening in to the plan. He nods slowly and keeps a calm look, with a minor swish of his tails here and there. Once finished his smiles &quot;I&#39;ve worked more than enough and hard enough to be able to take strong missions. This do me is no bigger a challenge and I am happy to help out.&quot; he says with a smile. </div> <div title="Randel" style="margin-top:2em">The stoic looking dragon gets to the campfire and sits down. Despite being in just scales, the chill of the night doesn&#39;t bother him. Suddenly there is a look of surprise as he sees the Tanuki and mutters, &quot;Wait, Fenris?!&quot; but then keeps to his professional self. Getting a closer look at the collared almost natural looking feral, people can see his Zephyr ID badge. It is in fact Randel, &#39;of Zephyr&#39;, from the Psych Department. The same pleasant, accommodating, mutant therapist and reluctant government desk jockey; out here of all nights to help with a rather dire sounding mission. Those that know, he&#39;s had a &#39;wild life&#39; and rough career during the chaos of P-Day and the months following, and now is showing some of himself former self now. Even one of the six pictures on the badge shows a shadow dragon, matching his face perfectly.  <p style="height:0.5em;margin:0"></p><p style="height:0.5em;margin:0"></p>&quot;Oh good, I thought I was going to be late,&quot; Randel says in relief, &quot;Had to make a detour to the mountain to check on something.&quot; There is deep draconic chuckle before he states, &quot;You know I can&#39;t really pass this up.&quot; and then adds in an emphasized tone &quot;It&#39;ll be just like just like the good old days, when P-Day hit.&quot; He opens his humble equipment bag, and says &quot;Sorry, I.. uh, am not much on gearing up. But I did bring medical supplies.&quot; And shows the stash of canisters of powerful medical nanites, among other basic gear most agents carry.</div><div title="Ascii" style="margin-top:2em"><p style="height:0.5em;margin:0"></p>	 Ascii nodded, staying quiet, for the moment.  Listening as she sat down, tails resting out with her.  Looking like a bunch of lazy snakes behind her now, like that.  &quot;I&#39;ve dealt with such things, before.&quot;  She admitted, eyes shifting aside as she wasn&#39;t speaking to any one person, though she neither rose, or left.  Maybe there was a tinge of anger slipping in at that too.  Eying lengthwise across the space, and then behind herself, tails lurching to action!  Just to settle down again as she turned back towards the fire.  Adjusting the skirting of her dress enough to bring note of the gray thermal garment pressed to her legs beneath it.  &quot;Ascii.  I&#39;m Ascii, Ascii Lyneston, prior microbiologist, then former police officer with RSX, now civilian information broker.  Co-owner of the Morning After tavern.  And owner of the Afterthoughts shop..&quot;
 </div> <div title="Magnus" style="margin-top:2em">	 The feline continues to circle around the campfire, nodding shallowly to his companions&#39; responses. When they&#39;d all finished expressing their willingness, he halts in place, and looks around the motley crew of diverse talents and eager bodies. This was encouraging. &quot;Then in that case...&quot; he&#39;d wave towards the stack of firewood behind the log Ascii had sat down on. Seems like a few of these logs were purposefully set aside and primed to be used as torches. &quot;Kindly grab one torch each and follow me. T&#39;is merely a precautionary measure. The beasts of the night are avoidant of fire. We&#39;d have an easier time crossing the woodlands without being pounced by a hungry critter.&quot; Magnus notes, then does so himself, snagging one of the prepared torches and setting it ablaze upon the firepit. He&#39;d then turn towards Fenris and smirk. &quot;The name was given to me, my father didn&#39;t have a last name and I needed to register somehow with RSX when I still worked for them. They&#39;re terribly stingy about their paperwork. It stuck, so I made it official.&quot; He&#39;d shrug deeply and take a few steps in specific to the north, then pause and wait for everyone to ready themselves. It is only then that he&#39;d lead the way towards wherever it was he intended to take them. <p style="height:0.5em;margin:0"></p><p style="height:0.5em;margin:0"></p>	 Sure enough, should everyone grab their torches or not, he&#39;d proceed onwards to lead them through the thick and twisting depths of the dark forest. Here, silence reigned supreme, barring any spoken words, the only noises permeating the air were the party&#39;s footfalls and the crackling of their torches. Eventually however, something comes into view... there between the trees, large and amorpheous, hovering over the ground, cracking with electrical energy and radiation. T&#39;was not enough to cause them immediate harm, but even at a distance of twenty feet it made any nanite creature in the area feel slighlty... off, as Radiation tended to do. To best describe it, the anomaly most closely resembled a rip in the fabric of reality. As though someone had slashed at the open air and exposed something beneath it somehow. Glowing a faint, sickly greenish-purple-red-yellow... it never seemed to settle on any one specific color, though most strangely of all it appeared to warp the space around it, forcing random distortions in the air, akin to those one might see over a hot surface, though much more intense. It exhimed a sickly humming and crackling, all together appearing foreboding. <p style="height:0.5em;margin:0"></p><p style="height:0.5em;margin:0"></p>	 &quot;Ladies and gentlemen. THIS is a an extraplanar tear. Not to be confused with a wormhole, which is an INTERplanar tear, research is still unsure if those exist. Anyway! I understand the lot of you are likely confused right now, but permit me to elucidate. No doubt all of you are well acquainted with the various other realms now within our reach thanks to Zephyr&#39;s undying thirst for profit. They exist... so how about this thing? What caused it and its brothers to just suddenly start popping up?&quot; He&#39;d pause, then huff out his nose. &quot;The fact of the matter is, they&#39;ve always been trying to open. Our plane is simply such that it hates things like these. They are unstable, and spacetime prefers to remain uniform. In the past, were one to rip open?&quot; He clamps his hands together for emphasis. &quot;Snap. The universe cleans itself up. So then, what changed? What happened that we are seeing this one, very much un-closed?&quot; Another pause... &quot;Loki happened. Odin... happened. Ixchel... happened. Inari happened. Artemis happened. The solar dragons, the lunar touched, the phoenixes... ALL of them... happened. Right here, in our little nook of Fairhaven. More and more extraplanar entities throwing the natural balance of power into flux, and here we see one of the symptomes.&quot; <p style="height:0.5em;margin:0"></p><p style="height:0.5em;margin:0"></p>	 Magnus shakes his head and exhales slowly. &quot;Even so, such tears are temporary, they last no more than an hour or two from my observation. I&#39;ve yet to discover a way to close them, but we were either lucky or UNlucky that this one popped up before our meeting was to commense. I had initially a presentation to show you, but... why do that when we can see the real thing. I am afraid I have little in terms of answers for whatever questions you may have, but I want you to know what happens sometimes when these things emerge. Sometimes, things crawl through. Accidentally, intentionally, I don&#39;t know and I care not. The past year I&#39;ve done little else than hunt every single of these atrocities down as much as my reach permits, but... the overabundance of magic use is increasing. With that, so will these tears, and so will the unwelcome invaders they let in. This is what I need you for. This is why I&#39;ve summoned you.&quot;</div> <div title="Fenris" style="margin-top:2em">Fenris takes up a torch when they are offered and follows along, nodding as Magnus explains. Warm, orange light peeps through the seams of his armor, along with the occasional puff of steam, hinting at some kind of inner workings. <p style="height:0.5em;margin:0"></p><p style="height:0.5em;margin:0"></p>As the rift becomes more evident around the group, the brass tanuki quietly unslings the long bladed spear from his back. A soft, yellow green light forms a barely visible halo around the blade. &quot;These the ones that have been following you around?&quot; he asks, his tone pleasant, but his eyes wary.</div> <div title="Yejian" style="margin-top:2em"> 	Taking a torch, Yejian sets off to follow. The odd rift in space promps a curious once-over, as she nods along with Magnus&#39; words. &quot;That sounds about right, to my understanding of it. They&#39;ve always been around, but every time one gets a foothold on the world it makes it easier for others to follow suit. Still, the reason for it matters not to me. What does matter, and what I do have the power to deal with, is whatever comes out, like you said. And unlike people, it&#39;s a threat I don&#39;t have to feel reserved about fighting.&quot;</div><div title="Randel" style="margin-top:2em">Randel nods in agreement to the choice of lighting, knowing personally how the creatures of the area operate. As he grabs and lights the torch, he nod&#39;s Magnus&#39; comment about needing a last name, pausing to reflect on his own missing family name. With the medical supply pack looped over a shoulder and covered by a wing, he follows Magnus. Shortly after walking he asks, &quot;Huh, I need to know for certain, who&#39;s in charge of this mission, Magnus or one of us? Just want to make sure nothing gets confusing upon first encounter&quot;.  Further in, when the team reached the rift in reality, the heavily augmented Nanite Adept pause with a worried look, just like the other ferals nearby, feeling the radiation hugging his body with a sickly embrase. Overriding his fear he carries on and listens to the explanation. The dragon can&#39;t help but nod in unamused agreement that Zephyr is mainly about profits, but there isn&#39;t much he can do about it, or he would. There is also a sad nod when given the explanation of the rips in reality, looking uncomfortable about it, as a kid about a test in school he completely failed to study for. He was an infection form researcher, not a paranormalist! Still, he found himself at the doorstep of madness himself, expecting to get schooled, one way or another. When hearing Yejian&#39;s comment about not feeling reserved about fighting what horrors may come out, he smiles again and states, &quot;Oh good... I think I have over a hundred feral mindsets that would love to stretch out and... &#39;meat&#39; some of them.&quot; and widens his clawed hands, itching to tear into something. Then he straps his equipment bag more securely on his bag and then looks around for any threats, either from the portal, or for anything that has already crawled out.</div> <div title="Willy" style="margin-top:2em">Willy  Looks at the tear ever a bit befuddled. He had heard about such going on in the world, but by this point, he had largely lead it to be of more having to do with the reality bending of the nanites themselves. True magic though, that was a surprise. Blinking a bit, he looked back to Magnus. &quot;I see where this could be back braking to whats going on...though I don&#39;t exactly understand what is your request...are you speaking in something to stop them...or is this more, defensive preperations?&quot; he asks as his draconic cat ears twitch a bit.</div> <div title="Ascii" style="margin-top:2em"><p style="height:0.5em;margin:0"></p>	 Ascii kind of hesitated to take a torch for herself, she was normally brighter than a torch anyways.  But followed suit.  Retaining one for herself, and an extra under her opposing arm just in case should there be enough.  Only to see something she had seen before, possibly a number of times, stomach turning tense at her proximity, tails agitated much more dramatically now, waving about behind her as if hiding behind her from it automatically.  She couldn&#39;t help it.  Dropping the extra torch and instantly taking up her more comfortable implement offhanded.  What looks like a small pistol with no opening at the end of it&#39;s barrel, and no lunes marking a slide, appearing to be solid.  turned down to the ground but kept at the edge of her own vision.  She couldn&#39;t look at it though.  It brought back some bad memories.  Instead choosing to look over Magnus and keep her eyes upon him instead, he was the speaker after all.
-</div> <div title="Magnus" style="margin-top:2em">	 &quot;Hm? No. Well, not always. Pretty much anything can emerge from these. I&#39;ve seen and disposed of mindflayers, spore husks, and gloomtreants, but all the same sometime all they puff out is radiation, some strange inorganic goo or something from the pleasant plains, like a pink fluffy unicorn. Those I just take back to Zephyr and chuck into their home, just in case.&quot; Magnus handwaves and nods in acknowledgement to Yejian&#39;s observation. &quot;Astute, and now I fear we&#39;ve started to veer over a dangerous precipice. If thinks keep going the way they&#39;ve been going with these otherworldly entities, we&#39;ll keep seeing bigger and more volatile tears forming, letting stars-know what else into our realm...&quot; He then turns towards the next spoken question, &quot;For starters, awareness. Getting the opportunity to show at least the lot of you what&#39;s happening in the background is a huge enough help already. But if I can actually recruit willing souls to combat these otherworldly ills, not the tears at this point... but the beasts they spawn, then... that would be an immense help. Our world is no place for them, here they come to ravage and loot with no natural predators of their own, if no one keeps them under control, we may well be overrun in a few years time.&quot; His glance then wanders towards Randel, &quot;Then I encourage you to do so, but also to be careful of what you encounter. I&#39;ve amassed a great deal of knowledge about many of these entities, and I wish to share it with those willing to make a difference.&quot; His compassionate glance falls on Ascii, one hand reaching out to take her shoulder. &quot;It&#39;s alright. This is for demonstra-&quot; <p style="height:0.5em;margin:0"></p><p style="height:0.5em;margin:0"></p>	 The feline&#39;s words are cut off at the ironically most opportune time for fate to make its point. The tear they&#39;d neared violently crackles, its brightness intensifying for several seconds as radiation gushes forth from within it depths. Spacetime around it seems to ripple and swirl for a few seconds more, before it fades into oblivion with a nauseating crunch. Ascii, Yenian and Willy would all feel momentarily dizzy, but their stamina shoves the daze aside in mere seconds. Randel and Fenrishowever feel their stomachs churn, bile building up and their knees going momentarily weak. They suffer a brief incapacitation trying to keep their lunch down, but would otherwise be up on their feet again after a few seconds. As for what remained there, where the tear once resided, a tall, gangrenous humanoid with pale skin and bloodshot eyes lay curled up. Its bones crackle as it moves to sit up, disjoined maw opening wide uttering an unearthly gurgle. Its limbs are outlandishly long and capped with blackened scythe-like talons, its feet digitigrade and skeletally thin as though it had not eaten in months. It would turn its horrid face and stare wide-eyed at the group, then slowly begin to turn and face them as drool leaks out its fanged maw.</div> <div title="Fenris" style="margin-top:2em">Fenris stops for a moment, seaying on his feet. &quot;Oog,&quot; he groans, &quot;I felt that.&quot; He bends over, holding his knees and taking deep breaths for a moment before straightening to see the abberation from the rift. <p style="height:0.5em;margin:0"></p><p style="height:0.5em;margin:0"></p>&quot;Oh,&quot; the tanuki says, &quot;I don&#39;t like the look of that.&quot; He raises his spear in preparation.</div> <div title="Yejian" style="margin-top:2em"> 	&quot;And that&#39;s one to test our mettle against, then.&quot; Yejian drops the torch and swings her spear into a ready position, braced and sturdy. &quot;Been a while since I felt that kind of feeling.&quot; But with it passed, she was far more prepared to handle threats of a physical nature.</div><div title="Yejian" style="margin-top:2em"> 	&quot;And that&#39;s one to test our mettle against, then.&quot; Yejian drops the torch and swings her spear into a ready position, braced and sturdy. &quot;Been a while since I felt that kind of feeling.&quot; But with it passed, she was far more prepared to handle threats of a physical nature. Claws she could deal with. Like anything else that fought with tooth and fang most likely, even if it looked or moved weirdly. She takes a step forward, ready to take the brunt of it as was her habit.</div> <div title="Randel" style="margin-top:2em">Randel&#39;s eagerness to dispatch whatever monstrosity that comes through gets taken down a notch or two as the spike in radiation punches him right in the core, dropping his torch.  &quot;Fuck mefoe he cures while staggering, unaccustomed to radiation, and reflexively pushes out a call to the nanites around him to help cure the sickening feeling. It still doesn&#39;t counter the sickening effects fully, but for everyone in the area, they can feel the nanite density build as the feral looking Nanite Adept summons them closer and replicate. When coming to, he looks at the beast, eyeing over the monster for a moment and states, &quot;If that thing is like a night stalker, those long and thin bones are likely very strong, despite appearances, and it looks about as slash happy as one too.&quot; There is a long growl before saying &quot;Just a guess, but if physics isn&#39;t broken, those long arms have great swing leverage, but terrible starting momentum. Fuck, that means someone has to get close...&quot; He then looks around for anyone else wanting to get close, and readies a charge on the long limbed monster.</div> <div title="Willy" style="margin-top:2em">Willy  listens quietly listens to Magnus&#39; response, before the creature enters from the void. The Dragon grits his teeth as he feels the radiation brush off him and his armor, before shaking off the effect. Growling, he begins to build up electrical charge on his fur, and looks to it, before taking a hedgehog like plush from his pack. Pressing it&#39;s nose, he tries to sling it at the Monster, with a hidden heft it wouldn&#39;t show from when it was in his hands.</div> <div title="Ascii" style="margin-top:2em">Ascii hardly registered the new shape before her torch was on the ground snuffed under a foot almost before it hit the ground as she cleared her aim.  She didn&#39;t take an air of leadership unto her actions.  But authority was there, moving with great purpose to step to the side as her glow lit up once more.  Not in one place, but two, and then three.  And then four.  Soon there were six figures pointing at the creature with the pistol like device.  Five of them disappearing if one should look directly at them.  Bracing her main hand grip with her off hand now, just to lower her off hand, a soft clicking noise coming from the base of her dress.  &quot;Watch the claws for poison-&quot;  She was ready to knock it on it&#39;s ass the moment it tried to move, but wasn&#39;t able to take initiative thanks to practice, and habit.  Prepared, and with aim locked onto the target.  On one knee, sonic boom canon braced. She finally manages to fire, and waiting her weapon&#39;s charge, pulled something from her dress&#39;s skirt and whips it forwards, or nothing?   It&#39;s like she&#39;d thrown something and it disappeared.</div> <div title="Magnus" style="margin-top:2em">	 Whatever found amalgamation they were facing had been expunged into their world, it slowly moves its eyes around the group, then hisses a gurgling threat at the one that&#39;d tried to take a shot at it, perhaps registering its hostility. *ploink* The strangely shaped grenade bops it right on the forehead, drawing its attention for a moment, before *BOMF* exploding in a big cloud of horrifically toxic gas! It covers its face and shrieks in... pain? ...before making a mad lunge for the party, its savage claws aimed directly for its attacker! UNfortunately for it, Willy proves too slippery for its  motions, even so it moves fast. Much faster than one might have assumed! Easily covering twenty feet in under a second&#39;s time! *CLINK* those massive talons impact Fenris&#39; guard, not quite able to slice through but leaving behind a notable scratch that immediately begins to fester, the material starting to decompose into some form of dry crusty ash. Its gangrenous jaw opens wide and *CHOMP* latches right onto Fenris&#39; shoulder, the pressure intense enough to buckle his armor, yet not force past it. It remains latched onto the armored tanuki, trying again to chew through his guard. One can only imagine the consequences of it succeeding to do so~</div> <div title="Fenris" style="margin-top:2em">Fenris grunts as the monstrous thing latches on to his armor wrapped, brass arm. &quot;Outerplanar origin,&quot; he comments, flourishing the torch in his free hand and jabbing it directly into the face clamped on his thick arm. &quot;Best choice is to burn it with fire or upper planar energies.&quot; Too bad he can&#39;t test his own extraplanar weapons in these close quarters.</div> <div title="Yejian" style="margin-top:2em"> 	&quot;Right. Beware the claws,&quot; Yejian reaffirms upon seeing the effect. With Fenris keeping it distracted, the lapine knight steps forward and drives her spear true and through. No flashy stunts or weird weapons from this one, just some solid, well made armaments. Hopefully it would be enough.</div> <div title="Randel" style="margin-top:2em">The shadowy dragon, ready to charge with anyone else at the monster, sees the beast choke on the poison cloud in one moment, and suddenly leaps forward the next! Feeling just as good a time as any, he pounces in response, grabbing the arm that swung, hoping to disable it while it is occupied, and whining slightly from a likely counter attack. With a leap he&#39;s got the creatures arm, but he swings haphazardly, wings beating behind him to keep stable as he tries to damage it. While his claws sink right into its flesh, liable to gut most any normal human, his clawed fingers feels like they are just sticks flowing through thick mud as the creature&#39;s body regenerates from the lacerations. &quot;It heals!&quot; he roars with anger and worry, &quot;Of course the damn thing would heal!&quot; before muttering &quot;Where&#39;s your damn tendons at you-&quot;</div> <div title="Willy" style="margin-top:2em">Willy  was only able to get out a spry smile before gaurding himself as he dodged the coming attack with a push of his wings. Looking up, he sees the Monsters attack having gotten stuck in Fenris&#39; armor, and decides to take advantage of it. With a quick dash and heft of his wings he draws his shotgun from his pack and yells &quot;Sorry if I make your ears ring!&quot; he says before sliding up and firing a shot with a thunderous CRACK into the creature, as loud as if lighting struk where he stood.</div><div title="Ascii" style="margin-top:2em">When Ascii pulled the trigger and there was nothing but a soft buzz on the air, her eyes narrowed..  She&#39;d not been in action too long and didn&#39;t check her pistol at the campfire, everything but it.  Of course she&#39;d forgotten to set it to charge.  So while she garnered a callout from the beast acknowledging her action.  And a &quot;Fucking shit&quot; From Ascii.  Nothing to do about it.  nothing but watch as it charged into the mess of things.  And she just casually underhand tossed a grenade type canister over to the two in close proximity with it.  This one won&#39;t affect agents either so.  Minding the rock she threw to test her arm earlier.  This should at worst do nothing.  Simply choosing to study it, and watch for other threats.  Not like ferals wouldn&#39;t hear all of this after all.  Last thing they needed was that too.</div> <div title="Magnus" style="margin-top:2em">	 Things only got from bad to worse, this... thing, it simply refused to die! Yejian&#39;s polearm spears it once, twice, thrice even, impaling through its neck and torso, even poking a big hole in its head, yet the injures kept re-sealing! Willy comes in and takes a calculated risk, and likely saves Fenris a LOT of trouble when he aims his shotgun directly at the attacker&#39;s face and *BOOM* in a spray of blood and viscera completely splatters it into ground paste. THE ACCURSED THING LUNGES OFF OF FENRIS, WHILE STILL LACKING ITS HEAD! Those more astute would notice the flesh and bone reform, emerging from its neck and reconstructing its skull in mere seconds! <p style="height:0.5em;margin:0"></p><p style="height:0.5em;margin:0"></p>	 Fenris however seems to have struck something of a great idea, the lingering burnmarks upon the blasted ghoul&#39;s body after being thoroughly pelted with a lit torch remain, charred gangrenous skin still present, but rendered unusable by the flames. What Ascii does however is something else indeed. Her grenade bounces off the retreating atrocity&#39;s back and explodes into a semitransparent cloud of gods-know what! It prompts the creature to shriek out in abject terror as its eyes, still mid-regeneration, melt away and leave it blinded. It flails its clawed appendages at the first thing within sensing distance, its efforts proving futile when its accursed monster&#39;s strikes rebound clean off of her, be it her armor or shield, neither permits that she suffers harm. <p style="height:0.5em;margin:0"></p><p style="height:0.5em;margin:0"></p>	 Magnus had, for the most part, merely kept observing, uninterested in getting involved likely such he can see how they deal with the situation. Unfortunately, it seems they came unprepared for this particular kind of beastie, and he felt he need get involved, if just a bit. &quot;Hold him back!&quot; He&#39;d yell to Yejian, then draw what appeared to be a ceremonial curved blade from its holster at his hip. He drives it across his free hand, muttering something under his breath, a charm or a curse of some sort perhaps. Where blood would have leaked out his injury, a thick mist gushes forth, directed by the will of its caster. Moments later the condensed affliction swarms whatever this... thing they were fighting was, seeping into its yet unmended injuries, cutting into the prior efforts of the others and searing its wounds closed, corroding what remained of its efforts to reclaim its missing flesh. &quot;It&#39;s gonna take more than that! Anyone have anything to keep the blasted thing from re-growing itself?!&quot; The feline calls out~</div> <div title="Fenris" style="margin-top:2em">Fenris wastes no time fretting over the ruined head as it drops from his arm.  The burly tanuki throws himself at the beast, grappling on and producing a sudden surge of electricity!</div> <div title="Yejian" style="margin-top:2em"> 	Yejian batters away the swinging of claws, between gauntlet deflection and swift parries of the spear she keeps the creature at bay. &quot;Unfortunately not,&quot; she calls back as she continues to rain assault down upon it. She remains calm and focused; This thing might be able to go a while with its regeneration, but so can she. This bunny knight was suited for protracted battles, if it came to it. &quot;Best I can do is keep it busy.&quot;</div> <div title="Randel" style="margin-top:2em">Randel makes a monotone &quot;Ouch&quot; as the point blank shotgun report hits his sensitive ears signaling it was at least uncomfortable, but keeps focusing on surgically dismembering the bio-horror&#39;s weaponized arm, or at least one of them. &quot;Why won&#39;t you stay sliced?!&quot; the dragon roars back franticly before sinking both claws into the unnatural flesh and channeling his nanites right into the arm, which figuratively explodes hostile nanites into the horror&#39;s body; his own flesh reforming nanites helping to disrupt the creature&#39;s regeneration. There is a mad glint in the dragon&#39;s eyes, seeming dead set to butcher the thing. The Nanite Apept&#39;s body suddenly grows... thin and gaunt?! Features on his face turn flat and wings degenerate back into his body, turning into a horrid Night Stalker he referenced earlier, with his own long limbs and long pointed claw-like fingers as he uses a Woodfield mutant form to mimic the monster&#39;s build. Shortly after the shift, his limbs and torso lengthen even more to match the horror, with his grin growing wider as he feels his attacking nanites work over the Outer Realm monster&#39;s body. He can feel the stress of the shift on his body, but he doesn&#39;t show it, he doesn&#39;t seem to care right now, other than to state his form&#39;s want of blood.</div> <div title="Willy" style="margin-top:2em">Willy  grumbles &quot;Nothing that comes to mind unfortunently&quot; he says, sliding back after the attack. &quot;I can cast a Curse, but it&#39;s gonna affect everyone...&quot; he says &quot;I can do it if you think it will work though...or a form that might have something I can access.&quot; he says quickly pulling another of his Plushies out and trying to read a clean shot line.</div> <div title="Ascii" style="margin-top:2em">Ascii shrugs earnestly.  &quot;I&#39;m not geared for single targets..&quot;   Somehow though, she doesn&#39;t seem too worried either, even as she&#39;s thinking..  But she doesn&#39;t know what type of chems would work.  Assaying as she steps a bit further away, though trying not to get too far away and make a target of herself.  &quot;Unless someone wants to lose fingers.&quot;  All of her gear&#39;s been put away as she thinks intently.  Trying to figure..  something out.  A sigh, she throws up her arms.  &quot;I refuse to hit one of you.  I&#39;ve got nothing.  Closing her eyes.  Well.  Guess the only other thing she could try would be, as silly as it sounded in her head.  Laughing to herself.  Eyes opening lit lime green instead of pink.  As she works her jaw.  Giving it a waking nightmare.  She could only wonder what it feared.  That it was inconsequential, could do nothing, that everything around it was an insurmountable effort, and it would die, starving before it could even reach them again.  The only misery it&#39;s own?  She reached out, did not touch it, merely, inflicted upon it, in-consequentiality.  If it could process malice, it could proccess this.</div><div title="Magnus" style="margin-top:2em">	 It didn&#39;t take long for their combined efforts to start wearing this abomination down. For several people, surely just one of these fiends was an easy enough kill, right? Well... YES! As a matter of fact, in between the various burns, the electrocutions, the repeated stabbings and gunfire wearing down what resources it had to work with, this... thing, this... monster, this... flesh-craving atrocity was starting to lose its footing. Barred from regenerating and too injured to do much other than slash haphazardly with its senses erased, it knows only the presence of Yejian, who seems to be having an easy time repelling its swipes. Were they out of the bubble, Randel&#39;s efforts would have proven futile, however this was not the case. Like a swarm of mosquitoes searing into its already patchy flesh, the ambient nanites come together to... well, fragment. Its bones weaken, its swipes slow and it tries to make a run for it. Not nearly as fast as it once was however, the damnable thing wouldn&#39;t be getting very far at all! Its mind wreaked by the sudden intrusion of Ascii&#39;s mindgames send it crashing *THUD* straight into a tree. Vulnerable and exposed, there was nowhere to run now...</div> <div title="Fenris" style="margin-top:2em">Fenris lets go of the tormented monstrosity, and staggers back. The armored tanuki checks his wounds from blocking the thing earlier. He looks at the others closing in and steps back to join Magnus. <p style="height:0.5em;margin:0"></p><p style="height:0.5em;margin:0"></p>&quot;Bodaks?&quot; he asks incredulously, &quot;We&#39;re importing straight up demons out here now?&quot;</div> <div title="Yejian" style="margin-top:2em"> 	Yejian gives her spear a twirl and braces herself, looking for an opening... As soon as the creature stumbles into a tree, she sees it. And takes it. With a charge and a lunge, she drives her spear forward to try and impale it to the wood.</div> <div title="Randel" style="margin-top:2em">Like the feral Randel is channeling, the large Night Stalker single-mindedly goes after his prey, chasing and leaping towards the Outer Realm horror with long bloodied claws, because if it is still moving, it is of interest to the nanite-made monster. Unfortunately his body is getting overtax, having not taken even a second&#39;s break during the attack. He went all in too quickly and is too sluggish to grab the monster in time as it runs out of his grasp, making him yell out in anger before giving chase.</div> <div title="Willy" style="margin-top:2em">Willy  seeing that it&#39;s regen is starting to come under control, Willy decides to go for a finishing blow. Flexing up a little to push his Muscle Enhancers, he charges it and full speed, and ducking to behind it, grips it at the back. Using all the strenght his juggernaut body and his enchanes can give, he pulls the creature at the shoulders and tries to bend his spine in not so nice ways.</div> <div title="Ascii" style="margin-top:2em">Ascii, with so little to focus on continued looking for things to do, so as randel, obviously worn down charged past.  She tried to get his attention, with a &quot;Hey slow down a sec there!&quot;   but nothing.  Another sigh.  Who really was the one left feeling inconsequential?  This gal, right here.  So she shrugged, said heck it.  Eyes back to pink. She, didn&#39;t exactly run.  But her scales beneath her fur all looked a bit, red now..  As Willy attempted to snap the thing in two.  There was suddenly a burst of light, thanks to all of Ascii&#39;s tails glowing, 8 arms joining the fray of limbs, working with Willy intently as she cursed.  &quot;Fucking die already!&quot;  Voice cracking as she screamed at it.</div> <div title="Magnus" style="margin-top:2em">	 That seems to have done it. Most assuredly so, stricken through the chest and pinned to a tree, ripped asunder with no way for its gangly body to continuously regenerate, it just sort of.... goes limp. Not only too, with its malignent magicks overpowered, it falls apart entirely, reduced to naught but a pile of mushy bile on the ground, not even bone remains. Magnus is the first to put his weapon away, a deep sigh parting his muzzle. &quot;I do believe, that&#39;s done it.&quot; he notes the somewhat plainly obvious. Gaze wandering among his companions, he&#39;d dust his hands off and note &quot;Well, I&#39;d hoped this was one of the more benign tears, but... seems fate was against us today. What you saw was one of the lesser fiends of the Outer Realm. With any luck, we&#39;ll never have to encounter one of the greater ones, but if nothing is done about the encroaching threat, well... the tears will get larger and more stable. Who knows what can flop free from one of those.&quot; He&#39;d shake his head lightly. &quot;We&#39;ve overextended our stay as-is, I recommend we make our return to the city. Now that you&#39;ve seen what I&#39;ve been dealing with, it is my hope that through you, others will rise to take action against the looming threat. We will discuss your payment on the way.&quot;</div> <div title="Fenris" style="margin-top:2em">Fenris checks his armor and frowns at the acodoc scores left by the beast. &quot;Oh yes,&quot; he says, &quot;Definitely something to look into.&quot;</div> <div title="Willy" style="margin-top:2em">Willy  lets go of the beast&#39;s remains with a sigh and a stretch. &quot;Let...me know if you need my help agian, I&#39;d be glad to work it. But I definittly need to plan for next time...guess some form research would be good...&quot; with that, he gets up and heads back out of the forest.</div>
+</div> <div title="Magnus" style="margin-top:2em">	 &quot;Hm? No. Well, not always. Pretty much anything can emerge from these. I&#39;ve seen and disposed of mindflayers, spore husks, and gloomtreants, but all the same sometime all they puff out is radiation, some strange inorganic goo or something from the pleasant plains, like a pink fluffy unicorn. Those I just take back to Zephyr and chuck into their home, just in case.&quot; Magnus handwaves and nods in acknowledgement to Yejian&#39;s observation. &quot;Astute, and now I fear we&#39;ve started to veer over a dangerous precipice. If thinks keep going the way they&#39;ve been going with these otherworldly entities, we&#39;ll keep seeing bigger and more volatile tears forming, letting stars-know what else into our realm...&quot; He then turns towards the next spoken question, &quot;For starters, awareness. Getting the opportunity to show at least the lot of you what&#39;s happening in the background is a huge enough help already. But if I can actually recruit willing souls to combat these otherworldly ills, not the tears at this point... but the beasts they spawn, then... that would be an immense help. Our world is no place for them, here they come to ravage and loot with no natural predators of their own, if no one keeps them under control, we may well be overrun in a few years time.&quot; His glance then wanders towards Randel, &quot;Then I encourage you to do so, but also to be careful of what you encounter. I&#39;ve amassed a great deal of knowledge about many of these entities, and I wish to share it with those willing to make a difference.&quot; His compassionate glance falls on Ascii, one hand reaching out to take her shoulder. &quot;It&#39;s alright. This is for demonstra-&quot; <p style="height:0.5em;margin:0"></p><p style="height:0.5em;margin:0"></p>	 The feline&#39;s words are cut off at the ironically most opportune time for fate to make its point. The tear they&#39;d neared violently crackles, its brightness intensifying for several seconds as radiation gushes forth from within it depths. Spacetime around it seems to ripple and swirl for a few seconds more, before it fades into oblivion with a nauseating crunch. Ascii, Yenian and Willy would all feel momentarily dizzy, but their stamina shoves the daze aside in mere seconds. Randel and Fenrishowever feel their stomachs churn, bile building up and their knees going momentarily weak. They suffer a brief incapacitation trying to keep their lunch down, but would otherwise be up on their feet again after a few seconds. As for what remained there, where the tear once resided, a tall, gangrenous humanoid with pale skin and bloodshot eyes lay curled up. Its bones crackle as it moves to sit up, disjoined maw opening wide uttering an unearthly gurgle. Its limbs are outlandishly long and capped with blackened scythe-like talons, its feet digitigrade and skeletally thin as though it had not eaten in months. It would turn its horrid face and stare wide-eyed at the group, then slowly begin to turn and face them as drool leaks out its fanged maw.</div> <div title="Fenris" style="margin-top:2em">Fenris stops for a moment, seaying on his feet. &quot;Oog,&quot; he groans, &quot;I felt that.&quot; He bends over, holding his knees and taking deep breaths for a moment before straightening to see the abberation from the rift. <p style="height:0.5em;margin:0"></p><p style="height:0.5em;margin:0"></p>&quot;Oh,&quot; the tanuki says, &quot;I don&#39;t like the look of that.&quot; He raises his spear in preparation.</div> <div title="Yejian" style="margin-top:2em"> 	&quot;And that&#39;s one to test our mettle against, then.&quot; Yejian drops the torch and swings her spear into a ready position, braced and sturdy. &quot;Been a while since I felt that kind of feeling.&quot; But with it passed, she was far more prepared to handle threats of a physical nature.</div><div title="Yejian" style="margin-top:2em"> 	&quot;And that&#39;s one to test our mettle against, then.&quot; Yejian drops the torch and swings her spear into a ready position, braced and sturdy. &quot;Been a while since I felt that kind of feeling.&quot; But with it passed, she was far more prepared to handle threats of a physical nature. Claws she could deal with. Like anything else that fought with tooth and fang most likely, even if it looked or moved weirdly. She takes a step forward, ready to take the brunt of it as was her habit.</div> <div title="Randel" style="margin-top:2em">Randel&#39;s eagerness to dispatch whatever monstrosity that comes through gets taken down a notch or two as the spike in radiation punches him right in the core, dropping his torch.  &quot;Fuck mefoe he cures while staggering, unaccustomed to radiation, and reflexively pushes out a call to the nanites around him to help cure the sickening feeling. It still doesn&#39;t counter the sickening effects fully, but for everyone in the area, they can feel the nanite density build as the feral looking Nanite Adept summons them closer and replicate. When coming to, he looks at the beast, eyeing over the monster for a moment and states, &quot;If that thing is like a night stalker, those long and thin bones are likely very strong, despite appearances, and it looks about as slash happy as one too.&quot; There is a long growl before saying &quot;Just a guess, but if physics isn&#39;t broken, those long arms have great swing leverage, but terrible starting momentum. Fuck, that means someone has to get close...&quot; He then looks around for anyone else wanting to get close, and readies a charge on the long limbed monster.</div> <div title="Willy" style="margin-top:2em">Willy  listens quietly listens to Magnus&#39; response, before the creature enters from the void. The Dragon grits his teeth as he feels the radiation brush off him and his armor, before shaking off the effect. Growling, he begins to build up electrical charge on his fur, and looks to it, before taking a hedgehog like plush from his pack. Pressing it&#39;s nose, he tries to sling it at the Monster, with a hidden heft it wouldn&#39;t show from when it was in his hands.</div> <div title="Ascii" style="margin-top:2em">Ascii hardly registered the new shape before her torch was on the ground snuffed under a foot almost before it hit the ground as she cleared her aim.  She didn&#39;t take an air of leadership unto her actions.  But authority was there, moving with great purpose to step to the side as her glow lit up once more.  Not in one place, but two, and then three.  And then four.  Soon there were six figures pointing at the creature with the pistol like device.  Five of them disappearing if one should look directly at them.  Bracing her main hand grip with her off hand now, just to lower her off hand, a soft clicking noise coming from the base of her dress.  &quot;Watch the claws for poison-&quot;  She was ready to knock it on it&#39;s ass the moment it tried to move, but wasn&#39;t able to take initiative thanks to practice, and habit.  Prepared, and with aim locked onto the target.  On one knee, sonic boom canon braced. She finally manages to fire, and waiting her weapon&#39;s charge, pulled something from her dress&#39;s skirt and whips it forwards, or nothing?   It&#39;s like she&#39;d thrown something and it disappeared.</div> <div title="Magnus" style="margin-top:2em">	 Whatever found amalgamation they were facing had been expunged into their world, it slowly moves its eyes around the group, then hisses a gurgling threat at the one that&#39;d tried to take a shot at it, perhaps registering its hostility. *ploink* The strangely shaped grenade bops it right on the forehead, drawing its attention for a moment, before *BOMF* exploding in a big cloud of horrifically toxic gas! It covers its face and shrieks in... pain? ...before making a mad lunge for the party, its savage claws aimed directly for its attacker! UNfortunately for it, Willy proves too slippery for its  motions, even so it moves fast. Much faster than one might have assumed! Easily covering twenty feet in under a second&#39;s time! *CLINK* those massive talons impact Fenris&#39; guard, not quite able to slice through but leaving behind a notable scratch that immediately begins to fester, the material starting to decompose into some form of dry crusty ash. Its gangrenous jaw opens wide and *CHOMP* latches right onto Fenris&#39; shoulder, the pressure intense enough to buckle his armor, yet not force past it. It remains latched onto the armored tanuki, trying again to chew through his guard. One can only imagine the consequences of it succeeding to do so~</div> <div title="Fenris" style="margin-top:2em">Fenris grunts as the monstrous thing latches on to his armor wrapped, brass arm. &quot;Outerplanar origin,&quot; he comments, flourishing the torch in his free hand and jabbing it directly into the face clamped on his thick arm. &quot;Best choice is to burn it with fire or upper planar energies.&quot; Too bad he can&#39;t test his own extraplanar weapons in these close quarters.</div> <div title="Yejian" style="margin-top:2em"> 	&quot;Right. Beware the claws,&quot; Yejian reaffirms upon seeing the effect. With Fenris keeping it distracted, the lapine knight steps forward and drives her spear true and through. No flashy stunts or weird weapons from this one, just some solid, well made armaments. Hopefully it would be enough.</div> <div title="Randel" style="margin-top:2em">The shadowy dragon, ready to charge with anyone else at the monster, sees the beast choke on the poison cloud in one moment, and suddenly leaps forward the next! Feeling just as good a time as any, he pounces in response, grabbing the arm that swung, hoping to disable it while it is occupied, and whining slightly from a likely counter attack. With a leap he&#39;s got the creatures arm, but he swings haphazardly, wings beating behind him to keep stable as he tries to damage it. While his claws sink right into its flesh, liable to gut most any normal human, his clawed fingers feels like they are just sticks flowing through thick mud as the creature&#39;s body regenerates from the lacerations. &quot;It heals!&quot; he roars with anger and worry, &quot;Of course the damn thing would heal!&quot; before muttering &quot;Where&#39;s your damn tendons at you-&quot;</div> <div title="Willy" style="margin-top:2em">Willy  was only able to get out a spry smile before gaurding himself as he dodged the coming attack with a push of his wings. Looking up, he sees the Monsters attack having gotten stuck in Fenris&#39; armor, and decides to take advantage of it. With a quick dash and heft of his wings he draws his shotgun from his pack and yells &quot;Sorry if I make your ears ring!&quot; he says before sliding up and firing a shot with a thunderous CRACK into the creature, as loud as if lighting struk where he stood.</div><div title="Ascii" style="margin-top:2em">When Ascii pulled the trigger and there was nothing but a soft buzz on the air, her eyes narrowed..  She&#39;d not been in action too long and didn&#39;t check her pistol at the campfire, everything but it.  Of course she&#39;d forgotten to set it to charge.  So while she garnered a callout from the beast acknowledging her action.  And a &quot;Fucking shit&quot; From Ascii.  Nothing to do about it.  nothing but watch as it charged into the mess of things.  And she just casually underhand tossed a grenade type canister over to the two in close proximity with it.  This one won&#39;t affect agents either so.  Minding the rock she threw to test her arm earlier.  This should at worst do nothing.  Simply choosing to study it, and watch for other threats.  Not like ferals wouldn&#39;t hear all of this after all.  Last thing they needed was that too.</div> <div title="Magnus" style="margin-top:2em">	 Things only got from bad to worse, this... thing, it simply refused to die! Yejian&#39;s polearm spears it once, twice, thrice even, impaling through its neck and torso, even poking a big hole in its head, yet the injures kept re-sealing! Willy comes in and takes a calculated risk, and likely saves Fenris a LOT of trouble when he aims his shotgun directly at the attacker&#39;s face and *BOOM* in a spray of blood and viscera completely splatters it into ground paste. THE ACCURSED THING LUNGES OFF OF FENRIS, WHILE STILL LACKING ITS HEAD! Those more astute would notice the flesh and bone reform, emerging from its neck and reconstructing its skull in mere seconds! <p style="height:0.5em;margin:0"></p><p style="height:0.5em;margin:0"></p>	 Fenris however seems to have struck something of a great idea, the lingering burnmarks upon the blasted ghoul&#39;s body after being thoroughly pelted with a lit torch remain, charred gangrenous skin still present, but rendered unusable by the flames. What Ascii does however is something else indeed. Her grenade bounces off the retreating atrocity&#39;s back and explodes into a semitransparent cloud of gods-know what! It prompts the creature to shriek out in abject terror as its eyes, still mid-regeneration, melt away and leave it blinded. It flails its clawed appendages at the first thing within sensing distance, its efforts proving futile when its accursed monster&#39;s strikes rebound clean off of her, be it her armor or shield, neither permits that she suffers harm. <p style="height:0.5em;margin:0"></p><p style="height:0.5em;margin:0"></p>	 Magnus had, for the most part, merely kept observing, uninterested in getting involved likely such he can see how they deal with the situation. Unfortunately, it seems they came unprepared for this particular kind of beastie, and he felt he need get involved, if just a bit. &quot;Hold him back!&quot; He&#39;d yell to Yejian, then draw what appeared to be a ceremonial curved blade from its holster at his hip. He drives it across his free hand, muttering something under his breath, a charm or a curse of some sort perhaps. Where blood would have leaked out his injury, a thick mist gushes forth, directed by the will of its caster. Moments later the condensed affliction swarms whatever this... thing they were fighting was, seeping into its yet unmended injuries, cutting into the prior efforts of the others and searing its wounds closed, corroding what remained of its efforts to reclaim its missing flesh. &quot;It&#39;s gonna take more than that! Anyone have anything to keep the blasted thing from re-growing itself?!&quot; The feline calls out~</div> <div title="Fenris" style="margin-top:2em">Fenris wastes no time fretting over the ruined head as it drops from his arm.  The burly tanuki throws himself at the beast, grappling on and producing a sudden surge of electricity!</div> <div title="Yejian" style="margin-top:2em"> 	Yejian batters away the swinging of claws, between gauntlet deflection and swift parries of the spear she keeps the creature at bay. &quot;Unfortunately not,&quot; she calls back as she continues to rain assault down upon it. She remains calm and focused; This thing might be able to go a while with its regeneration, but so can she. This bunny knight was suited for protracted battles, if it came to it. &quot;Best I can do is keep it busy.&quot;</div> <div title="Randel" style="margin-top:2em">Randel makes a monotone &quot;Ouch&quot; as the point blank shotgun report hits his sensitive ears signaling it was at least uncomfortable, but keeps focusing on surgically dismembering the bio-horror&#39;s weaponized arm, or at least one of them. &quot;Why won&#39;t you stay sliced?!&quot; the dragon roars back franticly before sinking both claws into the unnatural flesh and channeling his nanites right into the arm, which figuratively explodes hostile nanites into the horror&#39;s body; his own flesh reforming nanites helping to disrupt the creature&#39;s regeneration. There is a mad glint in the dragon&#39;s eyes, seeming dead set to butcher the thing. The Nanite Apept&#39;s body suddenly grows... thin and gaunt?! Features on his face turn flat and wings degenerate back into his body, turning into a horrid Night Stalker he referenced earlier, with his own long limbs and long pointed claw-like fingers as he uses a Woodfield mutant form to mimic the monster&#39;s build. Shortly after the shift, his limbs and torso lengthen even more to match the horror, with his grin growing wider as he feels his attacking nanites work over the Outer Realm monster&#39;s body. He can feel the stress of the shift on his body, but he doesn&#39;t show it, he doesn&#39;t seem to care right now, other than to state his form&#39;s want of blood.</div> <div title="Willy" style="margin-top:2em">Willy  grumbles &quot;Nothing that comes to mind unfortunently&quot; he says, sliding back after the attack. &quot;I can cast a Curse, but it&#39;s gonna affect everyone...&quot; he says &quot;I can do it if you think it will work though...or a form that might have something I can access.&quot; he says quickly pulling another of his Plushies out and trying to read a clean shot line.</div> <div title="Ascii" style="margin-top:2em">Ascii shrugs earnestly.  &quot;I&#39;m not geared for single targets..&quot;   Somehow though, she doesn&#39;t seem too worried either, even as she&#39;s thinking..  But she doesn&#39;t know what type of chems would work.  Assaying as she steps a bit further away, though trying not to get too far away and make a target of herself.  &quot;Unless someone wants to lose fingers.&quot;  All of her gear&#39;s been put away as she thinks intently.  Trying to figure..  something out.  A sigh, she throws up her arms.  &quot;I refuse to hit one of you.  I&#39;ve got nothing.  Closing her eyes.  Well.  Guess the only other thing she could try would be, as silly as it sounded in her head.  Laughing to herself.  Eyes opening lit lime green instead of pink.  As she works her jaw.  Giving it a waking nightmare.  She could only wonder what it feared.  That it was inconsequential, could do nothing, that everything around it was an insurmountable effort, and it would die, starving before it could even reach them again.  The only misery it&#39;s own?  She reached out, did not touch it, merely, inflicted upon it, in-consequentiality.  If it could process malice, it could proccess this.</div><div title="Magnus" style="margin-top:2em">	 It didn&#39;t take long for their combined efforts to start wearing this abomination down. For several people, surely just one of these fiends was an easy enough kill, right? Well... YES! As a matter of fact, in between the various burns, the electrocutions, the repeated stabbings and gunfire wearing down what resources it had to work with, this... thing, this... monster, this... flesh-craving atrocity was starting to lose its footing. Barred from regenerating and too injured to do much other than slash haphazardly with its senses erased, it knows only the presence of Yejian, who seems to be having an easy time repelling its swipes. Were they out of the bubble, Randel&#39;s efforts would have proven futile, however this was not the case. Like a swarm of mosquitoes searing into its already patchy flesh, the ambient nanites come together to... well, fragment. Its bones weaken, its swipes slow and it tries to make a run for it. Not nearly as fast as it once was however, the damnable thing wouldn&#39;t be getting very far at all! Its mind wreaked by the sudden intrusion of Ascii&#39;s mindgames send it crashing *THUD* straight into a tree. Vulnerable and exposed, there was nowhere to run now...</div> <div title="Fenris" style="margin-top:2em">Fenris lets go of the tormented monstrosity, and staggers back. The armored tanuki checks his wounds from blocking the thing earlier. He looks at the others closing in and steps back to join Magnus. <p style="height:0.5em;margin:0"></p><p style="height:0.5em;margin:0"></p>&quot;Bodaks?&quot; he asks incredulously, &quot;We&#39;re importing straight up demons out here now?&quot;</div> <div title="Yejian" style="margin-top:2em"> 	Yejian gives her spear a twirl and braces herself, looking for an opening... As soon as the creature stumbles into a tree, she sees it. And takes it. With a charge and a lunge, she drives her spear forward to try and impale it to the wood.</div> <div title="Randel" style="margin-top:2em">Like the feral Randel is channeling, the large Night Stalker single-mindedly goes after his prey, chasing and leaping towards the Outer Realm horror with long bloodied claws, because if it is still moving, it is of interest to the nanite-made monster. Unfortunately his body is getting overtax, having not taken even a second&#39;s break during the attack. He went all in too quickly and is too sluggish to grab the monster in time as it runs out of his grasp, making him yell out in anger before giving chase.</div> <div title="Willy" style="margin-top:2em">Willy  seeing that it&#39;s regen is starting to come under control, Willy decides to go for a finishing blow. Flexing up a little to push his Muscle Enhancers, he charges it and full speed, and ducking to behind it, grips it at the back. Using all the strenght his juggernaut body and his enchanes can give, he pulls the creature at the shoulders and tries to bend his spine in not so nice ways.</div> <div title="Ascii" style="margin-top:2em">Ascii, with so little to focus on continued looking for things to do, so as randel, obviously worn down charged past.  She tried to get his attention, with a &quot;Hey slow down a sec there!&quot;   but nothing.  Another sigh.  Who really was the one left feeling inconsequential?  This gal, right here.  So she shrugged, said heck it.  Eyes back to pink. She, didn&#39;t exactly run.  But her scales beneath her fur all looked a bit, red now..  As Willy attempted to snap the thing in two.  There was suddenly a burst of light, thanks to all of Ascii&#39;s tails glowing, 8 arms joining the fray of limbs, working with Willy intently as she cursed.  &quot;Fucking die already!&quot;  Voice cracking as she screamed at it.</div> <div title="Magnus" style="margin-top:2em">	 That seems to have done it. Most assuredly so, stricken through the chest and pinned to a tree, ripped asunder with no way for its gangly body to continuously regenerate, it just sort of.... goes limp. Not only too, with its malignent magicks overpowered, it falls apart entirely, reduced to naught but a pile of mushy bile on the ground, not even bone remains. Magnus is the first to put his weapon away, a deep sigh parting his muzzle. &quot;I do believe, that&#39;s done it.&quot; he notes the somewhat plainly obvious. Gaze wandering among his companions, he&#39;d dust his hands off and note &quot;Well, I&#39;d hoped this was one of the more benign tears, but... seems fate was against us today. What you saw was one of the lesser fiends of the Outer Realm. With any luck, we&#39;ll never have to encounter one of the greater ones, but if nothing is done about the encroaching threat, well... the tears will get larger and more stable. Who knows what can flop free from one of those.&quot; He&#39;d shake his head lightly. &quot;We&#39;ve overextended our stay as-is, I recommend we make our return to the city. Now that you&#39;ve seen what I&#39;ve been dealing with, it is my hope that through you, others will rise to take action against the looming threat. We will discuss your payment on the way.&quot;</div> <div title="Fenris" style="margin-top:2em">Fenris checks his armor and frowns at the acodoc scores left by the beast. &quot;Oh yes,&quot; he says, &quot;Definitely something to look into.&quot;</div> <div title="Willy" style="margin-top:2em">Willy  lets go of the beast&#39;s remains with a sigh and a stretch. &quot;Let...me know if you need my help agian, I&#39;d be glad to work it. But I definittly need to plan for next time...guess some form research would be good...&quot; with that, he gets up and heads back out of the forest.</div>[[Category:RPLogs]]

Difference between revisions of "Otherworldly Dangers - RPLOG"

Latest revision as of 02:09, 31 January 2022

Participants

Date

Log

Navigation menu

Views

Personal tools

Navigation

Search

Tools