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Phoenix512
Exalted Player
Posts: 304
Joined: Thu Nov 13, 2003 10:42 pm

Re: Gated Folding Stare; Fighting Through Fire!

Post by Phoenix512 » Mon Jun 09, 2008 11:49 pm

What the hell! Why are they leaving? These monsters usually attack everyone that isn’t a monster or their controller. There are still targets here. Don’t tell me that they are going to the other room? I don’t know what dangers the others have there but adding enhanced monsters to the mix will not help them.

Phoenix quickly surveyed the battlefield as three of the monsters show off an additional ability that the normal version of the monster did not have. A water column attack, poison thorn storm, and a quick paralyzing attack were revealed. Those abilities alone were nothing but in junction, they were a deadly combination. Who knows what the other three monsters have but it was not worth it to let them fire off the attack.

By then, Senna joined the fight and dealing with the fire elementals. Canti was using his darkness flame ability to deal with the remaining Thunder Raptors that the blademaster injured earlier. Even though the Thunder Raptors were all dead, the Darkness Mushroom Kings decided to paralyze Canti in place with constant attacks. With Canti stuck in place, any monster could easily kill him. Phoenix has decided to kill the Kings as they are the greatest threat right now.

The thunder element was not one of the blademaster’s main weapon skills but even so, they are probably not weak to it like most of the other monsters. Phoenix plants a BiVak Rom in between the two kings. The kings yell out in pain from the flames burning their bodies and attracted the attention of wooden mermen. The mermen fire their poison thorns at the blademaster. Even his wind-enhanced speed could not avoid them off as a couple of thorns were placed in his back as he rolled towards the kings.

The poison began to act immediately and drain his life slowly. Unlike Nighthand, the poison was not as strong but still effective in delivering pain. Usually Phoenix would do something at the mermen but Canti really needs help. The poison was burning through his body every five seconds but he ignored it as he initialized a Vak Crack at the nearest King. The flame soaked sword completely vaporized the King on contact. Its ashes were scattered throughout the lab as Phoenix continued to press-on the attack on the other king.

The only remaining Darkness Mushroom King was multitasking with using its paralyzing attack on Canti while throwing MeAni Kruzs at the blademaster. Having skulls covered in darkness energy pounding against Phoenix’s body along with the fiery pain of the mermen’s poison was not a good idea for fun. In a spurt of rage, Phoenix fired off his remaining SP on Wind Blades at the King. The blades made the king into many small sliced mushrooms that a master chef did himself with lightning speed.

With the both Mushroom Kings dead, Canti should be able to move again. As for Phoenix, he needed to recover quickly as possible. First, he painfully removed the thorns from his back. He was not sure if the poison will continue to run through his body but he did not care. Next he pulled a Health Drink and Mage’s Soul and drank them both. With bad luck, Phoenix was hit by two water column attacks and went flying to a wall.

The impact of the attacks ached throughout Phoenix’s body. He tried to stand but the poison caused him to fall back to the ground in a fiery pain. Damn! This poison is annoying. Those mermen are definitely next once I’m able to stand.

Once again, the pendant shined red for a second but faded away and went unnoticed to the injured blademaster. He was too focused by the sphinx headed his way to kill him.

OOC:

Monster Count:
Fire Elementals: 3/3 (3 injured)
Dire Water Wolves 3/4 (1 injured) (Water column attack)
Earthen Sphinxes 1/2 (1 injured)
Wooden Mer 2/3 (Poison thorn storm)
Thunder Raptors 0/3 ("Toasty!")
Darkness Shroom Kings 0/3 (Five second paralysis)
Phoenix
Level 48 Blademaster
Equipped Skills: Vak Revolver, Gan Revolver, Dek Vorv, La Repth, Juk Kruz, Rue Kruz, BiVak Rom, GiGan Zot
Other Skills: Rue Kruz, Rip Synk, Rip Saem, Crack Beat, Rue Slash, Ani Slash, Gan Crack, Gan Revolver

Wish List: Phoenix's Fire, Gold Necklace
EX-Spheres: LV 3 - Overdrive, LV 3 - Curative, LV 3 - Elemental Breath

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Lighteria
Well-Oiled Machine
Posts: 176
Joined: Fri Oct 01, 2004 12:59 am
Location: :noitacoL

Re: Gated Folding Stare; Fighting Through Fire!

Post by Lighteria » Wed Jun 11, 2008 6:08 pm

Lighteria has a bit of a problem with tunnel vision. While it certainly helps him focus on the most efficient and easy way to dispatch a single or pair of enemy AI, it doesn't really help when there are other monsters in the room and his friends are getting their vitals chew upon by them. Granted, most of the freedom fighters are combat-competent enough to the point where a crazy-tough monster is more of a momentary inconvenience than an actual threat... still, when outnumbered (which they always are), there's always a rather high element of risk should you manage to get focused upon. Fortunately for Lighteria, either by being perceived as too weak to be a threat or too annoying to grab hold of, is not focused upon by much of anything he isn't actively stabbing. Even the sphinx he managed to cut a decorative neck wound in turned its fangs towards Phoenix after he made a delicious shitake soufflé out of the Shroom Kings. The twin blade HAD be resting on his laurels at the time, thinking the way he dispatched the previous sphinx was the coolest thing he'd done all week, but now since his next target was momentarily distracted, the twin blade's laser-like AI-killing focused aggression kicks in again.

One good flying leap at its tail end is all it takes for the twin blade to scurry onto the beast's back and remind the thing that it had a neck wound by adding two, much deeper neck wounds. You can almost see the thought forming it the beast's mind: "Oh right, the wiry, dagger-wielding, cute kid." In an instant the sphinx bucks the twin blade off its back, using a lot more foreword momentum than its predecessor who managed to only fling the twin blade vertically. Now the twin blade had been preparing for the inevitable 'get the fsk off' moves, and while getting flung forward was a surprise, the fact of him now being airborne was not. The twin blade nails the landing on the floor and faces the sphinx again almost instantly, unfortunately this time the beast decides the landing is a good time for it pounce. Apparently getting stabbed makes for a slightly fiercer opponent if they're not killed outright. Lighteria quickly finds himself on the receiving end of a flying leap and is knocked rather brutally to the ground, the beast using its giant paws to keep his shoulders down. At this point, the twin blade figures he's about to get his face bitten off, luckily for him the beast only stares blankly down at the twin blade. They stay like this for a while until Lighteria finally notices his shirt is getting wet. His first thought is that somehow, someway, he managed to pee his pants in a video game whilst having no actual bodily functions. Luckily, this isn't the case as when he relaxes for a moment, the nervous death grip on his blade hilt finally becomes noticeable. Apparently the twin blade managed to hold onto his weapon at a perfect angle, the sphinx's pounce ending up less of a pin and more pin cushion as blood pours out of the shatteringly deep stomach wound the blade inflicted. Lighteria takes a second to collect himself before shoving the blade further into its gut, making the beast vanish from death and letting him get the hell up off the floor with a nice red blood stain on his shirt.

That probably could have went better...

Though part of him wanted to go back to the puzzle room now that the pressure was eased somewhat on the fighting, a quick glance around the room strips that idea from him rather quickly. Another target will be needed...

The wolves seem to be going for the hallway... Oh well, their funeral when they tick off Sheena. Right now, those weird fish men... things seem to be the most troublesome. May as well see if I can take one out.

With a shrug, the twin blade charges towards one of the two remaining mermen. The creature notices the charge right away of course, since it has all the subtly of an elephant charge. With that typical dramatic 'special attack' motion, it pulls its trident back, preparing to launch its poison thorns at the incoming attacker. That doesn't work too well. His hands already on his blades, Lighteria makes a quick, powerful flick of his arms, sending both his daggers sailing towards the creature's face. Now having two jagged pieces of metal lodged in your face is usually a rather painful experience so the merman wisely opts to stop his theatric trident magic and instead execute a timely dodge. The attack was telegraphed enough to be avoided relatively easily, leaving Lighteria's weapons to sail into the ground and lodge themselves hilt-up. The maneuver is practically laughable since the twin blade basically just disarmed himself willingly during a charge, the merman only reflects on that for a moment though, as Lighteria is suddenly is rather uncomfortably close quarters, his bare hands reaching towards the merman's wrists. Thus begins the grapple.

Now Lighteria has nickel and dimed enough baddies to death to realize that his attacks, while quick, are rather weak sometimes, especially when out leveled and against a high armor class. But fortunately, there's no rule that says you can't get creative with the kill styles except for the entire foundation of the game mechanics. Good thing THOSE are thrown out when you're trapped inside the damn thing. Lighteria grits his teeth and grips the hilt of the trident, trying to twist it and wrestle it from the merman's hands. Now the merman's grip is pretty strong, he's not letting his precious weapon go to a player who would need to take an eight-week bicep building course before he could be classified as 'scrawny', but getting the player to let go of the weapon is going to take slightly more leverage than swimming around in the air provides. So with a clear case of mer-confidence, the creature plants what passes for its feet on the ground and shoves forward, leaning over the twin blade at an imposing and rather painful angle, making Lighteria nearly fall over backwards for a moment. What the monster doesn't realize though, is that close-range grappling is actually part of Lighteria's plan. There are, after all TWO of them and the other quickly realizes that if it uses its massively cheap poison storm attack, then he's going to be planting a great deal of thorns into his partner's backside. With the special attack out of the question, the second merman decides it's time for a good old fashion skewering as it rushes towards Lighteria's back with the tip of his trident pointed at his vertebrae.

You think they'd learn not to help. Lighteria thinks, recalling how the last sphinx he fought managed to get itself killed when it tried to help its partner. Who is he to judge though? The twin blade had been trying to make the trident spin counter clockwise as he grappled with the merman, the next move was almost too obvious, if a little dependant on accuracy. With the merman leaning in towards him, trying to over power the twin blade, Lighteria switches from push to pull just as the second one closes in. The PLAN was to make them stab each other, but luck and difficulty aiming makes it go just a tad awry. The merman, having exerted most of his force clockwise, can't reverse its strength fast enough to stay balanced and falls just slightly forward and to the right, allowing Lighteria to dodge the incoming back stab to the left, but instead of the two of them planting tridents in each other, the triple-pronged weapon heads only collide with a loud clang, sending both spear heads to the floor. Lighteria is surprised, but the mermen are a bit more surprised at the shock of the metal, letting the twin blade have enough time to execute a rather amusing maneuver where his elbow jerks back into the face of the second merman and his foot kicks out the support leg of the first. The second merman staggers backwards with its trident firmly in hand, its other hand holding its face from getting its nose almost cracked. The first one, of course, trips forward, sliding down the length of his trident since it refused to let go of the thing... at least until he belly flopped onto the ground, which makes his grip weaken a bit. Always one to kick an AI while it's down, the twin blade swings his foot ruthlessly into the flat of the trident where the monster still has a semblance of grip. The kick swiftly extracts the trident from the ground, making it sail a few feet into the air away from the merman's now crippled grip. With a rather grim look on his face, Lighteria grabs the trident in mid-air, rears back and lets out a rather brutal sounding growl as he uses his entire body as a guiding force, plunging the trident into the monster's back, piercing right through the thing's chest and into the floor turning the monster into little more than sushi.

Well, rest on your laurels time right? WRONG! The realization that he just negated the only reason he was safe from the special attack doesn't dawn on the twin blade until he looks up from the corpse of his slain foe into the eyes of the second one, just in time to see the trident slash down in mid air and a cloud of thorns materialize around him. Caught off-guard, the twin blade makes a desperate backwards leap to avoid the storm but leaves his body at a wide angle, letting no less than forty thorns plant themselves into his back and sides. The twin blade lets out his typical, slightly too high-pitched scream from the pain and crumples onto the ground near his blades, groping blindingly for them through the pain so he might pull off some sort of defense.


OOC:

Monster Count:
Fire Elementals: 3/3 (3 injured)
Dire Water Wolves 3/4 (1 injured) (Water column attack)
Earthen Sphinxes 0/2
Wooden Mer 1/3 (Poison thorn storm, one with a bloody nose)
Thunder Raptors 0/3 (Toasty! mm.. toast.)
Darkness Shroom Kings 0/3 (Five second paralysis)
Lv. 37 Twin Blade (180 SP)
Weapon: Rashou (Thunder Coil- 30, Suvi Lei- 20, Mumyn Lei- 30) (Life Drain)
Armor: Holy Tree Mail (Juk Kruz- 20) - Scarab Earring (La Repth- 20, Rip Maen- 40) - Time Sandals (Ap Do- 15) - Forest Gloves (Juk Kruz- 20)
GP: 14384

Wish list (In order of priority): Angel halo accessory, chibi angel wings, Bone Armor, Professional

Lighteria: "Obsessively updating my profile since Fri Oct 01, 2004 7:10 pm"

Asgard
Exalted Player
Posts: 285
Joined: Wed Apr 02, 2003 4:28 am
Location: Carmina Gadelica Alleyway

Re: Gated Folding Stare; Fighting Through Fire!

Post by Asgard » Fri Jun 13, 2008 11:02 pm

Code: Select all

“2222 in the fifth”
These puzzles just keep getting trickier now don’t they. Well….” Asgard stumbled mentally for a moment, looking over his options of what he could do to figure out what the puzzle meant. “I really don’t think this will be the answer fellows, so brace yourself.” Asgard meandered over to the keypad, and slapped in three 4’s on the keypad. The Fist Fighter waited for a moment, but then the ominous *BZZT* of the incorrect answer.

Well, long division didn’t work.” Asgard bit down on his lip in quiet frustration, “But then again, I didn’t think that would take anyway.” The Fist Fighter mulled over the question.

2222 in the fifth. The Fifth what? Rgh….Maybe it’s a derivative of time?

Asgard withdrew into his mind.

With 60 seconds in a minute and 600 seconds in ten minutes, it would be less than 40 minutes and more than 30.
600 times 3 was 1800, leaving 422 seconds left, which in turn, equalled to about 7 more minutes than that.


So if the calculation was correct, then his answer would be 537, due to being 5:37!

Asgard popped the three digit code in, thinking himself the most clever man in The World, but another resounding *BZZT* shot down that title instantly, leaving him with a slight desire to kill the person at the end of these riddles.

RAAGH! COME ON!!!” He slammed his fist into the keypad in anger, accidentally putting in 467 on the answer sheet. Another *BZZT* sounded. He withdrew his hand back close to his body from doing anything else foolish, like dooming the party, every one.

Come on. THINK! 2222 in the fifth. What does it imply?

*CRHK*

The sound of metal passing over metal, like stone over stone, resounded in his ears. He looked to the source of the sound, which was indeed the keypad that he ever so despised. However, it was not the keypad that made the sound, but the clue associated with the keypad. There was a change in the description of the sentence, an extension of the clue.

Code: Select all

2222 in the fifth base
5th base? FECK! All those years in tech school and I couldn’t even derive that!

Hold on, I got this one now. Just give me a second.

Lets see... Asgard was thinking yet again, drawing an equation in the mind’s eye.

There are four numerals with this problem, therefore, if it is of the fifth base…

then it will be 5 to the 0 power, in other words 1,
5 to the 1st power, which is 5,
5 to the 2nd power, which is 25,
And 5 to the 3rd power, which is 125

Seeing as all digits are 2’s, all values are doubled, and we will have our decimal value, and our answer.

So two plus ten plus fifty plus two hundred and fifty equals…


Got it. Get ready if there’s something else than a puzzle on the other side.” Asgard clenched his hand around the hilt of one of his Obsidian Throwing Knives in anticipation, and put in the code 312.

OOC:

First try: 444 (Wrong)
Second try: 537 (Wrong)
Third try: 467 (Accidental, Wrong)
Clue extended
Fourth try: 312
This is my non-banner profile. Read at own discretion!
Wishlist (Bolded sections denotate priority, in descending order)
In General: LEVELS
Pet-Related: EX-Levels, [Lv. 2]Overdrive Sphere, [Lv. 2]Ressurect
Armor: Dice Gloves (20 RARE), Golden Turban (42), Saint Cross (41), Protect Ring (41)
Weapons: Master Nunchaku (40 RARE), Three-Section Staff (37),
Items: (None)

User avatar
Nighthand
Master of Games
Posts: 1265
Joined: Mon Mar 31, 2003 9:23 pm
Class: Bladesmage
Location: ...Tracking...please wait...

Re: Gated Folding Stare; Fighting Through Fire!

Post by Nighthand » Fri Jun 20, 2008 8:18 pm

Three wrongs eventually produced a right, and the door slid open to reveal... Yet another door. The party dedicated to opening doors was swiftly growing tired of said doors, but Sheena's voice relieved them of their worries; that this corridor would be endless.

"There's only two more doors, it looks like! We're almost there!"

So the next door, and the next clue, came to be.

Code: Select all

7

7                                     7

7                                     7                                     7
Together.

---------Meanwhile, in the battle zone


Without warning, a new batch of monsters appeared. It was hard to tell at first with the number of them already present, but their numbers were definitely increasing. New monsters were simply appearing; a group of three, and then another group of three, and then a third group of three. Then, for the moment, it seemed reinforcements had stopped.

Then two of the injured fire elementals displayed their new "attack", such as it was. They suddenly merged together, a blast of flame radiating outwards from them. The result was a single full-health elemental, and a radius of damage around them.

Meanwhile Nighthand found himself surrounded by the four brand-new thunder raptors. They started to circle him, looking for an opening to begin an assault. Nighthand didn't have much trouble keeping his eye on all four of them... at least, until they too began to display a unique ability. As he watched, one of them disappeared, only to reappear at the same instant on the other side of him. The others began to follow suit, until instead of stalking circles around him, they were teleporting in the midst of walking. A short range teleport, but still effective for confusing their prey.

At least, if their prey didn't have wings. Nighthand sensed the danger he was in and leaped into the air, taking flight and hovering above the raptors jumping range. He was a target for any of the creatures with ranged attacks, but, it was better than being shredded by raptors.



Monster Count:
Fire Elementals: 4/4 (1 injured) (Injured Merge)
Dire Water Wolves 3/4 (1 injured) (Water column attack)
Earthen Sphinxes 3/5
Wooden Mer 1/3 (Poison thorn storm, one with a bloody nose)
Thunder Raptors 4/7
Darkness Shroom Kings 0/3 (Five second paralysis)


ooc: sorry for how long this took. Now that final projects are over for the first summer semester, I'll have a lot more time, and should be back on schedule.

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Raven
Player
Posts: 15
Joined: Wed Jan 30, 2008 2:43 pm
Location: Toronto
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Re: Gated Folding Stare; Fighting Through Fire!

Post by Raven » Thu Jun 26, 2008 7:18 am

Raven watched as other members opened the doors, his own attempt having been incorrect. A few doors were opened, and they got to the newest one. One with a particularly hard puzzle on it. An odd assortment of sevens, and the word 'together'. Raven mulled this one over for a moment, but couldn't seem to quite figure it out. The codes seemed to all be 3 digits, so that in itself was a clue. Therefore the answer could not be 42, the answer to six sevens added together. Therefore, it had to be something a little less obvious. Or perhaps, more obvious as Raven tended to overthink these puzzles. The first thing he tried was something that should have been obvious.
777
There was a buzzing sound to tell him that he was wrong, so he moved on to the next idea in his head. Sometimes, when numbers were side by side like that it meant that you should multiply them. So maybe it meant the sum of the three products. Raven did the math in his mind, and punched in the number.
399
This one also prompted a buzzing noise, which caused him to sigh. He was starting to get annoyed with it, and hit the keypad, apparently entering a three digit code as he did.
319
There was a beeping, and he let out a longer sigh, muttering to himself about that mistake. Knowing fields like this, there was bound to be some sort of negative reprocussion for every wrong answer they gave. For all he knew, there was a monster spawning on the other side of these doors for every wrong answer they gave, three even. These hackers did love to overdo things after all. Finally he gave the riddle one last look, and decided it was time to think differently. He always overthought these riddles, that was his problem. Always had been, even through his Eventide days. It was time to take a simpler approach to things. There were three rows of numbers, each with an increased number of sevens from the last, maybe it was something horrifyingly simple.
123
The loud buzzing told him that was wrong too. He kicked the wall and stood off to the side as Raquar seemed to take a shot at it. If this had proven anything, it was that he sucked at simplifying things. All that was left was to see if Raquar or the others could do it.
Raven
Level 23 Blademaster
2400 Gold
Skills: Rue Kruz, Juk Kruz, Vak Crack, Rai Rom, Gan Crack, Ap Corv | Skill Drain
Items: x30 Health Drinks, x12 Mage Souls, x5 Resurrects, x4 Gale Breaths, x9 Speed Charms, x9 Meteor Swarms, x5 Warrior's Blood, Nightblight, Plasma Storm, Fire Tempest, x4 Ice Floe, Sprite Ocarina, Fairy's Orb, Fortune Wire, Hermit's Bane, x3 Ice Storm, x2 Ice Strike, Cygnus, Matoi, x2 Dark Night

Profile

Lord Canti
Exalted Player
Posts: 300
Joined: Sat May 13, 2006 3:58 pm
Location: In da' plains of hell, natch.

Re: Gated Folding Stare; Fighting Through Fire!

Post by Lord Canti » Thu Jun 26, 2008 7:13 pm

(This was an intolerable thing to have to deal with at the BEST of times, when he was just playing the game. Now that he was stuck in it and had to manage this body as his own, the thought of being frozen in skill-spams was a maddening process. You could definitely feel the urge to kill rising, not to mention the viral energy surging through his darkness ability. He was going to just fucking explode if those bastard mushrooms didn't leave him alone. Fortunately, his call had been heard and heeded, and the Shroom Kings were made dead as a doornail by Phoenix. Before he did anything else, Canti sunk a pair of Health Drinks down replenishing his HP while he still could. He'd been THAT CLOSE to being picked off then, and that would've really been a pain in the ass. Once that happened, the Twin Blade cooled down a bit. Although...he was still angry, and there were still some bastard monsters to kill. In that case... CHAR- Hold on. Something happened. It seemed that the longer they were in here, the more monsters would appear (Typical.), which meant that they had to finish these guys off and soon. That was fine with Canti. He approached the one and only remaining Wooden Mer. It saw him coming and launched a Poison Thorn attack.)

Canti: Hah!

*FWOOPH!!*

(Canti burned the attack with a wave of his arm, Darkness Flames just eating up all the thorns. He continued to stroll in the monster's direction. It tried the attack again.)

*FWOOPH!!*

Canti: Hah-hah hah!

(Totally burned it again. The Twin Blades trip through the magical land of paralysis had allowed his SP gauge to fill up somewhat, leaving the Wooden Mer with a little problem. You see, if this was a normal ability, you couldn't claim the flames had any chance, since it had no real weakness, but this was a Twilight ability. And hacked viral flames beat a custom monster skill any day. Striking aside its Trident, Canti proceeded to unload on the creature, turning its bloody nose into a blood-bath, so to speak. The Twin Blade ducked and weaved as it defended itself, but when he caught it by the tail and slammed it into the ground? It was over. Also, he'd noticed that the injured Fire Elementals were merging. Canti wondered about that. If he called this right, he could lessen their ranks VERY quickly... Smiling, he began to throw Ice Storm spell-scrolls at the three UNinjured Fire Elementals, scoring the only elemental hits you could obtain in this place. He didn't wanna be in their shoes. That's for sure. Now, let's see... That left-)

*Chomp!*

Canti: Eh?

(Pardon me, sir, but you have a cat on your shoulder. Canti looked to his right and found one of the Earthen Sphinxes grappling onto his shoulder, tooth and claw.)

Canti: What the...?

*Chomp! Chomp!*

Canti: AGH!

(And there were the other two, going at it with both his legs. Monsters, they may be, but they were still cats. They were starting to gnaw away his HP, doing that. Feeling the sting of it, Canti tried to throw them off.)

Canti: Dammit, get off already! Get off! Get off! GET- Uh oh...

(He heard a growling noise nearby and looked behind. There were Dire Water Wolves back there. All three of 'em.)

Canti: "Dogs and cats, living together! MASS HYSTERIA!"

(More trouble! The Twin Blade let out a vintage Curly Howard yelp as the three wolves leapt and the Earthen Sphinxes started REALLY getting on the offensive! Imagine being caught in a whirlwind of claws... Canti spun and struck and ducked as they all attacked at once, some of them hitting each other. He wasn't sure EXACTLY what happened. He remembered a alot of slashing, then kicking one in the face as he took off into the sky, kicking one off of him for clinging to his leg. He was about ten feet up now, and firing off a good deal of Darkness Flame somewhat uncontrollably. All parties were injured by this point. It seems that in order to break free, he'd basically exploded on them, gulping away a good chunk of his SP in the process. From the looks of things, he'd killed one of the wolves, though. That was a bonus. They were all growling at him now.)

Canti: Oh, so you want more, eh? Oh, trust me. I can bring the heat.

(He used a Mage's Soul, prepared to fire, and-)

*WHOOSH!!*

(One of the wolves caught him in a water-column attack, sending him into the far wall...and then letting him drop to the ground once the water pressure was off.)

*THUD!*

Canti: Owww...

(From his horizontal position, he leaned his head up on one arm, taking another Health Drink with the other.)

Canti: I'll never mock the postman again.

OOC: Role Call!

Fire Elementals: 4/4 (4 Injured) (Injured Merge)
Dire Water Wolves 2/4 (2 Injured) (Water Column Attack)
Earthen Sphinxes 3/5 (3 Injured)
Wooden Mer 0/3 (Poison Thorn Storm)
Thunder Raptors 4/7 (Teleport Stalk)
Darkness Shroom Kings 0/3 (Five Second Paralysis)
I'll have a doozy of a sig later, I swear. It'll reflect ".hack//CODE" an' everything.

Hey look! A profile! It's got items and stats and things! Cool! If it isn't fully up to date, it will be, so don't worry 'bout it.

Phoenix512
Exalted Player
Posts: 304
Joined: Thu Nov 13, 2003 10:42 pm

Re: Gated Folding Stare; Fighting Through Fire!

Post by Phoenix512 » Fri Jun 27, 2008 4:45 am

Phoenix was lucky that Lighteria killed the Earthen Sphinx that was heading towards him as a trophy prey. The effects of the poison were beginning to linger and was able to stand back on his two feet. Fortunately, his timing was nearly perfect as more monsters began to appear on the battlefield. The blademaster could not tell where the source of the monsters were coming from as it would be the best bet to destroy the source before the group would be overwhelm with a constant barrage of monsters.

The Earthen Sphinxes and Thunder Raptors returned to the battlefield with the raptors showing a neat teleporting technique. They would be hard to destroy as they could escape any attack with ease. The raptors should be the last ones to be destroyed. Two of the fire elementals have merged which meant they became just more powerful. Phoenix was going to go after the last merman but Canti finished the job. The blademaster wanted to take revenge for being poisoned by that monster but he decided to finish the fire elementals.

Phoenix did not want to use this scroll but it was necessary in this case. He pulled out the Absolute Zero scroll and placed it at the combined Fire Elemental and the two unmerged elementals. The level three icy tornado rampaged through all three elementals which cause them to be in immense pain. The attack was powerful enough to destroy all the fire elementals in the area including the merged one.

Before Phoenix could think about the next target, two sets of water columns were headed towards him. He could only avoid one of them completely while the second one pounded him to the hard floor once again. It was decided then that the blademaster was going to hunt for some wolves. Before getting back up, he left off a BiVak Rom at one of the Dire Wolves. The fiery tornado would be enough to kill it but the removal of the elemental weakness have kept it alive. The attack was supposed to keep it at bay while he went after the other him but seeing that it was almost dead, he went for the kill. Phoenix ran towards and slashes the wolf on its entire left side. The wolf let out a howl before disappearing into particles.

Now there was only one wolf left and went berserk. It decided to not to use its advanced attacks and magic for its deadly bite. The Dire Wolf pounced towards Phoenix and knocked him to the ground. The blademaster was trying to keep the wolf’s bite away from him with all of his strength as his sword was thrown away from the pounce. His current magic options could not get the wolf off without causing serious damage to himself. The Wind Blade was missing in action as well since he needs space to launch it along with a sword. His strength was not enough to force the wolf off of him. The wolf will bite him unless someone could help him soon.

At that moment, the pendant on Phoenix’s neck shined an intense red and became a ball of light. The ball of light went upwards and took shape as a small red bird. It was Suzaku who finally came back from her quest. She immediately fired her fiery breath at the wolf. The breath attack was burning the fur on the wolf but the wolf continued to stay on Phoenix. The bird kept the breath attack going until the wolf itself turned to ash and was no more a threat to anyone.

Phoenix could not believe it as Suzaku has finally come back to him. He kept on believing in her that she would come back soon and she did. There were so many questions that he wanted to ask her but now was not the time. There were still monsters here and must be dealt with. As Phoenix picked up the Oberon, he turned to Suzaku and said to her telepathically, Welcome back, Suzaku.

It is good to be back, Kazamu-sama. Suzaku said to him back but she could not tell him the truth about herself. She realized the same thing that Phoenix did that their talk would have to wait along with the new power that she possesses.

OOC:

Monster Count:
Fire Elementals: 0/4 (Merging ability)
Dire Water Wolves 0/4 (Water column attack)
Earthen Sphinxes 3/5 (all injured)
Wooden Mer 0/3 (Poison thorn storm)
Thunder Raptors 4/7 (Teleport Stalk)
Darkness Shroom Kings 0/3 (Five second paralysis)
Phoenix
Level 48 Blademaster
Equipped Skills: Vak Revolver, Gan Revolver, Dek Vorv, La Repth, Juk Kruz, Rue Kruz, BiVak Rom, GiGan Zot
Other Skills: Rue Kruz, Rip Synk, Rip Saem, Crack Beat, Rue Slash, Ani Slash, Gan Crack, Gan Revolver

Wish List: Phoenix's Fire, Gold Necklace
EX-Spheres: LV 3 - Overdrive, LV 3 - Curative, LV 3 - Elemental Breath

Raquar
Ikkitousen
Posts: 108
Joined: Tue Apr 10, 2007 8:28 pm
Location: Hiding in the shadows

Re: Gated Folding Stare; Fighting Through Fire!

Post by Raquar » Fri Jun 27, 2008 6:27 am

The fire was everywhere, and even more so, it began to take its toll on his mental ability. He couldn’t do much except sit there and melt. It was with a delusional surrealism that elementals died and rose around him, and it was with the same sense of displacement that giant fireballs and swirling tornadoes of flame clashed around him. It was only through a vague sense of remembrance that he threw out the occasional La Repth saving himself from disaster. A loud noise drew his attention for a moment but it was nothing more than a huge heave on Sheena’s part that allowed the group to slip through the door.

The giant structure was almost completely dark when they entered. And hot. Granted it wasn’t hot, but the heat was still something that could stifle you. The sudden drop in heat slowly started to dissipate mental fog. The boy stood dumbly in the darkness for a moment before somebody moved somewhere. It seemed important so he decided to follow along. Its not like he had anything better to do anyway. As the group moved farther and farther down the walkway, through domed rooms and over pits. Not quite to Grandma’s house but it would have to do at the moment. And as the group passed through more room and traversed more giant gaping chasms there was actually light. It had apparently been gradually increasing apparently, but he hadn’t realized it until it was actually enough to cause sufficient amounts of luminescence such that he had no choice but to realize it.

This room differed from the first seeing as how they couldn’t immediately move forward out of it due to the closed off door that sealed off their access. Not only that there were the giant squares at their fight. It was an interesting pattern; black, white, black, white and on it went. It took him longer than it probably should have for the realization to sink in that it was a chess or checkers board, and even longer to realize that there was a single slim slender stone rod positioned at the center of the board. Gaze following some members of the party he realized the glowing statues on the left side of the room. Each of the stone beings seemed to be reminiscent of some ancient Indian god with eight arms jutting in various directions and each arm in a different outstretched position.

He was strangely transfixed by the Shiva-esque statues, even as random people moved them to various positions around the room, and even more so when giant lights and sounds exploded into the room. More so than once. And then there was a break. And finally more explosions, these one harmless and only a special effects show. At the end of the fireworks things proceeded as normal. The door opened and they moved on. To wherever on was. It turned out that on was a staircase, with the onyx marble of the floor offset by a very pale white granite-ish stone. They followed the stairs down for a ways before they were led out into a small holding room. The party halted for a moment seemingly waiting in the suddenly small room waiting for something. There were some noises but the Long Arm didn’t pay them serious enough attention to discern what they were. It was only a moment before they moved on into a larger chamber, thankfully, but it was here that they were faced with another problem. It was a fork. Well, technically it was a trident if you wanted to ride the semantic line, but either way it was more ways to proceed than one. And that made things difficult.

Testing. Lab. Storage/Dungeon. The onslaught of a decision sparked some conversation and controversy among the group. It seemed pretty heated at some points as different opinions were voiced in quick succession. The boy decided to not offer any ideas because quite frankly he didn’t give a shit. His opinion probably wouldn’t have mattered much and he would eventually follow whatever he was told to do so what did it matter if he chimed in some useless opinion that half the group wouldn’t listen to anyway? Sheena’s declaration of direction snapped him out of his spacing out and as of such he decided to follow her down the path of the Lab. Hopefully it would be alright.

They only had a short way to go before they were met with another door and a puzzle. Thank God. It made things much easier that he didn’t have to fight. Besides his brain always had a tendency to be bigger than his bicep. And it was numbers. He like numbers they were fun. This first puzzle was easy enough, and the newly joined Fist Fighter, Asgard or something spent no time solving it. Tres. Uno. Cero. Ding. The door yielded itself to them and they moved through . . . to another door and another puzzle. This next one proved to be a little harder. He had no clue what the hell a penultimate prime number was, but he didn’t have to spend too much time thinking terribly hard about it as Dien came up with the answer soon enough. Bastard probably hacked his consciousness into Google and ran a damn search for it. Oh well. The answer was right and it did allow them to move on.

New door, new puzzle, it was the way things worked. However, he couldn’t quite recall Fibonacci’s Largest Square. Come to think of it, he could only recall the first few terms of the sequence in general. With a slightly puzzled look on his face he stared counting it out in his head. 1. 1. 2. 2. 5. 8. 13. The going was slow and he barely noticed when Lighteria punched in 144 and the door slid aside. The boy started to feel ashamed. He had thought he had been okay with numbers but everybody else seemed to prove their worth instead. Maybe he really wasn’t that important, and on second consideration, perhaps he should’ve gone down the other door with the other bit of their straggling group.

The next puzzle didn’t make a whole lot of sense to him, and he looked on gladly as somebody else buzzed themselves around. 2222. Fifth base. The whole fact of bases made him think logs. He wondered what the logarithm of 2222 was divided by the logarithm of five was. While he pondered that for a little while and listened to a couple more buzzes it seemed that Asgard found the right answer. The door slid aside to another door. This was what, the fifth door? How many of the damn things did they have? Thankfully they seemed to be moving through them rather quickly. The first person to head towards this new puzzle was Raven. The Long Arm looked on over his shoulders at the triangle of sevens as the Blademaster attempted a few answers. When none were correct and the other seemed temporarily out of ideas he slid over to the keypad with a mumbled ‘excuse me.’ He had a couple ideas and maybe solving something would make him feel better.

7.
77.
777.

Together? He wondered if that meant that they sorta bunched together. Well they went from one seven, to two sevens, and then three sevens. Three sevens made seven cubed. And seven cubed was . . . after a moment of quick calculation and cross checking to fix the error he punched in 343 as the code. This was not correct, but instead of letting the buzz get him down he moved onto another chain of thought. He began to look at the shape. It was after all triangular. Maybe they wanted the area of the triangle? Well the base and the height both consisted of three sevens. That made twenty-one for each if you added them together. Twenty-one multiplied by the half of twenty-one made . . . after some quick decimal shuffling he came out with 220.5 Granted we could have only three numbers so being the proper math student he was he rounded up to 221. That however was wrong.

And then he had an idea. He added the sevens together to get twenty-one for the sides of the triangle. What if he had to simply add them all together? He ran through the basic addition in his head. Let’s see. 777 and 77 made 854. And the additional 7 made 861. This combination of numbers seemed to satisfy whatever door deity was testing them currently. The door slid aside to reveal one more, but the boy allowed himself a small grin. He really didn’t care about everybody else, but at least he felt a little bit better about himself now.
Level 28 Long Arm
Archspear, Newt Necklace, Smith's Gloves, Wyrm Scale, Kuja's Thong Dress
EXP: [700/1000]

WISHLIST
Levels
Weapons: - All
Armor: Head - Scarab Earring
Body - Nothing until Mid 30's. Ninja Garb Hand - Nothing until Mid 30's. Leg - Nothing until Mid 30's.
Items: Cooked Biles, Darkness Scrolls (Any and All)

User avatar
Lighteria
Well-Oiled Machine
Posts: 176
Joined: Fri Oct 01, 2004 12:59 am
Location: :noitacoL

Re: Gated Folding Stare; Fighting Through Fire!

Post by Lighteria » Fri Jun 27, 2008 9:42 am

His blades pointed towards the Wooden Mer, Lighteria lets out a gasp to see Canti rushing towards it and rather pointedly dodging its special attack. That creature having been the only immediate threat, the timid twin blade lets out a sigh of relief, knowing it would have been a real brawl from his position. With the much needed moments respite, the twin blade digs into his item pouch and downs the contents of an Antidote bottle, both cleansing the poison and putting a rather disgusted look on his face from the strong taste.

Blech. Twilight willing, someday I'll figure out how to make a cherry-flavored antidote.

With the poison gone and him already chanting a repth spell to get back into shape, the twin blade quickly takes stock of the situation. ...Unfortunately, at first glance they appear to be quite screwed. With them already taking a rather huge beating from the monsters that are already present, in comes some reinforcements. Great. For a second, the twin blade curses his decision to run into the fight instead of staying at the door solving math puzzles. Heck, he could probably have solved at least two of them if he'd stayed. But still, people dying from monsters are slightly higher of a priority in his eyes, even when his HIGHEST priority is to pout and brood. Funnily enough, the battle makes his blood pump rather fast and just fighting and living quickly becomes the only thing he thinks about.

"Where the heck are they all coming from!?" He boggles out loud, rushing towards the remainder of the sphinxes, having had such a good fight with them before he figures he can take at least two of them down before they become a problem. As he rushes towards the new pack of beasts though, there's a brief flash of thunder in front of his eyes, a set of teeth chomping down an inch shy of his nose and then disappearing as quickly as it had appeared. It's enough to make Lighteria stumble forward a few steps and come to a complete halt.

MORE of them?! Don't these things know how to freaking DIE?!

Apparently bored with nipping at Nighthand's unreachable heels, the raptors decided to seek out a brand new target, so why not a twin blade who seems to be distracted by something else? As he stumbles to a halt, Lighteria holds out his blades in front of himself defensively, trying to grasp what's happening. Irritatingly enough, the raptors make even the job of sizing them up an impossibility. No sooner do his eyes dart to one of the beasts do they vanish to another place. While it quickly becomes clear he's being circled around, the number of them escapes him. With the way they're teleporting around randomly it could be anywhere from two to six of them. The number doesn't have the player worried as much as the class balance though. Being a twin blade, Lighteria usually prefers to take on a pattern of dodging and counter attacking with the occasional disarm. This time the enemy is pretty much as fast as he is and has no weapons to turn against them. With the slight level advantage the bastard beasts have, evading EVERY attack could prove tricky to say the least... especially since he can't tell which way they're coming from. Ultimately though, the twin blade knows that if he DOESN'T evade the attacks and they score a direct hit, he's libel to be dog piled and the raptors are likely to start brandishing desert forks when that happens. Knowing this, Lighteria takes a step backwards to prepare to run... of course the beasts see this as the perfect time to start attacking.

The first attack comes from the left side, a raptor breaking the circle stalking and leaping towards him with his feet claws first. The twin blade barely catches it out of the corner of his eye and flings his body backwards, bending backwards to let the beast sail over him. The next attack wastes no time, an assault straight for him from the front, the beast again leaping with its clawed feet straight at him. Lighteria catches sight of it during the first dodge, allowing the momentum to carry him into a back flip, his feet grazing the leathery undersides of the beast's feet, the impact knocking both of them off balance. The raptor tumbles over onto his side, same as the twin blade, the only difference being Lighteria can turn the tumble into a tuck and roll, managing to gain enough distance to avoid the third raptor that pounces just two inches away from him with a vicious bite. Lighteria doesn't even bother trying to guess where the fourth is coming from, he barely uncurls from his roll before executing a forward tumble, the raptor slashing with its clawed feet a good foot and a half from where he ends up.

While the first charge may have failed, Lighteria quickly realizes only one of the raptors are going to need a second of composure before a second strike. The twin blade doesn't hesitate to come out of his tumble to get back on his feet, turning to face the pack again. Sure enough, the three of them are already rushing forward at him, with the stray one bucking on its side to desperately right itself again... something that is somewhat hard to do with a long tail and foot long arms. Of course, no sooner does he think 'Oh HO, a weakness', then a raptor leaps at his face again with its feet claws. The twin blade blinks and flings himself to the right of the attack, almost right into an incoming attack from the side. Apparently the three of them hedged their bets and decided to attack from both the right and the left. While this may avoid one raptor, it kind of puts Lighteria in the path of another. The twin blade barely reacts quick enough, the bite almost giving him a haircut as he flings himself into another forward roll, this one rather sloppy and forceful. Luckily, he manages to get to his feet in time to see the stray raptor recovering and all four of them heading for his position.

This is NOT going to work. I'm way more likely to make a mistake than these guys are. I gotta get out of danger! Think of SOMEthing!

Counterattacks can suck it for now; Lighteria turns tail and runs as fast as he can in one direction. The raptors, traveling in a pack, quickly give chase, using that frustrating teleport ability to quickly close the distance and start another assault, this time a running one. Lighteria's first inkling of danger comes when a raptor suddenly appears at his side at the tail end of a teleport, rearing back its head and striking for the player's side with a bite. Lighteria gasps and skips to the side, twisting his body to the left to avoid it, inevitably dodging straight into a second attack, this one actually connecting but somewhat sloppily. Lighteria over dodges the first bite and practically rams right into the second raptor who was preparing a similar assault where he assumed the twin blade would dodge. The two of them bump sides and stumble a little, but the raptor recovers faster since it weighs more and doesn't get jostled as much. It awkwardly bites down on the twin blade, catching him in the shoulder and making him yelp in pain before staggering forward with a quick burst of adrenaline induced speed. The third raptor flat out misses, trying to chomp his backside but missing because of the speed burst. The fourth attack, however, doesn't come. Any attack would crowd the others too much since, even if Lighteria doesn't notice it, they're heading towards the arena wall.

Let's face it, if Lighteria's heart wasn't pumping and his senses heightened by a mix of fear and survival instinct, he would most definitely run straight into the wall and remain comically embedded in the thing. This time though, he has the presence of mind to try a trick he hasn't actually tried before. With a single forward leap, Lighteria's right foot catches on the wall and his body hunches forward. Shear momentum and adrenaline fuel the next few steps which take him straight up the wall a few paces, leaving the raptors on the ground, forming a tight but familiar hunting prey circle. Apparently they assume he's going to tumble over when gravity kicks in again and collapse on the floor for an easy kill. What they don't expect though, is Lighteria pulling out a lightning element weapon of all things and glaring as he falls face first towards the floor and the center of the pack.

"Thunder Coil!" He shouts, his body whipping in a spinning, sparking frenzy in mid air as he reaches the pack of raptors. His blades held out, the lightning charged attack rips into each of the tightly grouped raptors, planting a solid hit on their head, neck and stomach as the twin blade makes his descent to the floor. Each blow connects directly onto the beasts, sending all four of them off balance and onto their sides landing on the floor in a pattern as though they're trying to perform the Worlds Most Dangerous Synchronized Swimming Team Ever. The twin blade doesn't waste a second though. The impact of the floor is shaken off, again with adrenaline, and he brings his blades over his head, practically roaring out. With two powerful thrusts, the twin blade plants a Raitei into the upper legs of two different raptors with enough force to drive the blades into the ground and temporarily pin them to the earth, as well as causing unbelievable amounts of pain. The two raptors let out an ear-piercing shriek as they buck themselves violently, trying to dislodge the blades. Lighteria isn't concerned with them though, their movements will be slowed with a leg wound and the other two are still taking a second to right themselves. With a horribly cruel motion, Lighteria once again pulls his Akatsuki from his belt and lunges for a beast, pinning its neck to the ground with his knee and remorselessly thrusting the tip of the blade into the underside of its neck, over and over and over. The raptor lets out a similarly ear-piercing shriek as its throat is skewered relentlessly, the beast taking far too much vital damage to survive. It fades into dust, leaving Lighteria to get to his feet at about the same time the last non-crippled raptor rights itself as well.

The battle is one on one now... both are injured and both are angry.
But now it's a fair fight.
The raptor is the first to attack, teleporting right in the twin blades face and going to take a bite out of said face. Lighteria ducks to the side, getting a bite on his ear and rakes a blade across the beast’s chest, adding a second scar on its torso. The raptor isn't even stunned by the attack though, full body rushing the attacking twin blade and sending him stumbling backwards. The twin blade knew attacking it and not full out dodging was risky so he was prepared for the pain when the beast rakes its clawed foot down his chest. The twin blade yelps in pain and angrily swipes his blades upwards, delivering a bloody uppercut to the beast as it recovers from its own attack. It reels only momentarily in pain before it screeches out and lunges, head sideways and fangs bared. It's going straight for the jugular. Lighteria barely has time to come off of his attack before he sees the deadly counter. He barely has enough time to shift his body to the right, the beast's teeth missing the death blow of his neck and instead burrowing into his left shoulder, teeth nearly deep enough to meet on the inside of his flesh. Lighteria screams in pain, though it's not nearly as girly a scream as he's used to. This is a more horrific pain scream he lets out. Though his left arm is pretty well crippled, his fighting spirit isn't. With the beast's teeth sunk into his shoulder, he rears back his still functional arm and drives the blade tip, with all his might, into the top of the beast's head. The Akatsuki is driven hilt-deep into the monster's skull, the edge of the blade actually scraping Lighteria in the beast's mouth as it passes through the roof of its mouth. To drive the point home though... so to speak, the twin blade pulls the blade back up to its tip and drives it down a second time, this time shattering the top of the beast's skull and collapsing it onto the floor, a bloody, dead mess.

When the beast's jaw is finally off him, Lighteria drops his blade and clutches his shoulder with an agonized moan. He drops to his knees from the pain, barely able to mouth off the repths needed to heal himself. Curse the need for cast times with spells. Two repths is all he can manage before the two remaining raptors dislodge themselves from the floor.

OOC:

Monster Count:
Fire Elementals: 0/4 (Merging ability)
Dire Water Wolves 0/4 (Water column attack)
Earthen Sphinxes 3/5 (all injured)
Wooden Mer 0/3 (Poison thorn storm)
Thunder Raptors 2/7 (Teleport Stalk, two slowed)
Darkness Shroom Kings 0/3 (Five second paralysis)
Lv. 37 Twin Blade (180 SP)
Weapon: Rashou (Thunder Coil- 30, Suvi Lei- 20, Mumyn Lei- 30) (Life Drain)
Armor: Holy Tree Mail (Juk Kruz- 20) - Scarab Earring (La Repth- 20, Rip Maen- 40) - Time Sandals (Ap Do- 15) - Forest Gloves (Juk Kruz- 20)
GP: 14384

Wish list (In order of priority): Angel halo accessory, chibi angel wings, Bone Armor, Professional

Lighteria: "Obsessively updating my profile since Fri Oct 01, 2004 7:10 pm"

User avatar
Nighthand
Master of Games
Posts: 1265
Joined: Mon Mar 31, 2003 9:23 pm
Class: Bladesmage
Location: ...Tracking...please wait...

Re: Gated Folding Stare; Fighting Through Fire!

Post by Nighthand » Sat Jun 28, 2008 3:00 am

Nighthand watched from above as the monsters were slowly decimated, choosing his targets wisely. It seemed like each time he prepared to flip out a spell, however, one of the other players removed the need by destroying the enemy in question. He watched as Lighteria began to heal himself, and the raptors he had incapacitated started to advance on him once more.

Silent as his wings could be, he swooped into a dive and landed, sword-first, with all the force that momentum gave him. His blade slid through the first raptor effortlessly and slammed it into the ground, the blade further penetrating another foot into the rock. He furled his wings tightly behind him and yanked the blade from the ground, spun, and slammed the side of the blade into the side of the oncoming raptor's head. The beast teleported, but it wasn't fast enough, blinking in and out of existence, spinning with the force of the blow until it's legs collapsed and it writhed on the ground, it's neck broken. It wasn't dead, but it wasn't about to move again either. Nighthand held out his arm and focused his palm over the fallen creature, calling on his armor for a spell. As he clamped his hand into a fist, Vak Kruz manifested around the creature and dealt the remaining damage needed to kill it. He was getting the hang of the incantationless-casting. He didn't particularly like shouting out the name of the spells every time he used them, but the game made it hard to cast without it. Not impossible, just hard.

He turned and cast an Ol Repth on the twinblade, though Lighteria's HP was almost full anyways. Better to top him off than leave him hanging, especially with the SP usage was negligible.

Before either of them could say anything, however, over a dozen more enemies appeared with barely a sound. One moment, the room was mostly empty, and the next, it was full again. Lighteria's frantic question from earlier was echoed in his mind. Where were they coming from?

One of the new monsters was a Sphinx, and immediately all four of the living sphinxes converged on one spot. Each of them began growling, and runes formed underneath them. Each of the runes formed part of a larger whole, and as the four parts merged, a dreadful howl filled the room. The ground opened up and an earthen arm reached out, holding a massive hammer. The hammer slammed into the ground, the shockwave filling the room, damaging everyone.

It took him a moment, but as the spell was fading, Nighthand recognized it. Segmented though it was, it was Yarthkins, alright. And from the looks of it, level 4. Four Sphinxes...

----------------------

Meanwhile, as the door slid open to reveal yet another frustrating door, Sheena was growing more irritated at the delay. The sounds of battle drew her, but she sensed something not too far ahead, and didn't want to leave this half of the group without a guardian... especially since she had no idea how to interpret what it was she was sensing.

One door...

Code: Select all

Numbers as Letters, Counted in Cycle
Doors Before 
Guess.  
-----------------------

OOC: Monster report.

Monster Count:
Fire Elementals: 2/6 (Merging ability)
Dire Water Wolves 4/8 (Water column attack)
Earthen Sphinxes 4/6 (Conjunction Summon, 3 injured)
Wooden Mer 6/7 (Poison thorn storm)
Thunder Raptors 4/9 (Teleport Stalk, two slowed)
Darkness Shroom Kings 3/6 (Five second paralysis)

The sphinx special attack is Yarthkins, edited to fill the room. As long as there are more one of them, they can cast it. The number casting it determines the spell level, although the damage the spell does is dampened slightly by the increase in distance and area it covers.

On an unrelated note, tonight (Friday night) I'm going to perform an update to the board's PHPBB version, as a patch was recently released that fixes security holes. There should be no operational differences, and the patch shouldn't take much time, but be sure to let me know if you spot any issues in the coming week.

EDIT: Patch successful, lemme know if you see anything odd.

Phoenix512
Exalted Player
Posts: 304
Joined: Thu Nov 13, 2003 10:42 pm

Re: Gated Folding Stare; Fighting Through Fire!

Post by Phoenix512 » Fri Jul 04, 2008 9:04 pm

Just when the Freedom Fighters managed to defeat the experimental monsters, the worst thing has happened. Reinforcements have shown up and quickly show their might on the Freedom Fighters with the last of the powers finally revealed. The Earthen Sphinxes combined their strengths to form a powerful Yarthkins attack that fill the entire room. Luckily enough, Phoenix was far away enough to take diminutive damage from the level four attack but it nearly killed him. Suzaku was uninjured as she was in air to avoid the shockwave.

The recent reinforcements finally made Phoenix realize the true threat to the Freedom Fighters. They have to find the source of the monsters as simply defeating them would not be enough as they would come back. Who knows how long they can hold out with these monsters constantly coming in to replace the fallen ones? Suzaku, I need you to find the source of the monsters. These monsters aren’t ordinary at all. They have special abilities not to kin to their regular versions. Destroying the source will be a great asset to us and the World in general.

Understood Kazuma-sama. Even though Suzaku/Yui wanted to stay by Phoenix, she knew that dealing with the monsters right now will not help in the long run. Only the destruction of the source will help the Freedom Fighters in the long run. While Suzaku look for the source, Phoenix will drink a Health Potion before going back into the fray.

The blademaster’s first targets are the Earthen Sphinxes. Their combined power is a deadly threat for the group. Taking them out would make things a bit simpler for the Freedom Fighters. The Sphinxes were still in together with each other which make things convenient for him. Yelling out the attack name of BiVak Rom, the level two fiery tornado attack engulf all four sphinxes and managed to further injured the three that Canti’s Darkness Flame inflicted on them. The blademaster rushed towards the tornado and jump through it. The fire damage was small with his fire defense equipment and made contact with the fire for a brief moment. With his sword, he plunged the Oberon into the unexpected sphinx’s midsection and killing it.

The dead sphinx let out a growl before it died and the tornado dissipated immediately after the growl. The three sphinxes tried to summon another Yarthkins but Phoenix let out a Wind Blade at the two Earthen Sphinxes closest to each other. The blade was a horizontal slash that directly hit both of them. One of them fell to the ground and died while the other was still standing. That sphinx was the one who came with the recent wave of monsters. Even though Phoenix managed to kill one of the Sphinxes, it did not stop them to summon Yarthkins once again.

Yarthkins was preparing to strike the field with its hammer when Phoenix jumped towards the summoned creature. The blademaster tried to destroy the hammer but it was too late. The summon was successful in creating the shockwave. Phoenix was lucky that he did not get the full shockwave as he was in the air at the start but could not avoid damage as the shockwave caught him as he landed on the ground.

Phoenix fell on the ground due to the shockwave and the two Sphinxes were ready to pounce on the blademaster. He was not worried at all as he threw the Oberon at one of the Sphinxes and fire another BiVak Rom at the other one. The sword went through the Sphinx’s right eye and stopping it right in its tracks while the other one was experiencing the burning power of the BiVak Rom. They both growled out in pain before falling to the two attacks that Phoenix used to defeat them.

The blademaster drank a Mage’s Soul before continuing the fight. At that same moment, Suzaku sent out a message to Phoenix. I was unable to find anything that would suggest a source of the monsters. If there is a source, it is not here. I am coming back to the battlefield now. Phoenix sent out a flashmail to the fighting group.

Flashmail

To: Freedom Fighters
From: Phoenix

The source of the monsters isn’t coming from this room. Suzaku did a flyby of this room and found nothing that would produce these monsters. I guess we have to continue fighting them until they stop producing.

End Flashmail


Phoenix was preparing to attack the Mushroom Kings when they were one step of him. They begin to use their paralyzing attack in the same way that it was used on Canti. The blademaster could not move at all or even talk except for telepathy. Suzaku, burn the mushrooms now.

The guardian bird flew in position to burn all three of them. The attack was enough to break the deadlock of the paralysis but the blademaster is beginning to tire. This set of monsters has to be the very last or the group will not survive for much longer.

OOC: Monster report.

Monster Count:
Fire Elementals: 2/6 (Merging ability)
Dire Water Wolves 4/8 (Water column attack)
Earthen Sphinxes 0/6 (Conjunction Summon)
Wooden Mer 6/7 (Poison thorn storm)
Thunder Raptors 4/9 (Teleport Stalk, two slowed)
Darkness Shroom Kings 3/6 (Five second paralysis, all injured)
Phoenix
Level 48 Blademaster
Equipped Skills: Vak Revolver, Gan Revolver, Dek Vorv, La Repth, Juk Kruz, Rue Kruz, BiVak Rom, GiGan Zot
Other Skills: Rue Kruz, Rip Synk, Rip Saem, Crack Beat, Rue Slash, Ani Slash, Gan Crack, Gan Revolver

Wish List: Phoenix's Fire, Gold Necklace
EX-Spheres: LV 3 - Overdrive, LV 3 - Curative, LV 3 - Elemental Breath

User avatar
Nighthand
Master of Games
Posts: 1265
Joined: Mon Mar 31, 2003 9:23 pm
Class: Bladesmage
Location: ...Tracking...please wait...

Re: Gated Folding Stare; Fighting Through Fire!

Post by Nighthand » Sat Jul 05, 2008 4:10 am

Nighthand took flight again to survey the situation, and was noticed. Two columns of water lanced through the air at him, but despite their speed, they were easy to dodge. He dove as the pair of wolves kept shooting at him, lining them up. Then he flew straight for the nearer wolf. Sensing a chance, its jaws opened for a blast of water that would easily knock him from the air, but right as it began to bubble forth, he pulled up. The jet of water flew where he had been, and struck one of the fire elementals dead on.

Once more falling into a dive, Nighthand landed on the wolf much like he had on the raptor earlier, his blade dealing plenty of damage, though not as much as it had before. He had less speed this time, after all. Of course, the wolf wasn’t about to teleport out of reach. He pulled back his blade and spun, slamming it down on the wolf again, leaving a lifeless husk beginning to fade into data.

The second wolf let off another blast of water, but his blade, easily as wide as a normal person, proved sufficient to hide behind with the proper bracing; that is, jamming it into the ground. As the water trickled off, he stepped out from behind the blade and reached out, a BiAni Don slamming down on the targeted wolf. He followed this immediately with another, and when the smoke cleared, it was gone.

Now, it was time for Nighthand to truly go on the offensive. First he had to stack things in his favor. Downing a Hermit’s Blood buffed up his magical attack, while Cooked Bile increased his skill in the Ani element. Forcing it open against the pain, his scarred left eye looked out upon the world and saw the magical energies of everything in the room. Then, he drew a scroll that he saved for just such an occasion.

One thing that most people didn’t know about the spells of the game, was their parameters. Level was one, sure, and spellform was another. Some, however, the hackers put to better use than the developers. Range, for instance. The sphinxes put that to use by taking a powerful spell and sacrificing power for range. Nighthand, however, had an advantage. He could increase the power too, and have a larger pool to draw the range from.

Which was exactly what he did. He activated the scroll, Night Shade, and held it to increase its already formidable power. (14) The power slowly built, but the spell didn’t try to squirm out of his control, which was more than enough. Once the spell was about level 4 wit h his buffed magical attack, he flattened it out, to extend its range. (12) While he couldn’t manage to fill the room with it, he managed to make it cover most of the enemies. The sacrifice in power meant it would strike them at about level three power or a little less, but that was fine by him. He let it go.

The room immediately darkened, and from the floor emerged a thousand swords, their blades shooting up through the monsters in a trio of waves. Some died, some were injured, and some were unharmed.

All, however, turned to look at the source of their damage.

”Well… shit.”



Fire Elementals: 1/6 (Merging ability, 1 injured)
Dire Water Wolves 2/8 (Water column attack, 2 injured)
Earthen Sphinxes 0/6 (Conjunction Summon)
Wooden Mer 5/7 (Poison thorn storm, 2 injured)
Thunder Raptors 3/9 (Teleport Stalk, two slowed, 2 injured)
Darkness Shroom Kings 0/6 (Five second paralysis, all injured)

User avatar
Dien
Exalted Player
Posts: 226
Joined: Fri May 12, 2006 1:59 am
Class: Blademaster
Location: The "Who's Online List," Stalking People...

Part 7

Post by Dien » Sun Jul 06, 2008 3:54 am

We need to talk…

Her voice was just as near to him as it had been the first time he’d heard it – distant, but at the same time just next to him. White haze surrounded his form, obscuring any form of sight and prohibiting detail from the eyes. Not that there was actually anything to see, but in the bright light of this place, it would not have been seen anyway. It was the effect of a summer day’s mist that had become alight with the sun, which emitted a light all its own to try and hide the edges of the barely silhouetted objects held within. This was where she’d first spoken to him, only then he’d been lying down. Now he was standing, feeling the cool, damp air as it slowly burned away in the sunlight.

In that time, he hadn’t know who or what she was, simply that she had offered him help, and was one of the few that had. Now, though, he knew. This girl was Cait – the young hacker who’d managed to somehow infiltrate his top secret investigation and work with and through the other prodigies he’d surrounded himself with. Cait was also Amy, the girl who had sent his life spiraling out of control. It had been her whoredom that threw him into the depression he’d only recently unraveled; the depression that had given way to apathy. The hole she’d carved inside him had yet to heal, and still desperately ached.

And yet, he was still fond of her, as though her offense meant nothing within himself. It left him torn. Half of him wanted to hate her for what she’d done before, but the other more childish half wanted nothing more than to spend the rest of his days with her. Perhaps it was instinct that reminded him of how she’d saved his life more than her fair share of times in the past week or so, and how broken she had been through the whole thing.

“We do,” he finally admitted, “not here, though, not now.” It was as much for her protection as it was for his. Chances were that the field’s hackers were monitoring all of the field’s data traffic to try and figure out whatever they could about their invaders. His link to Cait would stand out like a sore thumb, giving not only himself away, but also the Expanse where his heart still lay. Who knew what would happen to it if the Elites made an attack.

When?” He didn’t know. He couldn’t keep returning to the base after every trip that he made with Nighthand and company – that was unfair to them. Granted, his only real reason for staying with them was the fact that it was the only place he could really be safe from the ever-versatile Leek.
He was another matter entirely – the good friend who’d turned out to be a wolf in sheep’s clothes, only fueled into a friendly mask by his lust for revenge. Internally, he was confused.

He felt numb—not in that he couldn’t sense his members, but in that their presence ceased to matter. When accompanied with some feeling of excitement or curiosity, it wasn’t such a bad notion. In certain realms of this World, having a body didn’t matter, such as the Flame. This wasn’t the Flame, though, and for a moment, he longed for a reason to be here.

A reason to hold life in this void existence.

“I’ll let you know.”

__________

The mob that tried again and again at the door had made progress since his last attempt, now standing two doors away from his current leaning spot against the wall. Echoes of fighting spilled in from the corridor behind him, and in the same instant a flashmail from Phoenix appeared. Monsters were, apparently, spawning in the next room over just fast enough to keep the fight alive. It piqued the blademaster’s curiosity more than door upon door upon immobile door did, but before he could join in the fight he’d have to at least take a crack at the riddle that the Elite flunkies had thrown in their way.

“So then what’s the wall we’ve run into this time?” The question was rhetorical, and no one answered as he stepped up to read the riddle that was posted on the wall. Letters as numbers…easy enough. Count one to twenty six as a to z, and the puzzle becomes just that much simpler. Doors before, though, that’s a bit more challenging; it calls upon knowledge of what the codes for the other doors had been. I’d just need to check with Sheena or try really hard to remem…wait, the puzzles are all still on the wall. That should help…

Moments later, the blademaster returned to the post he’d taken in front of the keypad whilst he pondered. In order, the prior doors’ codes were 310, 991, 144, 312, and 861. ‘Count in cycle’ could be most easily interpreted to mean that each number was supposed to represent a letter, and that the way to figure out which one was to divide by 26, take the remainder and throw it against the chart that he’d already compiled in his mind: 24, 3, 14, 26, 3, which translated to X, C, N, Z, C. But the panel was a number pad. What good did a bunch of letters do? Unless that was just the means to provide him with a way to pick out the remainders and add them together…70. Quickly, his theory was tested (070), and just as quickly proven wrong.

Punching in the numbers, though, that gave him another idea. In the real world, he’d had plenty of experience with cell phones (in fact providing completely free service to his closest friends through a handful of modifications), and in manipulating them he’d become rather familiar with a few common input methods: one of which was the default entry mode for most text message systems. Along those lines, 1 and 0 would be useless in this case, as they produced symbols and a blank space. Determining what letters would be yielded through pressing the buttons in order would be a worthless endeavor, as would be translating the original numbers themselves into that particular text input format. But what about taking the letters he’d derived before? That gave him a five-digit code, which would likely need to be truncated…

Worth a shot, he thought to himself, what with the lack of side effects. X was 9, C was 2, N was 6, Z was 9, and C again was 2. Truncate at 3, and there’s the attempt to be made. As quickly as could be expected, the code 926 was entered. A buzz, and his mind was shot. The possibilities for deriving the answer were too wide and mostly fantastic for him to consider at the moment, what with still being sore from Marionette’s brain rape.

“Sorry guys,” he said, not bothering any of his other guesses, “time for me to go kill things. Good luck.” With that, the blademaster left the hall of doors and back into the foyer. The contrast between doorways was almost ridiculous. From one, silence echoed as the group’s thinkers tried attempt after attempt to crack the doors’ riddles, and in the other the fighters waged virtual war. It was the door on his left wherein the war was fought, and it was the door on the left that called the Forgotten Wing of Lighthack out of his boredom.

Entering the room was like what it should have been: entering a war-zone. All about, scattered remains of enemies disintegrated slowly into data, giving the room a faint sort of green aura about it. Instantly, the blademaster found his opponents. Of the menagerie present within the research facility, the two beasts that stood out over the rest as suitable opponents were the wolves. Dire Water Wolves, to be precise, and all at once the blademaster’s countenance was frozen over. Not only were they loathsome for their origin with the hackers, but perhaps moreso for their affiliation with the White Queen: Merrows herself. The other monsters in the room ceased to matter, and Dien’s eyes fixed on these foes. Neither one was at full health, which was regrettable. Already he could feel the pride welling up within him; the urge to kill these which mocked man’s best friend.

To those watching, his eyes turned red, and the haze about him which had been softly glowing now seemed to burn with more intent. Jinsaran was withdrawn from his hilt, and pointed towards one of the beasts. It growled back, preparing to attack while its counterpart began to loop slowly around. All other sounds within the room were drowned out as the battle truly began. He could practically hear the howl as the wolf to his left quickly closed on his location. Two bounds, and the blademaster’s sword was absorbed to within him as the wolf pounced.

“YOU ARE MINE,” he commanded, gripping the dog’s throat with his left hand and slamming it into the ground on its back. Snarl and struggle as it might, nothing could prepare it for what came next. Hatred began to burn within the hacker so deeply that he knew not what it was. The air began to grow thin and arid around him, such that anyone near him would have difficulty breathing, let alone this pathetic creature now fearfully struggling to escape his grasp. Alight was his right hand, which was held aloft with Jinsaran now found there, fully alight in its fiery might. All it took was one stab to the heart, and the thing stopped squirming altogether as its flesh gave way to death.

It was only until a column of water blasted the blademaster that he remembered the other wolf, as he was now stuck against a wall in what felt like too powerful a blast for him to counter-act. It was too much, too fast, and too cold for him to do anything other than wait it out and pray he didn’t die from it. Then, just as soon as it had begun, it was over, and the fighter sank to the floor not far below in a heavy pant. Jinsaran struggled to stay lit in the face of all this water, but with its wielder’s strength dwindling so rapidly, it managed only the smallest of flames over the water it straddled.

The wolf needed to die. Dien rose to his feet, not caring one way or the other that his health was diminishing as he stepped forward towards the animal that had inflicted such heavy damage on him. A few blocks of ice surrounded him and converged, taking yet more out of it, but his response was a rage. His once quietly annoyed face now exploded angrily at the wolf, and just like that, his whole body was covered in flames, ever burning, yet never wholly consuming his flesh as he stepped forward. Rue Zot was thrown in his way, which was just knocked aside by a swift fiery punch, and with it he was gripping the wolf’s snout shut. From within, the thing began to yelp and twitch, as boils and bubbles appeared all across its flesh, blood popping out where it could in jets of crimson steam. But that wasn’t enough. He could feel the mutt’s strained breathing in his hand, and clamped down harder to strain the bone, until the canine’s flesh was suddenly alight with flames, spreading from the snout over the whole body. It was only then that he released the thing, which began to run yelping away, only to find no help from any of the other monsters. Its life had ended.

So too had the blademaster’s.
__________

There wasn’t anything for it. Thinking back on the advent of the Mers so soon after his defeat of the wolves, there really was nothing he could have done differently. That left him ghostedly numb and relatively disappointed as the harpies continued to take pot shots at his lifeless body. Meanwhile his comrades wore away at the remaining population on their own, with the inclusion of Nighthand, the group’s leader. If anyone was good for a resurrect, it would be him.

“Hey Nights,” he said, perhaps quieter than he should have, but it seemed to do the job adequately of getting the player’s attention, “any new monsters since Phoenix sent that flashmail?”

Huh? Oh, yeah, a few. Couldn’t really say which ones though.” He dodged an attacking raptor and batted it aside, seeming to discourage it enough that it looked around for another target.

“I see,” he said, his mind starting to wander down a variety of paths, “pay any attention to when exactly they showed up, or were you preoccupied with teleporting dinosaurs?”

Mostly occupied with tweaking a spell to coat most of the room and hurt everything. Why?

“I’m trying to figure out what if anything is making the monsters spawn,” he replied, his brow furrowed in thought, “any information you can give me beyond the fact that there are more would be helpful.”

Uh... two separate spawns, I think, not all at once?

“Two spawns?” His mind instantly jumped up. Could it really be that simple? “I just made two attempts at cracking the door in the other room before getting frustrated and coming in here. I think we may have our answer...” He paused, processing how they could test the hypothesis before speaking up again, “If you don’t mind, I’m going to run back into the other room and try putting in a bad code. PM me if more monsters show up? Oh, and a resurrect would be infinitely helpful.”

Sounds good. Rip Maen.

“Thanks,” he said, turning about with a wave and ducking under the swoop of another Mer in his path out of the room. It didn’t take too long for him to arrive at the door, albeit slightly to the surprise of the others there. With haste, he punched 555 into the keypad, awaiting the characteristic buzz that accompanied bad guesses. Indeed it came, followed moments later by a flashmail by Nighthand confirming what he’d guessed at. After sending his thanks, he glazed his eyes over again to inform the Freedom Fighters of his discovery.
To: Freedom Fighters
From: Dien
Re: Of Doors and Monsters
Message:
So with the help of Nighthand, I’ve figured it out. Every time we make a bad guess at the doors, three more monsters will spawn in the next room. At the very least, I’d suggest that we hold off on guessing until we can get the number of monsters down to a more manageable level, and then guess sparingly only when we’re sure that we’ve got the right answer. This should make it easier for everyone involved.

I figure if we have a handful of fighters in the monster room, they can spawnkill the monsters that may appear from bad guesses. That means, though, that we should slow down our guesses, because if they’re wrong, we want to give our clean up crew some time to deal with them.

So in other words, if someone has just taken a swing at it, wait a minute or two before stepping up to the plate so the monsters that erupted can be dealt with.
With that, the blademaster returned to his thinking on the riddle at hand.

(OOC:

Attempts made at door: 070, 926, 555.

Monster Count:
Fire Elementals: 3/8 (Merging ability, 1 injured)
Dire Water Wolves 1/9 (Water column attack)
Earthen Sphinxes 1/7 (Conjunction Summon)
Wooden Mer 6/8 (Poison thorn storm, 2 injured)
Thunder Raptors 4/10 (Teleport Stalk, two slowed, 2 injured)
Darkness Shroom Kings 3/9 (Five second paralysis)
)
Image
Image|||Level 35 Blademaster (+200 EXP)
Wishlist: EXP, Ends of Earth, Armor with Status Effects

Lord Canti
Exalted Player
Posts: 300
Joined: Sat May 13, 2006 3:58 pm
Location: In da' plains of hell, natch.

Re: Gated Folding Stare; Fighting Through Fire!

Post by Lord Canti » Mon Jul 07, 2008 6:38 pm

(He was beginning to despise this battle. It seemed fucking endless, and that was exactly the kind of battle he hated. If there was no end in sight, no method of completion, then it was just a cheap trick to waste their time, and Canti didn't like that at all. He didn't have time to waste, since Nall was basically counting on them for freedom. So, unless he was an expert at self-imposed jailbreak and had a plan to get all of his stuff back on his own, this was it. This was The Plan to help him out, and right now...it wasn't exactly going all that well. Canti had started off by getting back on his feet, only to find more monsters appearing and...earth magic flying in his face outta nowhere!)

Canti: Yarthkins?! They summoned YARTHKINS?!

(That alone really pissed him off. It attacked the whole room, injuring every player. Granted, he wasn't exactly close by - thanks mostly to the blast from the wolves - but it still caught him too. Of course, this wouldn't be a problem if the monsters didn't keep increasing their numbers. Canti began to wonder about that when Phoenix's Flash Mail came through. Personally, he figured that one of the hackers from out in the hall was around here somewhere, toying with them... That'd make a great deal of sense, as they DID want to deter the lot of them from a rescue operation. Then again, they weren't trapped here either, so what was the big deal? The Twin Blade noticed Phoenix in the same trouble as he had been before. Fortunately, before he was needed, his familiar came in and burned them all.)

Canti: Awesome. Now, who should I pick off? I really need to blow some steam after that gang-up from before...

(If you were attacked by flying cats and water-wolves, you'd be out for revenge too! While thinking about it, he Repth'd up a bit to replenish some of the damage from before. Nighthand was taking to the scene, blasting away as need-be. It appeared that he didn't have any better ideas himself, so they weren't doing wrong by staying here. He unleashed a rather strong Ani-strike on the whole room, and...the whole line-up of monsters immediately set upon him.)

Canti: And that's my cue!

(Setting up music on his player - "What's Up, People?", from Deathnote - the Twin Blade leapt off at the distracted fray. He wasn't the only one, as Dien got in ahead of him to do some damage of his own. Keeping out of the Blademaster's way, Canti shot right at the Wooden Mers. Black flames soared from his hands and cascaded over several of their forms as he went for absolute collateral damage. The two injured ones died immediately, turning into mounds of plant rot before dissolving entirely. The others flailed maddeningly as their bodies began to degrade.)

Canti: Who ever heard of wooden mer-people anyway? You'd never even get below the ocean's surface, ya twat!

(One cannot say for sure, but if the monsters did indeed have personalities in this game, then it would be fair to say that they didn't like being made fun of. For Canti suddenly had to duck and roll right to avoid a number of poison thorn attacks. And since he only got out of the way of SOME of those thorns, he quickly had to apply an Antidote as his HP began to rapidly cycle down. This led him to run right smack into one of the Fire Elementals, which in turn drew the attention of other random creatures, among them being the only Sphinx and Wolf left after what Dien did to 'em all. He was surrounded...)

Canti: Okay, Plan A, I could fly straight up as they come in and watch 'em knock into each other while I blast 'em all with Darkness Flame. Plan B, I could throw out a ton of spell-items before they get to killing me, 'cause they don't have a casting delay. But since either of those ideas is pretty damn wasteful, I guess I'll go with Plan C...

(Plan C for...Chaos. Canti sighed, focusing himself. He could do this. There were Fire Elementals in front of it, a pair of Thunder Raptors and Wooden Mers behind him, and the last Wolf and Sphinx on either side. He'd bumped into the Elementals first, so they let off with a punch and a fire spell. Since neither were that good against HIM, he was fortunate as he flew up to one side and grabbed the Earthen Sphinx by the tail, then suddenly swooped down to clobber the Dire Water Wolf before grabbing its tail. Pulling both of them taught, he faced the Fire Elementals.)

Canti: This one's for Bruce Lee...

(Using his flight to control the direction and the force of his swings, Canti began to strike at the lead Elemental deftly and rapidly, some of which the Elemental manifested a pair of fiery swords to deal with. He then backflipped in mid-air as the two injured Thunder Raptors appeared next to him and swung both of his makeshift weapons down on one of the Wooden Mers. Take in mind, every time he hit something with the Wolf and Sphinx, he did damage to both the 'weapons' and the targets, so this tactic was only a temporary thing. Taking a swing at the other Wooden Mer, Canti was stopped as the Raptors came out of nowhere again and bit at his arm and leg.)

Canti: AGH! Get off! Get off!

(He spun in mid-air, throwing off his extra cargo as the two Wooden Mers shot poison thorns at him. Blocking with the Wolf, he then raised up the water creature...only to have it expire in his hand. This would've been an awkward moment if he hadn't just pointed a finger and blasted the severely-injured one with Darkness Flame before swinging the Sphinx around like a nunchaku, its motions extremely blurred as he whittled down its HP, getting past the trident every time. Once that was dead, he was suddenly blindsided by the Fire Elementals again. Canti threw the Earthen Sphinx at it...and watched as it was knocked aside with a fiery club.)

Canti: Whoa... Home Run...

(He was about to pull out his knives at the oncoming Elemental when he froze in place, a Darkness Shroom King freezing him long enough to get stomped into the ground. 'Course, right after THAT happened, there was an explosion of Darkness Flame...and Canti went rocketing straight up to the ceiling. He sort of stood there upside-down, flight powers keeping him rooted to the spot like a bat. He needed a moment to think. Getting out one of his cigarette items, he lit one and took a drag...just as a Flash Mail came in.)

To: Freedom Fighters
From: Dien
Re: Of Doors and Monsters
Message:
So with the help of Nighthand, I’ve figured it out. Every time we make a bad guess at the doors, three more monsters will spawn in the next room. At the very least, I’d suggest that we hold off on guessing until we can get the number of monsters down to a more manageable level, and then guess sparingly only when we’re sure that we’ve got the right answer. This should make it easier for everyone involved.

I figure if we have a handful of fighters in the monster room, they can spawnkill the monsters that may appear from bad guesses. That means, though, that we should slow down our guesses, because if they’re wrong, we want to give our clean up crew some time to deal with them.

So in other words, if someone has just taken a swing at it, wait a minute or two before stepping up to the plate so the monsters that erupted can be dealt with.


Canti: Good one, Dien. I guess by 'handful of fighters' you mean me, Phoenix, Lights, an' Nights.

(Taking another drag on his cig, he figured it didn't really matter WHO was doing the fighting, just as long as the guessing went off better. 'Cause if it didn't, the fighters were gonna get smothered in bastard monsters faster than you can say "Your head asplode!".)

OOC: The Usual Suspects...

Fire Elementals: 3/8 (Merging Ability, 1 Injured)
Dire Water Wolves 0/9 (Water Column Attack)
Earthen Sphinxes 1/7 (Conjunction Summon, Severely Abused)
Wooden Mer 2/8 (Poison Thorn Storm, All Injured)
Thunder Raptors 4/10 (Teleport Stalk, 2 Slowed, 2 Injured)
Darkness Shroom Kings 3/9 (Five second paralysis, All Injured)
I'll have a doozy of a sig later, I swear. It'll reflect ".hack//CODE" an' everything.

Hey look! A profile! It's got items and stats and things! Cool! If it isn't fully up to date, it will be, so don't worry 'bout it.

User avatar
Senna
Awakened Player
Posts: 150
Joined: Sat Jul 01, 2006 10:28 pm

Re: Gated Folding Stare; Fighting Through Fire!

Post by Senna » Wed Jul 09, 2008 7:25 pm

What had started out as a simple fight had become something of a flight for her life. The same things that gave her the ability to wreak sizeable elemental damage on the monsters were the things which made their counter-attacks devastating to her. And in attacking them, she’d discovered one important thing – they were at least intelligent enough to know where their attacker was, and to come after her with spells and attacks of their own.

There was no defense against it, and no time to formulate a proper attack, so she did the sensible thing – started running while doing her best to get as much fire-retardant armor on as possible. Still she was their target, and they were dogged – she skirted the edge of a kruz spell, lava bursting upward like old faithful, and got caught with the edge of a level 3 tornado spell that knocked her down well into the red danger zone. A Repth, then another healed her wounds just as a drop attack turned the world into white-hot pain.

If someone else hadn’t momentarily turned their ire and drawn it away, the Long Arm was probably doomed. As it stood, they were drawn off, and a quick quaff of a couple potions salved the burns.

Rested and healed, more of less, she turned her attention to the new and exciting things her enemies were doing. Merging when injured, eh? There might be a way to make use of that for her own purposes.

She narrowed her eyes. Two of the Fire Elementals were near one another, but the third was a goodly ways off. So, they liked to merge did they? Focusing on the one that was a little ways off from the others, she targeted it and invoked “GiRue Kruz.

The spell wasn’t as powerful as some others, but it got the job done. The damage from the ice attack ripped up into the monster, hissing as cold and heat met and giving off a powerful gout of steam. The sound of it was like an immense, angry cat, hissing and wailing.

As the spell finally abated, leaving the creature looking lop-sided, with a dark patch showing where the ice had cooled and solidified it. Almost seeming smug about it, that one and the other injured one drew together, sort of schmoozing out of their individual shapes and reforming into a sole creature. The blast radius was sizeable, and again did a good smack of damage to the Long Arm.

As soon as it had passed, Senna was going. She made a few key equipment switches as she jogged away, keeping the monsters out of casting distance until she was ready.

It was about time to wipe these things out. She stopped, feet planted in a sort-of lunge. She had to remember. She was not going to lay down like some little, frightened animal. She had a scroll in each hand, wrapped face-up around the haft of her spear. There was a lopsided smile on her face, almost more a smirk than anything, as she faced them.

Rue Rom.” she intoned. “Ice Storm. GiRue Kruz. Cygnus. GiRue Kruz.” she paused for a breath, then said with flat finality, “GiRue Kruz.

The cacophonous ringing of shattering ice echoed and crashed throughout the arena. Whether two or one now, she was just targeting flame and dousing it with a steady stream of magic. The scrolls had given her a chance to rest between magic castings, enabling the whole thing to become a lengthy stream of damage.

The results were astounding, though not immediately visible. As wave after wave of her water-based attacks slammed into the pair, they began to make the same terrible noise as the last one had, and steam issued from where the spell and the monster met. That steam obscured all but little hints and flashes of red, which she used for targeting purposes. Each of the creatures had gotten a spell off aimed at her as well, but it was okay.

The steam rolled outward and upward, gradually dissipating as it tried to fill more and more space. Even so, much of the area around them was laced with it, and even as it began to drift and fade, it obscured a certain amount.

As to the monsters, apparently there had been enough in the spells to finish them off – there was no sign of any of them as the steam began to clear. Senna didn’t realize it though – She was dead, and in that other-world, body and soul. While her teammates could still target her for a resurrect – and it would work – it would seem as though they were simply targeting empty air.

Ears ringing from the sudden silence, Senna wrapped her arms around herself and stood there, alone in the empty other-world version of the arena and waited.

OOC:

Fire Elementals: 0/8 (Merging Ability)
Dire Water Wolves 0/9 (Water Column Attack)
Earthen Sphinxes 1/7 (Conjunction Summon, Severely Abused)
Wooden Mer 2/8 (Poison Thorn Storm, All Injured)
Thunder Raptors 4/10 (Teleport Stalk, 2 Slowed, 2 Injured)
Darkness Shroom Kings 3/9 (Five second paralysis, All Injured)
Senna, level 33 Long Arm (710 HP/180 SP)
Most common kit: Ichigou, Racoon Earcaps, Air Bracer, Snow Panther, Winter Coat, Graceful Book
Spells/Skills: (Critical Hit/Death) Repulse Cage, Ap Corv, Ap Vorv, Rai Rom, Rue Zot, La Repth
Click for full equipment and items
14300 (1/23)

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