Seaside 3: A load of carp

[Morty]

[Demon Season]

Panic and rage grip Wenomir when part of the Answer actually snaps off, but he sublimates it into purpose. He will not let it end this way. This weapon is stronger than any demon. He gets aboard the ship with a flurry of speed and tries to grab the Answer out of Kal's hands. If he gets it, he turns it into an axe again, making it whole again in the process. He'll tear into the part of the ship the infernal is grabbing onto. He intends to chop it off, so that the demon simply falls into the abyss along with it. In his hands, the weapon can cleave through any material with frightening ease, and is boosted by Wenomir's determination.

[Recaiden]

The shark moves, glaring at Omiko as he looms over her.
"No, I turned into a fish because that's what happens when I submerge in water, and I got this way yesterday, so shove off." he rumbles at her.

Omiko chortles to herself and carries on her way up the canal, not paying the shark any mind. When you've been to hell and back, either you're deeply traumatized, or your ability to feel fear at all atrophies and disappears. "Remember something at last, do ye?"

[Deathkeeper]

Catch of the Day

The Bosun's head pounds, and he presses a finger to where he thinks his temple ought to be.
"No. Yes. I don't know. I know this is new to me. But it's also what I am. As much as breathing. I got no idea. Still no name." he admits.

At the end of the canal is a deep blue lake. Its water is dark and calm except when pierced by the movements of a jumping fish.

[Recaiden]

Or, as is about to happen, when pierced by a diving Omiko!

She sets down the map-plate, transfers the knife to her teeth and the bottled shark to her claw, and bounds out into the waters. Wheee!

[Deathkeeper]

[Catch of the Day]

At the bottom of the lake is a city.
Down and down the sides of the lake are underwater buildings. They are large things that interlock between each other. Now they have only fish darting through the carved doorways.

Way at the bottom of the city at the Bottom of the lake is a huge stone dome with no clear entrance.

The bosun carefully puts the Captain's loot in her plate and follows after her. He might even be able to swim faster than she can.

[Recaiden]

Well, if there's no easy way inside the dome, it's probably through one of the other buildings. Omiko follows one of the fish inside and takes a look around.

Probably the bosun can swim faster than her; she isn't particularly hydrodynamic.

[Deathkeeper]

[Catch of the Day]

The first building was once someone's home. Stone bed, cushions long since gone, small heavy objects like part of a bronze shield still there. There's also some more coins in a strongbox. Such is the story of many if not most of the buildings here if Omiko has the patience to search them.

If not, the large squat building next to the dome might yield better results.

[Recaiden]

Omiko has tons of patience! She's going to get every coin! Gather them up, bring them to the surface to add to the pile of shinies. Only then will she turn to the big building by the dome.

[Deathkeeper]

Catch of the Day

Omiko's bosun will be able to save her lots of time, weaving in and out of buildings at high speeds. After collecting literally a city's worth of wealth, Omiko enters the base. Remains of weapons and shields, rings and plates of mail litter the ground. Great wooden doors stood here once, but despite the salty water not damaging them much, they were essentially destroyed in some battle long ago when they were bashed in.

Omiko can continue into its bowels or check every last room for shinies. Most of them reflect its nature as a base with old bronze weapons but there are also softly glowing crystals about, and a government's worth of gold.

[Recaiden]

Good thing whatever broke this place apart is long gone!
Dot reminds her not to think fate-tempting things like that, but the damage is done.

Omiko takes the time to loot the place thoroughly. What kind of pirate would pass up sunken treasures?

[Deathkeeper]

Catch of the Day

Omiko now owns an even larger pile of gold and a small armory of corroded bronze weapons. Plus, three crystals that can each fire one more boot of heat that travels even underwater, boiling everything in its path.

Deeper into the base are another set of doors. These are more intact. And dark, but we figure Omiko can see in the dark.

[Gullara]

[Dungeonside]

The goblin winces at Kirk's dismissiveness. "Information about KABAL. You're with MERC, right? That should be plenty valuable. I'm a high standing officer there, you should know."

[Dungeonside]

"Are you now? You wouldn't just be saying that to save your life, would you?" Kirk leans against the edge of the boat, almost casually. "Well only one way to find out I suppose." Kirk walks away from the edge of the boat, and a moment later he reappears holding a coil of rope. "Keep an eye out from up here, babe. Shoot her if she runs." The drow scales his way back down the boat with an old, familiar ease, his muscles remembering better than his mind. He'll start to walk towards the goblin.

[Recaiden]

Omiko now owns an even larger pile of gold and a small armory of corroded bronze weapons. Plus, three crystals that can each fire one more boot of heat that travels even underwater, boiling everything in its path.

Deeper into the base are another set of doors. These are more intact. And dark, but we figure Omiko can see in the dark.

$$$

She keeps one of the crystals with her when it's time to go back to the door. You figure correctly. Her left eye has lights and night vision options and all, and her right eye can see without any light at all. Our captain tries the direct approach: sink her claw into the door near the hinges and rip the door off of them.

[Deathkeeper]

[Catch of the Day]

The aged doors crumble against Omiko's force. There's a hiss as a seal is broken.

Beyond the door is a huge room. They have reached the inside of the dome. Dominating the room is an enormous, only mostly finished vessel. Made of sturdy wood and bronze and much larger crystals like the ones Omiko collected, it seems like it could be either a ship or perhaps a sub.

Also in the room however are many, many bodies. Shark-like people in full bronze combat dress, seemingly Gavin torn each other apart. Centuries old blood still hangs in the water. But standing over the bodies are two large golems of crystal, roughly the shape of the shark people. As soon as Omiko enters they advance on her, holding their crystal fists at her. Though even as they fire lances of heat at her, Omiko's bosun tackles the one on the left and begins biting it and bashing it with a shield.

[Recaiden]

A vehicle!

But first things first. The overwhelming scent of blood, the water filled with gore. A civil war among sharks? Or did something else put them all down? And, of course, the golems. Omiko is taken completely by surprise by the heat rays and rather severely burned (a curious thing to have happen to you underwater). Instantly she comes to full awareness, every spot on her fur opening up into an eye or a fanged mouth, spikes erupting from under her nails. The cannon's not much use underwater, sadly. But it looks like she'll get to see what the magic dagger can do. Her feet extend into grotesque flippers and speed her towards the other golem, knife aimed at its wrist, pseudopods and claw reaching out to wrestle it back into place.

You know for some people that heat wave would have been a mortal wound all on its own. But Dot is handling most of the pain, and Omiko's body is doing a great job recovering, flesh flowing back into place, new fur sprouting, little jagged limbs briefly poking out through the skin to flake off ashes and knit her back together.

[Murkus]

[Dungeonside]

"Since when am I 'babe'?" Tina snorts, but she doesn't reject his order. The neon girl casts her gaze and her gun barrel all about, looking for more troublemakers.

[Deathkeeper]

[Catch of the Day]

The dagger can cut through the crystal, though not cleanly. The creature is slow, and once Omiko closes in it will have trouble fighting her, flailing at her with its heavy limbs.

Meanwhile, the Bosun seems to be having a similar problem to the dead soldiers, as his bronze instrument can only keep the golem down, not hurt it much. But he is keeping it down.

[Recaiden]

Omiko has no sympathy for the old slow thing. It's barely even a machine. The captain isn't terribly fast. But she isn't slow, either, not like the golem is slow. When it swings its fist she can flip around to the other side of its opposite arm and land another cut. What she is, is inexorable. Where the bosun is just keeping a golem down, she should be wearing it down, cut by cut, piece by piece.

[Deathkeeper]

[Catch of the Day]

The Bosun is knocked off his golem as his shield breaks into four pieces. It rounds on Omiko only to be tackled again by the shark and his large menu of scavenged weapons. Though the bronze leaf-shaped sword quickly breaks and it's back to shield bashing. He's already lost four teeth gnawing on the golem.

Omiko can slice and cut all she wants, but the golem isn't going to slow down with just slices. So close, Omiko might notice the golem's head and torso being a slightly deeper color, more red.

[Recaiden]

You underestimate how patient she is. The captain would happily enough stay here whittling it away one centimeter at a time until it was a heap of pebbles.

But her shark minion would be running critically low on teeth by them. Even though those definitely do grow back, it's not that quickly.
So this calls for more rapid measures. Its head - red with blood, or red with magic?
She swims up towards the head and tries to plant the dagger in the golem's shoulder before placing her cannon arm right against its head, with no water to get in the way, before firing. Dot expects serious damage to it, shattered smoldering stone. Omiko cautiously hopes for a hole blasted clean through the creature.

[Deathkeeper]

Catch of the Day

Omiko ruptures the golem's core and it shatters, pieces floating free and drifting away.

From the roaring and thrashing, the Bosun is not having as much luck.

[Shadowcaller]

[Dungeonside]

"Are you now? You wouldn't just be saying that to save your life, would you?" Kirk leans against the edge of the boat, almost casually. "Well only one way to find out I suppose." Kirk walks away from the edge of the boat, and a moment later he reappears holding a coil of rope. "Keep an eye out from up here, babe. Shoot her if she runs." The drow scales his way back down the boat with an old, familiar ease, his muscles remembering better than his mind. He'll start to walk towards the goblin.

[Dungeonside]

"Since when am I 'babe'?" Tina snorts, but she doesn't reject his order. The neon girl casts her gaze and her gun barrel all about, looking for more troublemakers.

[Dungeonside]

"H-hey, what stops you from killing me once I shared the information?" The goblin asks as Kirk approaches. He might notice that she is bleeding more severely than he could see from afar. She will probably need medical attention if she is going to survive.

Back at the boat, the guardian suddenly speaks up. "It seems we have won. But what will you do now that your foes have been defeated?" It asks Tina.

[Recaiden]

She should examine the golem closely as it falls apart, seei
-go help the Bosun.

Omiko retracts to a nearly humanoid shape, keeping just the flippers to speed her over towards the monster, and see about distracting it.

[Deathkeeper]

[Catch of the Day]

It turns out this isn't hard as the golem prioritized "obvious invader" over "citizen of unidentified affiliation."
It rounds on Omiko charging up another volley. The Bosun is trying to twist off its neck and kick its arms away from his captain.

[Gullara]

[Dungeonside]

"I'd bother answering that question, but it's not like you really have a choice. I suggest you try to come up with an answer to that question on the way back." Kirk will give her an opportunity to be willingly restrained before he has to get rough. "Hold out your hands." If she lets him bind her, he'll search her before doing anything else.

[Recaiden]

Intruder!? How rude! Clearly the shark is the intruder and she's just a poor lost surface-dweller!

Given that she doesn't expect the Bosun to have any luck twisting it's neck off.
...
...
Omiko just swims right up to it, heedless of any danger. If they weren't underwater, she would be taunting the thing. Which would still be useless, it probably can't understand her at all. If she can lay a hand on the golem, she'll start to stretch out over it, mouths and ephemeral hands skittering over its surface, beginning to trap it in a cage of flesh.

[Deathkeeper]

Catch of the Day

The Bosun drifts off, his blood-rage cut off by his sudden need to vomit at the Thing-esque flesh warping on display here.

The golem can't do much with her too close to fire beams at. It flails around, helpless.

[Reinholdt]

[Demon Season]

The ship definitely tilts at angles it isn't supposed to and for a moment, the captain worries the thing will capsize. But the ship violently rights itself as a chunk of the boat is sundered from the whole and the weight sundered with it. It's not a pleasant ordeal but the captain manages to grip the wheel tightly enough to not get thrown about too much.

Ilpholin's harpoon shifts and briefly starts rotating, but quickly narrows and retracts instead of continuing along this line. Better to let go of the infernal than to get dragged down into the abyss with it. Though she'd definitely reconsider if she knew for sure she could damage and destroy the demon. Next time the infernal won't get off so easy. It gets a final shouldering glare of hatred before Ilpholin starts dragging herself onto the boat.

A boat which now suffers from a leak or three. It definitely could have been worse, and they're still afloat and moving. For now.

[Recaiden]

Omiko has no such concerns about range and angle. She goes to catch hold of the golem with her claw, slide her warped flesh closer, bring the cannon up to its head, and blow it apart like she did to the other one.

[Deathkeeper]

Catch of the Day

The golem shatters like its brother. The Bosun gives her a thumbs-up though he seems to be having trouble looking at her directly. He goes to scavenge some armor but like what they collected before, it's too big for him. These sharks seemed to be hybrids, while the Bosun is a bull shark, leaving him smaller than these ancient soldiers.

He goes around looking for a way to release the done and the vehicle while Omiko pulls herself together. There are some cranks to one side. Seem like a good place to start.