Riverside 20: Another day, another disaster

[Deathkeeper]

[Westside Uni]

The Twins nod. "Yup. And that's the plan. And Dande? Don't look so grim. One minute I blinked and realized I was a dog. And like, alive. You'd be surprised what you can learn to own. You three can make anything work. I know that just from listening to you." When someone tells you that one time they suddenly went from one mind to three and then had an extended stint as a three-headed monster, you get the idea they're good at adapting.
"Well, that's fine. I need to head home anyway. If I don't root for a little bit I'll never be able to get this essay done." The dorm is really just where they keep their stuff and where they hang out after classes. With Heather refusing to root on the campus (eww drunk college-kid barf!) they've gotten used to sleeping and 'sleeping' back home.
Heather dumps the book and papers she had into a knapsack and stands up. "All set!" She didn't want saddlebags. Wearing things on her lower half just didn't feel right.
"Hey Heather, you want me to-" "No, Linus, I'm not ten. Let me see your shiny shield! Did you win that too?" Heather will likely spend a lot of their trip back examining the shield and its incredible shininess.

[UncleWolf]

The Empress's Estate

Octavia's cheeks warm when the Empress reminds her, smiling awkwardly. "Er, yes, that would be..." the thought dies on her lips when Glahr comes into view. She starts to move forwards, face brightening with joy as much as worry - but halts as one of the guards wraps the cloak around her, staying her feet just long enough not to impede the action before hastening over the tile towards her.

The woman will try to kneel down and pull her into a tight and passionate hug. It'll be a few moments before she pulls back, moving to look at the wounds on her hands. "Are you okay? Did any of them hurt you? She turns to look at Glahr's face, a palm caressing her cheek to try and get a better look... and the fretting pauses as she finds herself enthralled by the handmaid's gaze. "Gods, I've missed you...."

Empress' Estate

Glahr doesn't talk, which is quite the oddity from what Octavia will remember, but the tight hug, sobbing nod, and gratuitous violence that had just passed should be more than enough to ensure Octavia that she was doing okay now despite her wounded hands. The wounds are deep and bloody, clean lacerations all the way to the bone but before her eyes they were already starting to knit shut. "She also missed you." The Empress says, her voice cutting through the intimate moment. "And the wounds will heal, though I would not advise her to try and take up my sword again for some time. It is rather irritated by that." She warns, sliding the blade back into its slot in the floor next to her throne.

"Be not worried that Glahr doesn't speak to you, Octavia. I speak for her in her stead and I promise that what I say is what she wishes. Her tongue has been mine for a while." She explains, gesturing for the guards to take the other half-breeds away to places to be bathed, clothed, and given their choices for freedom should they choose to take it. Only when those present are her guards, Glahr, and Octavia does The Empress remove her helm. She's far more matured and older than Octavia remembers, even disregarding the sheer height difference, but she was still very much recognizable. The glacier blue-grey eyes, short white hair, and her distinctly long and slightly hooked nose. She's far tanner than she was when she was young, weathered. Scarring on her face betrays harsh weather and conditions she'd lived in for far too long, and the lines around her eyes betray the burdens she's taken up. "Again, welcome home, Octavia." She says with a slight smile. Revealing her face, her Divinity, was never something done carelessly, but now there was time for at least a measure of celebration.

Glahr, now that the attention is not entirely upon her, takes the opportunity to slip partially under the cloak to snuggle right up to Octavia and press their cheeks together in an almost cat-like fashion. She'd obviously missed her dearly and the warmth was reminding Glahr of more carefree times.

[Recaiden]

It doesn't look good.

Normally Tao would have more options.
Normally he'd be more than a few inches tall.
But he still has a few.
He reaches into a side pocket of his pack and throws an apple over his shoulder at the fiend. Even shrunken down, it's a magic apple, and if it's ripped to shreds like the cultists were, that should release its healing and pain-killing properties. Maybe it'll calm the monster down.
Tao doesn't count on that happening, and slips his other hand through the ring he's wearing on a chain. Then he immediately spilts apart again into 142 tiny dragons which fan out in different directions. Seven of them are magically concealed, invisible, and making straight for the door. The others are taking a variety of 'generally away from the blood-cloud demon but with a little more risk' paths.

[Shadowcaller]

[Buffet Dungeon]

The cultist was expecting to fight a bear not a snake!

He is quite surprised by this development and receives one (1) aggressive snake hug.

As you might imagine this is quite unhealthy for him.

Is Anika just going to crush the guy until he stops breathing? Magdalene looks like she's contemplating some blasting but maybe- ah fudge it. She's got stuff that ignores non-hostile folks.

She raises her shield above her head, causing a PULSE of eldritch power to rip away from the corpses (and one squeezed guy), causing them to be rapidly devoured. By the time all is said and done there won't even be blood stains left in the room. Everything is consumed by the ravenous, hungry mass of ethereal teeth.

Brutal.

"Okay, that bear thing was (flowering) awesome and the snake thing was also (flowering) awesome. I've never seen someone turn into animals like that before."

[Finding Rats] Ruby and Fade

The King's arms are hidden under his cloak, but Fade can swing at him easily enough. Likewise, Ruby's laser bolts aren't stopped. The King's body is shattered into branches, bones and rags, then disappears into a pile of dead leaves. The two might feel something else leaving this place and returning to its source, as its shell is no more.

Amalungak

Amalungak was really hoping he could get back to the surface under these fey's protection. A foolish hope, perhaps. But he's a survivor, so he's already looking for another angle.

"You're probably right. I can hide in this village and the people after you might overlook me. Or I can talk my way out... it's not me they care about."

Tracking Rats Flicker's the Important One

"I can't see in this. And yes, I teleport, but... that's the superspeed. I can't go in without being seen- I don't go far enough, just very quickly." Hundreds if not thousands of very short hops in a minute. "I'll go up, blast something with the shotgun, and zip away as a distraction. You take the boss guy. I'll lead them away, staying just out of their reach until we get to the surface and then zap away. You know the other one, the water lady- take him to her, she'll know what to do. I'll meet up with Spewer, if he's stayed put." And Flicker will probably get lost, as this isn't her home turf and she's never been to Riverside before.

Hopefully Irena agrees to this, because Flicker's zipping off with her faux-superspeed and will stop a short distance from the children, blast them with a barrel of birdshot and zip away. On her way out, she stops every so often, trying to give the impression that she has to recharge her superspeed often. Just often enough, in fact, that the children can follow her, if they wish, and still keep her in sight even if they can't quite catch up to her. The birdshot is for killing the rats, the individual pieces of shot too small to penetrate far, and the targeted child is likely stung but unlikely to be particularly badly injured as they bounce off their clothes and skin.

Tracking Rats - Flicker, Amalungak and someone

The child nods but before they can do much else there's the sound of movement and from nowhere a shadowy figure appears and the sound of a gun going off follows.
The rat king children look around in confusion as some of them cry out in pain as they seem to have been hit by something.
He can hear the movements of rats and the mutants that came with them trying to rush the figure.

But in the midst of all this chaos he feels someone or something attempt to put a metal glove over his mouth and put something pointy against his back. Whatever it is isn't saying anything but their intentions seem rather clear.

[Buffet Dungeon]

Anika is intending to at least make them pass out. Anacondas don't actually often crush people to death, they simply squeeze them until the blood can't go to the places it's supposed to be that it's owner expires. So it's a bit like choking someone.
Either way, the cultist is not conscious anymore and if that ends up killing him, what can you do?

...

Technically, Anika could heal him but Magdalena totally distracted her, okay!?

As she returns to her humanoid form, she's all grin. "Well I haven't seen someone just destroying dudes left and right like that. Boy, you don't even need to clean up after yourself. You're just [Magda Word] brutal." She looks around at what's left after their rampage. "Bet these creeps wish they never encountered us, huh? Even the snark stood no chance." The druid gestures where it used to be. In fact, she does a double take.

Had any of them dropped any loot?

[bc56]

"NO! GET BACK HERE!" The cloud snarls as Tao scatters. It appears to be slowed down by the apple, which, when shredded, causes it to seem a bit more solid and more human looking.

From their new positions, Tao's component dragons may be able to see what was on top of the table. The ring of candles mark out the edges of a ritual circle, at the center of which is an elaborate bronze bracer studded with cracked, bloodred crystals. A thin tendril of blood mist trails from it to the cloud demon.

[Arkhosia]

Moth Park

"Haha, fair enough," Anastasia acknowledges. Irena did sound like the sort of person to do that. It, like, still might be worth asking though! I mean, hey - maybe I can still pick up a few tricks if I have to duel her for your freedom." She flashes another cheeky grin.

[Morty]

Tracking Rats - Flicker, Amalungak and someone

Amalungak is too slow to notice someone creeping up behind him. He tries to retaliate by aiming an elbow-thrust at the person holding him, but he's not exactly a fighter.

[bc56]

The wizard is pelted by falling glass shards! New gashes appear on his/her/its skin, bleeding all manner of strange fluids. With a wave of a hand/flipper/wing, a corridor appears, and the wizard dashes into it on increasingly long legs, trailing molten cheese/water/magma behind.

[Earl of Purple]

Tracking Rats Flicker

She slows down as she flees, stopping every seven metres or so to make it look like she can be followed and tracked. She's heading in a loop away from where Archera went, and back to the tunnel she entered by. That's the route she knows better than the others, which isn't saying much. She's trying very hard not to stare at Amalungak and make it obvious he's a target; instead, she looks over the children, making sure that even though she fired a birdshot shell at them they're not badly injured.

Carter's Curious Castle

Jack unsticks her/himself by turning into a humanoid, ripping away from where the glue had stuck them down. Flapping their hyper-real wings, Jack goes down after the wizard. He/she hasn't gone full human; Jack retains the large beak and a thick coat of feathers. She/he raises one feathered limb, and blasts the wand down the corridor again.

[5a Violista]

Yeah, it just is June's imagination.
He didn't really get a good look at it earlier, anyway. It was probably always about this size.

June turns his head and sees what it's grabbing.
...
Wow, that's pretty strong. He probably would have needed two arms to lift one up.
Definitely don't want to get hit by that.
"Sorry, squeezing too tight, I can't tremble properly," he says apologetically.

Of course, he doesn't just stop trying to fight back. The tentacle wrapped around and into his arm, he pulls his arm trying to get the tentacle taught, so that he can stab it with his other hand.
And, from his experience in martial arts, he needs to protect his head. Other than dodging, that's really the best thing you can do in case for a kick aimed at the head. And, wrapped up like this in these tentacles, he can't dodge. So, if he manages to stab through the tentacle (or put enough slack in it to pull his arm) he moves it to block his head from the giant mushroom - with his forearm or elbow.

[bc56]

Carter's Curious Castle

A bird-shaped blast. The wizard collapses and begins struggling to his/her/its feet/wheels/springs. Jack has plenty of time to catch up.

Carter's Curious Mushrooms

The creature is definitely smaller now than it was seconds ago. Its arm holding the mushroom tree is shaking. It shrinks further, dropping the tree. "NO! I AM INVINCIBLE! THIS IS MY DOMAIN NOW!" It can't even hold June anymore. It's similar height to him. But it's stopped shrinking. "I'LL KILL YOU!"

[Rebonack]

[Elwood Estate]

Well then.

It sounds like there's going to be a relatively normal walk.

What?

This isn't Inside.

It isn't like there's just weird stuff waiting to spring on them at any given moment.

They should be able to make it back to the Elwood place with zero trouble.


[Buffet Dungeon]

"Yeah I'm use to having to fight off like three dozen skeletons at the same time so this is no big deal," Magdalene replies with a shrug.

As for loot?

One of those magical guns, two magical scepter/club things, and one really creepy looking black leather book with a bright candy-red sigil carved into its surface. The sigil looks like it is bleeding.

Also the snark beast appears to have dropped... an enchanted pair of pants?

Despite the fact that it had no legs.

Who knows how that is supposed to work but if Anika has been doing the adventure thing for any length of time she is no doubt aware that sometimes monsters just have equipment for no readily apparent reason.

Magdalene doesn't seem to care about any of this junk none of it is her style.

"Okay so these (flowers) grab people and drain their blood for gross rituals. We stopped whatever (rose) they were doing here but they still might have people locked up in some other part of the dungeon. There was that other branch that smelled like the ash fields of Chthon and the one with all the blood seals tacked up everywhere."

Sounds like they need to decide which area to check out next.

[Deathkeeper]

[Elwood Estate]

I’ll have you know that on the way there the quartet spot an owl. And it’s mildly bigger than owls usually are.
Truly Inside has nothing on the wonders of Riverside.
The estate is exactly as they left it. Mr. And Mrs. Elwood still aren’t home because Deathkeeper can’t write five characters at once because they’re staying late at work.
”Well, here we are. Did you want some water or anything, Dandelion? We got one of those fancy filter things. What about you, Heather?”
”Um. I think I’m good. I might get the hose and water my saplings tomorrow, though. I think I’m gonna get an audiobook and root for a while.”
Heather hasn’t gotten used to being woods yet. So she leaves a headset on by her favorite tree with a playlist of books running.
”Well, I’d offer to cook but you can’t eat it. And I’d offer to play some Smash or something but I feel like we’re more eager to see if your thing will let you play yours.” Linus wouldn’t lie and say he isn’t curious to see how this thing is supposed to remind a log how to be a game console.

[Recaiden]

Persuasive as that is, the dragons instead continue to flee.

Hmm. Were the cultist binding the monster into the bracer? Or letting out of the bracer it had been trapped in and trying to take control?
Perhaps that doesn't matter. What's interesting is the tendril of mist connecting it to the fiend.
Ten or so dragons swoop around and head for the table.

[5a Violista]

[Carter's Curious Mushrooms]

Well, now it's shrinking.
June can tell it's smaller because he fell to the ground, no longer being supported in the air by the mushroom creature.

Using the ground as support, he twists his leg (the one that has a tentacle wrapped around it) and ankle in a spiral to wrap it more and more around. With the creature smaller, the spikes don't reach in as far - which is good because more shallow wounds is good - but has the obvious downside that the previous wounds are no longer as filled by the spikes and the blood comes out. It's a pretty weird sensation. "You're supposed to say that after you've actually done it," he says, suppressing a laugh at the creature's tantrum.

June raises his leg, and then sharply swings it down, trying to pull the creature down to the ground with him. "In the world of gangsters, that is." And then (if that works) his other leg swings up, and then down - heel first - at the creature.

[bc56]

Carter's Curious Cloud

The cloud looks pretty different after being hit by that apple. It's recovered, but crusty patches of solid material are appearing within it. Is it... Clotting? "NO, YOU CAN'T TOUCH THAT IT'S MINE!" It screams and lunges towards the dragons at the table.

Carter's Curious Mushrooms

The creature just snarls in response to June's taunts and charges, only to be axe kicked in the face. The hit provokes even more shrinking, and now it's half June's size. "It won't end... Like this! I will devour your body! I will..." It lashes out with its claws at June's gut in a last ditch effort to kill him quickly.

[Earl of Purple]

Carter's Curious Castle

Jack flies over, landing next to him/her/it and stumbling slightly. He/she reaches into a pocket and pulls out the only weapon Jack regularly carries in a pocket, and not in his/her satchel- a steel knuckleduster. If the wizard gets straight enough, Jack punches them in the head. Normally Jack has a magic shovel to beat people to death with, or more regularly monsters or ghosts. Jack blasts with the wand whilst they're down, and punches with the knuckleduster. She/he doesn't want to try using anything found in this castle to attack the wizard with, so has to use what was brought in.

[Recaiden]

The dragons by the table split into two groups of five and dive around towards the bracer from both sides.
Maybe the cloud will get five of them, but what about the other five?

Meanwhile, the majority of them stream out of this back room as fast as they can fly.

[bc56]

Carter's Curious Castle

The wizard is punched and beaten down, then blasted and beaten more, until he/she/it stops stirring. The corpse soon is engulfed into the structure around it, until no trace is left. Now what will Jack do? Will he/she try to escape? Search for loot? Something else unexpected?

Carter's Curious Cloud

The cloud indeed engulfs one group of dragons, beginning to tear them apart like it did the cultists. But that buys the other dragons time to escape and to examine the bracer, respectively. What would they like to do to it?

[Recaiden]

Oh, poor little dragons.

The survivors, one of them just touches the bracer. Another few try to wrest part of those cracked red crystals out of their fittings using their teeth and claws. And the last one tries to swoop down inside of it.

[5a Violista]

[Carter's Curious Mushrooms]

Unfortunately,
still being wrapped up with the tentacles means that June can't get away and dodge.

June has to drop the broken bone (the other is still wrapped into a tentacle), and moves that hand to grab one of the claws.
Unfortunately, this means one of the claws still slashes at his stomach, but luckily June twists his body in that direction to keep it from being a deep wound. He swallows, since the effects of the nail made him feel that more, and moves his arm in the direction of the other claw that already hit him, in order to push it out of the way and keep it from attacking again. "Sad news," he says, informing the mushroom. His voice drops to a whisper, as if he doesn't want to be overheard because it's a secret: "I don't taste that good."

If you need some references, you could ask some mosquitoes which would confirm that, yeah, he doesn't taste that good.

[bc56]

Carter's Curious Cloud

The dragons that touch the bracer will experience a flash of emotion: agonizing pain and burning rage, the sensation of every molecule of your body being torn apart. No wonder this thing's angry. If that's what she's feeling right now, she's in total agony. Meanwhile the ones prying off a crystal should be able to get it loose. It shatters completely as it leaves the socket, and the shards lose their red color, becoming clear. The cloud seems to lose a bit of cohesion when the crystal breaks, becoming less person shaped and more cloudy.

Carter's Curious Mushrooms

The monster continues shrinking in the face of June's resistance. It's barely up to his knee now. Now its shape is changing. And a few moments later, it looks like a small mushroom, with white stalk and blue cap. Any trace of its former monstrous nature is gone.

[Rebonack]

[Elwood Estate]

"Nah I'm good, thanks for the offer," Dandelion says, waving off the offer of water. "I guess I'll just head back home? Meet up with you dudes there? Riftline doesn't go into the park but it'll get you close."

Sometimes close is the best you can get.

"Good luck with the school stuff, Heather. Have a... geeze. Nice root? That sounds weird."

Why does her life have to be so weird?

Strictly speaking it has always been pretty weird on the grand weirdness scale. Even before they wandered into the Nexus life was unusual for them.

They weren't ever exactly normal.

Though they always wished they could be. And things only got weirder from there. Ah well.

Dandelion steps into her plum tree and vanishes! Now it'll just be a matter of meeting up with her Inside.

[Recaiden]

One minuscule dragon drops to the table, thrashing around in pain.
The others are momentarily quite distracted by signals of pain and fury, but finding themselves not actually hurt, hop over to more patches of crystals. This time, careful not to touch the rest of the bracer.
Hopefully the cloud is distracted in some way by the breaking of the first crystal as it loses cohesion. And not, say, even more dangerous and furious.

[Deathkeeper]

[Elwood Estate]

Wishing you were normal in the Nexus is a great way to never be normal again.
Still, Heather goes to find a way to spend the night (the only nice thing about not being able to sleep is that she can plan her paper while she's a tree).
Hector and Linus shrug and make their way to the Riftline. Unlike other nerds, Hector has always been accustomed to long walks.
Their trip to the Riftline into Inside is easy enough. Even if Linus is still a bit uneasy. He'll bring the shield. Just in case.

[bc56]

Carter's Curious Crystals

The cloud slowly recovers and begins drifting towards the bracer, slowing more each time a broken crystal is pulled loose. Now barely human shaped at all, it reaches for the dragons to stop them from pulling out the last crystals, but its movements are sluggish as if underwater.

[Earl of Purple]

Carter's Curious Castle

Jack doesn't really trust this place to be cohesive enough to have loot, so she/he's going to go looking for a way out. It's always possible that something shiny might attract his/her attention as they look for an outside wall to turn into a door, so Jack can leave the tower itself.

[5a Violista]

[Carter's Curious Mushrooms]

June lies on the ground as it shrinks. He turns to lie on his side to watch it.
...Just breathing,
and bleeding.

After seeing that it's just now a little mushroom, he reaches out to grab it. "Hey, wait! You're not allowed to go yet! First tell me how to get back to the town."

Not wanting to put it on the ground in case it can somehow sprout and get away, he instead sticks it in his pocket., because first he needs to deal with the bleeding. They're starting to feel tingly which is really annoying especially with this amplified-senses thing. Maybe he can turn his shirt sleeveless and his pants into shorts? That might be possible, especially since there's already holes in them, which should make good stress-concentrators to make tearing easy.
He starts on that, tearing at the holes to make strips he can use to hold pressure on the injuries. If only he had a first aid kit, or something. Or a pocket knife. Why didn't his pink switchblade come to the Nexus with him?!? That would be so convenient!

[bc56]

Carter's Curious Castle

Escaping is surprisingly easy. The desire to leave causes the castle to rearrange itself around Jack and direct her back to the portal she entered through. When she leaves, she should find that no time at all has passed, and her form should stabilize to something similar to her original one, although the magic that coursed through her in the other world may have left a permanent mark on her, a slight change that she may or may not even notice.

Carter's Curious Mushrooms

The mushroom, being just a mushroom, doesn't respond. Any spark of unnatural life it once had appears to be gone. So instead June can busy himself with bandaging his wounds. But by now, he's also probably lost a lot of blood. If only there were something around here with medicinal properties. Maybe if worst comes to worst, he can just guess and hope.

[Earl of Purple]

Carter's Curious Castle

Well, that was very interesting. Maybe Jack should have nabbed something, to serve as a memento if nothing else, but... Too late now. She blinks, and one of her eyes changes colour, the grey turning gold until she blinks again. She'll gather her satchel and pick up the globe, putting it into her satchel and returning the knuckleduster to her pocket. The wand doesn't go into her satchel; she keeps hold of it, at least for now.