[OOM] Kazic III.

[stuck_mynock]

Jaq is sat upon a clifftop, staring outwards into the distance.

There was someone in the trees earlier, watching from afar, but he's gone now. Jaq doesn't suspect he'll come back soon.

Comments

[guppy_sandhu]

"What the hell are these things?" Guppy asks, firing another round of stuns.

[ostro_goth]

Teja gets out his fold-up naginata and opens it, ready to slice into the creatures when they come closer.

Planting it into the snow, he keeps shooting.

[nothawkingbird.livejournal.com]

"In a word? Zombies." And that changed the game a little here to include headshots with here arrows until they get closer for hacking with her vibroblade.

[stuck-mynock.livejournal.com]

Headshots are about as effective as body shots, it seems. One of them, though, near the centre, does slow down.

It's not for a good reason - his bottom half explodes as a mass of whiteish tentacles writhe their way out to provide a new, and seemingly faster, form of locomotion. They start to wind their way out of his mouth and eyes, too.

[guppy_sandhu]

"Time for surgery."

Guppy comes forward with his sword, slashing at the tentacles of the nearest one.

[ostro_goth]

Teja is right beside him, and he starts slashing at the monster's tentacles with his naginata.

This must be destructible!

[nothawkingbird.livejournal.com]

Kate grinned at Guppy, "New catchphrase?"

But the tentacles cause her expression to quickly be grim. Crap, of course. She waded in, slashing, hacking, and stabbing as quick as she could.

[stuck-mynock.livejournal.com]

The tentacles are thick, but fleshy, and are severed quickly enough after a few hacks and slashes. The wounds made, though, start to sprout smaller tentacles, which writhe about before expanding into a multitude of human arms and hands, milky pale and grasping.

Nearby, several of the other men start suffering similar deformities: One opens his mouth inhumanly wide to let a cluster of arms start sliding outwards, while another one bends his head back into his neck to replace it with a long, thrashing tentacle.

So that's all good.

[guppy_sandhu]

"Yeah, been working on my act." Guppy says, continuing to slash.

"Oh man, this is like that dreadful Disney thing with the brooms. Except more gross."

He stops talking to concentrate for a moment. Hands. What's the weakness in hands? Too short notice to give them all repetitive strain injury. Paralysis might work.

Rather than amputation, he starts aiming his slashes for where the brachial plexus, the nerve bundle in a human shoulder, would be on these arms. For the ones that are just hands, he aims a short slash at the wrist, hoping to either sever nerves or get the creatures to bleed out.

[ostro_goth]

Teja keeps swinging his axe, destroying what he can reach. If he is fast enough, perhaps he will hack off more than these creatures can grow in that time.

[nothawkingbird.livejournal.com]

Kate frowned at that as she continued to slash. It's like the Hydra from those myths. Wait, that could be it.

"We need something better or they'll keep growing. Anybody got a fire source handy? Something to cauterize?" Her flare and fire arrows were back home, and she was mildly cursing herself for not bringing them.

[stuck-mynock.livejournal.com]

They are starting to manifest more bizarre things now: One of them opens his mouth impossibly wide, revealing a multitude of large eyes. From the pupils, pasty white heads, like those of small babies, bulge out, eyes screwed shut.

Another has eight tentacles burst from his back, tipped with spikes. Another starts to grow larger and larger, skin stretching and breaking as he grows.

[guppy_sandhu]

"Not on this scale." Guppy says.

"Try and aim for death by fluid loss." He says. "Stop chopping off, start slashing on the surface."

[ostro_goth]

"They are going to turn into a thing too bizarre to live," Teja ponders, hacking away.

[nothawkingbird.livejournal.com]

"Guys, we're getting over our heads here! Need something else!" Kate yelled as she continued cutting and slashing, barely blocking some of the blows.

[stuck-mynock.livejournal.com]

Near the back, the babies-heads-monster rears up, eyes and potruding faces glowing orange-red as the other monsters fling themselves aside. A moment later, each face lets loose with wide blasts of energy, merging into one and crackling towards the three -

- and then there's a figure in the way, tufty-headed and longcoated, arms out against the blast. There's a few minutes of struggling, and then the blast splits off into a dozen beams, moving off in every direction.

Atton vanishes again with a rush of air, reappears for moments in the paths of the beams, deflecting them away, flickering in and out of view as he speeds about, until eventually, all the beams are moving down towards the babies-heads-monster.

There's an explosion. The monsters go scattering out of the way, and Atton reappears in front of the group and lifts one hand, letting the explosion ripple up an invisible wall without harming them.

When the smoke starts to clear, the babies-heads-monster can be seen in, mangled and burnt but mutating: Human legs sliding out of any uncharred flesh.

Atton breathes heavily.
"So. Yeah. Hi."

The monsters that scrambled out of the way are starting to return now.

[guppy_sandhu]

"...sweeeeet."

Guppy raises his sword to get ready for the monsters.

"Boy am I glad to see you. Any tips on handling these things?"

[ostro_goth]

"Greetings, Atton," Teja says, blood dripping from his naginata and his hands. "Had I known that you were coming, I would have enjoyed this much more."

[nothawkingbird.livejournal.com]

"About damn time, Atton. Been just telling these two how much we're loving the vacation spot you picked out," Kate snarked in a friendly fashion as she kicked and pulled her blade free again.

[stuck-mynock.livejournal.com]

Eyebrow lift.

"I got here as quickly as I could," Atton says. "These definitely aren't native to this world. Or any other that I've seen."

[guppy_sandhu]

"Atton, we've seen... we've seen Jaq." Guppy says, feeling that he can't really not mention it.

[ostro_goth]

Teja casually slices another approaching monster in two, then turns to listen to the conversation of his friends.

[nothawkingbird.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, hoping this is alternate universe. Had enough messing with time already back home."

Kate continued to hack at another one, "Any ideas where they're from?"

[stuck-mynock.livejournal.com]

"Well, that's fascinating, Guppy, and mentioned at a completely appropriate time."

[guppy_sandhu]

"Sorry, I thought it might be important." Guppy says, scowling and charging towards the next monster.

He makes a mental note to go on some sort of training course in how to handle difficult space-time situations.