isleofavalon | June catch-all

Entry tags:

June catch-all | OPEN

🧙 WHO: Emet-Selch and anyone
⚔️️ WHAT: It's time to go a-questing again, alchemist continues to hone his craft
🕒 WHEN: Throughout June
🗺️ WHERE: See individual prompts
⚠️ WARNINGS: None (will update as necessary)

1. Do it for the Vine 🗡️

I seek assistance in exterminating an overgrowth of seedkin. I will be departing three days hence.

Even if one doesn't see the message he puts out, one can find him at the scene: on the outskirts of Camelot, Emet-Selch surveys the damage with pursed lips. Fire would be a sure way to exterminate the vines yet it runs the risk of torching everything else as well. Especially magical fire. He has flammable concoctions made especially for this task, but he's hesitant to use them. Perhaps when they locate the parent...

If you happen to be crossing paths with him at the scene, he doesn't immediately take notice. He seems preoccupied with his own thoughts, though he will very quickly look over if someone decides to leap in and start attacking things.

2. Thunderbird 🗡️

The pursuit of unusual alchemy reagents takes one to odd places sometimes. Emet-Selch is not someone who would ordinarily volunteer to go rock-climbing, yet here he is doing just that. Unfortunately, he isn't the fittest of men. Scaling the rocks to reach one of the birds' elusive nests is trying his endurance - and patience.

About halfway up to one, he manages to clamber on to a small ledge and slumps there tiredly, breathing hard. "This had better be worth it," he growls under his breath as he takes a swig of water from his canteen.

--Or perhaps, instead, you meet him at the nest itself, tiredly setting up one of the observation cameras. Whilst technology isn't...unknown to him, he seems to be struggling with this modern brand of it. It's far more compact and advanced than that which he's accustomed to.

"Confound it," he mutters, staring at the pieces in frustration. "Why must they make it so damned small?"

3. Wildcard

Got another idea? Feel free to PM this account. He has a top-level on the TDM as well.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The benefit of living with him means that it's quite easy for Felih to tag along when his mate goes off on this quest. If nothing else, Felih hopes his green magic may help to better control or contain the vines while Emet searches for a way to actually destroy them.

"I'm not sure how much they'll resist," Felih murmurs, "but at the very least I can attempt to wrangle whichever vines we come across so they aren't as much a threat. If I can't stop them directly, I could easily use other flora to choke it or hinder its movement..."

He nods. "Just do your best, as you always have."

He wonders if he should consider creating a potion to wither greenery... But no, he can foresee such a thing being abused. The fae are not like to be charitable towards someone attempting to destroy the forests.

"Let's try over there." He starts walking towards where the vines seem thickest.

Something about the phrasing in Emet's response leaves Felih feeling more encouraged, almost relieved, as they trek out into hazardous territory. These plants have clearly already killed several people, if the worst trains of logic are correct.

"Let’s begin, then. We can gather and cull clumps as we find them, and hopefully trail them to this mother plant... though, admittedly, I would rather not see whatever monstrosity befell these people," Felih admits. How could plants go so wrong? Why do plants have to eat people? (He would be stunned to discover there are worlds where plants do not, in fact, eat people.)

He doesn't waste time. He lifts his hands with a green glow, and tries to wrangle the vines into a tidy group. As if aware of the magic trying to compel them, however, the vines begin to wriggle and strain against the magic, the clashing influences of the mother plant and Felih already at odds. At the very least, this occupies the vines with themselves, fighting for control while Felih tries to keep them more or less immobilized. Sometimes the plant manages to lash out at Felih before he arrests it again, and it's a constant fight.

"I knew it would be too easy if this would just work..." he mutters, tail lashing as he dodges what he can, more focused on the portion he can see.

He utters a quiet little sigh as he draws out his gunblade. Lately, he's been desiring his old greatsword, but it is taking some time to grow used to bearing the weight. Besides which, nimble movement is preferable when facing a nimble enemy.

He ignites a ceruleum cartridge and shears through the set of vines that Felih is wrestling with. The separated tendrils fall, burning bright blue inside and out; the severed ends writhe and try to retreat.

"They're fast," he growls. As he attempts to pursue, other vines get in his way.

The vines may be fast, but Felih won't let it stop him. As the second group tries to obstruct his mate, he launches his own vines to engage them and try to wrestle them down against the ground, now trying to mentally split his attention and focus between the first and second clusters of vines.

This is the first time he's had to do something this high-pressure with his green magic, and it's certainly turning into a trial by fire. He tries to paralyze or otherwise wrestle with the first group of vines before they can make an escape, while trying to wrestle down the second, though he makes a note of where the severed vines are trying to retreat.

"Do you think they're trying to go back to the mother plant? Or just away from us?" he calls.

"We won't find out if it keeps managing to obstruct us," he growls. Noticing Felih's struggles, he retreats towards the other man to take advantage of the semi-paralysed tendrils and sever them too.

"I have something to use on the main host should we find it. Can your green magic sense where these may be thickest?"

"I think I can, but I'd have to get closer to one of the vines still attached," Felih says, teeth grit as he keeps fighting down the vines. Emet slicing down the nearest group of vines will be a relief to Felih, and he warily eyes more of the hungry plant.

"Though, I don't much like the thought of getting that close to something carnivorous," he mutters, before he tries to drain the vitality out of the vines Emet just severed, leaving them dead and inert. Not the intended use of green magic, Felih admits, but it gets the job done...

He watches the vines shrivel spontaneously and narrows his eyes, absently slicing away another that tries to make a grab for his leg.

"You can take life away? Can you not do that for the rest of these?"

"I can try, but the more I try to do it, the harder it is- and with a plant that's magical, sentient, and trying to fight back?" Felih calls back, sounding slightly frustrated as he switches his attention to the other batch of vines. "Besides, the more energy I take on, the more I have to redirect it somehow-" Felih begins, before a flash of realization comes across his face, and he beams. "Wait, then...!"

He leaps forward, taking a rather reckless pounce onto a cluster of vines, and a green burst of light crackles through the cluster before the vines freeze, paralyzed, and Felih focuses. He furrows his brow, concentrating as a more gentle green light starts to trace and trail along the tendrils.

"This batch is understandably irate with us. Some are afraid. The core is..." His head turns away from the clump as he lifts a hand, a clawed finger pointing. "That way. Though it's quite deep into the wilds there, we should- aack!"

In the moment he's distracted, the vines reanimate and fling Felih rather unceremoniously onto the ground a good distance away, making Felih groan before he pushes himself up slightly and scowls at the plant. "And now it knows that we know."

Predictably, the carnivorous flora is now doubling its efforts to impede their progress.

"Felih!" he shouts without thinking when the other man dives in amongst the vines. A familiar panic takes him, although he doesn't realise why until seconds later when he stops to think about it.

It's the old feeling he once had seeing Azem rush headlong into trouble.

Shaking off his momentary paralysis, he places himself between Felih and the vines, gripping his weapon tightly. He pulls back the trigger to ignite ceruleum, covering the blade with that signature, eerie blue glow.

"You reckless idiot," he growls, slicing through the vines which lash his way. Several go for his legs and arms.

Hearing his mate's sharp cry of his name makes his ears pin back, a jolt running down his spine that tells him, Oh, I'm in trouble, because he knows Emet's tones of voice by now. The subsequent scolding makes Felih huff and pout slightly, before he uses his magic to halt the vines aiming for his beloved legs, before wrestling them to tangle with the cluster aiming for Emet's arms.

He pushes himself back up and stands, mumbling, "But it worked, didn't it?" as self-defense. "If I touch them directly I can do a lot more to it!"

Of course, that also means coming in contact with the carnivorous plant, but the Warrior of Light has dealt with worse. Morbols, namely.

He beats back the vines, advancing slowly. "That may be, but it seems it also knows you for a threat now," he growls. "It won't let you touch it so easily."

Indeed, the vines seem less concerned with attacking him and are more pointedly trying to get around him to grab the miqo'te. Most of their movements against Hades are simply to slow him down or distract him.

Felih is realizing now how the plant is trying to aim for him, and he bristles and readies himself for more. Even as he uses his green magic go try and wrestle and suppress the vines, he has to keep agile, jumping and darting and performing acrobatics just to stay out of its grasp.

"For something trying to avoid me touching it, it's certainly insistent on trying to grab me," he pants, before he slides along the grass to dodge a new bundle, trying to twist a group into a knot to limit its movement.

To his surprise, his maneuvering actually succeeds, leaving a good clump of vines knotted together and limiting their reach.

"I... can't believe that worked," he mumbles, "Then again, I suppose it is still merely a plant... ah. We should make a run for it. If we keep trying to fight it here, it'll just keep stalling us with more vines... but if we can follow them to the core, we might be able to do more damage along the way. Cut them off closer to the source."

'Merely a plant?!' He can imagine Halmarut's indignant voice ringing out.

He lifts his sword, considering chopping the vines whilst they're tangled, but decides that it would be safer for those who may venture after them to leave them knotted.

So he nods and starts off in the direction Felih had indicated earlier. "Let's hurry. I don't want to be here all day."

Felih would merely gesture at the knotted plant to make his point. It's not a bright plant, Halmarut!

But for now, he nods at his partner and starts running, dodging creeping vines as he leads the way deeper into the forest. At least Felih has a good sense of direction, because it helps when he has to run around in unknown territory with only one bit of knowledge to go on. He tries to cut down vines as he goes, with magic or chakrams, clearing a path as he goes deeper...

Predictably, once they start approaching where the mother plant is, the vines and brush thicken considerably.

"Just through that wall of them," Felih pants, still trying to fend off more vines as they reach for him.

It is getting much more difficult to swing his sword now. He grimaces and reaches for a jar of pelican saliva generously gifted to him by a boy called Walter.

"Use this on your weapons. Quickly now - I'll keep it busy until you're done."

Gods willing, it would have an effect on these plants.

"What is that?" Felih looks dubiously at the strange material, but he uses magic to dip and spin his weapons in the goo anyway. He refuses to touch them himself right now, considering the look of it, but he trusts his mate and does as told.

He does it as swiftly as he can, making sure his weapon is coated, before he turns his focus back to the plants trying to bar their way. "Here goes-" he says, hoping the material doesn't need time to dry, because he won't wait any longer to start cutting these down.

With that, he begins to dance, his chakrams now flying and spinning through the forest brush as he cuts through vine after vine, magic imbued in the blade. He can only use his green and healing magic in this realm, but his green magic can still be quite useful in battles against flora like this, monstrous or otherwise.

He splits his focus between trying to cut them a path, and keeping vines from reaching his mate's body. He's protective still, and trusts Hades to be able to cut through more of the obstacles than he can with his chakrams, but it also means he has to keep Emet from being interrupted. "Let us hope the mother plant doesn't have any more surprises for us..." he grunts as he battles.

"Saliva from the 'pelicans' here." The saliva had proven potent against the animated plant some moons back and Hades is pleased to see it's having an effect here too. He drizzles it over his own weapon before hurrying after Felih, attacking branches of vines in the general direction that Felih had indicated.

Come to think of it, they haven't fought together much, he thinks as he carves a way through the greenery. He hasn't really fought alongside a dancer either. Their coordination falters occasionally, but he does his best to correct himself. It's difficult trusting that those deadly chakrams won't cut him as they whirl around.

"Are we getting close?" he calls out.

They never did have much opportunity to do battle together until coming to this place, it's true- but Felih is very used to dancing and working around numerous players on a battlefield. If he notices Hades faltering, he doesn't show it, instead just focusing on cutting down the dangerously massive number of vines trying to bar their path.

"It's just through the wall, but- perhaps if we climb over?" he pants, glancing aside at some of the myriad trees in the forest surrounding them, plenty of them tall enough to use as leaping-off points. It might be faster than cutting through, but it is slightly more dangerous...

He's relieved to see the saliva working well, seeing and hearing the hiss and burn of the compound against the organic matter. It makes the vines recoil and falter as if poisoned and wounded, making it easier for them both to beat the creature back.

"I can bring the wall down if you distract it!"

Ever since he managed to master decomposition, it has made him far more useful on the field. He whistles and Nyx leaps into the air. Using her fiery breath, they can burn a circle into the earth for his alchemy.

"Can do!" Felih calls back, before launching his chakrams and slicing wide, broad swathes of the vines. They're not deep enough to truly injure or inhibit the vines, but it gets a lot of attention now focused right on him again. Not to mention the animosity the plant harbors for him thanks to his earlier stunt...

He darts around the vines as he battles to cut them down, testing out his new draining magic and alternating it with expelling the siphoned energy on more damaging or stunning blasts. With the amount of grief he's causing this creature, he's now commanding almost all its attention, the myriad vines all lashing and snaking out in their attempts to ensnare the Miqo'te. Felih has no intention of getting caught, however, and uses his dexterity and speed to his advantage, keeping the creature focused on the chase.

Mindful that Felih cannot run and dodge indefinitely, he raps out terse and exacting instructions to Nyx. Thankfully his familiar is a practical sort and does not object, scorching the wall with her violet fire until the circle is complete. Hades focuses. The circle flashes and suddenly the wall crumbles to dust.

"'Tis done!" he shouts. He hurries forward without waiting. Nyx flies back to help create an opening in the vines for Felih to join Hades.

Felih watches in wide-eyed awe as the wall of vines crumbles, and the moment he has an opening to do so, he darts towards his partner and tries to keep avoiding more and more of the remaining vines that reach up from the earth to lash at him. He has to leap and roll through the opening Nyx creates, and Felih ends up panting as he lands, exhausted from his constant movement.

He lifts his gaze in time to see the huge, twisted, gnarled mess of vines and plant matter that must be the mother plant. "Why is it always monstrous plants...?" he mumbles to himself, before yowling and leaping as a flytrap-shaped appendages lashes out and tries to snap him up.

"Should we aim for the core? Or is its 'heart' underground? Hells- I don't know where to focus!" he calls.

He's kept busy as well. There are too many vines and not enough eyes for him to keep track of everything and he's starting to regret plunging in without extra help. They'll have to finish this quickly before they both tire.

As he slashes off flytraps, relishing in the way the vines snatch their hissing, truncated ends back, he tries to assess their biggest impediment.

"Use your green magic to find it then!" he yells back. "Unless you want me to bring the entire building down on top of it. I only have so much of this concoction!"

"Then, keep them off of me!" Felih calls back, before falling to his hands and knees, hands glowing as green magic begins to spread and radiate from his hands and through the earth around him. The most he can do is use his healing magic to conjure shields around himself as he stops attacking, but trying to constantly renew the shields while also channeling his green magic to this extent is taxing him.

The magic begins to pulse through the branching rivulets Felih pushes through the earth, pulsing, pulsing- and then, a concentrated glow of green begins to peek through the monstrous mass of vines before them.

"There! At its base, dead center in the core of it- if we can cut through to it, then it's finished!" Felih calls after a gasp of breath, leaping to his feet and beginning to aim his chakrams at the same spot, over, over, over, throwing them viciously and trying to cut deeper and deeper.

June catch-all | OPEN

1

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

think we can probably wrap it up ;u;