[Closed] We're like the trees in the wind

[cameprepared]

🧙 WHO: Claire and some friends
⚔️️ WHAT: June Quests
🕒 WHEN: June
🗺️ WHERE: Throughout Avalon
⚠️ WARNINGS: Violence, Language, Claire's usual CWs for zombie related horror.




Trowmies got my Homies:


Trow were creatures that Claire was not overly familiar with, but she figured that they couldn't be any worse than trolls, ogres, and any of the other nonsense that she'd had to fight here. So, when the quest had gone up, she'd readily agreed to take it on like any good knight should. That led her, once again, to be standing outside of a dark tunnel leading into a cavern filled with beasties that would happily kill her with The Dog snuffling around the entrance and a friend at her side.

"So. What do you know about Trow? I honestly haven't encountered them before. Have you?"

It's a simple question, and very much a know your enemy sort of thing. Maybe she should've checked into this before she'd come all the way out here, but too late now.


Overgrowth


A Kraken inside a house was almost comical. It sounded so ridiculous when she'd heard it, because the word kraken called to mind the monstrous beastie she and Darin had helped avoid a hunter during the spring. Something huge, something capable of swallowing whole houses, but apparently this one was small enough to be within.

The noise of it thrashing around the cottage made her wince, as did the sight of something large and purple moving past a window from the inside. This was going to be one of those ugly, knock-down, drag-out sort of things, wasn't it?

"Well." Claire reaches up to the door handle, gun in her free hand. "No time like the present, I suppose. You ready?"

Comments

Trowmies got my Homies

[phoenixwiz]

“Well, I’m not too familiar with Trows,” Harry admits as he looks at the dark and bleak tunnel in front of him, “But from what little I have learned in the library earlier: they are short ugly mischievous spirits or fae who are usually active at night, visiting homes while people are asleep, and they have a fondness for music too, which explains why they sometimes kidnap musicians or lure them to their cave homes.”

Back home, Harry has never learned too much about Trows despite studying in Scotland for 6 years, but at least he did his research ahead of time upon taking the quest just to make sure of what he and Claire are dealing. Rose is hiding inside his jacket pocket while Hedwig is on standby from a nearby tree, awaiting for any commands he might give.

[cameprepared]

"So, going in during the daylight is the best plan then, yeah?"

Claire looks at The Dog, and her familiar looks back at her, amused. His mouth drops open in a doggy grin, and he starts forward. And, because he can, he offers his thoughts in his gravely voice.

"I'll go scope it out then. See how many we're dealing with. You two stay here. And keep the little one from making too much noise, Potter."

[phoenixwiz]

“Yeah, I agree. That would be a good idea since they are nocturnal in nature,” Harry responses back in agreement before he turns his attention to the Dog’s thoughts to which he nods back in silent agreement.

He hopes that the quest giver’s friends could still be alive after being captive in the caves for so long, so he is going to trust the Dog in going inside first to see how many Trows that they’ll be facing.

[cameprepared]

The Dog does know what he's doing. Moving quickly, turning into his spectral form, the Barghest slips into the tunnel.

Claire crouches down onto her heels, looking at the cave, eyes narrowed as she concentrates on it.

"How dangerous do you think they are?"

[phoenixwiz]

“My guess is that maybe just as terrifying as the trolls from my world,” Harry makes a guess on how dangerous the Trows could be as they wait, “Or they could be just as scary as the Shadlin I had encountered at the Edge of Dusklight Woods back in January. Those creatures are capable of making creepy illusions of people from home and their eye colour can change without warning.”

[cameprepared]

"Oh I remember the Shadlin. Nasty fuckers."

They'd scared her and Kaiba away pretty easily. It hadn't really been hard though. They had been new to Avalon, and utterly unprepared.

"Hopefully Trow can't do that. But, you know. Trolls I think I can handle."

[phoenixwiz]

“I do hope that they’re not capable of doing those things as well,” Harry nods in return, he can still remember how the Shadlin was able to produce creepy illusions of his parents and Shinjiro when he and Ken faced them in January.

“Well, that’s good to know that we have deal with trolls before,” he then smiles in relief, “Me and one of my friends were able to save another friend of ours when she got ambushed by one in the girls washroom during Halloween. That fellow was really scary and had a large club for a weapon.”

[cameprepared]

"Yeah? How'd you guys deal with that?"

Harry isn't exactly a large guy. And trolls, in the restroom? It's oddly reminiscent of that huge guy with the trench coat that'd chased her around the Raccoon City Police Station. Only, he'd just had his fists. No club...

[phoenixwiz]

“My friend Ron had levitated the troll’s club with his wand to hit him on the head, knocking him out,” Harry tells her, “As for me, I accidentally got my wand stuck into his nose.”

Granted, it wasn’t the most graceful of rescues ever, considering that he, Ron and Hermione were children compared to the larger adult Mountain Troll, but the experience with the troll did bring them together and their friendship has grown stronger in spite of everything that has happened to them over the next several years.

[ofsilverflame]

Chris finishes lighting her sword a-flame and nods. She glances towards the window the alien shape had just moved past. "It won't have much room to maneuver in there." She replies. "That's as much a disadvantage as an advantage. We'll need to mind our surroundings, and not let ourselves get tripped up by anything." But maybe the abundance of furniture could be useful for distracting it. It was unfortunate, but there was no way the house was coming out of this undamaged.

"Just as long as this doesn't end with you vomiting your dinner out onto the floor, it should be fine. Anyway, I'll wait out here." Holly chips in, taking flight from Chris' pauldron, which seems to have become her default perch. Though she turns and gives an impish grin at the two women before they head in.

"Buuuuuuuuut speaking of dinner...you guys feeling calamari tonight? Try to save some, if you can! We can deep-fry it up real good with some'a FC's fire, yeah?."

[cameprepared]

"You sure, Holly? You might be a real asset in there."

Of course she's joking. She's so joking. Holly is definitely better off not being around to possibly get eaten, so Claire's already moving off the path towards a pile of brambles. It's big, gnarled, and old, with thorns as long as small nails reaching to the sky...and it seems perfect for what she wants to do.

"Up to letting me try something new, Chris? I had a stroke of inspiration the other night," she says, trying hard to shut out the nightmarish image that'd plagued her dreams. It's inspiration, but not the good kind.

[ofsilverflame]

Chris follows Claire to the the brambles. She looks towards Claire, and then nods. "By all means, maestro." She replies with an airy wave of her hand. Claire's propensity for innovation where magic was concerned was impressive, and had helped Chris out of her initial rut once she'd arrived. She stands back, flaming sword at her side, and waits, curious as to what the other woman has managed to come up with this time, and how it might help them against the kraken.

[cameprepared]

"Ho-kay. So this might get weird."

She's practiced this in a general sense, animating plants and the like, but when she holds her hands up and breathes out the words to the spell she focuses on a specific vision. The brambles snap and pop as they gather together, uprooting themselves and twisting themselves into a shape. It's vaguely humanoid, save the tendrils and vines trailing off of it, and it steps forward...moving in a lurch towards the door.

Claire's brow is creased in concentration, and The Dog's teeth are gritted visibly as well. The hound chuffs out a breath, and something flows from it and into the bramble-beast, making it stand up just a bit straighter.

"...The Dog is as much a ghost as he is a dog. So I'm kinda blending his...ghostiness with plant magic. Figured we can send in this ugly thing and let it get the kraken's attention."

[ofsilverflame]

Chris watches the bramble-man take shape, her eyebrows rising. "Goodness Claire. Quite the imagination you have." Something about its jerky, stilted movement is vaguely unnerving to watch. And yet her own mind is already working on how she could help improve this thing.

She turns to look at Claire. "Perhaps if we can get it close enough to the kraken, I can set it ablaze with fire. Or detonate it, perhaps. A walking firebomb." Though perhaps the enclosed space of the house is probably not the best place to test that idea. "Well, we can discuss it afterwards."

She takes up a position by the door. "Once your bramble-man is in, I'll charge in after it. Follow after me once I've got its attention. Ready?"

[cameprepared]

"It's not imagination. I've seen...things like this...at home."

The Ivy, as she's taken to calling them, wobbles a little going up the steps but pauses at Claire's direction. She looks back at Chris with a curious expression, and frowns slightly. No, that's a terrible idea.

"No fire. We don't want to blow the house up. But...could you maybe do ice? That wouldn't bring the building down, and it might help."

And she's also curious to see if the FC has managed to master other elements.

[ofsilverflame]

Chris' eyebrows raise. She knows Claire doesn't like to talk much about what she's been through, but that's an admission she hadn't expected. "I see. Well, I'd say this fellow will serve our purposes well enough." She's curious about the circumstances but won't pry if Claire doesn't wish to share.

Frankly, it's something Chris needs to challenge herself more with too, and she knows it. A gesture dissipates the flames around her blade, and nodding at Claire, she sheathes her sword. She's learned to channel ice magic a bit differently than fire, as with her ice shield spell. She holds out her arm, and lets a fragment of ice, hewn in the rough shape of a blade, form within her grasp, molding itself to her grip. She takes a few practice swings, letting the blade trail mist and flecks of ice in its wake. She can't help but momentarily think of her father, and what he had intended for her...and the versions of her she knows to exist that did take the True Water Rune rather than the True Fire.

"I haven't yet tested this under battle conditions, but against training dummies, contact with the blade froze the area around it. The longer the blade made contact, the greater the area. If we can keep it focused on your bramble-man, I might be able to restrict the use of at least some of its tentacles."

[cameprepared]

"We...can talk about them later. This guy's an Ivy, though. That's what I call these things."

Claire straightens a little bit, watching Chris with interest. Mostly because she'd kind of challenged her, just to see if this was a thing she could do. She knew that the other woman was good with fire, but was she learning other elements too? When the blade takes shape, she nods with some certainty.

"I think that'd work best. Just...y'know, don't want to bring the place down on us. As for keeping the Ivy up as a distraction, I'm sure I can do that."

She steps up to it, passing her hands over it and infusing it with some more shadow magic. It seems to grow and swell...or, it's shadow does. The creature itself doesn't change, but the area of darkness around it seethes and ripples.

"It's going in. Give it to the count of five and follow."

overgrowth!

[theleadingman]

For his part, Balthier had been forced to read through the job listing three times before taking it, all on account of how ridiculous it sounded. This wouldn't be his first experience with having to handle a wild pet that had quickly outgrown its owner, but this was much, much different than hunting down an adamantoise in a mine shaft.

Even as Claire speaks, he's distracted by a large tentacle dangling out of one of the side windows, far from where that glimpse of movement had been.

"As I'll ever be," he says, bringing his attention back to the door and reaching to pull his own gun from its holster. "Ridiculous though this may be, I've no doubt it will give us quite a bit of trouble— how it managed to get this large without their knowing is beyond me."

It seems like the kind of thing you would notice before it got to this point.

[cameprepared]

"Mmmhmm. I agree. I'm guessing that it was magic. Or the family is just not home a lot."

That's probably the only thing that makes sense, to her. It can't be something that you just miss, and the house isn't some ancient old mansion that has entire sealed off wings. It's large, certainly, but not so large as to make any of this sound any less bananas.

"Ever encountered something like this before? I admit, this thing seems a big bigger than the last tentacled monster I fought, but in your world there might be something similar, eh?"

[theleadingman]

"It depends on how you choose to define 'like this.'"

He can't help but offer an amused little smirk in reply; they may have a difficult encounter ahead of them, but the situation is so strange that he can't help but find it just a bit funny.

"Tentacled beasts, no, but certainly plenty of large creatures that were aggressive in their own right. I imagine if I can help to kill a dragon, a kraken should be manageable. Do you make a habit of hunting down creatures like these?"

Just how many tentacled beasts have you fought, Claire?

[cameprepared]

"God no."

Claire laughs, waving that off. She does realize she's never told him about her life though, and so she does elaborate.

"Back home, just a couple of big ugly critters. Only, they were basically just things created because of an accident. Some scientists with no goddamn morals made an artificial plague that mutated plants, animals, and people and it got loose. I was in the city they were working in when it did, and I had to fight a few mutated...somethings...to get out."

[theleadingman]

He lets out a derisive snort in response, though there's still some amusement behind it.

"Scientists with no morals seem to be a constant no matter where you go. Troublemakers, the lot of them. Sounds like quite the tale."

His attention is drawn upwards when he sees a tentacle flail past an entirely different window than before. Was it— waving? No, of course not, that would have been utterly ridiculous, as opposed to mildly so— which is how he would rate this entire situation thusfar.

Still, they've no time to lose.

"I'd say 'ladies first,' but I'm not certain etiquette matters so much in this particular set of circumstances," he tells her, heading forward to yank the front door open and grant them passage.

[cameprepared]

"Gentlemen can also go first, but...better idea?"

She nods to her familiar, the pony sized black dog, and it darts into the house ahead of them. Something about it fuzzes, blurring at the edges, and it stops seeming wholly solid almost immediately. No sounds of claws on the floorboards, or the thump of steps as it traverses the foyer.

"He'll scout. He's a barghest, a kind of ghost, and I like to send him in ahead. Not much can really catch him, let alone hurt him."

Taking a position by the door, Claire watches her familiar's progress as he snuffles around, taking it all in. A whip-like tentacle darts into the room he's been investigating, but it passes right through.

"See? That might have hurt."

[theleadingman]

"Well, I certainly won't argue with that plan of action."

He, too, gives a nod to her familiar; his own is nowhere to be seen, but this isn't quite the right situation to send Lulu into, in her defense. She's an excellent assistant when it comes to engineering or alchemy, but he thinks the little moogle would likely balk in the face of this particular foe.

He watches the familiar proceed with interest, both eyebrows shooting upwards as the tentacle passes right through him, letting out a low chuckle in response to Claire's assessment.

"I daresay it might. I'm not used to having the luxury of sending someone else ahead; I ought to take care this doesn't spoil me for future hunts. He doesn't seem troubled in the least."

[cameprepared]

"I've definitely been spoiled. Unless it's got some sort of magic that can effect ghosts, there isn't a lot that most things can do to get in his way when he's like that. He's probably just showing off, because he can turn invisible, too."

The Dog is, of course, showing off. That is his way, much like refusing literally any attempt at naming him. Hence it just being The Dog.

Returning a moment later, the barghest wuffs out a sound of amusement, shaking his great shaggy head.

"Well, you have your work cut out for you. It's taking up two whole rooms and it's got tentacles in others. I'd start from the right. That'll get you closest to an eye. Probably the best place to make it hurt."