World Tree MUSH

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    We're off into... the desert!

    Well, it wasn't always a desert. It was probably honestly usually rolling pastoral hills, and a small hamlet, and a village or two but the nanoprobes have chewed it all up. This is an artificially made desert, crumbling at the seams and filled with latent danger. The nanoprobe swarms have abated for the time being but there's still all sorts of things to worry about.

    For Iron Lotus this is horrifying, not least of all because she's so unexpectedly heavy and loose, crumbling rock is not her friend. She more than anyone else here knows the danger that can come from being sandblasted by angry nanomachines in the Wastes- emotional context or not- and if anything lacking the emotion of seeing proles dying in nasty, nano-disassembled ways makes it even worse for her.

    "Stay sharp," she says, although she's taking point behind Vanileth, who is the one leading them to the cave out in the wilds where their quarry is. "If anything's unstable I'll know about it first."

This is also rough for Astra as well. She's a normal teenage girl without any kind of special training. While she did her best to gather supplies for the desert that doesn't make it any easier for her to traverse. She wipes the sweat from her brow, it's going to be difficult for anyone to live here even if they do manage to save the world. She lets the others take the lead.

    Vanileth isn't having any trouble due to his nature of floating and flying about, but that just means the path he takes has to be double-checked. He's much more stable and lucid right now, the simple act of ringing that bell having awakened him... plus the idea of getting new worshippers.

    "Hmm. I'm sure it is around here somewhere... I do hope the entrance hasn't been sealed by all this."

    Luke of course, was happy to assist Iron Lotus with this mess, he feels bad he had been unable to help as much as he hoped, but he was here now!, he was even wearing some kind of goggles to keep the 'sand' out of his eyes, something he used back home apparently. Given the fact that this was a very dangerous situation, he took no chances, joined by not one, but two pokemon! One of them is a large, pink and black bear of some sort, that seems to have decided to stick as close to Luke as it can, even if the boy might have been nudging the fluffy thing a bit, might have been easier to push a wall. "Please, I am ok!, you can calm down!".
    Close, but not that close, was another creature, a large very round looking 'tiger' simply looking around, round ears perked, following the lead of the others and apparently also expecting something to happen, "So what exactly are we looking for, again?" asks Luke.

Emily Nyx is hovering behind Lotus in the form of an auburn-haired woman in her thirties with glowing purple eyes. Her generally chipper attitude is also more subdued than usual. "I'll probably be the second to know," she says, glancing around. "I wonder if ..." She peers around at the ground, as if trying to look through it. "... hmm, nope, can't pull shenanigans with my Dimensional Fields to see weak spots," she murmurs. "Ah well! But, uh, I'll try to catch anyone who looks like they're about to fall."

She looks towards Astra, just to keep an eye on her, then turns back to Vanileth. "The usual nonsense notwithstanding," she says, "I could probably break inside if it did get sealed."

She floats back towards Luke. "An airship that'll help us fight the nanomachine swarms that have been plaguing this world," she explains.

    Raylene's interest in this is new. Scientific really... or magical as the case may be. From a more modern era than most witches, she at least understands the idea of nanoswarms vaguely. She's also more well-dressed for the occassion than she might have appeared when inquiring about it. She still has a 'dress' on, but it's rugged and simple instead of elegant. All she has for weapons is a knife though, relying on the currently incorporeal Horror to defend her.

    "This place looks unpleasant," she agrees, carefully picking her way through the rocks and sand. She's not going to try to take any lead... for all her talents, she is still not a girl with any experience trecking in the desert.

    Yeah, heading into a place like this makes one wonder how easy life is going to be even after dealing with the current threat, maybe we might have to use the nanomachines or force them to undo their damage? Or at least make a section of land arable again. It's tough. Lotus does her best to help carry Astra's supplies since she seems to be struggling- poor girl doesn't have much experience with this kind of thing.

    "Don't worry, I'm strong," she says to Vanileth. "Even if it takes a while I can lift rocks and stuff."

    "It can navigate the nanoprobe storms. Now presumably if it got INTO the cave in the first place we're looking for a pretty big entrance," she says to Luke.

    She nods two or three times to indicate her approval to Emily, who is super reliable in this kind of thing, because she doesn't want to fall into a big drift of dust and inactive nanomachines. We keep telling you there's danger in the dust, after all.

    Before we even get to the big problems, though, we've got to deal with the little ones. Here as of right now we're moving into an area where the walls are seemingly blasted by stone into several weird colours, which glitter in the sunlight, and areas of white sand, and gypsum are strongly reflecting the light causing a significant amount of eye-confusing glare.

    As if to punctuate this, several scorpions and beetles with polished carapaces- the hardiest survivors of what may have been an ecosystem of forest monsters before- emerge from the sand in this glare-plagued area and make a move to attack with their strong pincers. 

    They're not a significant threat but the glare from the sun makes them troublesome, and they're one of only the first dangers we'll encounter here.

Emily nods towards Raylene. "It is unpleasant!" she says. Some of her ... cheer seems to be returning. "Emily Nyx, by the way. I'm a shapeshifting magical robot."

She looks around at the multicolored walls. "Well, this is interesting!" she says. In a swirl of what appears to be silvery glitter, a pair of sunglasses appears over her eyes. "... I mean, I realize I tend to say that about basically everything, but. Anyway, anyone else want some sunglasses? I can --" Monsters! "-- whoa, HELLO!"

She smirks. "Releasing capacitor seals three and two!" She's surrounded by three distinct auras, one gold, one silver, and one pearlescent; the first two seem to shatter, and the third one fades. Immediately, she's surrounded by silvery glitter as her outfit becomes a sort of military uniform, she suddenly has four arms, and her hair turns pitch black -- so black it looks like a graphical glitch, or a rip in space. She thrusts one of her upper arms forward, and a series of bolts of golden light shoot towards the nearest monsters!

    "Bother," Raylene mutters, but she was prepared for this. Her invisible friend was already primed to manifest, and she'd braced herself to do so. Taking a long drink of water, she... does not manifest the horror. Instead, she murmurs softly, waving her canteen forward and starting a gentle mist to spread around the area. It isn't enought to fully obscure vision, but it will hopefully keep people cooler in the desert heat... and perhaps mute the brightness of their opponents.

"Thank you for joining us especially with how dangerous this might get." Astra smiles at Raylene. Well, at least her glasses protect her eyes from the glare as she draws a knife to defend herself from the beetles and the scorpions. The knife was more for cutting metal than cutting through animal carapaces but it was better than nothing. She really needs to learn to defend herself better if the rest of the world was so dangerous.

    Tsk. Vanileth flutters his wings, currently in humanoid form for the comfort of his companions. He's weakened though, so it would be better to leave this to those with much more experieence and power here. A floating hop back clears himself away from them.

    "Perhaps then..." He can't spare much Essence, but some of the simpler tricks he does are as natural as breathinng. furrows appear in the sand and rock, spraying up as he sends blades of sharp air toward the scorpions.

    Luke nods a bit at the explanation, "A ship!, nice, I admit i never flew around much... I considered getting a flying pokemon for easier travel but..." he comments, when the group of shiny creatures make themselves present. Luke makes the mistake to look directly at the already shiny area, "Argh, Arceus that's shiny." he mumbles, looking aside for a moment, "Should have gotten sunglasses!... Bewear, Bulldoze!". 

    The Bewear just growls at the source of the 'attack' to Luke, and moves to stand in front of its trainer, glaring in the direction of the shiny bugs, the fluffy thing raises its arms, which begin to glow brown, before it makes a great Hulk impression adn smashes the sandy ground, somehow causing a large shockwave to surge forward towards teh shiny things, sending them flying back, or at least flipping them around, mostly making some room for others to shoot at the things, won't let those get close to Luke!.

    "There's... egh... something to be said for finding beauty amidst devastation," Lotus concurs with Emily, although the presence of random encounters makes things somewhat less than pleasant. "And I know you guys are just trying to survive, but I've got a better destiny than being beetle food to think of right now!"

    Gears whirl and panels slide and flip until Lotus' hand becomes a piercing spear attachment, the best thing for powering through strong carapaces with brutal, decisive stabs. 

    Raylene goes with a secondary idea- helping everyone out with a veil of Mist. It won't last long in weather like this but it does sort-of help counteract the glare from the walls by blocking and soothing the eyes (not to mention the skin).

    Emily's first volley is helpfully accurate due to her sunglasses helping protect her from the glare, causing the initial wave of insects to scatter even more readily after their initial pounce. Vanileth helps with this bombardment even moreso with his wind blades, although since the coordination is a bit off they do end up cutting through the mist as well here and there, leaving it more patchy.

    Astra goes with Lotus' idea- who is already busy stabbing- and arms herself with a knife that can cut through metal. And although the scarabs have strong armor it's still not as strong as metal, meaning she can definitely get a good hit or three in on anything that attacks her if she strongarms it hard enough.

    And Luke helps to knock things on the head by creating disruptive shockwaves of rock and sand, bashing the insects and doing Bewear's best to crunch them through their armor and rout them entirely. With a little more effort, the swarm is fended off.

    So it's time to resume the march again, staying on guard for other, similar monster dangers, but fortunately for you there's not much else that comes into play that could be considered dangerous...

    However, after a while, the monotony of the travel through the rugged bluffs may begin to make you wish for a monster.    

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    The sun is harsh and the travel has suddenly gone from 50 miles an hour to zero, leaving you with nothing to think about but how monotonous it's suddenly become and how hot the weather is. In fact, you might need to take measures to ensure you don't get heatstroke at this rate...

Emily looks around; she doesn't seem to be suffering from the elements, at the very least. "Hmm." She considers the situation for a moment, and then holds out all four of her hands; in a swirl of glitter, four large parasols appear. "At least we can have the shade, at least," she says. "Y'know, if I had a better idea of this landscape or where we were going, I could portal us there. But at least I can help somehow."

    Luke thankfully was wearing light clothing, and a cap, but even he was startign to slow down and struggle with the darn sun, drinking some water from his bag (how doe she keep all that stuff in it) and offering some to his pokemon. The round tiger accepts the offer to 'return' to its pokeball, but the poor, extremely fluffy pink bear is too stubborn, the guy cooking under the dense, thick fur covering it, drinking the water rapidly and running under one of the parasols, panting. "Bewear, maybe you should sit out for a bit." Luke insists, offering it another water bottle.

"It's really hot!" Astra tries to keep her spirits up but it was hard to do so with the heat. She takes one of the offered parasols from Emily. It helps with the temperature but she's still getting tired from all of this hiking. "That would be nice, hopefully the airship isn't full of sand or it's going to be hard to get off the ground. I don't suppose you can terraform the area into something more managable Emily or would that take too much energy?" She's pretty sure it's unlikely but it's a nice thought at least.

    "Well I'm glad some of us can fight," Raylene is commenting. "Now if only we had shade. Vanileth, spread your wings and give us some of that! I'm merely human." Actually she's been fairly tireless this entire time despite her petite stature, so that's probably a lie... but she does look pretty warm and dazed.

    Again she does have a way to help... she can lower the temperature a few degrees. She is doing that, but without staying in one place, that's the best she can do. It also doesn't blot out the sun. But every little bit helps, right?

    Being a god makes Vanileth less susceptible to heatstroke, but boy is it uncomfortable. He listens to the complaints though, and hmms. Well, aside from the suggestion Raylene gives of spreading his wings for shade, he also stirs up a little breeze, trying to keep air circulating and cool things just a little. "The journey is not an easy one, but if it were then perhaps the ship would not still be there, hmm?"

    Man Emily you're just full of tricks aren't you?

    Thankfully Luke brought water, so we're not all a bunch of completely useless RPG adventurers, and even though it seems like a little thing Raylene's support helps too, so as the group begins to break out the accoutrements it seems as if the initial problem of the encroaching heat is going to be more than helpfully mitigated. And we're still on guard for danger despite the overall lack of it- Lotus in particular is taking it upon herself to be the CONSTANT VIGILANCE kind of person this time and using her optical sensors to scan around for the slightest traces of something dangerous.

    "Hopefully if it's inside a cave then it'll be protected from getting sandlogged, I honestly uh... I don't really know about caves and deserts very well, they're not a thing in my world," Lotus tries to explain. "I mean I guess maybe sand could leak in from above? That might be possible? But I think it'll probably be pretty safe. If we're lucky then whoever was driving this thing last found the safest possible place to stash it."

    As we move through the cliffside rivulet we come across something that's a little more dangerous next. We've had cold mist, now you get some hot.

    It seems as if, strange as it might seem, that this particular mountain that we're moving into the shadow of may have in fact been a dormant volcano, and nanoprobe activity chewing away curiously at the ground has caused the area to become geologically active. Vents, fissures and hot springs have struck up here due to the nanoprobes, and there's danger wherever you step guaranteed as the ground appears to be even hotter than usual underfoot.

    "Heads up!" Lotus calls out.

    She's noticed the ground shifting in front of them in a way that seems to suggest something is about to come together, and sure enough-

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    The ground seems to coagulate into a fumarole elemental, more formidable than bugs and scorpions and capable of breathing scalding steam as a breath weapon due to its connection to the earth. Be mindful of the environment around you as you fight to subdue this creature!

    A parasol goes well with Raylene's outfit anyway. Nice. "Thank you, Emily." The young girl twirls her parasol and sighs, as it's still hot. But hey, at least there's less chance of keeling over.

    Hopping from one foot to the next, Raylene is concentrating on finding cool places to walk. this distracts her a bit, and so it's Lotus calling out that gets her to look up sharply. Sigh. "This... is not something parlor tricks will work on."

    Raylene rapidly backs away, almost stumbling, and this time she does manifest the Horror. It... doesn't appear, being naturally invisible, but its presence, a disquieting queasy feeling, can easily be felt. The shapeless monstrosity is already rushing at the giant monster, clawing with supernatural strength. But Raylene just wants to avoid being scalded!

There's a small ribbon connected to Emily's wrist, just long enough that anyone taking a parasol doesn't have to stick next to her. Emily shakes her head at Astra's question. "Not an option," she says. "My nanomachines are only for shapeshifting, clothes, and simple tools."

She pauses, peering at the ground just as Iron Lotus starts to call out. And then her eyes widen at the arrival of the monster, and she takes off her sunglasses. "Welp!" she says, dematerializing the parasols. "Hokay, sorry to drop the shade, but it's time to ... uh ..."

Her eyes shift towards Raylene, then start following the invisible form. She breaks into a wide grin. "Nice!" she says, before turning back towards the monster. Once more, she starts firing bolts of golden light at the monster; seems she can only manifest five at once, though.

"This wasn't always a desert..." Astra's cut off as Lotus shouts. She gulps a bit as she sees the volcanic gas monster, was this the result of the nanoprobes. She's pretty sure swinging a knife at it is only going to result in molten metal and digs through her tools before producing a dustbuster. It's made more for cleaning but maybe she can suck up some of the steam that the creature is giving off so the others can get closer.

    Luke is quite thankful for the parasols, and tries to make sure Bewear drinks water, the poor guy might just... well, it's good things are cooler now!. He seems to relax, and the bear sits down just for a moment, only for something else appear!. Bewear just looks at the monster, trying to figure what to do... the fluffy thing and fire don't get along very well. "Bewear, don't get close to that thing!" he calls out, even as he reaches for his pokeballs and gets another pokemon that might work better for this. 
    "Agni!, come out!", there is a flash of red and a second creature, some kind of bear and feline hybrid appears, orange/red and cream fur all over, "Agni!, use Brick break!" The large bearlike pokemon growls and quickly rushes towards the volcanic monster, ignoring the steam or the heat on the ground, just rushing as far as it can, jumping up, both claws glowing white as it smashes against one of the creature's legs with a rock shattering strike.

    "That wasn't here the last time I was here!" Vanileth calls out! "Or... maybe it was? I don't remember it!" He's taken to the air, and whether intentional or not, provides a distraction in his zipping around and using those wind blades of his. In his weakened state he isn't likely to be in better condition for damaging it than the others, but as a distraction he might be helpful!

    Raylene's Horror is invisible but that's probablyn for the best, all Lotus sees is something she... well, can't see by her side as she rushes in to try and clobber the steamy thing. She's got a shield armed on one hand and a long, nailbat or tetsubo-esuqe weapon on her other hand (both transformed, naturally) as she decides the best course of action to deal with this thing is to knock a chunk or two out of it and deflect any steam that comes out.

    "Don't quite know how to deal with this thing... let's just deal with it at arm's length!"

    To wit she holds her tetsubo out longwise and strikes with the tip, using the spikes to try and rip at it.

    It'll take some coordination for the five golden bolts to do their best work weaving in and out of the line of fire for Lotus and the invisible Horror, but the three of them together should be able to start doing some decent damage to the fumarole elemental.

    It's at this point that the elemental sends out a wave of energy, and just about /everything/ nearby starts suddenly picking up as jets of steam start emerging not only from its body, but all over the place in the nearby ground! Astra'd better work that gizmo extra hard to ghostbust the steam clouds as the whole area starts cracking up with jets of steam! Vanileth does his best to try and direct a few of those jets towards him which may be the saving grace for Raylene and Emily...

    And just when things looked to be their worst Agni comes in with a powerful claw strike, and by working on the area Lotus was already starting to chip at it does in fact succeed in knocking a big chunk out of it! It's definitely hurt now, you've just got to deal with the steam the elemental is venting from its wound and try to pummel it down to the ground!

Astra doesn't want the dustbuster to overheat and explode but she does her best try and suck the steam with it. She's getting overwhelmed by the temperature as she tries to stay balanced. It's better than getting scold. "How long has it been?" She can't help but to wonder how long the ship has been buried.

    Raylene is surprisingly agile, but she's obviously not a fighter herself. Tumbling to the side is the best she can do, and the girl's scream is loud when a jet of steam hisses out and scalds her arm, leaving it raw and red. Tears form in her eyes... but her voice is mostly level. "We CAN kill this thing, yes? It won't be a problem? The Horror hasn't fed in some time..."

    Speaking of the horror, its shape is vaguely visible for an instant as steam hits it as well, but it's much more sturdy than Raylene seems to be... even if her arm isn't cooked as much as it should be either! It appears to be /biting/ at the thing's neck, for the instant the silhouette is visible.

Emily is, indeed, careful not to accidentally hit her allies! She raises her eyebrows and nods once at the distraction afforded by Vanileth's flight and Agni's smashingitude. "Heh ..." She takes a moment to dodge away from the steam, but one of them hits her and leaves a silver scar across her side. "Ow!"

She opens a staticky portal leading to a point a dozen feet behind the creature, and she slips through ...

... and a great big black sword comes out the other end, easily twenty feet long, pointed up almost vertically with Emily sitting sidesaddle on the tip of the blade! "LOOK OUT BELOW!" she calls out, as the sword ponderously tips over and falls down towards the monster, blade first!

CLANG.

Emily lands on her feet facing away from the monster with her upper arms crossed and her lower hands on her hips, and the huge sword dematerializes.

    Updrafts carry Vanileth higher, but he brings a torrent of 'blades' down on the thing, trying to target it where the others aren't and keep it flanked. Also, he's trying to answer questions. "I didn't take an inventory, my dear! Let's just say 'a while' but they're built to last! So long as this didn't eat it or something we should be fine!"

    He's kidding. This close, his natural abilities can sense that the ship is intact, but a little adversity will help them appreciate it, right?

    "Dunno..." Lotus just replies unhelpfully, maybe Vanileth will be able to answer this one too. As for Raylene, she's more like, "Yeah, try and eat it and drain its energy!"

    It's surprising but funnily enough Astra is actually doing a really good job cleaning the steam up here, parting the veil and putting herself remarkably close to danger in such a way that it keeps the others safe and allows Lotus the opening she needs.

    Lotus decides to try and do a little bit of what she was doing earlier and holds her tetsubo out lengthwise to use it as a spear/lance, backing off and then rushing forward towards the fumarole elemental. As luck would have it as the thing opens its mouth to vent more steam, the invisible Horror is able to grapple against it and pin it in place for a while, and then Emily's falling sword pins it in place like a worm caught by a needle. She catches it and jams the tetsubo down its throat, where it travels down towards where the wound is and allows her to rip her arm out lengthways. Dealt such massive damage the elemental begins to collapse, crumbling to pieces and causing the location to start dying down again, so they can safely move on.

    Now they're making their way forward in the shadow of a mountain ridge, walking along a half-filled riverbed. It seems as if water still flows down at least one tributary of this river, and in the others a hard crust of dried mud or salt can make the surface hard enough to support some weight. Mud, silt and dust once again lie everywhere, and there may be danger from sinking into the mud flowing down the rivers here.

    Eventually, they reach the entrance to, yes, a cave, which lies behind the mouth of a large waterfall. Although the waterfall is still flowing it does so fitfully and the water is brown with mud, but it's a somewhat heartening experience to look at anyway. Just be careful not to sink.

    Lotus for example is having a massively difficult time right now, moving from solid ground to small patch of solid ground as she continally cracks through the salt crust and starts sinking again. "Don't suppose you have something that could help me out here too, huh Emily?"

    Luke seems relieved as the creature clearly looks a bit less... durable than it looked, "Maybe explosion would work..." he considers, then sees everyone seems to be doing just... well, certainly doing well!. Agni just growls loudly and smashes at the leg of the thing a bit more, only backing away when Emily warns it, apparently unphased by the blasts of steam for now. 
    Bewear seems more concerned, especially as the vents begin to aim towards it and Luke, letting out a panicked noise and moving to stand in front of Luke, growling loudly, glowing brightly before... a somewhat crude looking duplicate of Bewear appears in front of it, taking the hit of steam while the pokemon bearnaps Luke and drags him away and safely. At least the fight is over, and they just continue ahead, the waterfall is a welcomed change, muddy or not.!

Emily gives the defeated monster a quadruple-thumbs-up with a smirk, and rises off the ground to float after the group.

She pauses a moment at Iron Lotus's request. "Hmmm ... I wonder iiiiiif ..." And then she breaks into a grin. "Wait, actually, I'm overthinking this. I know!"

In another swirl of glitter, she transforms into a motorcycle with a pair of cramped sidecars on either side. Except the wheels don't seem to be capable of turning, and the steering column is fixed in place ...? Oh, wait, it seems like it's hovering.

"Anyway!" it says in Emily's voice, and the headlight flashes in time with her words. "I think I can probably handle, like, two or three passengers? This is kind of outside my usual operating parameters."

    "Don't explode us please," Lotus calls at some point during the fight just to please dissuade Luke from going for the bomb option.

    It's helpful that there's more than one way to protect everyone from the venting steam, although as we press on it seems likely that the mud might also be uncomfortably warm even if it's not at scalding temperatures. But on the other hand there's cold water from the waterfall running into it, so there will almost definitely be steam and bubbles.

    With Luke leading the way they find themselves on the apex of entering this gigantic cave.

    Lotus laughs as she scrambles her way over to the now-motorcycle-Emily, noting that "You are /fantastic/, you know that? Sorry if I'm going to get your interior a bit muddy."

    It's now easier to make their way down to the end of the river and the waterfall cave. "Alright, let's go-" Lotus begins to say-

    But it seems as if your troubles are still not completely over, as something begins to rise from the base of the waterfalls amidst lots of big, muddy bubbles!

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    Big as a bus and even tougher built, this gigantic enemy crab is blocking the way between you and the cave! Its carapace is so huge it looks like it's made of rocks, and its green pincers dart out swiftly as it makes for some pugilistics. Seems like it was resting there and we've gone and woken it up! It charges forward in a zigzag motion, churning up the mud as it goes!

Well, thankfully Astra's is on the light side but she's not the most-coordinated person either though. She manages not to sink at least though. At least's she's managed to cool off but she's clearly a bit tired from all the travelling. "I'm guessing the crab wasn't here either before." Vanileth certainly didn't want to make this easy. She does her best to avoid getting pincered as she removes a hammer from her toolkit, she's not able to swing it with much force but hopefully at least would dissuade the crab from coming at her.

"No worries about mud!" says Emilybike. "It'll just brush off the next time I change shape, I can just OH COME ON!" She laughs out loud, and once again starts firing bolts at the monster. Seems shapeshifting into a vehicle doesn't get in the way of that particular attack. "See if I had a higher capacity I'd suggest just buzzing off, but I don't think I could even make a useful speed with just three riders ..." Another volley of bolts goes out. "... Can anyone find a weak spot? Like, anything that looks like if you hit it you'll do massive damage?"

    That's one less problem to deal with. Vanileth lands with the others, but the relief is short-lived. It isn't very far before there's another problem. "Definitely not here the last time!" he calls out, wings lifting him high again. "We have to make it through! It's behind the waterfall, just topple the crab creature and that should be it!" Should.

    He's beginning to wonder.

    As the creature crashes down, Raylene pauses. Taking a deep breath, there's a strange haze in the air as the Horror absorbs the essence of the creature. Sadly this does not help Raylene, who hisses softly at the injury to her arm. She sprinkles a potion on it, but it was meant to ease sunburn, not the more severe burn here.

    So it is with her arm in a sling that Raylene follows the others. It's with Emily's words that she grimaces and takes a look with her supernatural sight. "I can try." Of course if there's no supernatural weakness, this won't matter, but it does keep her busy while the Horror regroups.

Plink! Astra's drill does about 3HP damage to the crab, but it does succeed in giving it pause for a moment at least, which should confuse it if nothing else.

    With Raylene recuperating it seems as if they might have to deal with this without the Horror's help, so Lotus decides it's time to bring out the big guns. No more basic mundane weapons; she's going right for the Diamagnetic Supercollider Drill.

    A massive orichalcum drill activates in her right arm, housed in a revolving shaft of magnetized steel, reinforced with bands of adamant. Now activated, the augmented limb collapses and retracts as the drill bursts outward, driven by the centrifugal force of the supercollider. 

    Lotus swings out as Emily swerves, and leaps onto the back of the crab as it begins to teeter backwards and forwards. 

    "Alright, you wanted a weakness guys; well you're gonna get one!" she shouts.

    And then she brings the drill down decisively against the creature's rock carapace, creating a screeching sound as it shrieks against the armor of the crab, tough stone armor that has been able to withstand even nanoprobes and has brought the creature this far to this dangerous conflict. It lies as the sole guardian remaining between us and the Kaguyahime, so fight on! Give it everything you've got!

    The carapace is cracked, and what's good against stone? Wind! Vanileth can do something! Even weakened, he still has wind power, and with a dive down he is working on mustering that power. "Poor creature without wings. So... slow."

    Arms scythe down, sending two wind blades down to widen the gap, and cut into the crabmeat that would likely be delicious if they threw it into the steam vents they passed.

>> SUMMARY[Vanileth] >> Mmm, steamed crab...

Astra's not here to fight, but she brings the hammer down on the crab repeatedly. Maybe she can chip a few pieces off at least? She's clearly exhausted at this point from the trip but she's not leaving without the airship. She can always sleep later.

Against all logic, the hoverbike seems to flinch from the sound of the screech of Iron Lotus's drill. "Son of a -- yeah okay."

The bike leaps upward, and transforms back into Emily in the form of ... a color-swap of Iron Lotus, except twice as old, and with four arms. "Here, why don't we do this together!" she says in the same voice she always has, materializing a similarly-sized drill. Which she then starts drilling in right next to Lotus's drill -- basically allowing them to do damage together.

>> SUMMARY[Emily Nyx] >> Two drills are better than one. Also two Iron Lotuses, apparently.

    The Horror might be out of commission for now... actually just not in a good position to melee, the creature's health seems fine. Either way it is up to Raylene. She sighs, lifting her hand and backing away. "Baleful eye, cast your gaze upon this fell creature, turn its victim's loss into a manifest action!"

    Fingers tighten, and a murky swirl of darkness coalesces around her fist... mirrored by a large funnelling of hazy darkness swirling down toward the crab's cracked carapace. Raylene winces, drawing upon some of her deeper lore... and pulling all the spirits of those who died in this area into alignment briefly. Rage, pain, loss, it all becomes a moment of focus, altering probability and suddenly narrowing possibilities, discarding good outcomes for the crab and favoring bad ones in an intense rejection of fortune.

    "Dark Fate Manifest," she whispers, completing her spell and sharply, if briefly, leeching the luck from the crab to inflict misfortune.

>> GAME >> Raylene Dunwich spends an Edge for: Inflict bad luck

    Luke seems more at ease at the thought of fighting a gigantic crab than he was on having to handle the dessert, or the volcanic thing!. Agni decided to wait out the water area, mostly becuase for a big fire type, it seemed not a big fan of mud!. And thus, we have Bewear once again happily waddling through the muddy water, carrying Luke closer, placing the boy down on a safe spot, and quickly charging at the enemy monster. 

     The pink and black pokemon seems eager to battle this thing!. "Let's finish this thing in one attack!", "Bewear, Swords Dance, then Giga Impact!". The bear nods, a bright red aura building around it, oddly, what looks like a couple of swords spin around it for a moment, before they fade, a faint red glow still surrounding the pink and black pokemon. It charges with quite a lot of speed, jumping and pulling it's paw back, bright silver energy gathering on it's 'fist', as the bear roars squeakily and brings down that paw in a single punch with all it's considerable strength focused into it, a loud, resounding hit for sure, at the very least enough to smash the crab down to the ground, and crack the shell somewhat, and that was before the drilling damaged it.

>> GAME >> Luke Gray spends an Edge for: Bewear using Giga impact on a giant creature after buffing itself with swords dance.

Astra contributes! With her and Lotus whacking and cracking at the giant crab it creates a crackling hole in its armor, and then Emily adds even more drills into the big ol' mix to crack the crab's shell wide open. Now that there's a weakness Vanileth can target down with his wing blades to do even further damage and send splinters flying off of the big old thing. It's definitely wounded now.

    Lotus grabs Astra because she's honestly worried the young girl is too close, and tries to get her a distance away, insisting "Stay behind me."

    The giant crab tries to execute an attack- it starts casting magic, more specifically, creating a bevy of water-magic-charged explosive bubbles which it prepares to litter the field with. However, because of Raylene doing her best to inflict bad luck on it, instead it starts to choke on the muddy water instead and several of the bubbles burst prematurely, meaning that the attack power of the overall thing is reduced by half. Less bubbles to dodge!

    You're going to have to get some of them out of the way but once you do there's nothing standing between Luke's Bewear and the giant enemy crab. 

    It's currently befuddled, not entirely sure how to parse the idea of 'being unlucky' in its crustacean brain, but it has no time to think as Bewear hammers down on the wea spot, completely shattering the shell and leaving the crab a spindly shadow of its former self. Completely humiliated by being nudified, it scurries away downriver and disappears from view.

    You can now make your way inside of the cave.

    https://preview.redd.it/ph17ds25kr901.jpg?width=960&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=a88b9c687831582a968d046477e3d479248bf3cb

    The inside of the cave is certainly voluminous, and even looks as if it was populated by more than one set of people- there are some ruined ships inside which may have belonged to riverfaring merchants or even pirates, perhaps. Just as Lotus seemed to have predicted there are indeed cascades of dust coming in from down below, although they seem to mostly have just filled up the ground and don't seem to have swallowed up the ships yet. Right in the back, there's even a couple of trees which are growing fresh green leaves, so it seems as if even in this devastation there are still some places where the nanoprobes haven't managed to destroy.

    However, the true treasure is up ahead.

        https://i.imgur.com/rGTi3qQ.png

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5STyU2Hn_E
        Pillars of Creation - Flashygoodness
        Tower of Heaven - 2009

    Floating before you and remarkably devoid of damage is Astra's dream and Vanileth's promise, the platinum flying airship Kaguyahime, seemingly undamaged and as beautiful as it ever was. It floats in the air ready to be boarded, with huge flowing wings at the back, several oars or weapons at each side, a voluminous sail and golden star decorations.

    "We've found it!" Lotus shouts. "We made it! Woohoo!"

Emily laughs out loud as the sudden nudified crab skitters off. She almost bends over double with laughter, two hands on her knees and two others on her head. Nice!" she says. "Great job there, everyone!"

When the ship is in sight, she taps her chin thoughtfully, hands on her hips as she floats towards the ship. "Looks like mission accomplished!" she satys. "Looks like a mighty fine ship there, too!"

Her gaze flits to Astra for a second. "... Also, important question, Valineth, does it have living quarters? Some of us are mortals who need to rest from time to time. I mean, not me obviously, but, uh, yeah."

"Wow, it's amazing!" Astra's eyes light up as they approach the airship. "Can I really fly it though? It's much different than a toy plane." The last time she stepped on an airship it crashed after all. She hugs both Lotus and Vanileth. "I couldn't got here without everyone's help! Thank you! Yes, I could certainly use a break." It might be best for her to take it easy for a bit before she tries to pilot it.

    That was quite a finish. Vanileth has to dodge a bubble, and when he lands looks a bit bedraggled showing he wasn't entirely capable of doing that. Still able to walk though! "Well, this should be in good hands."

    And finally, the ship! Vanileth sweeps a hand outward. "There, you see? Lovely, isn't she?" He laughs, stepping aside now that his task is done for now. He looks at Astra. "All she needs... is a worthy pilot."

Lotus smiles, and helps Astra climb on board the ship. "Let's find the helm! I'm sure you'll be able to adapt to it quick enough, these kind of things usually have user interfaces and things like that to help, right?"

    She could use a rest herself, but she wants to explore the ship first. She smiles and runs towards the bow of the ship. No, she's not the king of the world, but she runs up there and points dramatically to the outside world beyond the waterfall.

    "Let's go! Riding towards the blue sky!"

    This time Raylene wasn't injured again, but mostly because she stayed out of the way. Good thing, too, with the mudbubbles flung about. She brings up the rear as the group files in, and... yes, lifts an eyebrow. "Not technology I'm familiar with..."

    This would normally be when she whips out a smartphone, but those aren't commonplace in her world yet. Instead, she pulls out a film camera, snapping a picture and winding the reel before tucking it away again.