World Tree MUSH

    About three days west of Kaipo, past the ruins of Mist and dangerously close to the territoris of Baron is a small sea-side town by the name of Ocean's Breeze, aptly named for the salty scent on the air as people approach. Normally Rydia wouldn't be so concerned with places that are too close to Baron, but it's just on the edge of the territory and the people there don't consider themselves to be part of Baron Kingdom. Plus the issue at hand seems to have caught her attention enough that she's put out a call for some aid.
    "Alright, we're coming on the town now. I spoke with the elder already and they're willing to pay to have cause of this... Curse lifted, so if you're here for the pay you're not going unrewarded. Otherwise, you can have whatever spoils we get off whatever is doing this."
    'This' becomes heavily apparent as soon as people enter the town. Several stone statues dot the road pas tthe village outskirts. They're frighteningly lifelike. A man, a woman, a young boy. All of them with looks of terror etched on their faces.
    "... Yeah those aren't statues." Rydia says matter of factly.

    Statues? Curses? Terra knows little enough about such things, though the lifelike nature of the things along the road is eerie enough that she edges closer to Rydia. Likely as much for her comfort as she might offer to the smaller green haired terror.

    "... What are they?" If not statues, she can hardly venture much of a guess. The imagination can run wild and she might never actually guess that they're people! Maybe. Still, she keeps her head up and eyes darting around. Something seems wrong and it bothers a part of her that she's really yet to acknowledge.

    Then something else occurs. "What should we do?"

    Uni travels with Rydia, looking unarmed for the time being. She's wearing her usual black dress, since it'll blend into the darkling light better. "I've heard of monsters that can do this. Basilisks and Gorgons and stuff... think that's the same thing going on here?" she asks, glancing at the young summoner. She then glances at her shoulder, where her shinki is currently perched. "Topside, area scan, look for heat signatures, but try not to look anything in the eye. Okay?" she says.

    Bravette salutes, adjusts her helmet then stands up, jumping off of Uni's shoulder while her jetpack lights up and she takes off skywards, climbing to hover a good fifteen feet up to start looking around, visor glowing faintly as it activates the thermal and infrared sensors.

While outwardly Sonia's been mostly silent on the trip over, only asking and confirming some of the details--like how long it's been going on, what's been seen, etc, it's when they actually arrive at the town itself to see the results that the cloaked figure moves over to some of the aforementioned. A faint hnnh from her, "Not that they were taken unaware. Terror writ large upon them." she observes, her gaze moving from man, to woman, to child. "Given where we are..." She turns her gaze upwards and to the side. "Couple of different possibilities to consider, but need more information." 

She exhales slowly, tugging open her cloak a little and moving her hand to rest on her waist, mostly by the whip she wields. "Straight out of the bestiary is one behavior, and that's the looks on their faces... some simply turn into stone without giving them a chance. Others turn them to stone to feast on their terror." 

She does incline her head briefly towards Terra as she asks. "One way to remove it is through killing whatever's responsible, or trying to break the curse if it's not of beastly origin. Cockatrice, Cyclops, Catoblepas come to mind... though preferably not the third," she murmurs, before extending her free, if gauntleted hand towards the man statue, closing her eyes as she concentrates for a moment to see what she /can/ sense--namely, the nature of what cursed him, and whether he still 'lives' as it were. 

    "An infestation of Basilisks? Witch, prehaps? There was this witch in my homeland, Anna Greenpaw I believe... she went a bit crazy after the death of her husband and started to turning things into jade statues. Animals, objects... other Pandaren. Though... I might have something to help if it is a basilisk." Rou-ri began to dig around one of his bags, going awfully deep with his arm - far deeper than the bag was before pulling out a large, glowing two-handed sword. It looked much like a normal sword, except there was a chromatic enchantment of sorts on it that made it look rather gawdy. "I pulled this thing out of a large Basilisk many, many years ago. Always wondered why it was in the Basilisk. Maybe it has anti-basilisk properties?"

    Rou-ri himself was in his standard armor, pink-tinted goggles already down.

Serrah is here for a completely different reason: hiding from Vincent! She's dressed in a black dress which more-or-less looks like the local garb, although this wouldn't actually fool Vincent. She's heard about the local "problem", of course, but she's filed that away under Somebody Else's Problem.(tm) Or at least, it was Somebody Else's Problem right up until she chanced upon Rydia and the gathering group.

She sighs. "I guess I'll help out in whatever way I can," she says. She grins weakly to Rydia (still unaware that her fangs might make a grin look creepy). "I mean. If nothin' else, I owe you won for the other day. Thanks a million, by the way, that was great."

She shrugs as the talk turns to the curse. "There's a bunch of different causes where I'm from," she says. "Belmont and, uh, panda-guy named pretty much all of 'em. Of course, all of 'em have different contradictory cures, too, soooo ..." She shrugs theatrically.

    "I don't know what it is. It could by anything from a basilisk to gorgon. Maybe even a cockatrice." Rydia can't confirm any speculation as she lingers by one of the statues. "But the usual deal with cases like this is if you kill the cause of the curse, the curse dies with it." Rydia confirms Sonia's assessment, as she checks the whip coiled at her belt. "I won't be joining for this one, Cecil and Zelda would kill me. I'll be waiting at the ege of town, so this is on all of you. Try not to get petrified, I'd hate to have that on my conscience."
    She says just as Serrah comes rolling up. "--You." She obviously remembers her. But the girl rubs at the back of her neck. "Well if you're gonna help I can't stop you." She says tugging at the reins of her chocobo. I'll be back by morning to make sure you're all not dead, otherwise you can find me back at camp." She says as the mist and fog roll in. And it's not her mist.
    The town is eerily silent. What would normally be a bustling seaside town of several hundred people is as quiet as the stone 'statues' that dot the streets. Because there are more petrification victims out in the open, and window shutters slam shut as the group passes.
    Bravette will find that most heat signatures are people huddling in terror in their homes, unwilling to come out, right now.

    Rou-ri refrained from saying 'That is good' regarding Rydia not staying there, before pausing and asking, "Should one of us maybe stay with you at the camp?" It was a rhetorical question, largely, assuming she would insist on being fine either way. Most young adventurer types did tend to insist such. But the Pandaren didn't push the issue, instead just holding onto the sword lightly with one hand. While it was a two-handed sword for any normal sized human, he was a large fellow and it was more of a one-handed weapon for him. A long one, but a one-handed weapon. "Let us hope we can find a better solution than just... killing the source, if it isn't a monster. Though given their faces..." he looked down and realized that was a bit of a dumb statement to make on his part. They were clearly afraid for their lives when it happened, so whatever it was likely wasn't going to be reasonable.

    "Wonder if we can draw it out with meat, or lights or sound or something. Opinions? I do have some raw meat on me. Cooking something perhaps."

With Serrah there, one might feel a slight--very slight--prickling of the air itself. It's not necessarily /explicitly/ antagonistic, but the thing is, one has to remember that Serrah, regardless of conditions, is a vampire. And Sonia is quite literally the antithesis. So the great predatory air that is ever present with her could be unmistakably felt making things just a touch more tense, at least for a moment. Maybe that's why she'd been silent most of the way, to keep that side of her as relatively 'tamped down' as it can be. Which isn't that she can, really... 

Alas, poor Serrah. Even if she is a wee thing, she still gets to trigger the full Belmont.

Which is better than the Full Monty, we assure you. Somehow. Probably. 

"Were it not to actually cure them, I may be able to do something for them, but until the cause is dealt with, spending time on them would do little with the threat remaining." she remarks. With the mist and fog rolling in, Sonia adjusts her senses a little; better able to pick up on what Bravette herself is getting, due to her own spiritual senses. "Regardless, it is as others have said--so good that others know--but be cautious about your gaze. And further still, be aware that some types don't use their eyes, but their breath or even beams of light from their eye that care not for meeting your gaze. Troublesome, I know." Exhaling slightly, she regards ... the panda-guy? Briefly, as though to take stock of the Pandaren before musing aloud, "We do need some more information, and while the people here are undoubtedly scared, we should see what they know." 

    Terra seems conflicted! While she'd like very much to remain near Rydia and keep her in a protective bubble, the fairly independent young greenhair is set to actually be reasonable and stay out of harms way. Well, in that case. She hops down from her mount, handing over the reins to send the bird back out of harm's way as well. Mentioning Zelda and Cecil's ire gets a nod and a small affirmative note from the half-esper.

    Serrah gets a look, curious more than anything. Rydia seems to know so many people! She chuffs at herself in mild annoyance and tries to pay attention to the speculation. Which doesn't help, as names without context just makes her wonder.

    She continues on, not trying to meander far ahead of the group but to at least let her eyes fall on something less awful than the sight of people frozen in terror. Easier said, though, as the entire village seems deserted. Until a slamming shutter makes her startle and shriek. Were she a more aggressive sort, she might have slung fire! Instead, she sinks to her knees, glad the end isn't upon them all!

    Uni nods to Rydia, then summons a weapon into her hands, it materializing from a few white pixels that resolve into a compact sub-machine gun... similar in design to a P90. She also manifests a pair of tinted goggles that light up with tactical data, and a headset which she tunes to her Shinki.

    Bravette radios down. "No hostiles... all signatures are just the townsfolk. They're terrified of whatever is doing this."

    Uni nods. "That's to be expected... we should stay together, keep eyes open and watch each other's backs." she says, frowning a bit as the mist rolls in, and blankets the darkened town in even worse visibility. "If need be, I'll use my Divinity Driver, but I'd rather keep my Share Energy for emergencies." she comments, though not many people here would likely even understand what the young looking CPU Candidate even means.

Serrah frowns, and takes a step back from Rydia. "I was there against my will!" she protests. "I literally couldn't resist that scepter's ..." She looks to Sonia. "Vincent had me attack a village, and Greenie over there KO'd him ... ugh FINE." She looks like she's about to storm off in a huff, but she just sort of ... recoils slightly from Sonia's Menacing Aura(tm) and deflates somewhat with a sigh.

She looks over at Ruri. "I could ... actually never mind, I don't think I can handle that kind of thing." Her gaze shifts to Uni. "Uh. Sticking together sounds like a good idea," she says flatly. "Just watch where you point things with 'Divinity' in the ..." She furrows her brow at Terra's sudden shriek. "... name."

    The moon must be blue. Rydia is willing to hang back for once. Though she's clearly hesitant. "I'll be fine. I'll have Whyt with me." The last Summoner replies to Rou-ri as the mist lingering around her swirls in afffirmative silence. "Fine, I get it, you weren't you at the time, or something." She asides to Serrah before tightening her hold on the reins. She lingers back at first before turning her bird around and begins her trek back to camp to wait for good word later, eventually disappearing down the bend in the road.
    This leaves Terra, Serrah, Sonia, Rou-ri, and Uni alone in a creepy, stone silent, seaside town. Boots click audibly on the cobbles with every step the group takes and they seem to echo for forever, masking the sounds of any approach that could be happening.
    A brave soul cracks open another window shutter to spy the group. "Oi, you lot shouldn't be out. There's something in the mists." He hisses before closing his window as well.
    That's when it hits. The sudden assault on the senses from out of nowhere on a passing wind. It's not the scent of the sea anymore but the acrid, choking, smell of rotting fish that suddenly overcomes the senses. ... And the wet sound of something slurping from an alley between houses.

    Hearing one of the brave adventurers of his party... shriek caused Rou-ri to pause and look towards Terra with a bit of a concerned manner. Though he didn't try to coddle the woman, and instead thrust his sword between the cobbles into the ground and reached in his bag, pulling out a small box of wood as he walked over towards Terra to try and help her up if she still needed it. "Not sure what you were worried about, but if you want, you can keep hold of this?" It was only about a foot in length and light, few pounds. "See this clasp here? If you flick the clasp and drop it, it will give you a chance to get away from whatever comes at you."

    One of his various engineering devices he had that was on the simpler end of things.

    Though once Terra was secured he began to walk along with the group again. He didn't really know anyone else outside of Rydia and Terra here anyways, so there was no attempt at conversational things. But there was a warning, and the mist. "...Kvaldir? Surely not. Be careful, Kvaldir are undead entities tied with the netherworld, they stay in the mist and tend to smell of rotting fish and seaweed. Giants by most standards, though they don't... typically deal in petrification."

A quick look from Sonia at Terra's direction--solely owing to the shriek--before her gaze softens slightly. "Be calm." she remarks crisply. "You would do better than to not fall here on your knees..." Her eyes narrow suddenly, given the... /thing/ she senses, she feels nearby. "Seems as though bait isn't needed," she dryly remarks, as Rou-ri looks to help her up--not to mention remarking on a few things she wouldn't mind putting to notes later. Kvaldir? Must ask later. Types of undead and giants and the like, and other ways other worlds see the undead and their ilk. "The notion that what we're dealing with feeds on fear is becoming a stronger candidate," she mutters softly, before thrusting both hands out towards the mist--and with a rotating gesture, two fingers on each hand extended, she closes her eyes as she murmurs softly; an incantation, no doubt, altering the nature of the fire she wields, bringing armored hands close, then sweeping forward. 

What comes from it is not an attack, not a typical one, but something to prod at the mist, as it were--a mixture of what mist and fog would not deal with: heated air, to evaporate and clear it out, along with just a bit of magical force behind it, a kind of broad counterspell to dismantle most (but not all) magic along that same mist. 

"Be it in the mist or not..." she mutters, "I would not have it aid this unseen foe." 

>> SUMMARY[Sonia Belmont] >> Applying science with a magical solution, that is heat vs. mist, unless her player sucks at remembering physics.

    Uni looks at Serrah. "It's not a weapon, persay, just---" her thought is cut short as the brave townsman warns the group, and then the sudden stench of rotting fish assaults her. She sweeps her gun up, scanning the direction the sound came from. "Skyhook, sit-rep. What do you see?" she radios to her Shinki.

    Bravette has her own weapon trained on the alleyway. "Negative contact... whatever it is, doesn't have a heat signiture. Stay alert."

    Terra may as well have been wondering about a blue moon and what that might mean, as caught off guard by the shutters banging as she was! The warning is heard, though she's now a bit grimier for her trouble. Not as brave as she'd like to be, for sure. She stands, accepting the offered help and dipping her head again in silent thanks before murmuring out, "Sorry." Between the creepy series of 'frozen' not-statues, the overall vibe of the place and that sudden warning from one of the nearby homes, she's a bit tense!

    The offered device gets a look, of course, though in the midst of that hurried explanation she gasps at that sudden, overpowering reek sees her clapping a hand over her mouth and nose. "Mnf!" Her free hand drops to her belted sword and she scans about with her eyes until the awful wet noises get close enough that a direction can be discerned. Now, the vibe of the place has her skin absolutely crawling! It's awful! Sonia's magic helps, at least!

Serrah ... sulks for a moment. She looks uncertainly at Rydia when she mentions Whyt, who she wasn't there for, but otherwise doesn't look at her. Oh, good, that other green-haired girl is being tended to by panda-guy.

She shrugs at Uni. "I meant even if it's attack or whatever, it's just that I'm kind of really weak against --" She tenses up at the smell. "Hoooo boy," she says. "... I have no idea what that smell is. Uh." She steps back from Sonia as she does her thing, and then suddenly melts into what seems to be a puddle of shadow, which starts flowing over towards the source ...

... and then suddenly, before she's gone more than a few feet, she reforms and stands up, backing over to the group. "Actually, how about I not turn into shadow and get all sneaky when there's a risk of friendly fire from a vampire hunter," she mutters to herself.

    Terra's scream echoes into the night; carrying for quite a distance. A sign of vulnerability in the gloom that... Calls out to something.
    They don't show up on Bravette's thermal scans, being too cold and damp to show up a little more than black splotches among the cold black gloom of the sea-water damp streets.
    Those slurping sounds only grow closer until the sources make themselves visible. Larger than a man, wider too, covered in ichorous black scales pitted with rot and covered in long dead seaweed like cloaks. The creatures walk on two legs-- that is to say they move on two legs, with two long lanky arms hanging at their sides as they move with a staggering gait as though unused to walking on land with their webbed feet. But what is deadly apparent is the single gleaming eye in both the cyclopean fish men's heads as they swerve their gaze left and right, trying to lock eyes with whomever they encounter. At least the mists are cleared, courtesy of Sonia. Being a normal, natural mist rather than a supernatural one, it's easy to dispel as the merdusas try to petrify anyone they see.

    Bravette stops looking for glowing heat, and instead looks for 'holes' in the heat map... it's hard to make out, but she does tentatively mark the moving shapes for her Master's HUD. "Contact!" she warns, opening fire with her Gattling Cannon, spraying fletchette ammo at the Pelagic horrors.

    Uni keeps her eyes low, focussing on the torso of the monster instead of the face. A difficult proposition for most. She does open fire as she moves to cover, ducking behind a building and spraying SMG fire in short bursts into the same target her Shinki is peppering.

    "...that better not be a damned Murloc." Rou-ri says aloud before realizing that, no, it's not. He reached into his satchels and grabbed another of those boxes before saying, "Let me try something." to the rest of the group. He took it, flicked the clasp and threw the box in an arc into the air. While it was in the air, he grabbed his sword from nearby and leapt up atop the closest house with a strong bound and it would fall somewhat near the creatures before exploding with a plume of smoke and instigation. Sound effects, electricity... a wooden target dummy popped out swinging back and forth menacingly ready to be attacked by the monsters.

    As Rou-ri watched from above, though, others were seemingly also ready to just open fire. "I had HOPED to find out their method of petrification, but killing them might work too." he grumbled down towards the gun-firing woman.

>> SUMMARY[Rou-ri Arrowpaw] >> Target dummy to distract and possibly be petrified(Engineering)

Serrah sees movement out of the corner of her eye, turns, nearly meets eyes with one of the merdusas, and jerks her head away. "Whoops, wow," she mutters. There's a swirl of shadow, and she's suddenly wearing a black T-shirt, a baseball cap, a plaid skort, and a bag slung around her waist which looks like it was hidden under the skirts of the dress she had on before and which appears to be stuffed with baseballs.

"They're trying to get us to meet their gaze!" she snaps back at Rou-ri. "That's tells us a bunch about how they work!" Perhaps she's misunderstood what he meant? "But yeah." She dramatically pulls the baseball cap down over her eyes. "Let's see how these bastards feel ..." She draws out a few baseballs. "... about SERRAH NO SEKAI!" (Japanese for "Serrah's World.") And then suddenly --

(Sonia sees a ripple of light emanate from Serrah and the world turns purple as time stops, and Serrah rises off the ground, glides to the side, and hurls two baseballs at each of the visible merdusas. And then she sinks back down to the ground and groans and facepalms.)

-- she's several feet off to one side and facepalming, and the baseballs she was holding are in midair and flying at the monsters at a hundred miles per hour. The transition is as abrupt as if a proverbial video had skipped ahead. "I'm sorry, that was a terrible name for my time-stop, wasn't it?" she says, no longer paying as much attention to the monsters. "Fuck, I need to do better."

It's tempting to stare; to take a proper accounting of what the hell it actually is they're dealing with. "Least that wasn't imbued mist," Sonia murmurs before she spins on a heel--why, one might ask, is to make her cloak quickly spread to give some impromptu cover as she pulls it from her shoulders. "Tch... those eyes are definitely the source, the darkness of the curses radiating from them are making my skin crawl." Which goes to say that the method is probably more directed than anything else, at least in her mind. 

Then again, with what she felt--and saw--out of Serrah, there's something /else/ making her skin crawl, since she knows what she just felt there. "Be cautious! There's probably more!" A high degree of spatial awareness and that physical sense of feeling where something is as much as it is scant glances to rule out where it isn't using that cloak, and then Sonia pivots, using the centrifugal force of that said pivot and rotation to guide the unfurled Vampire Killer out in one long, snapping strike that would make a viper downright envious. 

And even then, she doesn't really stop moving with her strokes, with the flutter of the her traveling cloak being used to shield the sight of her from the merdusa she's chosen to snap the whip at--several times more, mind, but!

    She'll have to apologize later. Again. Terra unwisely keeps her gaze out toward the encroaching sounds. The first identifiable flickers of movement, though, make the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. She lowers her hand from her face and dances back a step as Uni wades in, guns actually blazing.

    So, realizing she still doesn't care much for gunfire, she targets as many of the fugly creatures as she can, looking so carefully at where they're all standing that she accidentally avoids meeting a deadly gaze. She doesn't want to cause a fire, afterall! Then, also doing her best to be mindful of everyone- Even those folks jumping or skipping out of view- she conjures several bursts of flames to lick and flow over the small army of aquatic fiends.

    Though she could perhaps manage a bit more, let's say she's just a bit worried for everyone. The village. Perhaps even hurting the monsters too badly. Really, the flashes of flame may prove somewhat of a dazzling spectable more than an actual, respectable magic attack.

    Shinki and master unload on one of the merdusas, black blood spurting from wounds that pepper the scaled body as they shamble forward. But they are huge, burly, hardy creatures and it looks like gunfire alone will not be enough to fell the beasts as one lunges forward. They can be fast when they want to be, clearly, as one powerful arm swipes down, claws shattering the target dummy in a mighty blow, only for it to recoil as Serrah calls upon her Stand and-- wait wrong series-- as Serra launches a pair of baseballs at the beasts.
    The Vampire Killer cracks in the night as the hunter's whip rends gouges and tears scales. But these two beasts are behemoth, and the series of attacks have staggered them with the sound of cracking bones.
    Which is all well and good as a third slogs out from behind another house and attempts to batter uni and Sonia with powerful blows. It's for the best Sonia warned there could be more, after all.

    Uni learns from mistakes. The last time she stopped stationary, she got blind-sided by an ambush. So after firing at the first Murdusa, she breaks from cover, which gives her a bit of distance from the third monster coming from the buildings. "Contact! There's more of them!" she warns, summoning a grenade, and tossing it behind her as she flees from the monster. Instead of an explosion and shrapnel, this one detonates in a surge of lightning-level electricity for a brief moment.

    Bravette continues to pepper her first target, the barrels of her gattling cannon spinning and spitting out fletchette rounds in a constant stream... the weapon emitting a high pitched BRRRRRT-like sound.

    "Tch."

    Rou-ri was hoping they'd attack the dummy with petrification, be it just causing it to turn to stone, or seeing if it was a beam attack from the eyes, or somehow based upon their range of vision. But instead they just swung at it. But would killing these creatures really cause their victims to return to normal? Rou-ri paced on the top of the building as he tried to think about it. Monsters from his world typically didn't revolve around curses and such, it was curses that were broken when the caster perished. But there's probably no chance they would lose the opportunity to save the victims by killing them either.

    But he watched as they seemingly withstood the attacks for the most part, even with injuries. The chromatic anti-basilisk(at least it was in his mind) sword was put away and instead he wound up searching in his bags for something. After a bit he found the handles and pulled out a pair of weapons that those in the area - at least with magical senses or some way of detecting energy - would recognize was something unique. A pair of large swords that were crackling and swirling with energy, the Thunderfuries. It was really the first time he had pulled the weapons out since leaving Azeroth, outside of making sure they were still there after the Behemoth incident from so long back. The sky would darken slightly as clouds surrounded the area, thunder rumbled and a strong gust of wind blew towards him as he leapt up and down right on top of one of the beasts to try and pierce straight into the top of its' monstery head with the pair of blades.

>> GAME >> Rou-ri Arrowpaw spends an Edge for: Drawing out/using Thunderfuries

A grunt from Sonia as she twists around--somewhat too late, but enough to keep a blow from being particularly debilitating, but it isn't enough to keep it from hurting all the same. She pitches away, rolling from the blow and then spitting just a hint of blood from her lips in both annoyance and pain. A momentary temptation exists to do something to end this rapidly, but until they have a full headcount, she can't do that. Still, the suspicion and feeling they had more was enough. 

And behemoths they are, it's enough to make Sonia switch tactics up further, as while sometimes things can be /big/ their sturdiness varies. As these are sturdier, well... time to turn things up a notch. Which begins with keeping her target of focus on the new one, to avoid possible friendly fire. Speaking of, she yanks free a short sword from behind her, the blade being spun once in her hand before she simply /throws/ it at the ponderous beast. Presuming it either hits A) the merdusa or B) embedding itself in stone or wood of the building it's near? She'll keep running, lashing out with the whip to coil around the handle and pommel and yank herself up and forward to hit that house's side in a feat of parkour, uncurling the whip so she can, at the apex of her parkour run, leap back towards the merdusa.

And in a flurry of activity, rain down not just regular whiplashes, but something more--"O Divine Light, bring ruination upon mine enemy!" And the Vampire Killer becomes alight in a golden light, bringing forth not flame alone, but a baptismal, purifying blaze as she wreathes her approach with a rain of far more potent blows than she once did. 

>> SUMMARY[Sonia Belmont] >> Ow. Attempted parkour use to use holy flame-enhanced whip to come down on a merdusa >_<

    Well, being shy with fire magic really isn't getting much done! Terra lifts her gaze, spying the newest addition to the melee. She grips her sword with one hand, her eyes briefly flash and she calls out, "Please be careful!" The only warning she can manage as that newest beast aims to strike at the nice people she's accompanying!

    Her attack manifests as a deeply reddish bulb of fire that she sends out with all speed to strike the fetid beast on or about the legs. To slow the advance, direct the almost explosive release of fire mostly into the bulk of the beast and of course to avoid hitting Sonia in the midst of her retaliatory strike!

    That done, she switches gears, winding up a considerable does of purifying magical energy - probably enough for some people to sense it - in preparation for a decent healing spell. Not yet, she still has to wait a few moments!

>> SUMMARY[Terra Branford] >> Hurry up, ATB!

Serrah shakes her head, and rises off the ground. "Okay," she says. "Attempt number two OHGOD!" She recoils as Sonia starts raining a holy-elemental airstrike. No, she doesn't care that it wasn't aimed anywhere near her. She's a vampire, and she has a healthy terror of Light Power.

Instead, she glances around, her gaze firmly directed in the vicinity of the ground so as not to risk locking eyes with a merdusa, and glides sideways. Once again she has that sudden twitch and change of configuration --

(Once again, Sonia would see the time-stop.)

-- and then four baseballs are flying towards the head of ... well, whichever monster is the furthest away from the Sonia's assault.

And she whirls around to face Terra as she senses those magicks as well. "Watch it!" she says, her voice a high-pitched near-shriek.

>> SUMMARY[Serrah Delany] >> SUTOPPU ZA WARUDO!

    A taser grenade- seems to have a pronounced effect. The sudden electric impulse on a very wet, water-based monster?
    It's like a critical hit.
    The merdusa is fried, body jerking as high voltage runs through it, until it screeches, four baseballs slamming it in the skull, making that lone eye suddenly explode with a wet ~POP~ before it collpses to the ground.
    Then Rou-ri stops testing the creatures and draws his blades. But not just any blades, as the Thunderfuries are drawn, the very skies themselves rumbling almost reverently as the pandaren jams the blades into the beast's skull, making it collapse with a crumpling thud.
    Which just leaves the third. They don't seem to like fire, either as Terra unleashes a spell that staggers the beast, giving Sonia the opening she needs as she kicks off the nearby house and imbues the Vampire Killer with holy light.
    They don't seem to like Holy, either, made evident as the last of the visible merdusas are returned to ash.
    Across the town, several of the 'statues' begin to soften, regaining color to their features as stone begins to turn back into flesh.
    But the remaining statues that linger mean that this attack was not all of the merdusas... Just a small force of them.

"Tch...." Sonia shakes her head once--she can /sense/ temporal magics, feel it--but at the same time it's compressing that bit of knowledge and seeing that in one instant that's sometimes a little 'okay that makes me oogey' kind of sense to it. On the other hand, she gives Terra an appreciative look regarding her use of fire, though as the merdusas fall, she surveys not only Terra, but Uni, Serrah and Rou-ri in turn. 

...the people beginning to turn back is good, but not all the way good. "More still remain. This was just a small hunting party." she muses aloud, crouching down to briefly inspect the ash. Standing up, she murmurs a soft prayer, which coalesces into a crystalline dusting of ice around her as she sets her hand against her chest. A curative spell of her own, but one of ice elemental alignment, it seems.

"Good work, everyone. Check on the villagers, decide if you're coming along or staying here, but once we see to injuries, we'll need to track down the rest of the and put them down."

    The Pandaren leapt to the side at the sight of the fire flying his way, but realized it was aimed at the beasts rather than him so didn't say much. The blades in his hands continued to crackle with an almost oppressive level of energy, which fit as they housed an embodiment of the elements themselves. Even through his rubber-insulated, leather gloves, it was still causing him to carry them carefully. "Very well... I will scout the village to make sure no more of the things are lurking nearby. If I need help, well... you'll know." And with that, he leapt up to the rooftops again and started to do his search from above. In his mind, the beasts likely wouldn't be looking up for prey, so he would have the advantage there.

    Uni huffs a little, skidding to a step as she hears that wet pop of the eye exploding. "Well... the Arc grenade worked, good to know." She watches as the others are brought low as well, driven into the mud, as it were. She then watches some of the statues beginning to revert, but not all of them. "A trifling victory." she muses, dismissing her gun and summoning a can of some kind of beverage. "But a victory nonetheless."

    Bravette floats down and lands on Uni's shoulder again. "No further contacts... this may have been a scouting force. We could stay nearby and finish off the rest." she speculates to the group, tone stoic and unemotional.

    Beat, beat, Terra glances sharply to one side at Serrah's alarmed warning. She's not sure just /what/ that means but, deciding to observe all possible caution, she narrows the focus of her healing spell!

    By the time it's ready, she's surrounded by brilliantly twinkling motes of light that she casts out to the vampire hunter. While sparkly and bright, they're anything but terribly dazzling and they carry with them a fairly potent surge of healing energies. Perhaps a bit late, considering the deed is done for now. The worst is hopefully behind?

    She says nothing, simply standing and casting about with a worried look on her face. It can't be this simple, can it? Not really, right? Fret fret.

Serrah deflates with relief as Terra changes the focus of her spell. She sighs softly, nodding back to Sonia, Rou-ri, Uni. Yeah, there was pretty much no way it was going to be that simple, huh? "Yeah," she says. "I ... guess I'll be hanging around this group some more. I guess." She doesn't even seem to notice that she said 'I guess' twice.

And with that, she goes to pick up the baseballs she threw.

>> SUMMARY[Serrah Delany] >> <=TO BE CONTINUED=