Session Start: Sat Apr 12 17:29:31 2008 Session Ident: #castlevania [The party is cleaning itself up after the battle against the strange two-faced beast.] [Amarette examines the corpse closely.] What the heck is this thing? I'm not sure I want to know. Amarette: "This is not a naturally occurring creature. It's been stitched together via shadow magic. But how?" It's not every day you meet a monster with a deadly screech that can shoot acid blood from its eyes. * Nyyx shrugs. "That's about all I could gather, too." That acid blood was quite the trick, wasn't it? I wasn't expecting that one, either. I don't think I've ever had something bleed at me violently. * Nyyx addresses Amarette. "You've never encountered such a thing?" * Nyyx checks her hat for damage from the acid. Amarette: "Never." You gonna take a sample or somethign? I can, if you think it'd be helpful. Amarette: "I haven't any need to, no. Although it looks like it came from the south anyway. I'm sure we'll see more." * Nyyx smirks. "I'm sure. Skip, somehow I think this isn't going to be the jungle you remember." Oh that's just lovely. I wonder how they react to illusions. If they're distractable, that's a definite plus. You think we'll run into more of these? It's inevitable. I definitely don't want to fight any more of them. So we'll see them all the time. Aw That's a rather cynical view, but I can't say I'd argue with you here. Skip, do you recognize any of the animals this thing is made of? * Skip somewhat hesitantly gets a closer look at the corpse. * Nyyx stands by Skip as he examines. "I don't envy you if you come from a place where creatures spit acid out their eyes." * Nyyx rubs idly at the huge bruise across her jaw and winces. "That thing hits hard, too." You going to be alright? I did a little bit of healing. All I -can- do, really. * Nyyx nods. "I'll live." That's good * Skip notices something in the mess, leans in close to examine it, then stands up and shakes his head. "It's....human. A man, actually." I call bullshit. * Nyyx eyes the corpse suspiciously. "Doesn't look like one to me. By the way, the head's off over there in the trees, if you need it." * Skip points to strange bits near the chest, "But those parts seem to be some sort of dog. It doesn't really make sense, but it almost seems like a man in monster clothes, or something. It is extremely unnatural." Like a werewolf? That's kind of dog- and man-like. I hope not. I categorically refuse to become even half dog. * Nyyx laughs. "Same here." Yes, like a were-creature. It resembles the werecats I used to encounter; I didn't deal with wolves until my exile. I've got a bunch of silver arrows, if that'll help * Nyyx nods. We should probably be on our way, if we've learned all we can from this thing. * Skip nods. "It isn't good to linger with things like this around." Yeah. * Nyyx starts walking. What say next time we meet one of these things, we see about avoiding it? * Skip leads the way south, south, south. * Biff hops back up on Nyyx's shoulders. * Charlotte follows along! Oh. that reminds me. Sure. Hm? I need to give you guys a safe word. Okay. What for? I'm an illusionist. A lot of the time, you're gonna want to know when I'm dropping an illusion and when I'm dropping something you need to stay away from. Safe word's to let you know without letting the enemy know. Ah, yes. Good thinking. ooh So you tell me, what will you guys remember is the cue for me casting an illusion? * Nyyx shrugs. "Whatever word you pick, as long as it's not too common, should be all right." Sun for the Sun God? ...what? I dunno. How about "Charlotte is a ditz."? That'll work well. It'll never come up in normal conversation. * Nyyx laughs. "If that's fine with Charlotte, it's fine with me." Works for me. And you said we had no sense of humor. [The party continues onward and evening falls.] [The party travels for another week. One morning, Charlotte comes back from scouting. There is a beast lumbering near a small brook up ahead.] [Charlotte describes the creatures ape-like features and feral gleam. Such a creature should not be in these woods and is likely to attack on site.] I'm gonna try playing with it for a bit. See how it reacts to illusions. * Nyyx nods. "Be my guest." * Biff disappears into the foliage. Alright. Careful now. * Nyyx stays behind, since her armor's bound to make too much noise. She takes the time to watch her mutated shadow, instead. * Biff creeps forward until he's within sight of the ape-thing. [The creature is hunched and still stands about seven feet tall. It is a mass of ropey muscle covered in black matted hair. If you look closely, a weak sickly green aura seems to drift along its body.] * Biff makes some silent motions from his hiding place, and a large hunting cat slinks slinks out of the shadows onto a tree branch above the monster. * Biff makes the hunting cat growl softly, giving warning to the monster for just a moment, and then the cat pounces. [The beast turns at the growl and takes the cat full in the face.] * The cat lands just short of the beast and yowls angrily. [The beast roars and charges the cat.] * Nyyx listens alertly for trouble and stands with her sword at her side. * Charlotte gets her bow ready [The beast's fist carries it through the cat and drives up dust.] [The creature stands and stares at the space the cat occupies.] * Nyyx takes some steps forward, relying on the noise to cover the sound of her footsteps. * Biff waves a paw and has the cat yowl in fear and run off into the underbrush, clearly disturbing the leaves as it goes. * Charlotte quietly readies her bow [The beast starts to chase the cat and then stops short. It stands still for a long moment.] * Biff stays absolutely silent and still, trusting to the fragrant surroundings to disguise his scent. [The creature begins to lumber off.] * Biff holds his breath and begins makiing his way slowly back to the rest of the party. * Biff whistles softly as he comes out of the foliage near Nyyx. That thing looks... formidible. real heavy hitter. Don't know if it's got a secondary attack, it figured out the illusion on the first swing. And it looked like it might hit harder than that wolf thing. What happened back there? Sounds tricky... * Nyyx puts her weapon away. What is it even doing out here? Either it saw through the illusion or it's not the sort to chase prey. It's not just a regular part of the ecosystem, is it? Probably another mishmash, like the last one. It had some sort of greenish aura, too. Hm. I expect that it'll just get worse as we get closer to the jungle. Things have gotten a lot worse since I left. How're you feeling? Who, me? Yeah * Nyyx shrugs. "Fine, so far. Why?" It's up to you if you wanna try to kill this thing. It's the sort of thing that bears killing, but there's no telling how big a beating it'll give us in return. Well, your shadow's been sort of a mess for a while. Just making sure it doesn't have any other weird effects I'd like to kill it, but... are you up for it? We're going to have to do this intelligently, take it by surprise if we can. * Nyyx nods. "Skip, Charlotte, you two up for an ambush?" I think so. As long as there are plenty of shadows and trees. Defintely. All right. Let's see if we can handle this. If not, we might have trouble once we reach our destination, anyway. Fine. How about you guys set up an ambush, and I'll lure it? Sounds good. * Nyyx nods. [END OF SESSION.] Session Close: Sat Apr 12 21:18:25 2008