Tiny Alexandrian Flags (Part 6)
The beast slams into the airship, its mass flowing over it, the wood warping further and groaning, strange shapes visible in the exterior of the advanced craft. No doubt the Alexadrians will not be thrilled with the loss of it, but you know, choices…
Walery is running for all he's worth, hightailing it out of there at best speed, boots tearing up turf as he scrambles madly for distance as he mentally counts down to the planned detonation.
Some people don't need to be told when fear is the better part of valor. Selerik is quick to beat a retreat, and something about the way he carries himself quickly away with exaggerated movements just encourages others to want to do the same. The fault of acting out one too many battles to his pupils, he plays the part of bravely running away quite well. "It was a nice ship but I'm no captain!"
Razen keeps himself between the chaos and his allies, running, but not quite as quickly as he possibly could have if he'd actually been afraid of it or the explosion. It's a hard line he won't give up.
"C'mon, c'mon, c'mon!" Halani shouts at some sailors who are too slow off the mark to get running... she hauls one who'd fallen up by his belt and nearly throws him from the deck in the direction everyone else is running, then she grabs another and starts dragging him away as well.
Merek also runs!
The good news is that most of the airship crew have escaped, of course... those that were not dead. The ones who needed evacuation were pulled out earlier, by your efforts and the efforts of others.
That's when the chaos beast finally rushes over the top all together, the airship seeming to groan, stretch, change. Almost ike it's coming to life... but whatever monstrous event was just aborted by the /massive/ explosion that lifts you all up off your feet and sends you flying as the mana engine and weaponry detonates, columns of white flame shooting into the sky.
Oof.
GAME: Razen rolls fortitude: (11)+8: 19 GAME: Walery rolls fortitude: (7)+7: 14 GAME: Selerik rolls fort: (19)+6: 25 GAME: Selerik casts Saving Finale. Caster Level: 10 DC: 17 GAME: Merek rolls fort: (3)+7: 10 GAME: Walery rolls fortitude: (18)+7: 25
The explosion goes off and Razen doesn't really... /think/ before he acts. He simply jumps on top of the nearest person - Merek - and bowls him over onto the ground into a little ball until the momentum has thrown them away from the site they just left behind. Then he bounds to his feet and laughs. "THAT was an explosion!"
The exaggerated movements Selerik is using are as effective as they are comical at getting him towards safety, and when the explosion happens? He is picked up and thrown by the blast - directly at Walery. The collision doesn't cause any real addition damage, though it does give her the benefit of being buffered by a flailing bard against the noise.
GAME: Halani rolls fort: (16)+12: 28
Walery tumbles through the air from the impact, but rolls to his feet and shakes his head to clear it. "By Reos, -that- was an explosion!" he says, quite pleased with himself. He looks back to see the aftermath, grinning unsettlingly.
And there's the 'boom' Halani has been pitching for ever since the mountain broke. She had just enough time to turn to look... something she most certainly should have known better than to do... when the airship goes up in a brilliant flash. And then darkness. Darkness caused by the sailor she'd been assisting completely blocking her vision by being propelled into her face. Not ideal. Certainly not a story she's going to want to tell, once she recollects what happened. That his body shielded her from the worst of the sonic concussion isn't even going to occur to her, not while she's flying through the air tangled with his body, not when she's pushing him off of her so she can get back to her feet.
Honestly, he's lucky she even stops to check to make sure he's still breathing.
...that's when it starts to rain.
Not actual rain water, of course, but... bits of splatter from the exploded beast. Fortunately, it's disincorporation keeps it from doing much damage, and those bits are dissolving..
..hopefully...
Still, its pockmarking the ground.
GAME: Selerik casts Blood Biography. Caster Level: 10 DC: 18
As the rain of ichor falls down, Selerik quickly gets up to his feet and tugs his cloak's hood over his head. His shield arm goes up to act as a small umbrella protecting his face, and he surveys what is taking place. "That isn't normal, now, is it?" So while others flee to better safety he opts to stand there in the rain of ichor and perform arcane gestures, beckoning the fallen ichor to move and bend to his will. After about a minute, it does. Some sort of writing that seems to be understandable to him. At least, the bits that don't keep moving and writhing. "Well now! The blighted thing is primal chaos for certain, it shouldn't even /be/." Selerik turns, starting to make his own way to safety. "And the thing is still alive! At least, some sort of alive!"
Walery runs away from that yuck. It can't be good, but he doesn't have any sort of way to make it less bad. So he gets out from under it with as much alacrity as remains to him.
Halani hauls the semi-conscious sailor to his feet, then pulls him behind a tree. Not the best of covers, but hopefully the trunk can protect the two of them from the worst of the directional gore at least.
Razen grabs up Merek and hauls the man (regardless of if he wants to go or not) after the rest of the group. "Wait up! Why you all still running?" He's not aware that the ran is dangerous, or that he should be running from it. "What do you mean it's still /alive/? It has got to be dead after that!"
"I mean it is like an ooze! You break the big blob and you might get oozelings! The thing is pure chaos, who knows, maybe the little bits will sprout flowers in a few weeks. Or eat everything they've touched." Selerik throws out a blast of disruptive magic from the hand not holding up his shield, attempting to abjure the goo around Razen and Merek. "Let's just think happy thoughts, though, yeah?"
So, there's a problem.
Here you are, amidst and awash in bits of primal chaos. They don't seem to be doing much right now but they're still potentially dangerous based on what Selerik says.
And between you and safety is a whole lotta mountain -- one which was recently filled with chaos. Which warps and changes things. Who knows what terrors lurk there?
...and you have a lot of injured crew to get back to safety…
"Well!" Halani says after the noise has stopped noising and the blob has more or less stopped blobbing. "This one... needs a nap."
Things having begun to settle - enough to see that they've got to take a course of action, Selerik turns to the more coherent and collected of the crewmen. "What are your protocols for this sort of mess? Should we stay here or start hoofing it to a safer vantage, move the wounded and all that? I can use a bit of healing magic, should get everyone's feet working at least."
"Augh," says one of the men who gets splatted on by a PIECE OF PRIMAL CHAOS. He promptly starts shaking it off. The others are now looking at Selerik. They take a moment ot confer amongst themselves. Unfortunately, their maps were in, you know, the airship that just EXPLODED. The wounded are in some cases far too so to walk, but you have a lot of hands to help carry them.
"The standard search party will come within hours of us not making our scheduled return. They'll do a sweep for us, but we have to last out here until then. We're in the open. There are flying, lightning spewing demons around still, possibly, tos ay nothing of anything else. Going into the mountains seems like a really bad idea if you ask us." The men nod their assent. "I say you find a place, you bunker down, some place we can shelter and we build a ginormous fire and wait. Like they said." A point at Razen.
Selerik nods as he takes in the advice, eyes sweeping the area. "Did anyone see a likely spot as we were coming down? Anyone notice anything on the nearby landscape we can use?"
Walery pulls out a giant wrench from where it hangs from his belt like a sword. It's about that long, but currently is wrench-shaped. It's a simple matter, though, of closing the grip around a metal cup and now it's slightly shovel-like. Enough to let Walery start digging in, anyhow, for shelter.
GAME: Walery rolls perception: (13)+10: 23 GAME: Selerik rolls perception: (5)+14: 19 GAME: Halani rolls perception: (12)+21: 33
With some scanning of the horizon, you're able to determine that the rain's thinnest about a mile from here and quickly move that way and, indeed, it begins thinning swiftly enough. Fortunately, it appears that the real rain will be coming soon enough if those dark clouds on the horizon are any indication.
After that mile or so hike, taking her turns on the make-shift stretchers, Halani is more than ready to take a break. The coming storm looks almost enticing to her.. "A bath would be nice.." she mutters, before dumping herself down on her butt. "But this... I am not thinking the cavalry will see us, yeah? In the storm?"
"...what an amazing coincidence. WE get shot down and a storm rolls in," utters one of the sailors. They're sailors. Of /course/ they're superstitious. Of course, they may not be wrong to be...
Walery says to Halani, "We will have to make a large signal fire, then." And he sets out to look for wood to burn.
"In the... rain?" Halani tries to keep the disbelief out of her voice. After all, in her experience artificers make a habit of doing stuff that has no business being. "And won't that tell the buzzard demons where we are?"
Walery explains, "If the fire's big enough, the rain won't matter. But we want the search crews to find us before the buzzard demons do."
GAME: Walery rolls survival: (12)+1: 13 GAME: Selerik rolls survival: (16)+1: 17
Walery flicks a switch on his engineer's wrench. A brief spark, but no flame. Flickaflickaflicka. He sighs.
GAME: Selerik casts Dispel Magic. Caster Level: 10 DC: 19 GAME: Selerik casts Cure Light Wounds. Caster Level: 10 DC: 17 GAME: Selerik casts Cure Light Wounds. Caster Level: 10 DC: 17 GAME: Halani rolls survival: (4)+16: 20 GAME: Selerik casts Gallant Inspiration. Caster Level: 10 DC: 18 GAME: Selerik rolls 2d4: (5): 5
With some time invested and the help of the sailors, you're able find a divot in a hillock that seems like a good place to dig out and squish against the side of it. It offers shelter from wind and rain and can easily be made more defensible.
After that, it's just gathering branches and shrubbery to start building afire.
...and then the /real/ rain starts, followed by a whole light show of lightning dancing amongst the clouds.
"Alright. Lookit, yeah? See that dip there?" Halani points. "Best place for fire.. it's protected from the wind, yeah?" She looks up and towards the incoming storm, grimacing. "An' if we dig a hole, start a small one... some of us might have to go back, hey, and get ship pieces for more wood."
Walery makes fire by smashing his wrench against a rock. After four or five hits, the igniter triggers and stays on for long enough to light the kindling.
Selerik is going around the camp, putting a bit of his energy into healing the worst wounded and inspiring the men assisting Halani put what will pass for their camp in order. "If anyone notices anything odd happening where you were hit by the ooze, let me know immediately and I'll do what I can. Scrape off any you still have on you." Selerik looks up at the sky. "A wish on a breeze, a storm in the sky." A quick chuckle. "Somehow I know we'll manage to get by."
...lightning strikes the earth, now, and carried with it are shapes. Clawing, crawling shapes.
...shapes that are now on the hunt for you. You can see them in the distance, you have some time before they catch your shape, but there's perhaps a half dozen of them illuminated briefly by the light...
-TBC