Fantasy Cursed Island

[Darkling0096]

Jerry still wasn't conscious, but she was breathing normally again. Veo looked nervous again as she bound and applied pastes to the woman. "I don't know how to treat Poli," she said cautiously, "But if it's anything like Jerry I'm surprised Poli is still alive."

 

[Fangs9090]

Poli groaned. “Mimics regenerate. Not as fast as a hydra, but I should be fine after a while. The potion helped.”

Erina was taking a head count when she paused. “Has anyone seen Raine?”

 

[Darkling0096]

"I thought she was with... oh no," Emfa looked around, and shouted for the kobold. "RAINE!"

"Either way," Veo shook her head at the mimic, "The acid's burned at her soft tissues. When she wakes up we're going to have to force her to keep something down, so the potion can make her heal properly, her eyes are destroyed, her nose is burnt all to the Depths, her eardrums are probably gone, I'll be surprised if she can even taste her own blood," she shook her head, "Poli took the brunt of it, but it's not pretty."

 

[Fangs9090]

Erina joined in to call for the kobold. After a moment, a mound of mud shifted as a pair of kobold eyes peeked out. Seeing things had calmed down, Raine crawled up from where she’d burrowed into the ground. “Is it dead?”

Emil spoke up. “Perhaps bathing in healing water? I’m not sure what all can be fixed with that...”

 

[Darkling0096]

"How did you get in there?", Emfa asked the kobold when she reappeared.

"I don't know!", Veo threw her hands up, "We don't have a tub big enough or a place to put it where we can move it, that hydra's going to attract feeders soon and then we'll all be dead anyway, just..."

 

[Fangs9090]

“When we came to land with that giant thing on it, I dug down and hid.”


Emil rested a hand on her arm. “Alright, alright. Just do what you can and let’s try to find a safer place.”

 

[Darkling0096]

"You're gonna have to figure out how to fight if you want to help us stay alive," Emfa shook her head.


Veo nodded, and forced more potion down Jerry's throat. "Let's just go before that thing starts rotting."

"Not just yet," Joanne shook her head as she dug up more pieces of the ballista. "If that hydra is any judge of the size of what we face further in, we will need a weapon capable of harming them at scale."

"We can't move that thing," Adran pointed out, "It's massive."

 

[Fangs9090]

Raine glanced at what was left of the hydra. “I can’t fight something that big... I can barely swing a sword.”


Niudisa sat up on Shuffle’s hands. “I was able to move it with the bone walker, but I’m not about to keep that going all the time. We’ve got carts. Let’s conserve our space and load it onto one of those.”

 

[Darkling0096]

"You need to be able to do something," Emfa shook her head, "You have a crossbow, you can shoot at stuff, if nothing else."


Adran glanced over at the mention of putting the ballista on the carts. "About that," He gestured to the back of Amdis's cart, the only one large enough that it might be able to hold the ballista, "If we want to keep supplies out for easy access if we get split up, there's no space for the ballista."

"Could it be made smaller?", Beri asked, sniffing around the machine, "Or perhaps another cart and beast conjured to pull it?"

 

[Fangs9090]

Raine shook her head. “I don’t know how to use the crossbow. I’m still in training.”


Shuffle tilted her head. “Adran was able to make Asta shrink and grow back.”

 

[Darkling0096]

"Never a better time to learn."


Adran shook his head again, "Asta's a living creature, he has his own flow of mana through his body that can be acted on, inanimate objects don't have that. I can't make that happen to the ballista for the same reason I can't make it happen to the rafts."

 

[Fangs9090]

"I guess..."


"Oh... Can you put a flow of mana on the ballista?"

 

[Darkling0096]

"Not with my magic," Adran shook his head, "And putting that kind of enchantment on something that isn't alive is beyond my abilities."

"The hydra could not have grown so large without some magical influence," Joanne offered, "Perhaps Niudisa could extract that from it."

 

[Fangs9090]

Niudisa nodded. "It definitely has potent blood. Give me a moment to recover and I'll see what I can do." She got out one of her berries and started munching on it.

 

[Darkling0096]

Adran nodded, "While she's doing that, spread out, we've got to keep an eye out for anything that'll come to feed on the hydra."

"Collect anything that may be useful in the area," Joanne added, "The hydra's scales may be useful as a material if they can be detached. I will try to find the remaining parts of the broken ballista to repair it."

 

[Fangs9090]

Shuffle nodded and let Niudisa flutter off her hand before heading off. Emil reassured Asta that they'd keep close watch on Jerry in order to get him to join the patrol. Raine went along, but she made sure to stay close to someone else who could fight.

 

[Darkling0096]

"Is this everyday for you?", Lyak asked Erina, still trying to catch her breath from the elemental spell.

The mound was massive, The part they currently occupied with the saurian nest was only a small part of an island that seemed to go on for miles. "This cave system goes really deep to spread this far without connecting to the mainland," Adran noted.

 

[Fangs9090]

Erina thought about before she nodded. "With this group, yes, pretty much. That wasn't the only massive creature we've dealt with, but it has been the largest so far."


Shuffle glanced over. "What's the mainland?"

Once Niudisa had recovered her mana, she headed over to check out the hydra.

 

[Darkling0096]

"What is wrong with you people?", Lyak shook her head, "Why do you go looking for these things?"


"It's the...." Adran realized Shuffle had no concept of the surface. "What's the highest up point in the ruins you've been to?"

 

[Fangs9090]

"Well, we're not, really. Most of the group just wants to leave, but the curse on the ruins is stopping them, so we're heading down deeper to find the source. Those who aren't interested in leaving are just after the source of the curse, for whatever reason."


"I've been up to the sealed door that leads out of the ruins. I don't think there's a way to get higher without climbing walls or flying."

 

[Darkling0096]

"What about you?" Lyak was starting to become scared of these freaks now.


"Well," Adran was familiar with that area. He'd used a gate scroll to get as deep in the ruins as he could, trying to bypass the worst part of the ruins. It didn't work, or he wouldn't be with the party, but he knew what Shuffle was talking about. He bent down and drew a passable map of the outside world immediately outside the ruins, "This," he pointed to the circle of the island, "Is where the ruins are, and this," he pointed at the sea around the island, "Is the ocean around it. And over here," he tapped on the city on the coast of that sea, "Is the mainland."

 

[Fangs9090]

“Mm, I’m mostly here for the company. I’ve been alone for most of my life.”


Shuffle looked at the map drawing and nodded. “Ohh.... Is it important?”

 

[Darkling0096]

"You're insane!"

"Everyone down here's a little crazy," Veo shook her head, "You need to be to survive."


"Yes, yes it is." Adran nodded, "the world is so much bigger outside the ruins."

 

[Fangs9090]

Erina nodded. "And it's still safer with us than on your own."


"Ohhh... I wanna see it."

 

[Darkling0096]

"You're still crazy," Lyak said firmly.


"Hopefully we'll be able to," Adran agreed. Of course, enough of the party was capable of flight or magic by now that, if they could go back, they likely could fly out of the ruins and escape in that manner, but it was too dangerous and as deep as they were, it would likely take less time to pursue the source of the curse, kill it, and if it was a demon like Adran thought, there would be a backdoor or a portal that would take them straight to the surface.