Fantasy Cursed Island

[Fangs9090]

Niudisa shook her head. "That didn't work. Plan B!" She raised her hand as she cast her magic, reanimating the skeletal audience.

Emil stepped forward and pointed. "There, among the strings. A real violin sings. If it's musician we can best, the others will likely rest."

Niudsa scowled at him. "My patience you do test..."

 

[Darkling0096]

"Have you any sense of- oh fuck it, just light them up!" Jerry raised her bow and flew up off of Asta, taking aim at the orchestra and firing a hunter bolt at the violin player. The arrows stopped moving and vanished a foot from the player. "Shit."

"Numbers are not in our favor, but our apparent strength is," Joanne raised her sword and started down the amphitheater to cleave some monsters in twain.

 

[Fangs9090]

The reanimated skeletons likewise charged, wielding whatever they could pick up. Fia and Shuffle took flight, the later charging straight in. Asta took flight as well, primarily to avoid smashing through the skeletons that were on their side. While Shuffle was aiming for the violin player, Asta aimed to smash the others and hopefully lessen the effects of the music. Corona advanced as well, but the steps leading down slowed a bit. Her spear was coated in unfinished runes, but as she raised it up, glowing marks appeared to complete them, allowing a spell to be cast. She pointed the spear at the enemy and a floating ball of light appeared over her own head. She paused before continuing her advance.

For once Raine wasn't hiding. This fight actually didn't seem too scary, so she looked around for the ballista. She could...probably avoid hitting an ally.

 

[Darkling0096]

The orchestra slammed a chord on their magical instruments, a wall of sound and force streaming towards the party and blasting them back. Niudisa's skeletal audience fell apart and had to reassemble, everyone running down the stairs was sent tumbling back up them, while everyone in the air was sent rolling into the back wall.

 

[Fangs9090]

Asta took the hit better than the others, thanks to his size. He did lose progress and had to take a moment to regain his balance in the air, but once he'd recovered, he charged again with a roar.

Corona pushed herself back upright with her spear as the runes on it lit up again in a different configuration. She thrust her spear forward, and this time a stone formed in front of the tip, growing to about the size of a watermelon before launching towards the orchestra.

 

[Darkling0096]

Corona's ball of stone shot straight through the orchestra, taking out several musicians. Scowling, the violin player strummed again, instruments appearing in Erina, Shuffle, Adran, and Veo's hands, and they hall a strong compulsion to start playing as they were forced to join the orchestra. Like with the singing, even though they'd never done it before with the magic influencing them it was as if they were professionals.

With its numbers replenished for the moment, and now players on both sides, Asta found himself caught between musical spells coming at him from both sides, as did Corona, as well as Joanne and Emfa, once they had gotten back to their feet.

 

[Fangs9090]

Asta shook his head and dropped to the ground where he could keep a better stance, charging through once again. Corona figured attacking teammates was not acceptable with this group, so continued onward. Deciding it was better to get down fast, she threw caution to the wind as she descended, jumping down the steps in bounds even though it was tough land stably.

Raine, having decided the ballista was more of a risk than a benefit with her aim, had instead taken to moving around the edge of the room, using the seats as cover. She now found herself by the side of the stage, peeking around the last of seating. No more cover from here. She reached back to the quiver Jerry had given, taking out a spear. Simple enough to use, right? Just throw it. She looked at her target, the main violinist, before chucking the spear at them.

 

[Darkling0096]

Raine's spear rang true. The orchestra had not suspected someone would sneak around, let alone someone as expert at hiding as Raine. Right through the neck Raine's spear went, the player collapsing. The orchestra collapsed, seemingly dead. The violin clanged to the ground, bow and strings still twanging until it came to rest on the floor.

"Is that it?", Jerry asked, the music had stopped the illusion music had stopped, and... the forced singing stopped? "YES!"

 

[Fangs9090]

Raine blinked in surprise. She hadn't thought that would actually work, at least not so well. "I...did it?"

Erina shook her hands out. "I did not like that, not in the slightest. My hands are my own to use how I please."

Shuffle let out a sigh as she regained control. "I still don't know what happened."

As the others recovered, Emil flew down to take a look at the violin.

 

[Darkling0096]

"Don't touch it!", Jerry warned, "We don't know if it's cursed or not!" She made use of her wings to get down there quickly, although those without wings had a little more trouble moving around the bodies and bones. "Niudisa, take a look at this!"

The violin was definitely some kind of corrupted item. It didn't even have proper strings. Instead, the violin and its bow had glowing strings of mana between the points, like the magick bows before Adran figured out how to attach a string to it. Additionally, growing out of the violin were thorns, bloody with it's previous owner's essense. The whole thing was stained red.

 

[Fangs9090]

"It's definitely cursed." Niudisa spoke up before she even got close enough to see the thing. "We saw what happened to the last person to pick up the damn thing." She stopped to flutter around the violin, keeping a distance. "Hm, like a magic weapon, but an instrument. Weird. But yeah, that's not something you wanna just pick up."

Emil furrowed his brow. "That's a shame. The sound it made was incredible."

 

[Darkling0096]

"Shuffle, bring the flask over here." Jerry had already suspected the cursed underwear was corrupted to some extent, perhaps this thing was twisted in some manner as well.

 

[Fangs9090]

Shuffle looked over before heading down on all fours and handing the flask to Jerry.

Niudisa looked at her. "Hm..." She didn't say anything more, but she seemed to be thinking of something.

 

[Darkling0096]

Jerry didn't comment on Emil's appreciation for the cursed item's music as she poured some magic water on the thing. It hissed and steamed like a kettle, jumping around and trying to connect with someone's hands. "Get back!"

 

[Fangs9090]

Emil and Shuffle both jumped away from the instrument. Niudisa fluttered out of its reach as well, shaking her head. "Thought so. The corruption runs deep in that thing. Splashing it won't do much at all. But, I've learned a bit working with that healing water. If you left it to soak for long enough, you could probably purify anything."

 

[Darkling0096]

"We gotta get it in a bucket, then," Jerry nodded. She glanced at the party and the carts. "Fia, can you bring the cookpot over here please?"

 

[Fangs9090]

Fia nodded and flew over to the carts. A while later, she returned with the cookpot in her talons, just barely able to keep from bumping it across the seats as she made her way down.

 

[Darkling0096]

"Thank you," Jerry smiled at the harpyand put the pot upside down over the violin and bow before using her sword to slide under the pot lid like you would a card under a glass with a bug in it so she could turn the pot over and fill it without touching the evil violin. The pot steamed and hissed as the violin had before, not showing any signs of slowing down as the pot was picked up and relocated. "In the meantime," Jerry stood up to look around, "We've got to figure out how to get the carts down here."

 

[Fangs9090]

Raine spoke up. "There's slopes on the far sides of the seating. Not very wide, but it should work better than the steps, right?"

 

[Darkling0096]

"Thank you, Raine." Jerry nodded and went to go see, calling for Erina to try and pass through there. if she could get through and her legs were wider than the carts, then they should be fine to pass through.

 

[Fangs9090]

Erina nodded and headed over to the path down the side. She had just enough space to walk. The hardest part was not getting pushed down by the cart trying to go faster.

 

[Darkling0096]

That was good, if Erina could fit through Amdis definitely could. Lyak hopped out of the cart and scrambled up to try and help keep it from running up Erina's back to push her forward, even through the scrawny goblin could hardly make a difference and would probably be run over by the cart if it got away from Erina.

"That solves that," Jerry made her way back up to where the others were, "Beri, see if you can find an exit to this theater, Adran, get Amdis to follow Erina. Asta, help Beri, if we can get through here we should probably be alright for a while." Anything that came through was probably charmed by the violin, so this probably created a safe-ish zone for some time.

 

[Fangs9090]

Raine went to offer her help to Erina's cart as well, but she didn't give much more than Lyak. They managed to get the cart to the bottom without major incident though. Asta gave a Jerry a nod before flying off to look for a path forward. Fia and Shuffle volunteered themselves to help look as well.

 

[Darkling0096]

While Shuffle, Fia, Beri, and Asta searched for an exit, Jerry did another headcount to make sure no one had gone missing. No one had, so they only had to worry about getting everyone out. Jerry went to aid in the search for an exit. There probably wasn't anything useful, here, no point in looting.

The exit was eventually found around backstage, just barely accessible by Erina. They'd have to squeeze to get everyone through, since not everyone could size-change like Asta could.

 

[Fangs9090]

Corona groaned when she saw the way out. "Would it have been too much to make everything just five feet wider? These narrows passages are such a pain..."