Fantasy Cursed Island

[Fangs9090]

The longer it stayed in the water, the more trouble they'd be in, so Fia flew after it in hopes of fishing it out with her talons.

Corona attempted to join the fight, but she couldn't figure out how to get her hooves under her and her spear was out of reach.

 

[Darkling0096]

When Fia dove into the water, and the bubbles from her dive cleared, her eyes were greeted by the sight of talons reaching towards her own, down and make her drown, and a malignant phoenix head sneering at her. The water had restored it to adulthood much more rapidly than it had to Fia, and it was eager to take it's revenge on the party that had taken its home from it.

"I can't see it," Adran had his bow out, but being drunk his aim was likely to be horrible even if he could see it.

"It is in the water," Beri growled, pacing back and forth at the edge of the pool, "Fia has gone in to attack it." Joanne took that information and responded by diving in just as the phoenix flew out in a ball of fire.

"You!" He focused on Corona at the far end. She and the chimera were the only ones that had been able to kill it at full strength, and the phoenix intended to take her out while she was unable to defend herself, falcon-bombing at her from as high as it could get in the cavern.

 

[Fangs9090]

Fia kicked back against the other phoenixes, relying on her own vitality to hold out until it decided to head up after the others, at which point she followed.

Corona looked over and waved. "Me." She glanced at her hand as she noticed a mark glowing on the back of it. "...oh yeah." She clenched her fist and the mark glowed brighter before her shield and spear flew to her, bumping and tumbling against anything in their way. The spear stabbed into the tree behind her as she failed to catch it, but the shield put itself right in her grip in time for her to hold it up for a block. Just as the phoenix's attack hit, the shield flashed, canceling the impact to Corona and sending it back with double force.

 

[Darkling0096]

The reflection of the phoenix's dive bomb sent it flying back up into the cavern, slamming into the roof of the cave and shouting curses all the way. Catching itself mid-air halfway back down, it built a fireball around it. That shield was tricky, he wouldn't have that, no. Instead of shooting it at Corona, the phoenix fired it's creation just next to her, to burn the area around her. She couldn't possibly block from all sides, could she?

Beri didn't give the chance to find out. He'd intended to use the trees to get higher and drag this bird back down to earth, but seeing the fireball he instead blitzed across the ground to take the brunt of it, relying on the ring enchantment to take most of the damage for him. The impact still sent a wave of heat out and set Beri flying into a tree, where he fell limp for a moment, but the fireball did not doo the intended thing.

 

[Fangs9090]

Corona blinked as the phoenix was sent back. She held her shield up. "Praise be to Chaos." She glanced at her spear before reaching up to grab it, but she couldn't quite get the leverage to get it out of the tree. She didn't notice the fireball, aside from a wave of heat.

Fia finally came up from the water and, after catching her breath, burst into flames and took flight, charging at the phoenix.

 

[Darkling0096]

Adran loosed an arrow, which went wide and nearly hit Fia more than it nearly hit the phoenix, drunk as Adran was. Joanne could do little from the ground except to try and get Corona on her hooves so she could do something. "Get up," she yanked the spear out of the tree and shoved it into Corona's hands.

Meeting Fia midair, the larger phoenix used it's mass to drive them both back down to the ground, hoping to spear Fia on something or at least crush her on impact. Neither happened, but the shockwave singed the tents and charred the surrounding grass.

 

[Fangs9090]

Fia kicked with her talons as she was driven to the ground, trying to do whatever damage she could.

Corona gripped her spear and made another attempt to stand. She managed to get up, but she had to keep her stance very wide, which looked very strange. She could hardly stand, much less run into battle, but she could still cast. The runes on her spear filled in before she pointed it forward as best she could without falling over. A light circled her as her mana refilled.

 

[Darkling0096]

Minor scratches Fia was able to inflict, and in turn so could the phoenix. Their fight was making steam from the pools hang in the air, and it was helping the phoenixes heal, but hindering sight from the others.

"That is all you could manage?", Joanne barked at Corona as she ran back to hit the phoenix with a branding smite, the resulting deafening thunderclap probably would have agitated most of the party if they weren't already passed out or inside a soundproof tent. But she missed, in the steam, and only managed to separate Fia and the phoenix.

 

[Fangs9090]

Fia jumped back as she separated from the other phoenix. She disregarded her scratches for the time. She would heal. Her wrappings, on the other hand, would not. They could withstand her catching fire, but they couldn't hold up against talons.

Corona shook her head. "Retry." Her spear glowed again as she tried another cast, this time sending out a shockwave around her for about ten feet.

 

[Darkling0096]

Two on one, with the occasional randomly aimed arrow from Adran that missed entirely, the phoenix was starting to have trouble. Fia it didn't perceive as a threat. Her fire couldn't harm him, and her talons were hardly more than annoying to him. Joanne and her sword and shield forced the phoenix to move about erratically to avoid getting hit by her smite or bashed by her shield. And all that moving around was doing Adran no favors as he tried to hit the phooenix. "Stop moving so I can shoot you!"

If Joanne were not busy, she'd probably be yelling at Corona for her seeming inability to cast an effect to help in this situation. Beri stirred as the shockwave reached him, struggling to his feet. It took the cat a moment to regain his bearings, at which point how he got there flowed back into his memory and he gave a loud roar of fury as the leopard rejoined the fight, tearing into the mix. Beri wasn't inebriated at all and could rely on smell, so he had more luck than Joanne and Adran getting to the phoenix in the cloud of steam, and he had the advantage of not being expected to be there, so when Beri jumped onto the phoenix's back and pinned it to the ground, the bird didn't know how that happened.

 

[Fangs9090]

Fia stood her ground and flapped her wings in an effort to clear up some of the steam. Better if they could see.

"Retry." Corona tried casting once again. Finally something useful came out as her spear fired a magic missile. Now if only she had been sober enough to aim properly.

 

[Darkling0096]

Fia and Joanne were finally able to see within the immediate few feet around them now that Fia had focused her flapping on pushing it briefly away, and were able to see the enraged Beri try to rip the bird's throat out. He was having trouble, mostly because he couldn't open his jaws wide enough for that purpose.

Corona's magic missile spell went wild, the three projectiles flying unguided. One hit Shuffle and sent her swinging again, one hit Joanne and knocked her into the door of Emil and Veo's tent, which because it was bolted stood firm. The other harmlessly shot off into the distance.

 

[Fangs9090]

Shuffle started laughing all over again as she was sent swinging, relatively unharmed thanks to the cushion provided by her bundle, plus her enchantments and own durability.

Fia wasn't sure how to help at this point. Trying to get in the middle of that would risk Beri lashing out at her.

Corona wasn't satisfied yet, so she cast again. She wasn't sure what that one did, primarily because there were no corpses nearby she could speak to.

 

[Darkling0096]

"I swear I just saw something flying by," Adran squinted, trying to figure out what went flying while Joanne crawled out of the pool.

"Someone kill that gods-damned bird!", Joanne growled.

 

[Fangs9090]

Raine appeared. The steam probably hid her approach, but she was there now. All the noise was giving her headache and she couldn't hear what she'd said to herself, so she was all too willing to oblige Joanne's demand. She walked up to the front of the phoenix with a spear in hand and simply tried to stab it in the head.

 

[Darkling0096]

Restrained and unable to move, the phoenix was unable to offer any resistance as Raine's spear went straight through the phoenix's head and out it's bottom jaw. The struggling bird fell limp, and then burst into flames and vanished, along with Beri, although the blast that followed the phoenix's death sent everyone flying far enough away that they weren't able to see that until the steam started to settle and nothing was there.

"Beri!", Adran called not seeing his cat anywhere when the steam cleared. "Beri!"

 

[Fangs9090]

Raine rolled back as she was pushed away. Corona tried casting again, because she was stuck in a loop of it now, but only managed to summon a fog over her own eyes so that she couldn't see anything. Fia looked around as well. She had no idea what happened. She'd never heard of anyone getting incinerated in the flames of phoenix's rebirth.

 

[Darkling0096]

Down on the ground where the explosion had happened were three small objects, all of which seemed to indicate Beri had been incinerated. His sleigh ring, his his tail ring, and a small pile of ashes. The phoenix wasn't being reborn, so something had happened to it, but what?

Adran was now full on panicking, running around the camp searching for his cat.

 

[Fangs9090]

Fia walked over and leaned down look at the ashes. She didn't think the phoenix would stay as ashes this long. It hadn't before. Curious, she puffed out a tiny wisp of flame onto the ash pile.

 

[Darkling0096]

That seemed to do something. The ashes stirred, wobbling a bit before they ignited again, creating a small fireball and a weak explosion that did little more than make Fia lean back. What appeared was not a phoenix hatchling, however, but the cub of some cat species. It had fluffy black fur with orange rings. It almost looked like a baby version of Beri, with a change in the color palette, and it was asleep.

 

[Fangs9090]

Fia paused for a moment as she looked at the cub before turning around. "Adran! Who is this!?"

 

[Darkling0096]

"If it's not Beri I don't care right now!", Adran called back, still running around like a chicken with its head cut off.

Joanne knelt down next to Fia to see what she was talking about. "I have not encountered this situation before." She carefully picked the cub up so she wouldn't wake it. "This is where the phoenix died, yes?"

 

[Fangs9090]

Fia glanced at Joanne and nodded. “Yeah, but the Phoenix didn’t reincarnate. I didn’t know that was possible...” She looked around at Adran again. “It might be!”

 

[Darkling0096]

"MIGHT?!", Adran sounded none too impressed with a chance that it might not be Beri as he ran over, tripping on a rock in the process. Panic turned into a full on breakdown when he saw Beri's sleigh ring on the ground. "Nonono-"

"Adran, calm yourself."

"Then explain to me how this got off without killing Beri?!", Adran demanded, holding up the ring. He hadn't yet noticed the cub.

 

[Fangs9090]

Fia stepped closer to Adran. “I’m not sure but... I think he might have stolen the phoenix’s rebirth. But also...” She looked towards Joanne. “It doesn’t look exactly like him either.”