[Last time, on El WHAT?!: The group was saved from dehydration and bad planning by a strange mantis-like creature the size of a compact car. They happily proceeded on toward the oasis that Amy could sense far to the south. Now, several days and a lot of water later, they are almost to the oasis. It is morning and the group is ready to set out again, having not gotten the hint that traveling at night is generally a pretty good idea.] [Session Start] * Shiho stretches a bit. "Everyone ready to leave?" * Ichi streaches a bit. "I wonder if we'll get there today..." * Cara yawns. "Yeah, ready." It shouldn't be too much farther! * Daphne stretches too. "Yeah, I guess." * Rocky imitates Shiho stretching, then climbs onto her shoulder. That's good, shall we go then? * Shiho nods and resumes the journey. "The sooner we get there, the better." Yeah! Muh. * Cara gets up. * Ichi shoulders his backpack. * Amy continues along. * Daphne sneers at the world in general and shakes her head as if to clear it. * Ichi takes a few steps, realizes he's walking along yesterdays footprints, and decides to let sombody who knows where they're trying to go lead. There.. is something wrong ahead.. Coming.. towards us. * Cara blinks. "What is it?" I.. don't know. * Daphne reaches into her pocket and puts on her knuckles. * Ichi fingers the hilt of one of his swords. * Shiho squints. "Something's coming alright. Fast." Um...how fast is it coming? Dust storm, looks like. * Shiho looks around for any shelter. * The wind starts to pick up, whipping dust around your ankles. ... About that fast. Not again! Waa. It's coming fast! * Cara pulls out her sketchpad. * Sadly, once again, there does not appear to be any appreciable shelter. * Daphne grumbles. "Geh. If it isn't something I can hit I'm gonna be pissed." * Shiho looks for the fastest way to get out of its path, then. * Daphne takes her flannel jacket and wraps it around her face in an effort to keep dust out of her mouth and nose. * Ichi shrugs and prepairs to face this the same way as the last storm, with squinted eye and a hand over his mouth. * Shiho takes off running to the side. "Come on! If we hurry, we might be able to avoid the brunt of it!" * Rocky clings to Shiho * Amy follows after Shiho Uh...right. ::runs:: * Cara runs after Shiho, clutching her sketchbook to her chest. * Shiho pulls Rocky off her back and carries him instead. * Daphne mutters and runs after Shiho. * The group dashes off to the side, but the storm still appears to be coming directly at them. It appears to have changed course. Why is it following us? ;_; I don't like this thing! It feels wrong. Wah! I don't like this! ;_; Tornados and the like can change direction suddenly, but this is... I don't wan't to know. * Shiho halts and readies an arrow to her bow. "Me neither." * A moment later, the storm is upon you, tearing at your clothes. The wind is nearly powerful enough to lift you off your feet. * Daphne looks for something to hit. Waa! * Rocky hides inside Shiho's backpack fearfully. * Cara and Amy get a lungfull of dust and start coughing. * Cara doubles over, hacking dust out of her lungs. * Amy falls over coughing harder than Cara. She is caught by the wind and rolled along the ground like a tumbleweed. Amy! * Cara covers her face with her sketchbook after she finishes hacking up dust. * Amy coughs and rolls. * Ichi tries to catch Amy. * Amy rolls out of sight! * Ichi falls on the ground where Amy was, but is not caught by the wind, thankfully. Ooof! AMY! Waaa! * The winds intensify. * Ichi gets back to his feet and looks around. "AMY!" * Cara finally looks up, and realizes Amy's nowhere in sight. "Amy!" * Cara tries to keep from getting blown off her feet. * Shiho looks in a direction perpendicular to the winds, keeping her bow ready. * Daphne keeps up a steady stream of invective under her breath and keeps wishing this were something she could hurt. Waa! * The winds intensify still further, and the driving dust actually begins abrading your skin. It's quite painful. Aaaaaaah! Ahhrg! * Shiho staggerss forward through it. "Come on! If we can get to the center, it may be weaker!" * Daphne heads forward too, then. * Cara struggles forward. * Ichi grits his teath and moves ahead. * The winds intensify still further as you approach what Shiho calls the 'center' until it feels as if you are pushing against a nearly solid wall of wind. * Ichi and Daphne manage to push forward through the wall, but Shiho and Cara are nearly pulled away by its force. What is this?! I...I can't! * Inside the eye of the storm, there is a strange creature. It's large, four legged, and grey. It lacks horns, though it does have a bony hide somewhat reminiscent of a triceratops. It leaps at Daphne as she stumbles through the wall surrounding the eye. * Creature claws Daphne right down the front of her shirt, mangling it horribly and leaving bloody claw slashes down the middle of her chest. O.O * Daphne screams a scream with more anger than pain. * Shiho grits her teeth and, not knowing any better, tries to push through the wall wind again. * Shiho pushes through the wall of wind and stumbles into the eye. * Ichi draws his sword and gets into a ready position. "I don't know what you are, but I won't let you continue this." * Daphne slugs the creature for all she's worth, still screaming. * Creature jumps nimbly aside, moving far faster than one would expect of a creature this size. * Cara grits her teeth, keeps her sketchbook in front of her face, and tries to push through the barrier of wind. * Cara pushes through the wall into the Eye, though it costs her some skin. Eeeeeyah! * Creature backs up a little and then charges directly at Daphne. * Creature nails Daphne with its head and tosses her back out through the wall of air into the storm. * Shiho drops the arrow she was holding, instead pointing just the bow at the creature. Small sparks form from each of her hands, coming together to form an arrow made of fire. * Shiho launches it at the beast. "Burn." * Creature ROARS as the arrow slams into it and a significant portion of its hide bursts into flames. * Shiho winces a bit as the arrow is fired, but quickly begins loading a normal arrow. * Ichi holds his sword out in front of him for a second, it starts to turn white and seems to grow a tiney bit he then swings at the creature shouting hyouchuu no kiritsukeru! (Icicle Slash!) Wow, cool! * Creature screams in pain as the slash opens a significant gash down its shoulder. * Ichi grins a bit and pants. Meh...he...heh.. * Daphne tries to get back through the storm. * Daphne shoulders her way through the wall of wind, and loses a bit more skin for her trouble. * Cara whips out her pencil, ad quickly sketches a picture of the creature sleeping, while focussing her will on it. * The magic begins building. * Creature screams in horrible agony as the magic of Shiho's arrow keeps burning into its hide. * The dust storm collapses. Contrary to the laws of physics, which say that momentum should keep it going for at least a little while, it simply collapses in the span of a few seconds. * Creature turns and runs directly away from Shiho at a fast clip. * Ichi blinks in surprise. "huh?" * Shiho picks up the arrow she dropped. "Probably figured it couldn't win. Everyone okay?... Where's Amy?" * Creature stumbles in its run, apparently deliberately, and rolls on the ground, trying to put the fire out. * Amy is in sight, as you look around for her. * Daphne sneers under her jacket. "Goddammit, get BACK HERE!" Guys! I don't know, she rolled passed me when this started, but I couldn't catch her...oh over there! * Shiho keeps her bow armed, in case it comes back. * Cara lets go of her magic, and sighs. * Amy runs over to the others.. and stares at the creature. "What happened?" * Shiho looks. "Amy? You okay?" I'm fine. * Amy nods. .. What happened? Amy! * Now that the battle is over, the pain of having dust driven into your scratches is beginning to tell. Owiiiiiiiiiiie! * Shiho holds her head. "Ugh. Now I know how you felt earlier, Cara." * Daphne keeps glaring in the direction of the creature, and then starts stumbling after it, still cursing some. * Cara blinks at Shiho. "You mean about the magic? Did yours hurt too?" * Amy moves over to Daphne, looks at her, then waves her hands and says "Cure Light Wounds!" Yeah, that was realy odd, it didn't do that when I was practicing. Yeah. A lot. Don't think I'll be doing that again for... Hey! Daphne, where are you going? * Cara whimpers. "This world is nasty." * Some of Daphne's smaller wounds begin to seal. * Cara rubs at her arms, which just serves to make them hurt more. She stops. * Ichi gets an eyefull of Daphne's chest, which is only barely covered by her shirt. * Shiho finally shoulders her bow, placing the arrow back in its quiver. * Ichi looks up at the wrong time and nearly drops his sword instead of putting it away. Can we start heading for the oasis again? * Daphne turns and slugs Ichi, not even bothering to say something abou tit. * Shiho nods to Cara. * Ichi is most righteously clobbered. Ack! ::falls over:: * Cara watches and sweatdrops. * Daphne takes her jacket off her head and ties it around her chest instead, kicking Ichi once or twice while she's at it. Ichi needs to stop doing that. 'else Daphne is gonna really hurt him one of these days. Poor Itchy. Damn right I will. * Ichi whimpers into the dirt. * Daphne turns and looks to see if the thing what shredded her is still in sight. * The creature is long since out of sight, lucky for it. * Ichi staggers back to his feet, and carfully puts his blade away. "Note to self: never do that again..." * Daphne shouts and smacks the ground. "Son of a BITCH!" * Cara walks over to Amy. "Um, did your magic hurt when you did it?" Daphne, let it go. Uh no. It didn't. Let it go? Why? Should it have? * Cara blinks. "Shiho's magic hurts, my magic hurts...yours doesn't. That's weird..." That creature's long gone by now, and I doubt it'll want to bother us anymore. * Daphne turns to look at Shiho like she's stupid. "...let it *go*? The fucking thing tried to MUTILATE me. Or didn't you notice?" Well, I've got different magic. Mine is nature magic, yours is.. other stuff magic. * Cara furrows her brow cutely as she ponders. But...my magic is different from Shiho's, too. Your's is drawing magic, and Shiho's is blowing stuff up magic. Yeah, everything else seems to be hurting, the wind hurts me, that thing hurts Daph, magic hurts us, Daph hurts me... This place is awful. ;_; But it didn't. We drove it off, and Amy's healed you for the most part. * Daphne's chest still has a long, and fairly nasty scratch down the middle. I wish we were back in *looks at Shiho* nevermind. I wish we were home. Yeah. It was much nicer there. Nothing trying to cut my breast off. Whose idea was it to come here, again? ... Daphne! Don't blame her! Don't fight. It won't help anything. How could anybody know we'd wind up here? Oh, I'm not blaming. I'm just asking a question. Simple question. * Shiho starts walking. "Come on. We'd better get to that spring." * Cara follows Shiho. * Amy follows after Shiho. "We shouldn't fight, because then everything'll just get worse." * Daphne folloes Shiho, glaring at her back. Maybe we should sing a song to pass the time? Yes, fighting ourselves is bad. ::rubs where he got walloped and walks:: o/~ 100 bottles of beer on the wall, one hundred bottles of beer. We take one down and give it to Daphne, 99 bottles of beer on the wall.. o/~ * Cara giggles. Hehhe. Just an idea. ^_^ We've got to keep in good spirits! * Daphne sneers. "Please, *please* don't talk about beer right now." I'm sorry. ;_;. I thought it would cheer you up! Let's try another song! ^_^ Any other time it'd be fine. * Cara tries to think of one. Ok. o/~ There was a guy who had a sword and Itchy was his name-y! I-T-C-H-Y, I-T-C-H-Y, I-T-C-H-Y and Itchy was his name-y!o/~ How about that one? ^_^ Uhm...there is no 't' in my name, Amy. ^_^; * Daphne manages to not laugh at that, but only with effort. "Hnn. Sounds fine." Aww. Sorry. Well, how about a Shiho version then? You know o/~ There was a girl who cast a spell and Shiho was her name-o! o/~ See, it even fits the song better. That does work. There we go. We can all be happy with that song. ^_^ * Amy continues to walk along, singing various songs about the group every so often. * Shiho leads the way in silence. * The group walks for several more hours. * The group keeps walking along at their slow pace. It is nearing noon, and the temperature is increasing. There's a dropoff up ahead. Could be the oasis. Yay! Damn well better be. That'd be nice. Yay! * Amy looks around. ".. Hm. That's weird.." Huh? Well, something must be up ahead. I feel something. ^_^ I wonder what it is. It feels like the call I felt in the other place. And.. *looks around* .. Nature seems in slightly less pain around here. * The land begins sloping upward here. * Amy continues walking. "We're almost there I bet! ^_^" I hope so. * The land begins to slope more sharply upward, approaching a 45 degree upward slope. It gets a bit hard to walk up, especially with all the loose dust on the ground. * Amy stumbles and falls facefirst in the dust. * Cara begins sliding backward down the slope. Waa! * Amy tries to stand up and continue walking. Waaaah! * Ichi tries to stop Cara. * Shiho avoids slipping downwards or falling, but only barely. * Daphne reaches out to grab Cara and smacks Ichi in the chin, knocking him over. Gwaa! * Shiho halts a sec and looks behind her. ... * Amy struggles to continue forward. * Daphne sighs, and, muttering, climbs back down after Ichi and Cara to make sure they're okay. Amy, do you have a rope in the belt? * Amy checks. * Ichi tries to get back to his feet. "Oww...What did I do this time?" Uh. Yeah. I got some rope. You want? ^_^ * Cara trips and falls backwards. She begins rolling head over heels down the slope until she hits a more level area and stops. Not just yet. * Cara just lies on her back. @_@ * Amy trys to climb some more. * Shiho casts her gaze at the others. "We might need it to get up to the top, though. * Daphne keeps going back to check on Ichi and Cara. o/~ * Daphne makes it without serious incident. Hey. You alright? K. * Amy wants to get to the top gosh-darn-it! * Cara sits up. "I think so." * Shiho shouts down. "Hey! We'll toss you a rope once we get up there!" Why'd you hit me again? * Shiho climbs back up. It was unintentional that time. Sorry. Here, lemme help you two up. Thankyou. Okay. Amy begins sliding backwards as the slope increases a bit more. Waa! * Amy fights to avoid sliding. Amy! Toss me the rope! * Amy pulls the rope out and tries to toss it to Shiho. * Amy throws like a girl, and the rope doesn't even make it halfway to Shiho. * Amy continues sliding backward. ;_; Waa! * Amy tries to stop sliding. "This isn't fun!" * Shiho smacks her forhead. Why don't you come down and get it Shiho? I can't toss that well. * Shiho carefully makes her way to where the rope is. * Shiho makes it to the rope easily. * Ichi turns to Daph "perhaps we should start back up again? * Shiho attempts to climb back up again. * Cara gets to her feet. * Amy continues to struggle to avoid sliding. * Shiho makes it to a level area at the top of the slope. * With the help of the rope, the rest of the group makes it up the slope easily. * Amy makes it up the slope easily thanks to the wairope. Should we put he rope back in the belt Shiho? * Shiho nods and hands the rope to Amy. * Amy puts the rope away. * Ichi lets out a sigh and looks around. Yay! We made it up! * Spread out before you, some hundred feet straight down, is an immense forest. To your left about twenty minute's walk is a large well used path leading down into the oasis, which is at the forest's edge. An easily visible spring sparkles brightly in the light of the red sun, and you can see actual game animals, though they're of no varieties that you recognize. ...wow. Nice. Maybe they have a bar. That'd be nice. Wo~ow.. * There are no signs of any permanent residents in the oasis. Certainly not what I expected, but this works out well. We should be able to get food and water here for a while. That's more than I was expecting. * Shiho starts down the path. "Off we go!" * Amy looks very happy. Yay! * Amy starts quickly down the path. * Cara follows Shiho happily. * Daphne starts down the path too. * Amy also pays special interest to the animals, cuz they're cute. * After a good twenty minute's walking along the top of the ridge, you finally reach the top of the path into the oasis. * Ichi walks down. * Rocky sleeps in Shiho's backpack. Wow. This place is nice! I like it. Anything's nice, considering where we just came from. * The animals don't fit many people's definitions of 'cute' seeing as how they're generally either bony, thick skinned, spined, or horny, and tend to be an ugly mud brown, grey, or an ugly green in color. * Amy starts down the path. "Come on guys! This'll be fun." * Shiho walks down the path. * Cara follows the path. * Ichi fallows down the path and looks forward to a nice long bath. * Amy smiles and looks around. * Daphne follows. * The path is very shallow, and it winds lazily down the slope. It was obviously intended for wagons. There are fairly recent tracks on the path, too. Wagon wheels, along with human sized prints and the prints of some enormous creature, bigger even than an elephant. I wonder what kinda people live here. Maybe they're friendly. * Shiho eyes the tracks. "Wonder if we'll meet anyone." Mm. I hope they're friendly like Bears was. Maybe we can get a ride to that city with someone! Hmm... Well, whatever they were, they weren't human. Maybe they were like that guy who gave us water for the knife. That mysteriously fails to comfort me. Aw. They seemed nice enough. Bears was a nice guy. Well, some of them were human. Or human-like, at least. But I'm wondering about these ones with claws. Maybe they were friends. * The group proceeds downard into the oasis, the entire trip down the slope taking nearly two hours because of the way it winds around. The trail is also very wide, however, and there is no danger of falling off. There were lizards, too. Big ones. I suppose we'll find out when we get there, what's the use of worrying now? [Session End]