ORIGIN - Quest: Organ Cave

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Eve had been hiding back from the violence. There was a reason she was a scout for Dragon, after all - she sucked particularly hard at fighting and she didn't really know anything particularly worthy for actually hurting people with. Only, she wasn't sure if these things were... people.

Now, though, as this giant thing grew, she had to protect Dragon. She wasn't too sure what exactly came over her as she hobbled out, closer to the organ monster, and furrowed her brow somewhat. She concentrated hard; gemstone talon glimmering blue-white as she focused on casting something new, something to help.

The last thing she remembered was the silence. Everything was oddly silent seconds before it happened. The silence was almost peaceful, tranquil and welcoming. She wished she had noticed it before, until the huge bang.

It was like nothing she had heard before - louder than Aquarian's roar, louder than Nemean's booming voice echoing throughout the caves. It was like some giant stone structure inside her head had fallen down with a deafening CRASH! that could only be heard by her. Or, at least, she was sure it was only heard by her.

Blood poured out of the left side of the crow's head - she couldn't hear a single thing on her left anymore, except for a hollow hum filling her ear canal and hot sanguine liquid pouring down her head. On her right side, she heard violent, raucous screaming and all at once, pain.

Eve was not accustomed to pain. It struck her like a knife going straight through her head, twisting and twisting until her mind was scrambled and numb from the overwhelming feeling of it. It blinded her. She felt more pain - though not to the extent of the damn feeling in her head - on her side as she collapsed onto her wing and scrambled onto her back, talons kicking.

It took her a minute to realise the screams were coming from her own beak - terrified and agonized. They sounded exactly like she felt. How did this happen? She wasn't usually this bad at loud things - though as she heard it now, she was screaming something that could compare to the likes of Aquarian.

Slowly, the screaming began to die out, but the pain did not. Her throat was filled with thorns; scraping and cutting her throat until it too, dripped with blood, more shots of pain diving down her neck every time she took a frantic gasp of breath.

She felt herself drifting off. She couldn't tell if it was life escaping her talons as they dropped down limply against her black belly, or if it was sleep washing over her. She didn't want to die. Not now, not now... Not when Dragon might get himself killed again...

But the crow couldn't do anything. She went limp as Eve fell into unconsciousness, blood pouring out of her head.

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Everything erupted into the awfulness that Fallah had become accustom to. After almost losing her life, she didn't want to fight for a while. Now, however, she was beginning to accept it as part of life in the caves. She was wondering if gembounds could reform continuously. If they couldn't, she didn't want to find out the hard way, but the chance that she could kept her fear at bay. Fisher had vanished from her sight and with the monster crept forward, gnashing its teeth. It would continue onward unless someone stopped it- unless Fallah stopped it. The lynx charged towards the monster, her eyes illuminating with the familiar blue magic. Her maw parted, shining with the same light. The feline stopped suddenly and let out a cry as she summoned her magic to attempt to create spears of ice from the ground, hoping they would stab into the creature as it crept closer.

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Kerberos saw the giant thing made of bones and let loose a snarl, knowing he couldn't let that creature close enough to the other gembounds. He surged forward, paws pounding against the hard earth of Polaris, and lunged straight into the beast.

With a three-pitched snarl, he threw his body against the muscle and organs, trying to snap at the bones and sink his claws in so that it couldn't get away from him. If he kept it at bay, the others could attack without fear...

Or that was the theory, anyway.

i'm ready to start
the conquest of spaces

Okay so the big buff dog was gonna help Fisher out, but right now he was kind of being all STEPPED ON but wait just wait a moment here me out here... FISHER HAS A GREAT PLAN. THE BEST PLAN. NO WAY THIS COULD BACKFIRE!!!

Fisher was going to try and cast the spell that basically he could never ever cast right and hope it saved his life instead of, y'know, ending his life. He built up all the magic he could in his body and as the clawed organ monster put its weight on him, the noodle set it loose.

... And for once, the electricity DIDN'T burn his fur to a crisp. Instead, it shot out of him, into the monster, and frantically, he tried to wiggle away and retreat to freedom. Hopefully the organ beast thought that Kerberos would make a more fitting meal!

expecting pain ;;

The bones fell, collapsing with a clatter, and for a moment Dragon was almost disappointed.

Was that it? Curiosity twitched within his reptilian mind, and he felt the urge to draw closer, to investigate--just what were those things? But before he could, something else emerged.

The long, thin fingers that snapped over the edge like spider's legs gave him pause, and before he could register what they even belonged to, Eve was screaming. Screaming, and then collapsing. He wasn't sure what he could do for her--he quickly (or as quickly as a fat alligator can) hauled himself closer, but she was limp, and bleeding. He could try to close her wounds, but he knew that the heat of his flames so close to her tiny brain might just kill her. He opted instead for the safe route, gently lifting her in his jaws as if she were a hatchling alligator, and placing her on a rock nearby, out of harm's way.

"Do not die, little one," he rumbled softly.

Then he turned to regard the thing that had emerged.

It was enormous: it was slick muscle and throbbing organs, and where some might have been horrified, Dragon's eyes lit up.

FOOD!

Dragon immediately began to haul himself as fast as he could, with his limp, toward the walking meat-meal. Kerberos was already tearing into it, and the others hitting it with magic--he dimly registered the hiss of ice, the crackle of electricity.

Dragon just wanted to eat it. Sure, some things tasted better cooked, but he wanted to rip and tear and roll and twist tiny pieces off and gulp them down his gullet whole.

Up he lunged, bear-trap jaws gaping wide and then snapping toward the meaty construct's flesh, fangs all gleaming dully ivory in the cave light. He was salivating.

He could taste it already.

{ art by dark } ~ { table by aura . edited by banshee and dark }

Black stared at the giant thing-that-emerged, pale blue-grey eyes wide. Nearby, Eve was injured, or so it seemed--he wasn't sure how, only that her screeching had brought physical pain to his sensitive canine ears. The alligator was carrying her away, so he didn't interfere--he couldn't heal. He wasn't a healer.

He wasn't even a fighter--he was a guardian, sure, but he was still reeling from his last complete miss of a tackle. Now he stared up, frozen, trying to figure out just what the hell he could actually do to help his friends.

With a growl, he bristled, calling on the void within him. This thing was horror: red organs and muscle and black goo, all slick and rancid and somehow alive, an amalgamation of life that turned it into a monstrosity. Hiding them in shadows would do nothing.

As always, the shadows themselves seemed to guide him. His magic tugged, and he opened his stone heart to it, releasing his power into the shape that it wished to make. Darkness coiled out from him, tendrils meeting horror with horror, a different kind, pulsing and gathering behind the meat-creature, and below it.

He realized what the darkness seemed to wish to do, and so he put forth all his power into aiding it. His voice came strangled and growling, a broken menace, too strained was he in trying to cast his spell.

"FALL. BACK," he ordered, but it was not directed at the other Gembound, but at the beast.

The shadows seemed to snap into place, hissing and roaring, creating a true Void behind the meat-monster that sucked all light, all matter, into itself. It would only last a few seconds, but in those few seconds, Black felt the Void trying to consume, as Void does: to suck the creature back where it came from, perhaps even to vanish a part of it forever into the not-space that his shadows created.

The cold, hissing roar of his magic behind it sent a surge of dark triumph through him, and he let out an eerie baying that echoed through the cave.

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All at once the gathering of Gembounds launched themselves at the Organ Monster. The small furry critter that it tried to step on suddenly sent out a jolt of electricity, sharp tendrils of pain that would have prompted the monster to recoil - but it didn't. This seeping, squelching, belching mass of organs and muscle had no intention of backing down even with sharp throngs of electricity crawling over it. Even the spears of ice that shot up from the ground, plunging into its bulk, didn't stop it from rolling towards the group. The sharp spines tore through its mass, tearing open the great sacs of flesh. They opened and more innards only spilled out - innards within innards, a great stomach suddenly opened only to lose more of itself than anything. The stench suddenly unleashed was that of rotting organs.

The monster's great, heavy head couldn't raise off the ground, even as the three-headed dog and the alligator came at it with all of their jaws. Kerberos and Dragon, too, managed to tear open the beast's thin viscera, but that didn't stop it. It only unleashed another cloud of a rancid smell that would curl around the Gembounds, powerful, thick, and foul enough to incite gagging.

The only affront that seemed truly effective against the meat monster was the sudden opening of a pinprick vacuum behind the beast, a swirling darkness that gaped over head and vied to pull it in. With its head flopping uselessly on the ground, the creature wrenched its jaws open and screeched a sound most unholy, and it used the long, bone-white claws of its six hands to grip the ground, meanwhile chunks of its back peeled off and flew into the void behind. Desperate, the beast summoned its strength to sweep its head across the ground and towards the black dog.

Eve does 2 damage!
Fallah does 13 damage!
Kerberos does 20 damage!
Fisher does 6 damage!
Dragon does 19 damage!
Black does 18 damage!
The Organ Monster currently has 22 hit points.

@Fisher @Kerberos @Fallah @Dragon @Ghost @Eve @Black @Arkrael

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Kerberos felt the pull of something stronger than even his own body and he let loose a snarl as he tried to retreat back. The stench of the monster overwhelmed his senses, but he felt himself slipping closer and closer to his own death by the second. There was only one thing he could do-- push the creature into the black hole, the void, that the black dog had created.

The hell hound was only distantly aware that the fellow canine had done what he had. It was a turning point in the battle, a surefire way for them to win. Gritting his teeth, he summoned his magic, and took a deep breath.

His throats let loose a baying howl, his words carrying above the roar of battle, "PUSH IT IN!" "THE VOID WILL EAT IT!" "OUR TEETH ARE MANY!" And with that call to the others, his magic worked overtime, and he let loose a blast that would hopefully push the organ monster back into the event horizon and kill it for good.

i'm ready to start
the conquest of spaces

The alligator hardly noticed a thing going on around him. There was a flurry activity, shouts and magic, but Dragon had only attention for the still-thrashing meal before him. He had torn chunks away, and the delicious sting of rancid meat, rotting in his jaws, filled his mind with hunger. He tossed them up, gulped them back, swallowing them down whole.

FOOD.

He rolled, thick tail thrashing, jaws clenched in a thick bit of taut muscle; it tore away as he came upright, and he shook it, swallowed it down.

But it was still moving.

Some primal part of the alligator's brain was irritated; he was eating, this was dinner.

"STOP BEING ALIVE!" he bellowed irritably, and those jaws opened wide, the orange flicker of flames flickering in his gullet.

The flames that licked forth weren't the huge billow of flame he'd aimed for; in fact it was barely the splash of a candle flame, and it died just as quickly, barely brushing over the writhing mass of rotten tissue.

The alligator found himself having to scurry back, limping, to avoid being crushed as the giant monster thrashed to and fro.

{ art by dark } ~ { table by aura . edited by banshee and dark }

The black hole didn't last very long, but it did its job.

Unfortunately, the giant flesh-monster--its rancid odor both mouthwatering and acridly repulsive to the dog--lashed out, the huge, heavy head skidding over the floor toward him.

Black bellowed his bay, then turned and tried to gallop out of the way. The head caught up with him, slamming into him from behind, sending him tumbling up and over until he struck the rock face-first. He lay there stunned, wrinkled face pressed into the stone, the taste of blood filling his mouth.

He wasn't sure what had just happened--he knew he'd been struck, but past that, he was dazed, and helpless. Should the monster decide to pick him up and just stick him into those giant jaws, he'd have no recourse. The billowing stench of rancid flesh filled his nostrils with its nearness, and his eyes watered. With a faint choking huff, he tried--and failed--to come to his feet, then decided to simply lay there a moment, to allow his body time to recover.

He just wasn't sure if he could afford that time.

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