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.

________________

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

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