Wyrm would've liked to think she was immune to heat and fire. She was, after all, WYRM, child of DRAGON. But heat was still hot. Even her own minor flame spells caused her searing pain; the healing burns in her throat were evidence of that.

This thing?? This was MOLTEN ROCK. How was she meant to fight that?!

She hesitated. Her magic was her strong point. She used that, theoretically, as her combat strength--not that she'd ever really fought for her life, before. But fighting fire with fire? Somehow, she didn't think that would work well in this case--never mind that her "fire" was mostly "hot air breath" or "hot paws" which would probably melt her limbs off. She would take Fahl's advice.

So Wyrm looked around, saw a rock, and tried to slam it like a baseball toward the creature, using an alligator-like slap of her baby tail.

It had been expecting dangerous lessers, or perhaps bursts of flame and lava breaking through the obsidian. It had NOT been expecting a gigantic animated mound of lava to start attacking them. What the hell was it supposed to do about that?? It couldn't just bite it- that's LAVA!

It calls upon that familiar, chaotic spark of magic to do ANYTHING that could potentially kill a lava monster. Luckily its magic responds, but instead of some kind of ice blast or something actually useful, all that happens is a massive cloud of dust explodes from their fur. Taking a breath of it makes them feel light-headed, so they dart away from the cloud as quickly as possible. Besides, it might be flammable.

So many of them did not fight. They fled, or spoke, or... failed.

Rajani was an outlier, and not in a good way. Courage was one thing; wits were another, and it seemed the poor tiger had been granted a boon of one at the cost of the second. Throwing oneself at molten lava? Well, it was definitely brave. The resulting flaming fur and searing burns? They'd certainly leave striking scars.

Fahl's attack would have been more on the money, except--it wasn't. Magic failed. Rocks did not get accurately thrown--mostly. It was the Pallas' Cat, small and easily overlooked, whose magic probably saved them: a transcendent shove of impressive power that raised a stone wall between the lava golem and the Gembounds. It provided them with cover, enough that nobody would die horribly. At least, not right away.

The bad part, the counterpart to the beautiful stone wall, was September's magic. The blast of air fanned the heat, and suddenly, the Lava Golem was also flaming. On fire. Even more dangerous to get close to.

After the Gembounds had finished their mostly failed attempts to attack, bar a rock plunging into its lava (which admittedly gave it pause), it launched an assault of its own. The Lava Golem paused, then began to... spin. Gobs of molten stone flung outward: threatening to hit, stick on, and burn anyone they struck. The blobs would quickly cool to rock, but in the meantime, the potential for damage was great.

On the plus side? As it did this, it... shrank; it was flinging out the very material that made it up. Maybe if they could just... survive.

---

BOSS BATTLE

The Lava Golem is spinning, throwing gobs of molten lava haphazardly around the room. Gembounds should roll to avoid the attack. Successful rolls may also roll to counterattack or otherwise act, including to rescue individuals who fail to dodge.

---

The next post will take place on July 10th in the afternoon/evening GMT.

@Fahl @Thalassa @Bauxite-T-One @Rajani @Tourmaline @September @Surgis @Hargrave @V-Agate-One @Tyrin @Wyrm

Rajani did the hard and necessary work of confirming what was clearly visible to everyone with eyes. Yes, the golem is made of molten rock. And molten rock tends to be very, very hot.

Despite the blatant stupidity of his effort, Thalassa still winced at the sudden burst of light and the acrid smell of burning hair and meat. No mistake deserved quite that level of punishment, and the injuries would easily be severe.

But it was Tourmaline that stood out from the crowd, earning an impressed raise of Thalassa's brows. Damn.

They darted toward the short barrier, hoping to flatten themselves against it and avoid the scattered droplets of liquid fire. But they weren't fast enough, and they felt flecks of lava eat at their wings. They hissed in sudden agony, thankfully dulled by adrenaline for now - looks like Thalassa and Rajani might get matching scars at this rate.

The golem completely ignored him. Rude! Clearly a creature with no taste. This was a crime worthy of death.

And the Bauxite was certainly willing to dole out its punishment. However, someone beat him to the punch, and paid the price for it. It was, in fact, actually made out of lava. You cannot sting lava.

It did let out a little snicker at Rajani's expense regardless.

You shouldn't touch it either, at all. Not ever. So the spatter of lava heading towards them, and him, was of some concern. But he was better than cowering behind a pitifully short wall.

The Bauxite twisted awfully as it deftly avoided the flying magma, skitter-galloping around the room at speed. Easy. Too easy.

Well, he couldn't fight it. Let's try the other thing again. "Friend! I mean no harm! You don't have to fight me." And he was telling the truth this time, for the record. If he could, he would.

His shoulder burned and it hurt like a bitch, and he knew it had been a stupid decision, but he had hoped to pull the creature's attention to him with such a blatant attack, even if it did cause his shoulder to burn and scar. What he wasn't anticipating though was for the creature to start throwing out fire balls left and right.

He tried to back up, scrambling away from the balls of fire thrown towards him, but he was too close to really dodge and hissed at the continued heat and fire that raged on around him.

The earth trembles, not just under her magic, but also under the others' and the footfalls of the golem.

For a moment Tourmaline worries she'd be thrown out of her own cover, but her paws stay true. Of course they do. She's well acquainted with quaking stone.

But the others are disoriented. Some have been set ablaze. That chaotic whisper haunting her laughs at Rajani's suffering. Shut up!

Watching Rajani get burnt to a crisp makes Tourmaline feel a horrible agony. She thinks back to another time, where she had burned herself, back in Canis - but no where near as horribly as Rajani is no doubt going through. And that was bad enough.

She doesn't dilly-dally or think any more, instead already moving her magic again. Sure, ice directly on a burn wound probably won't be... pleasant, but atleast cooling him down would help put out the fire. And it was really the only spell that she could use to help.

But her magic stayed true, and the floor beneath Rajani's feet froze with ice, and frost touched his fur. It'd soon melt again, in the wretched heat, so all he'd need to do was stop, drop, and roll in the runoff. "Get down, its cooler!" she called out to him.

@Rajani

Steam had already been building up in Fahl's skull for a while now. Lungs were raked through by smoke, scales had been battered by rock, and limbs still shook from a perilous trek down a glassy slope. This latest failure topped off that expanding stockpile of anger, and all it took was one more annoyance to make everything escape containment. Unexpected snark from a stranger did just the trick, and despite the rawness of his throat, fury was unleashed in quick bites as he ran along the room's perimeter.

"Are you daft... furball! Or did your... pebbles for brains... mistake yourself for my niece!" He eyed Tyrin's not very impressive throw with marked disdain. "Maybe you ought to listen anyway... You might as well have given that damn fireball a free meal!"

At least someone else hadn't crumbled under the pressure or made an immense fool of themselves. Ignoring the dull ache of disappointment settling in his chest at not yet managing to breach the golem's magma, credit had to be given to Tourmaline for erecting a defensive structure. If not for the pressing circumstances, he might've tried offering her a nod of acknowledgment from one master to another. Instead his feet slammed to a halt once their foe appeared no longer content to withstand the majority's pathetic display, backtracking to safety foremost in his mind. Glowing globs flew about the place, and no genius was required to understand the suffering that could be inflicted on impact.

"Son of a—"

He weaved about, one eye on his destination and the other constantly checking for incoming projectiles out of their corner. Heat repeatedly burst across his hide, a harrowing sign of how close he came to nasty burns chewing away scales. Meanwhile his verbal filter had entirely failed; cusses flowed freely in between gasps for breath. They ceased only upon feeling the cool shadow cast by a stone wall spill over him.

@Tyrin (for visibility)