Their foot breaking is less a sound, and more a sensation.

At first, the thrill of knocking that statue for a loop, the moment of victory as Plover drops off with the eye - good on you kid - keeps their attention.

Something faint tugging at the edges of their thoughts, something that makes their stomach curl, and as they try and twist mid-air and get away from the flailing death of the statue... That movement sends the pain crawling up their leg like ... honestly they have no comparison. Sharp and dull at the same time, it makes their vision spot.

"Bad idea," they wheeze, mostly to themselves, "Very bad idea."


With that in mind, they decide they're going to drop one more glob of flaming spit on the statue before getting back, if they can. Maybe.

In flight, Khavur must dodge falling rocks from the stupid punch dummy statue. This is, as you can imagine, rather difficult for a naturally uncoordinated big silly lizard to accomplish. And yet, by some stroke of luck—or perhaps sudden genius—Khavur manages to just barely thread the needle. A lot of needles. A lot of large, heavy, but otherwise still pointy, needles.

Using his airborne position to his advantage, Khavur will attempt circle back to the statue when there is a perceived opening and attack wildly from the skies, hoping his claws find any purchase in the rampaging stone statue. Truly living up to the Reaver name, or at least trying to. Several problems occur in this: first, there is no good opening. Everything Khavur detects as an opening turns out to be a false positive. Next, his claws do not find purchase amongst any of that rock. Maybe he's aiming for the wrong thing? And last, and perhaps worst of all, Khavur keeps missing his mark anyways.

He'd have moved to protect others--but truth be told, the statue thing looked to be on its last legs. Legs, literally, because the feet were gone from their stumps.

He hefted his flail and stepped carefully in, aiming a powerful swing as though he were pitching a baseball--using the momentum of the spiked metal to slam the stone.

Sergei flinched at the moment of impact, closing his eyes and turning his face away. The possibility of stone shrapnel shards blinding him was one that he didn't wish to really explore right now. Distantly, he was aware of the shouts and attacks of other behind and around him--of falling stone--but his focus on the statue, and helping to ensure that it 'died,' was absolute.

The statue staggered as a wisp flared and popped against its stone body. While others fled, the blast of molten bile that splashed across it began melting its torso; it staggered for the Gembounds still, arms held up as though it were some form of mindless rock zombie. But it was faltering, failing; the spiked flail smashing its head was little more than a punctuation of its demise, a finishing blow on top of finishing blows.

It slowed further, and then--mid-step on broken feet--tipped. It crashed, falling with a loud BOOM and choking cloud of dust. But it stayed down, the ruby light of the gemstones that had been its eyes missing, extinguished.

The Gembounds were left, as the dust cleared, with the bones of those who had come before and failed--and all the treasures those other would-be adventurers had left behind.

---

Loot!

Gembounds may roll to loot the treasure room! Their search should be in general terms, i.e. "armor," "a sharp weapon," etc. The treasure present is primarily old adventurers' gear rather than anything decorative.

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The next post will take place on July 21st in the afternoon/evening GMT.

Khavur should have placeholder posts complete before this round. If they aren't finished/Khavur fails to post this round, he will chrysalize.

@Howler @Flower @Rosary @Relic @Sergei @Naskarra @Plover @Khavur @Conleth @Hunter @Renasci @Attikias

Ooh, that was difficult.

She took a moment to lean against her walking stick, having set down her scythe for a moment as she watched it fall finally. After a few moments of regaining her breath, she finally pushed herself to her feet and began to search.

There wasn't really anything in particular she was looking for, so she figured she'd just take anything that caught her eye.

Howler watches the statue go down fighting. He releases the fists he didn't know he was clenching. His eyes look through the gembound in the cave - most, if not all, are injured in some way. The fight is over now. They can relax at least a little bit.

He turns to Rosary. "The statue is dead. Everything's okay." As okay as they can be with the various injured gembound.

He'll help Rosary up if she allows, and then goes to search for loot with the rest of them. Moving to snag the gems that were in the Statue's eyes. Those will do nicely.

@Rosary

Connie would creep out into the open just in time to see the massive statue crash to the side. He'd squeak in alarm, body tensing in preparation to flee, but when it was clear the statue was finally dead he relaxed. He.. felt a little bad that he'd mostly just hid the whole time without actually attempting to fight. But what else could he have done? The thing was massive! And seemingly very hungry! And Conleth was VERY bite-sized!

The fight was over, so there was no point in dwelling on that for much longer. But the recent threat to his life DID make him think he ought to have a little more protection. He'd search the adventurer's remains for anything that could be worn as armor, or maybe even repurposed into a shield or the like. He'd try to avoid looking at the bones. This was hard. There were a lot of bones.

[Connie is looking for some kind of armor that'll actually fit him. Or maybe he can just live in a normal-sized helmet like a hermit crab.]

The statue is dead. YAY! YIPPEE!

Someone else might've been curious as to why and how it'd awakened in time to fight them and who had created it. Relic was not that person. She was just glad it wasn't moving anymore. Stone should NOT move.

She shook herself, steel plates rattling together. A shame she'd already damaged her brand new helmet, but it still could do its job of protecting her, and that's all she really wanted from it.

Relic watched the others mill about, taking their pick from the piles of treasure scattered about the room. She noted the tall, pale figure of Howler examining the space around the statue - as if searching for something - AH. The gems.

She approached the much larger Gembound, the ruby she'd stolen tucked tightly between her teeth. Relic bumped gently against its leg, only coming up to about its calf. She dropped the ruby in front of her, carefully. "Hey. You can have it, if you want. Don't know how much use it'll be after the statue's been sapping it for... However long."

Relic moved off to find something to pocket. Something small, a little trinket - seeing the statue destroyed was reward enough. Something that'd look good with her armor, preferably. Or a maybe a little gemstone of her own to pocket - whatever caught her eye first.

@Howler (interaction)

The statue was dead. Naskarra stood. Her chest heaved hard. Her heart hadn't caught up to her brain. She curled her lips up, baring what few teeth weren't already exposed. Naskarra's first foray into combat hadn't gone too well. Quite the opposite, actually.

As the high of adrenaline and combat wore off, all that was left was a heavily wounded Naskarra. She took a step towards it, and everything hurt. Her ribs twinged with a sharp pain when she breathed--a sign something had been broken, though she had little experience in that area. "That was...fun!" She said. She'd never felt her life on the line like that, the thrill of facing an enemy she despised. There was a brief aborted shake, in which she quickly realized that, too, hurt.

Naskarra limped towards the scattered piles of treasure, a throaty laugh devolving into a painful coughing fit.