For once, everything went just right --- Eythan distantly felt himself hit home atop the golem and forced his talons to flex open and grip stone. Despite his slowed state, he managed to hang on at least a little bit while he tried to work his way back to a flesh and blood sorta state; that part was always the kicker.

Out of the corner of his eye, the gryphon could see an enormous fist wheeling toward him. Uh oh.

He wiggled furiously, trying to shed his stone skin, but all was futile as pain crack!ed and spun its way across his vision and his entire body. A gutteral cry escaped him as he suddenly became wholly flesh again and hot redness seeped from angry wounds. The momentum had thrown him some feet away Eythan's wings sputtered out against the blistering pain, forcing him to hover in the air.

Caves, this shit hurted. But... he couldn't give up.
He couldn't see hide nor hair of the dragon or any other Gembound. Plus, Eythan didn't want to be a coward anymore. The golem's attention was on him, now, and it would hunt him down endlessly until it got his stone and crushed all semblance of magic out of it. This was a fucking mistake, his mind whinged through the dull roar of blood in his ears.

@Asimona @Septiezal

Stuck in the mud, Asimona felt feeling returning to her limbs and she pushed heavily against the grime that was sucking her deeper and deeper into the swamp. She managed to heave her head out and took a gasping breath. The golem was still going at it, its fist crushing down on the strange hybrid. He had told her not to use magic...but he was in trouble. She wasn't just going to sit here while he got crushed by the rock creature.

She pushed at the mud with her wings and eventually got them free but found them too heavy with mud to get her in the air. So she simply crawled forward as best she could and aimed at the golem's fist. If she could somehow freeze it in place, it would have trouble hitting the hybrid again or, at the very least slow it down while it broke free.

She opened her jaws and a stream of chilling air and ice came bursting forth, right on point. The mud beneath the torrent of freezing breath gained a shiny sheen as the water in it froze instantly. Hopefully it would be enough to give the hybrid an opportunity to fight back.

"Can you hear their voice?"
"Find the one who'll guide you."
To the limits of your choice.

tags:
notes:

The golem reared back its arm again to strike again, and the great stone fist hurtled forward--only to jitter, slowed, into a motionless cast of ice. Here it paused, appearing for a moment to be baffled.

A hum emitted from it, loud and deep, thrumming through the swamp--almost as if it were debating what to do next. Or perhaps it was another surge of power. For the time being it stood motionless, one frozen rock-arm curled into the air.

@Eythan

Holy fucking shit, he was so close to blacking or whiting out from the pain. Eythan distantly wondered if this is what it would have felt like if he had thrown himself from Polaris's roof, all those cycles ago, if he had gone through with his contemplation and lack of a will to live. No, at least he would have died and didn't have anyone to live and fight for. Now he had Aure, at least. An enormous, stony fist wheeled towards him again, and the gryphon barely had the reflexes to drop a little in the air to avoid it. Red was beginning to seep into his vision now, blood making his eyes burn and tear up.

He was going to fucking die here, he knew it.

The churning, grinding sound of stone on stone stuttered to a stop, ice and cold blustering over his own skin. Peering down, the hybrid found that the silver dragon was most certainly still alive. He could only muster a quick nod, before flattening his ears against the hum that reverberated in his bones. Ah, he was fucked. They were both fucked if he couldn't... manage to shut this thing down.

Mustering the last bit of strength he had, Eythan swooped low to gain speed with minimal energy spent, world shrinking into a smaller and smaller pinprick of light. The golem's empty heart was so close... all he had to do was put the rune-covered stone in it. That was it. Somewhere in the process, the gryphon's mind slipped and he simply dropped, falling into the muck and mire, glowing stone released from limp talons and falling into the mud.

Okay, so, listen. Howl wasn't dead, let that be clear. He never had been. Getting burned by a dragon? Hah, what a fluke! The sticky-fingered hybrid had fallen miraculously between two rocks and — in the midst of getting baked alive — gone into his chrysalis. How convenient! Thanks, scapolite pauldron! No thanks to his own stone, though, because he was manic as all get out. Howl's fingers itched to stick to absolutely everything within sight (or smell, at times.) Monoceros wasn't really home anymore, so the thief settled for the next best thing: a swamp. That's right, baby. A swamp. Muck and mire and a little bit of rot.

And today, a little bit of rock. An enormous golem plowed through the shallows of the muddy waters. Normally, Howl would have had enough brain cells to turn tail and run away from the thing. But mania was truly a bitch and he skittered right towards it, hooting and hollering. Just in time to watch a spotted lump fly toward the enormous rock-beast and drop. Some shiny thing fell from its claws, disappearing into the muck. Well, there was a weird hole in the golem's chest.

The golem was made of a bunch of pretty glowing rocks that he could totally steal if it was dead. What was one tiny rock when he could have all of them? Howl, using his last available bit of intellect, focused on making a banana materialize in his fist and throwing it as far as he could across the swamp. Distraction! Instead, the banana exploded within his hand, covering him in icky, glowing goop and sending a migraine shooting through his skull. "Ho' shee-it!" Well-said.

Why was the entire swamp vibrating?

The golem turned sharply at the spike of magic from Howl, ignoring Eythan's proximity entirely. The unfrozen fist raised up, pointed to Howl--and a crackling, blinding surge of blue-white magical electricity shot right for him.

It was enough to sting, to burn, to lock the muscles and temporarily paralyze, should it strike. Even worse if the monkey was in water, grounded.

The golem began to turn toward Howl further, but its movements were still slowed by Asimona's ice.

@Asimona @Eythan @Howl

The mud seeped into everything. Blood seeped out of everything. Earth and red red red--- all melded into one. Eythan tried feebly to lift his wings, to put on one last burst of energy and speed. But he had already done that, hadn't he? Darkness swarmed in on his vision, and he could only distantly feel a tingle of magic. All it took was one blink for his world to fall into blackness. Sweet release.

Beyond his body, mookaite jasper began to swarm around his body, sinking and embedding itself into the roots of the swamp. The banded chrysalis would heal him, provided it wasn't broken or disturbed by the end of all of this.

;exit Eythan via chrysalis lmfao

Not only was he covered in banana goop or had a raging migraine: Howl was also now convulsing from electric shock. It was sheer luck that the howler mongoose wasn't standing in the muddy water. Otherwise, his situation would be more than marginally worse. Speaking of luck, his had turned around. There was mania still, and that forced him past the rising stench of fried skin and hair standing on end. Howl shook himself off, looking the golem dead in its rock-face and hooting: "eat mah ass, ya pile ah shee-it!" With that hardly-adequate insult out of the way, he scampered forth on two legs, snatching up the rune-covered pebble into his right hand. Said pebble immediately went into his mouth, because Howl never learns a lesson about putting rocks in his mouth, and he bolted the opposite way.

The opposite way being towards a tree. Cetus's trees had stone-hard bark, but they weren't impossible to climb. Howl leapt at the foot of a large, sturdy-looking pine, hooking his claws on any cranny possible and clambering up the tree with a surprising amount of grace.

Asimona watched the hybrid fall and her heart sank. She thought that they'd be able to do something, now that the golem's arm was frozen. But they had reached forward in their dive and just...dropped.

She heard something from the trees and noticed some kind of primate off to the side. The golem seemed to be distracted by the monkey and, hoping that he'd be able to handle himself for the time being, she began running towards the hybrid. She couldn't fly, her wings were covered with mud, so she instead hopped as best she could, flapping her wings to try and dry them as much as she could.

She reached his side and realized that his body had been overtaken by a shell of gem. Had he been injured that much? She growled to herself. If she had been more proactive this wouldn't have happened. There was nothing she could do for him now, though.

She looked up at her wings and tested them. They were still heavy and stained with mud but she had gotten most of it off. With a heave, she managed to push herself into the air. It took her a moment and a bit of height to stabilize herself but once she did she felt a lot better, a lot safer. She angled herself so that she was gliding over where the monkey was and began circling overhead. "Do you have any idea on how to stop this thing?"

"Can you hear their voice?"
"Find the one who'll guide you."
To the limits of your choice.

tags: @Game Master Dark @Howl
notes: roll is actually for if she can fly

It was something about the chrysalis.

A stone. Shining. Soaked in magicka.

The golem turned, and it was slow enough that one might imagine it would creak as it did so... and again, as it began its shuffling stomp through the thick muck of the marsh.

It was heading straight for Eythan's chrysalis.

@Howl @Asimona