riverviewlogs | Behemoth in the Northwest

Fatima smirked a little as she followed along. Her few conversations with Roy had convinced her that his world was some strange combination of The Hobbit and a video game from the late 1980s. Which wasn't a bad thing, of course. But it gave her a sense--however imaginary it was--of where his adventurous spirit came from. He would have gotten along well with Aunt Denise, she supposed. Denise was always throwing herself into one adventure after another. And calling it just that. 'Adventure.'

On the other hand, Fatima viewed it a little bit more as quiet rebellion. She was just so excited to be going outside of the walls. There was nothing that annoyed her more than being told she couldn't do something. Of course she was happy to be on the other side of a fence.

But even she recognized that she might be diving in over her head.

And she didn't exactly have a clear read on Roy's friend. So that was exciting.

"Simple is probably a word we should be throwing out the window," she said, looking down to watch her step. As she'd promised Roy, she was wearing a pair of boots that she could easily walk in. But they definitely had stiletto heels. Still her weapon of choice, after all of these years.

"I like simple, simple is way more fun." Chandra followed at the rear, she keeps on pausing to look at stuff. She was about as on point as one would expect from a fire mage with impulse control issues. She played with her goggles, or was adjusting the straps on her gauntlets every so often. Not really to make them fit better but because they happen to be things she can fiddle with.

This was the sort of work Jace enjoyed, but Nissa would get to do. Scouty things. So far there was a lot to look at, and it kept her from getting bored. "Does the thing we're looking for know the plan, and that this is suppose to be simple?" Her smirk suggested she knew the answer, and was just being a pest.

Chandra was downright subdued compared to Elan, to the point that Roy didn't even notice her fidgeting. She hadn't said a single thing he had to completely fail to hear for the sake of his own sanity, either. So far he regretted none of his shoices.

Fatima... well, so long as she didn't twist an ankle, he was fine with her choice. They're not the Order of the Stick, but he thought they'd do.

"Well, I say simple when in reality I've assembled two fighters and a fire mage for a stealth mission," he said, with a grin over his shoulder at the pair. "But that's what we have, so that's what we'll work with. Do either of you two have any experience with animals?"

Fatima turned to Chandra with interest at the words 'fire mage.' There was possibly a slight moment of alarm too. The word 'mage' had certain connotations at home. But she decided it probably wasn't the same for her. Fatima had never actually met a mage, but she'd read enough of the lore to know at least a few signs.

Generally, they didn't include gauntlets or opening proclaiming oneself a mage.

She looked back over at Roy, offering him a shrug. "My boss keeps a cat in her office," she said.

No. No, she did not have experience in working with animals.

"If I can get a good look at the local flora, I can probably tell you more about what's munching on it," she added.

"I did mention I have a bad reputation for leaving places a burnt out husk of ash," Chandra stretched and put her hands behind her head, she wasn't bothered by the attention. Nobody had tried to kill her, so why should she care if she was being stared at. "They usually started it!"

Chandra was in full plate and mail armor. Well... mostly full, it was form fitting and a bit odd looking. But it was definitely armor. She glanced between the two of them before offering, "When I was twelve a horned tiger tried to eat me, I set it on fire. That's pretty much how me and animals work out. If they aren't stray cats! They like me. Or giant catmen, Ajani seems to like me too. So really it was just that horned tiger when I was a kid."

Chandra you are a walking sunspot, of course stray cats like you. And Ajani likes everyone. Also Chandra may have forgotten the topic, details aren't really her deal.

The full plate was pretty weird, so Roy was guessing Chandra was actually a warmage -- or she'd taken some very unlikely feat combinations, but hey, who knew?

"I anticipated this and took a course on animal behaviors," Roy said, not in the least bit bothered. (Admittedly, Chandra had nudged an inch towards "background noise" there.) "Also if it happens to be a very large goat I can herd it, but I think we have to admit that's pretty unlikely."

Don't judge him, Goat Herding was an easy 'A' back in school.

"We'll exit from the north game and circle around to come at it from the side, as subtly as possible as we can be in heavy armor and without a single rank in Move Silently to our names."

Edited (go away random B) 2017-03-13 23:26 (UTC)

Fatima had no idea what 'Move Silently' meant, but she got the idea anyway. Subtlety was the name of the game. Which, of course, made her wonder why anyone would dress that way, but hey, who was she to judge, in her high heels and all.

She nodded slightly, chewing on the inside of her cheek, the way she always did when she was thoughtful or nervous or...breathing, really.

There was still a faint hint of blood from her last spell.

"Noise isn't gonna be our only issue," she reasoned. "We're probably giving off scents too. We might want to consider a mud bath."

For all of her poise and makeup and polish, Fatima wasn't entirely above getting her hands dirty. She wouldn't like it, but she'd do it.

Chandra glanced at the shoes, something Liliana would wear, and tried to think of Liliana covered in mud if it wasn't in a context of 'keeping her skin young' or 'just finished unearthing a bunch of bodies for an army.' Chandra started laughing, she couldn't help it. She wasn't against getting dirty, that happened a lot with her life. But she'd prefer avoiding this, she was pretty sure Caitlin didn't need half the room covered in mud as she tried to clean her armor off.

"I guess we have a plan, you know, until stuff happens and that all goes to hell."

Chandra gathered what Roy meant with the phrase, but it didn't really mean much specifically. She just guessed this was work meant for someone... not like her. Or any of them. Chandra's fingers drummed on her gauntlet, they would be at the gate soon and then it was game time. "So... what's the biggest animal you've ever had to deal with?"

Meaning now was the best time for small talk!

"If we stay far enough away, we'll probably be all right. Every indication is that this creature is large enough that we won't need to approach within range of easy detection." Roy was not in a particular hurry to coat himself in mud either, particularly as he foresaw no gain from it. The sheer discomfort would make his every motion awkward and thus probably much louder.

Quirking an eyebrow at Chandra's laughter, but not inquiring, Roy instead addressed her question. "If we're confining it simply to animals, an allosaurus."

Fatima tried her best to maintain her jaded facade when Roy mentioned the allosaurus. It was still a lot to take in, the idea that dinosaurs still existed in some worlds. She wasn't sure whether she was jealous or not. Probably not. She'd seen Jurassic Park. She knew how that ended.

But she was impressed. Even if she wouldn't let that show.

"I once took down a three-hundred-pound Australian who attacked me in an alley." Okay, she'd attacked him. But he had been trying to drain a woman's blood. "But it's not as impressive as an allosaurus. Australians are basically people-shaped."

"Dinosaur, neat." Chandra had seen a few as lifecrafts, but never a real one. She had no idea what an Australian is, but if it was people shaped it was probably some kind of demon or devil? She assumed 300 pounds was large for one, but she couldn't be sure.

"If we limit it to animals, probably and Elephant. Those are everywhere." Chandra mused, "Otherwise the Eldrazi are the biggest thing I've had to tangle with. They're a kind of plane eating monster that unmake reality as they exist. So long as this thing can't do that we'll be okay!"

Chandra it took all four of you to do deal with that. And you couldn't feel your legs when you were done channeling a fireball to break two of them.

Sorry, Fatima. Chandra kind of won that one, and had Roy looking sidelong at her in surprise.

"...If you have any advice on dealing with reality-unmaking monsters, I'd appreciate hearing it at some point. That may be next on our list back home." He sure hoped it wasn't -- not when the gods themselves wanted to destroy the world simply to re-imprison the Snarl within it.

But now was not the time -- not when they were coming up on the northern gate out of the quarantine. After a brief conversation with a couple of the guards, whom Roy knew from his patrols and greeted with a smile, the group was permitted out of the walls.

"All right. Eyes peeled and ears -- whatever ears do that's the equivalent of peeled."

The Indian part of Fatima's heritage bristled a little at the thought of someone taking down an elephant. They were peaceful creatures that were generally hunted for no good reason. But she had to remember that different worlds had different rules. For all she knew, whatever Chandra called an 'elephant' was more like a tiger.

Or something.

"Listening?" Fatima suggested, with a glance at Roy.

She trotted up ahead of him a few paces, veering off of their path to a patch of brush and scraggly grass. She didn't have to use any spells to see that this was clearly the Old Country Buffet of the area.

"I'm thinking we may want to get off the beaten path," she muttered, running her fingers over the blades of grass. "This is a crowded area. I'm guessing our friend is more remote."

"I channeled the anger of the plane we were on about them into a really big fireball." Chandra only you get away with doing that, it is unhelpful for others.

Equally unhelpful is that elephant, for Chandra, covers everything from woolly mammoths, to siege weapons the size of a city block. Depending on where you've been.

Chandra hung back now with more of a purpose in mind to her actions, she did that sometimes. Thought about stuff. She wasn't a tracker and she could fight at range. So it made no sense for her to be on the point. "We're still pretty close to the wall, I doubt anything would be very comfortable so close to our home."

"Oh. Well." Yeah, that didn't help so much, especially since the Prime Material Plane was far too large, nonaligned, and nonsentient to have any particular anger one way or the other about one Snarl in one world in its depths. Roy sighed slightly, then nodded to Fatima.

"Let's try to make our way towards cover. Brush, preferably trees."

Fatima bit down on the inside of her cheek. She stood up straight again, nodding. "Try to stick to the greener shrubbery," she muttered. Given the fact that they were talking like D&D characters, she supposed that probably went without saying. But plants were an area of expertise near and dear to Fatima's heart. And she didn't exactly want to end up at the 'kiddie table' of this expedition.

And, in a larger sense, the kiddie table of the town.

Merali girls were royalty in their own way. She'd fought too long and hard to prove herself to start it all over again.

Mouth set in a firm line, she pulled the hunting knife out of her boot and started to move off the road.

Chandra kept her eyes in the air, glancing down to see where she was going, but she was used to threats being from the air. That wasn't the way in Regatha, but on most planes the biggest and meanest things flew.

She sticks to the brush, but tries not to get too close. Even if she doesn't set things on fire Nissa's told her to be mindful of drying plants out. "Anything else to know? Stick to the brush, don't set everything on fire... follow the really large tracks and damage?"

She wasn't even looking that hard but she saw some damage even she could figure out. She's not a tracker, not to the degree Gideon or Nissa anyway, but she's been around enough to see things for what they are.

"I regret that at no point in my entire adventuring career has the advice 'don't set everything on fire' been unnecessary or tacitly assumed." Not even a reflection on Chandra so much as Roy's life choices.

Actually, Roy was having a fairly good day of it -- armor check penalty aside, of course. He was by no means whisper-quiet, but his gentle progression through the brush was not noisier than it had to be. A good day (and a decent roll, let's be realistic).

They had a fair distance to cover, though, and a fair amount of time passed before they reached two signs of their quarry, almost at once: a large path trampled through the brush as if by some uncaring beast, and the faintest vibrations in the ground that heralded some massive THING moving off in the distance.

Edited 2017-03-25 16:36 (UTC)

Fatima suppressed a soft laugh. She'd been given instructions not to set things on fire plenty herself. But her abilities with fire were something she'd decided to keep on the down low for the time being. No point in showing all of her cards. Especially when they already had a fire person on the team.

Team? Squad? Coterie? Whatever.

As it happened, she found the walk quite enjoyable. It was nice not feeling fenced in. And the green was certainly a welcome change of scene. Her mother used to take her to the redwood forest when she was a little girl. She hadn't been back in awhile. Now she was remembering how much she missed that.

And her mother.

Nostalgia was set aside efficiently and abruptly when they came upon the first signs of life. Businesslike, Fatima knelt down by the trampled brush. She bit down on the inside of her cheek until she tasted blood. "What did this?" she asked. She made it sound like an idle question, thought to herself. But she was actually asking the plants.

They whispered to her.

Probably unnecessary, though, when she felt the vibrations start. "Shit."

"I know not to set everything on fire..." Until that is exactly what needs to be done. Fire logic. Sometimes you burn down everything. Chandra was... bad at stealth, she kept flexing and making more noise than she needed. She never did the stealth stuff at home, who would ask that of her?

She watched Fatima talk to the plane? The plants? Herself? Still, either the plane was answering or there was a giant monster close enough to be concerned. It killed whatever question Chandra had on Fatima's skillset. Chandra felt the ground react to whatever it was. "So... coming closer or running away?"

"Probably coming closer. What would it be running away from?" Roy, for his purposes, didn't underrate their ability in the slightest. He had no reason to doubt Chandra's statements of hurling fire at things with divine rank, and though he didn't know where Fatima stood in relative terms he had no reason to doubt her ability either. And he'd fought dinosaurs and whatnot and survived.

But this creature didn't know any of that, so as far as it was concerned, they were just three small fleshy things that were either good eating or not worth attention, if it knew they were there. Which, hopefully, it didn't.

Another vibration, and then another -- each one minutely stronger than the last. Roy ducked behind a tree, and motioned the others to do the same.

Fatima rarely had reason to doubt what plants told her. After all, plants had no motive other than survival. And it wasn't like anyone could manipulate a plant into telling a lie. They were much simpler than people that way.

All the same, she was having a hard time with a certain word they'd given her:

Dragon.

She shook her head, jumping up to follow Roy behind the tree. "Whatever it is...it's lizard-like, I think. Reptilian."

Maybe they'd just been confused. Plants weren't exactly...smart. Like animals, they saw life through three numbers: One, Two, and Many. Maybe it was the same with classifications? Because there was no way.

No. Way.

"It could be chasing something away from-" Chandra thought about what she was about to say, how things generally worked out for her, and shook her head. "No, you're right, probably coming this way."

Hiding wasn't really Chandra's thing. And honestly it didn't feel like it'd help. If the thing saw them, it'd either avoid them, or attack them. If it couldn't see them it might just take out one of the trees they were hiding behind. Which didn't feel like it'd be a fun way to die.

So Chandra stood exactly where she was in the center of the destruction. If this creature was crashing through the woods it probably didn't need to make a new path when it had one right here. Chandra smiled, she adjusted her goggles over her eyes. The thing was big, and she wanted to face it head on. Plus, if any of them could scare a creature that big it'd be the one that can make big fire monsters.

"Uh, Chandra... I recognize it clearly goes against your natural proclivities, but we are not supposed to be engaging this thing, just assessing it." Roy had no doubts from the very beginning that Chandra was Chaotic as can be, but -- well, now was not the best time for him to be losing control of the party, especially at only three members. "If it's no threat to the city, we don't want to MAKE it one..."

While Fatima agreed with Roy, at least as far as their orders were concerned, she didn't see any reason not to prepare.

As it was, she was biting on the inside of her cheek again, drawing blood to pool on the surface of her tongue. She wasn't entirely convinced that any of her telekinetic rituals would do much good, but not knowing what was going, she figured it was her best opening gambit.

Just in case.

Those were the three words she found herself repeating over and over again in her thoughts. Just in case. It was all...just in case.

But given the way the ground was trembling...just in case seemed...kinda case.

"I'm being careful!" Chandra didn't feel like sneaking up on this thing would make friends with it. If they spooked it, that could make it worse than if it sees her plainly. If it attacks them, unprovoked, that would have been the result anyway. And she's not armed or looking in any way threatening.

Because of the three of them she could survive being swatted by a giant beast, unlike the armorless Fatima. And could defend herself offensively within an instant using her flames. Probably faster than and with less obvious threat than Roy. She thought this through, mostly... maybe. She had an idea of what to do!

The tremors got stronger, stronger still. Then stopped. The large scaled creature crested a hill ahead of them and watched her. It wasn't... she didn't feel like it was stalking her for any specific reason. It definitely saw her so there was no reason for her to hide. Oh it was beautiful, I mean it had scales in various shades of brown, but it was like looking at strata in a cliff. It was the size of a snake-like body, but with limbs so really not a snake but more like a very narrow lizar- you know what, snake-like works still.

It was also big, like really big. Not Eldrazi titan big, but still the sort of thing you don't want stepping on you. Chandra watched it, it watched Chandra, and then it was bounding forward. Chandra watched it charge without moving. Hmm? That's something.

"Oh gods damn it." Roy made a note to have a stern talk with Chandra about mission objectives later, even as he stepped out of the brush to put himself slightly ahead of her, sword in his hand but not raised. If it intended to harm Chandra, it would have to go through him first.

This wasn't chivalry, just sensible allocation of hit points. Chandra was the mage, right?

"Well, we're about to discover if a dragon counts as a threat!"

A dragon. It was a dragon. Like, a dragon-dragon. Fatima's mind just couldn't quite accept it at face value. Her eyes searched the scene, like she was looking for the man behind the curtain. Except there were no curtains and she was in the middle of a forest with two people she barely knew. Facing down the aforementioned...dragon.

She could see how it had done damage to the local flora. Just walking, it was ripping up plants and grass and small shrubs. She wondered if it breathed fire too. That was a dragon thing, right?

Or only some dragons? Was it racist to assume they all did?

She was so out of her depths.

There was some internal calculus, looking at the dragon's size and gauging her own abilities. A bolt of force would be about the equivalent of a hundred pounds. Probably not enough to rattle the dragon. Possibly enough to shove Roy and Chandra out of the way, though.

Well, they were the dragon experts. She'd have to see if they could handle this guy.

See, while Fatima was worried about dragon and Roy was worried about hit points and who should get hit by a dragon... Chandra was still staring the thing in the eye, watching its expression. And, sure, dragon. Lots of sharp nasty teeth. Big. Intimidating. Really big. She'd seen bigger dragons, with wings... so this was a Wyrm she guessed? Not the point.

The point was it didn't have any hunger, or anger, or anything dangerous in its eyes. She was watching it, it started glancing towards the others, and the sword. And...

Chandra put herself back in front, waving her hands and veering a little to the side. "Woah, woah! Down. Down! Stop." While her hands weren't on fire, they were glowing orange and red, like a freshly forged bit of steel. Mostly to keep the thing's attention, maybe draw it away from paying attention to the really angry looking Gideon sized person and back to the less angry Chandra sized person.

And... it skidded to a stop and just looked at her waving her hands. She let her hands cool down, kept the eyes on the big thing on her, smiled, "Hi there. You're just really big aren't you."

And then she turned to Roy, "Why did you jump out with your sword, you could have scared her! I thought the goal was to assess or whatever."

Chandra Nalaar, of course she takes the side of the big rampaging beastie. It wasn't hurting anyone! Except for the trees, and plants. And anything else it stepped on... but the point is it didn't mean any harm! While it clearly wasn't domesticated, and showing all the signs of an animal ready to fight, it didn't seem vicious in any way.

"Yes, Chandra, our goal was to assess," Roy said. Either of them could read absolutely volumes into his weary but matter-of-fact response to Chandra's absolutely ridiculous statement, and come to a wonderful understanding of Roy's history with fellow party members.

Look, she hadn't attempted to imbue a puppet with Divine Rank yet, Chandra still wasn't the worst he's had to deal with.

"Besides, a dragon that size is not about to be scared of a sword that, for all its relative size to a human, is in absolute terms smaller than its claw--"

At that moment, the dragon, with a delighted whuff of fairly rank breath, bent its head down, lolled out its tongue, and licked Roy's head.

"...or tongue," the fighter said after a moment, his eyes shut tight against the gaping void of endless despair.

Fatima's eyes nearly bugged out of her skull.

Uncertainly, she swallowed down the blood and the thought of a spell, her gaze shifting back and forth between Roy and Chandra. "Is...is a dragon supposed to do that?" she asked. The idea of a dragon behaving like a puppy was foreign.

But then again, so was the idea of a dragon, period.

Tentatively, she took a few steps forward, out from the coverage of the trees. It really was a magnificent creature. Fatima wasn't the sort of person who generally thought in words like 'magnificent.' But she could see where it came from and how it could be applied.

There was a great beauty in power. Especially when it was restrained like that.

"It depends on how wild the dragon is," Ugin wouldn't bat an eye at a sword. Well, he would. And then he'd probably just make the person with the sword not exist. And that Nicol Bolas, from what Ajani said, is even meaner. Then there's that dragon in Ravnica Chandra's been told not to mess with, or go near, or ever meet. The point is dragons are varied, "This one seems smart, but not people smart."

"So it really is only dangerous because it is a giant playful monster that could probably step on a train and break it in half." Chandra's still stroking the beastie on the face, her hand warmed with a bit of magic. There's a soft glow to her hand but not enough to really be dangerous to anyone. Well... don't let her touch any ice cream right now. "Fatima, it's fine, just stay where it can see you and be okay with a bit of slobber."

Chandra goes back to cooing over the good dragon, who's a good dragon, you are, you are!

Roy was, believe it or not, glad now that he'd brought Chandra. Who knew that of all her available skills, the one he hadn't been aware of -- a fondness and empathy for big dumb animals -- was also the most valuable one?

On the downside, this shifted her one notch further on the spectrum of "Elan vs. Not Elan", which was kind of depressing.

"This is... not typical of dragonkind in my personal experience," Roy said, trying to wipe drool off his head with what little dignity remained to him. "On the other hand, the last dragon I had to deal with was a figurehead empress, the one before that was undead, and the one before THAT was trying to kill us all, so this may in fact be a step up."

After feeling so much at a disadvantage, Fatima was seized with an overwhelming desire to touch the dragon. Because it meant touching a dragon. It was an experience she decided she needed. Not just for the 'cool factor' of it--although that was motivation enough--but to add the experience to her toolkit.

Undoubtedly, that was just another measure she wanted to take to avoid the 'kiddie table,' but she wouldn't admit it.

She moved forward slowly and carefully, following Chandra's instructions and remaining in the dragon's line of sight. Or what seemed like its line of sight, anyway. She held her hands up, palms out. "Any way to find out if it has a name?" she asked, figuring that was the sort of question you might ask people like this.

Chandra was treated like a monster for being able to do massive damage to the local area, so anything that meant well but could lay waste to a village had a place in her big red mana heart.

"Name? Um... I doubt this guy has that sorta thought." She's sure it has a name, but it probably was given to it by someone else. The same way she's pretty sure most animals have names given to them. She stares at the big monster they found. "Maybe you can name it, I'm bad with names."

She spares a glance for Roy, "I've never had a dragon slobber on me before, well... with spit. slobbering fire has happened. Once. But I don't deal with dragons that often, I was heading to a plane to battle an evil dragon genius mastermind of evil evilness. Before I got stuck here." Chandra has such a way with words.

And there's another tick towards the 'Elan' side of the scale.

"Finder's privilege, I suppose -- you can name it. Him? Can you tell?" Chandra has been promoted to dragon expert by virtue of neither Roy nor Fatima being one. The dragon, meanwhile, shoved his snout straight into Tima's hands -- and, being apparently quite aware of its own strength, past it so its muzzle bonked into her body.

Fatima let out a startled noise, taking a few steps back to keep herself from falling on her ass. She was too entranced to be upset about the momentary loss of poise, though. Again, she'd been bonked by a dragon.

"He finds me attractive, he's clearly a guy," she joked, tentatively running her palm down the line between his eyes. Somehow, she'd expected a reptile to be...slimy. But it actually felt kind of nice. Like smooth marble. Only warm. Friendly.

Sounded a little like someone she knew...

"Let's call him 'Liam,'" she decided.

Behemoth in the Northwest

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