[open] remember when i put meaningful things in subject lines

[spellslots]

who: taako
what: monster fighting + general nonsense
when: late march
where: around!
warnings: violence for any flooding threads



on this week's episode of River Monsters ; ota

[It's been a while since Taako's really had to stretch his magic out; there was the stuff with the cult, sure, but that was a minor little mess and this is like, a bunch of river monsters. Totally different ballgame. If he's being honest with himself, this is something he kind of misses about being away from Fearun and out of the cycles. Because yeah, it's a lot safe not running around fighting random monsters or possessed arcanists or whatever, but blasting shit with spells is just a little bit fun.

There's been enough time since remembering Lup that he's stopped relying quite so heavily on fire spells, especially when he doubts fire will do much against crocodiles and lizards with thick skin. He relies on lightning and energy instead, a few necromantic spells to drain the life out of the creatures, with the occasional confusion spell thrown in, turning them on each other.

At one point, one of them moves a little quicker than anticipated while he's dealing with another, and suddenly Taako is knocked aside by a scaled tale, disappearing into the underbrush with a startled yelp followed by a roughly exhaled hachi machi.

But it’s okay! Because instead of his regular adventuring gear, he's got a sweet as hell superhero costume, courtesy of one Cisco Ramon, coolest person in the Quarantine. It's made from similar material as the Flash's costume, just in purples and blues instead of red and yellow (because really, red and yellow? Pick a better palette, Barry). There might have been some arguments over exactly how fancy it needed to be, versus actual functionality, but at the end of the day Taako trusted Cisco enough to give him most of the creative control. What really matters is that it means he can take a hit like that and only lose maybe 15 HP, allowing him to get right back up again.

Now he's gonna toss a fireball, just because he's kinda pissed.]

day to day ; pre-existing cr

out and about
[Taako is a social creature. He can handle being alone, sure, the ten years in Fearun made that abundantly clear, but that doesn't mean he likes it. It's much nicer to be surrounded by attention and affection in the form of friendship. And after the last few shitty months, he's aware that he hasn't exactly been present in other peoples' lives. Sampremi and the kigu party rectified some of that, but a one off catch up doesn't quite cut it. So he slips back into old habits eagerly, sending out texts to anyone who's company he's fond of. It's often as simple as an offer to join him for lunch/brunch/dinner/coffee, though occasionally he does tailor requests to someone's interests, a mention of a new store they might like, or a band playing he thinks they'd be into. After spending the last months feeling bitter and trapped in the Quarantine, he's reaching out and reconnecting in an attempt to remind himself that it's not all terrible.]

around the house
[For anyone who has the amazing privilege of being welcome at the IPRE (minus Lucretia) residence, Taako tends to flit in and out during the day and night, not really beholden to any particular schedule. He's pretty content with an even mix of getting out and being a homebody, though it tends to tip more towards the latter on days he has a lot of orders to get through for work. Spending several hours in the kitchen isn't much of a struggle for him, but it does mean that once he's done he'd prefer to just chill out watching a movie or listening to music, rather than going out.

There's enough to do around the house to keep himself occupied, especially considering the place is full up these days. If Merle or Davenport show up, they're gonna have to look at getting a bigger place.]

Comments

[spellslots]

[Taako just taps the umbra staff against Finn's leg (this is entirely unnecessary he just thinks it's funny) and teleports them a significant distance away from the city, near the river but not so close that they're gonna get caught up in the water.]

If there's people this far out it's their own stupid fault. Right now your job is making sure I don't get fucking eaten while I'm casting, cause this takes a while.

[bythehand]

[ Finn doesn't know enough about teleport magic to dispute it. For the record, teleporting is weird as hell. Not like physically, just as an experience. Things that happen instantaneously are a bad vibe.

Maybe a little extra backup would have been a smart move. But hey, something to keep in mind for next time. This is just more teamwork. Finn can look out for a teammate. That's half his job in the Perimeter Guard. He has decent weapons and that makes anything marginally more possible. ]

Better get started, then. I'll cover you. [ It's ride or die time, kids, and oh excuse him he has to shoot a giant lizard, hang on. One day he'll get a pew pew blaster back instead of this ratatatattatata bullshit, man. ]

[spellslots]

[Taako's burning through spell slots like they're going out of style, so he figures he might as well toss one more Finn's way. Or two, actually. The first is just a lazy magic missile to help down the lizard, and then:]

I'm gonna give you some armor, here.

[Another quick spell, this one mage armor so that Finn isn't quite as squishy as he normally is. Taako asked Jyn nicely before casting a spell on her but like, Jyn is fussy? And Finn is fussy too but in a way that Taako knows he can get away with using magic on him without properly asking.]

Okay, uh, seriously try not to die, I don't wanna haul your body back. Corpses are fucking heavy.

[Now it's time to get to business.

Taako focuses on a spot where the river overflows and stretches out a hand towards it as he casts move earth. The ground slowly starts to tear open, a deep trench beginning to form. It's going to take ten minutes to get this done, and if possible he'd like to cast it at least once more alongside the first trench, but they can see how it goes.]

[bythehand]

[ It's patently unfair how well Taako knows his fussiness level. All things considered? Armor sure won't hurt. ]

If I die, don't haul me anywhere. Save the trouble. [ Rey and Poe can think he got mysteriously portal-ed back out, as one does. Obviously. He's mostly saying it to be argumentative.

While Taako is getting down to business, Finn is also getting down to business. If there's one thing he knows he's always been good at, it's shooting things before they kill the people he's teamed up with. Within a reasonable margin for error and things that he couldn't prevent.

It'll be fine. They're not swarming up like goldfish who smell food on top of the water, so it doesn't seem unmanageable right now. Probably helps that there's commotion spread along the full stretch of the flooded areas to create distractions.

And Taako trusted him enough to bring him along for cover anyway, so even if they were hitting this circuit en masse he'd be giving it his level best. YEET THIS OUT TAAKO, THERE'S NO WAY THAT THIS CORPSE TALK JINXED ANYTHING, BRB. ]

[spellslots]

[If Finn did legitimately die, there would be at least a five minute internal debate about whether or not Taako cares enough to drag his body back, but that's neither here nor there. Mostly because Taako can just use his transmutation stone to resurrect someone, so it's a moot point.

What he can also do is keep an eye on their surroundings, because focus just means keeping up the spell, not completely shutting himself off to the world around him. It's lucky, really, since it means Taako spots something slither it's way out of the water. It's close enough that Taako doesn't feel great about it.]

Finn! My man! Can I get a hand over here!

[Worst case scenario he has to drop the spell, but ideally he'd like to hold it for at least another minute.

But he'd also rather not end up monster food, which is going to be his fate if Finn doesn't do something.]

[bythehand]

[ Shoutout to Taako for playing the part of a good lookout. It's important to his continued survival. Finn turns back to face him immediately, follows the direction he's looking right after that, and ah.

Welcome to hell, yes, he can see why Taako sounded stressed about that one. That bad boy is way too close to his position for comfort. ]

On it!

[ He's pretty great with strategy, is the thing. Show him a battlefield, show him what needs done and what he has to work with, he'll manage to come up with something decent and worth trying. That's how he's worked since he first started training. This is a lot more on the fly and unprepared than usual, which is saying something, because his last couple of days back home were a hell of a thing.

Finn does what any self-respecting bodyguard escort mission friend would do, in lieu of time to really consider all the possible options. He runs directly towards it and starts shooting like he has no sense of self-preservation.

It's not the most super-effective method, as it's turning out, because he doesn't seem to be doing a ton of damage right off the bat, but it does draw a bit more attention than someone standing still to cast a spell. It's enough to get it to change tracks a little, shift direction to come meet him halfway.

The good news is, Finn can give Taako another minute of spell-holding and he can, eventually, shoot this thing to death. Probably through an eyeball. The less than ideal news is that it was just trying to take a bite out of perceived crime, by deconstructing it into bite-sized pieces with its dumb pointy appendages.

Finn is still in one piece, thanks to his trusty gun efforts. He's mostly yeeted himself on this one and is still probably set to bleed to death eventually, however. Will that stop him from trying and failing to push himself back up for a hot second? No. That's mostly because he's a dumbass. But consider: He Wants To Get Up And Therefore No One Can Criticize Him. ]

[spellslots]

[Here's what worries Taako: after the monster thuds to the ground, hopefully dead, there's no yelling from Finn, either of complaints or victory and based on his experience with Finn so far, that's not great. He couldn't focus all his attention on the skirmish, both because of the spell and because of the fact he wants to keep watching the rest of the water, so he's gotta just hope for the best.

That's not a strong point of his, which is why he takes his eyes off the prize for long enough to really get a look at Finn and it's not like... it's not great.]

Oh, fuck.

[This is bad, actually?

Taako hesitates for all of a second before he drops the spell, freeing himself up to run over to Finn, where he casts tiny hut over them to keep out anything dangerous while Taako works out how to solve the problem of All This Blood.]

Hey, hey, you still with me?

[He's got a hand on Finn's shoulder, trying to keep him steady while giving him a once over to see just how bad the injuries are.]

[bythehand]

[ The man sacrifices himself for your spell and wellbeing and you come for him like that in the brackets about his tendency to yell about things.

Actually, that's valid. Finn is having a Time right now. He was just kind of chilling in a nebulous void of what happened and the lyrics to the YMCA that talk about picking yourself off the ground, which is hard to do when you're trying to remember which way is up. One of his hands is awkwardly pressed into his torso, which hasn't been super effective against the row of punctures left behind by Serrated McGee's Riverside Jamboree.

The gears in his more complex thought processes don't seem to want to turn. Things hurt and he can't get in a full breath. Taako's hand on his shoulder is like a weird anchor, like everything was in motion and then Finn came to a very sudden halt while the rest of the world kept on spinning.

Finn would probably very much like to be yelling or arguing or saying something sarcastic. Or, more realistically, because between some vague impression that his shirt is ruined and trying to blink his vision clear he's legitimately interested, asking if Taako's okay. What reality brings him is the ability to very eloquently slump over. Sorry fam send him the drycleaning bill tomorrow, he'll cover it. ]

[spellslots]

[Taako is intimately familiar with death - not like that, he and Kravitz are still sorting things out - but he knows what blood loss and shock and trauma all look like, what they feel like, and knowing these things isn't reassuring right now, when he's quickly drawing parallels to the way Finn looks.

There's a steady stream of fuck fuck fuck that doesn't really need to be outside the narration. There are more important things to cover, like Finn being about as heavy as he looks (lighter than Magnus, heavier than Barry) which is cool for Taako's guessing skills but not so great for his attempts to make sure no one face plants on the ground. Taako's strength modifier is zero, but you know, he's trying his best to support Finn's weight.

He briefly considers a) panicking or b) just fucking booking it out of here and pretending this never happened, but Taako isn't a complete monster, nor is he unaccustomed to dealing with injuries san a healer, or dealing with injuries while Merle is their designated healer, which is basically the same thing. It means he's fucking prepared, bitch. Rin left him a lot of potions, and the ones that are useful in combat situations are the ones he makes sure he has in combat situations.

A mage hand pulls out the flask and uncaps it, since Taako's hands are full of injured Friend, though he braces Finn's weight with one arm so he can actually tip the potion into his mouth.]

You gotta drink this if you don't wanna die, my man.

[He and Istus aren't exactly tight, but he'd like to leave a quick note re: Finn being conscious enough to swallow a mouthful of liquid. It's kind of important.]

[bythehand]

[ Istus stops knitting long enough wherever she is to shoot him the double guns. Presumably. Because Finn is still human enough to reflexively pick the better option in swallowing a thing versus accidentally breathing it in and drowning.

Shoutout to magic potions. He takes a hard swerve on actively dying out here. And he feels a lot less like he's actively dying, which is no small relief. He tries to breathe in again and it works, which is cool. Still working on making the world sit still.

He wonders if this is how Slip felt at the end.

Finn makes a very uncoordinated effort to do... something. It's either to sit up under his own power or to flail a hand around until he can grab any Taako-based surface. Kind of hard to tell, he really whiffs this one. Coordination who? Getting a full handle on what's currently going on who? He doesn't know them intimately. It's a work in progress. This day got real wild real fast. Things that take less coordination: speaking. ]

We need a bigger team.

[ That was basically the exact complaint he was planning to make before he got into hot water. He held onto it. Like, he knows for sure that was something he wanted to say, he's really sure about that. And now that he's probably not about to die, he can make good on his own salt. Half-salty, half-confused. Anxious about a lot of things, currently.

Actually that's really close to his normal Aesthetic. ]

[spellslots]

[That Taako-based surface turns out to be his arm, which normally he might make an obligatory fuss about but he's taking a raincheck considering the circumstances. He could also take a raincheck on snapping right back at Finn but like, who would he be if he didn't express concern through bitchiness? Not Taako, that's for sure.]

You need to not fucking throw yourself at reptiles, what the fuck where you thinking?

[It doesn't matter that Taako asked Finn to take care of the situation, he absolutely did not expect that would involve anyone getting clawed. Or at least anyone that wasn't him, he's used to taking hits like that, for all Magnus's attempts to get in first. Surprisingly enough, people tend to target the DPS of the team.

He's not going to say that Finn is right, they should've had at least one more with them, but Taako wasn't expecting there to be quite as many creatures as there were, and he's out of practice monster fighting.]

I can't heal, we're gonna have to call this one a day.

[bythehand]

[ Snapping is more reassuring than getting some kind of gentle handling. In a weird way, it's a lot more proof that he's not about to completely beef it right here on the ground. People don't argue with dying people.

Which is dumb, in his opinion. But he gets it. ]

I'm not the one who crawled out of a river to try to eat people! [ GAME SET MATCH? His flawed strategy wouldn't have happened if nature weren't being a dick right now. Don't @ him about this. ] You're okay, right?

[ ... he will not argue the decision to call this one a day. He's not gonna be much good for another round of PVP Living. ]

[spellslots]

I fucking didn't either!

[Speaking of things crawling out of the river, there's definitely something slow and slimy making its way towards them; Taako casts a glance at it, but is confident in his magic keeping them contained.]

Of course I'm okay, I'm Taako. [He's always okay, except when he's not.] We're going now, don't puke on me.

[This is all the warning that Finn gets before Taako casts teleport, taking them from the middle of the forest, to the front door of the clinic where he went after his first fight with Dodger. It's not the hospital because he knows these guys use magic as well as modern medicine and he trusts magic way more than he trusts doctors. It's just like that.]

[bythehand]

[ Finn is very good at not puking.

He didn't know that until just now. Learn something new every day. But he is going to very wisely squeeze his eyes shut and breathe through his nose just to really make sure that he's good at not puking. ]

So you don't need the umbrella to do that. [ Look, he distinctly remembers there was an umbrella tapping the first time around. That's where he's investing his attention. Petty bickering, not passing out, and not being sick. ] Good to know.

[spellslots]

What? [It takes him a second to realize what Finn is talking about, then:] Oh, yes? I was fucking with you.

[Like - it should've be obvious, Finnothy.

Taako moves to put an arm properly around Finn's waist, supporting his weight so they can walk the last little distance into the clinic. It's not the first time he's hauled around someone bigger than him.]

Come on, darling, let's get you fixed up.