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rubyrubyrubyConcentrating not only on where she is going, but on where she is taking them, Maggie can only grunt an affirmative when Merrisol reminds her that their beastly charge must be kept with them. No losing the charging charge before its time, right? Right. Dodging a trailing vine that turns into a serpent, Maggie skids across a bit of frozen muck, sending a spray of melting ice across a meadow in the next moment. "Ruby, can we..." Her call is lost when Merrisol is lifted bodily from between the two femmes and hauled above by the child-given muffler. "No! Oh, no you don't, Stickbutt..." Whirling mid-stride, she screws her determination to the sticking point, or there abouts. She is not going to let that creature harm her mate. Drawing her swords, she leaps for a bending sapling. "Get ready to grab on, Kerf!" Onto what? Really, Maggie is not that good at communicating her plans, is she? She should work on that. Running up along the young tree's slippery trunk, she races to the end to spring-board up toward Merrisol. Her aim is to slice him free, perhaps then to stick the beast with her blades to avoid a rumble-tumble fall.
The running leap along the sapling does springboard her into the air. Just... not high enough. She flexes in an attempt to throw herself higher and that does work, but... in her hurry to get to Merrisol, Maggie did not take the monster's oddly roiling gait into account. A joint lifts about when she reaches it and she collides with it with a resounding SMACK. The rebound sends her flying forward in a whistling, tumbling hurrah of Maggie trailed by her own hair and dribblets of blood. Luckily, she lands in a snowbank with a crystalline ploof of flakes and shimmer of ice.
The bestial thing is nowhere as nimble as the two legged creatures scattering around it. Trampling along as it goes, it cannot avoid all those trees and undergrowth. Most is smashed flat and fallen log or trees are sundered to splinters and hunks of pulp careen off in all directions. The sapling that Maggie uses for a boost is summarily broken and adds to the cracking-snapping myriad of noises that contests with the loud huffing and puffing of the beleagered animal.
The other-shadowly mammal rears up it's head with the dangling Merrisol snagged upon one of it's noggin protrusions and follows it up with a loud bellow. It has more vigor after the compassionate care attempted upon its wounded hide, though it's eye rolls with the scents and stimuluous. A confused mix of rage and matronly instincts flooding forth from it in a radiation to anyone sensitive enough to pick up the wavelength. It's almost blinded by pain and protective instincts. And here, quite nearby, is a source that does nothing to resolve the conflicting signals. It shakes its head and antlers and offers a high warbling keen that transmits up through its resonating horns.
It runs on. It must keep running.
Ailith shakes her head, quickly, getting the fuzz from the fall cleared away. Noting that the creature has gotten...quite a long way, she winces. This would be much easier if she'd just brought a *horse*. As it is...getting ahead of it or catching up are infeasible. Taking stock of the situation, she decides to see if Maggie is unharmed in her snowbank. That, at least, may be something useful she can do.
Ruby risks a glance over towards Maggie as a branch of those antlers comes dangerously close to dashing her off her feet. And with an open mouth, she watches Captain Flame do a pretty amazing feat of agility. Words aren't coming. Only laboured breaths. There are distinctly less and less people running /with/ her. "Oh Bog...I knew it'd come down tah me...onlah...onlah survivah." She pumps her arms and dashes onwards, vaulting a fallen trunk and panicking against the tunnel vision she's acquiring the longer her panic has time to turn her bloodstream to high octane. "I...I tell everyone you was brave! An...Merri maybe was..." she cries out as she veers to the left towards a rather thick copse of trees. Maybe she can draw it that way and slow it down a little with the environment and gain some advantage by a little serpentine action.
Liya might be fresher since she's not been runnign quite so long, but she's following, and she caught that singing, so she starts to use her empathy to try to calm the beast, as well. Not sure if it will help or not, but if she can slow it down a bit, that might help. She's running, and Mayhem is with her, the big cat light on his feet and actually really agile at missing trees and things in the way. That Maggie has fallen is frightening, but Ailith is there, and Kerf - is still ahead. "Where are we running to?" she calls out, though she's trying to catch up to the beast, not too far behind it. The set of really odd emotions from the beast totally confuses her - "does that thing have a youngling somewhere?"
Grab on where? Brambles and branches, ice and fog, those are all the things Merrisol glimpses rushing and crashing over and around him before he is swinging free over the barren treetops in his makeshift hangman's noose. His legs are still kicking in a futile run cycle, waterskin clutched tighter in the one arm, threatening to pop. He manages to alleviate the stress on his neck by making an overhead grab for the taut bunches of scarf still hooked by the single curved horn, just one of the many jutting and twisting around him. Slicked with mucus discharge and.. whistling in a peculiarly hollow manner, too. For a while, Merri can't seem to fix his sights straight in any direction, what with all the non-rhythmic bumping and swaying and jarring against various horns. After learning to bend away from such pokes, he manages to peek straight down, rewarded by glimpses of tumbling trees and chaos.. and maybe there's people still running ahead of it all. At least one. Recalling Maggie's yell, he starts to call out, only to be drowned utterly in the beast's ensuing whinny and every reverberating tone that emanates from the antler-flutes. Shuddering in the onslaught, he finds himself twisted around to confront the maddened rolling eye of the moose mama. He stares back... then with painstakingly care not to drop it, rolls the waterskin down into the grip of his hand, and swings himself over more to the right of the massive cranium. A small test, to try and steer the deer? Perhaps in vain; he's no longer certain how many of the party are still with them.
Maggie rolls to a stop, dizzy and banged up by her close encounter of the knee kind. For a moment, she lies in the snow, letting it slowly turn pink with blood. Inhaling the cold air, only vaguely tinged with gross wafting scents from the passing moose-beast, she begins to rise on shaky feet. Sheething her swords, she takes stock of where things are. Ruby? Ahead. Check. Merri? A head and neck above by a head. A moose head. Ailith? Gaval? Liya and Mayhem? At least some are approaching. Ailith is given a wan smile and a nod as Maggie definitly considers a quick repair. "Uh. We need to catch them." But you need to be able to run, Maggie. "We're shifted enough out of Arden that Uncle Julian might not be upset about the trees it is destroying. But, I wouldn't swear to that." Talkative, ain't she? "Maybe we can flank it?" Looking up and after the beast, she spots something... "Oh... Oh no. Is that what I think it is?" She lifts a banged up arm, sleeve cut away or torn to reveal bruising alread purpling her arm. Her aim is lifted enough to indicate the creature's hind quarters. "Did... she just give birth? Is Kerf carrying her child?" This... could be messy.
The stench from the animal is quite potent to anyone that gets close enough. Like it was a member from the mustelid family. The eyesocket that's closest to Merri does a lot of stricken rolling about at something so close to it's head. Something so stanky and familiar. It cranes its muzzle upwards while it stares ululates in a keening vocal emit while Merrisol manuevers. It swerves to the left and the right, absolutely demolishing vegetation, heedless as to how it almost skewers itself into thick trunks, some branches managing to pierce it in the chest.
Ailith takes hold of Maggie's shoulder. "One problem at a time," she says, firm but not ungentle. "Beloved Queen, I ask your mercy; heal this warrior for another battle." Light gathers at the paladin's hands, the shade of sun-on-snow. It's cold, but pleasantly numbing as it mends. "With wits unaddled, I must ask - how are we going to catch up to it?"
"You...bloody bi-!" A hoof slams down behind her as the beast erratically charges after Ruby. Unsure about whether she's confusing it or having just dumb luck. The tree arcs forward wickedly by the felled trunk and crashes, branches whipping across Ruby's thigh and caboose, adding yet more motivation to not stop. She can feel the breath, an odd inverted suckling of this thin oxygen before blasting out another exhalation from it's heavily mucuous lined shnoz. She can't keep the pattern in mind long enough to draw it away, which is good for those catching up. Wouldn't do her much good drawing it further into shadow anyways...not with the thing so perilously close. She's still about to get stomped.
RPG: Liyandra challenges a difficulty of 12. Liyandra chooses Grace and the gifts PHY-KS, SKL-DS, and SUK-RH. Liyandra succeeds.
Liya sends a quick empathic thought to Mayhem, asking him to continue to follow the moose-beast. He is used to this sort of thing, and stays at that nice lope, not pushing up towards it, but keeping on track just behind it, even if it stinks to high heaven. For Liya, with that keen nose of hers, the stench is ridiculous, and her nature senses are no doubt also roiling her stomach. But she takes advantage of her natural climbing ability and her practice on riggings and jungles. She concentrates, sheer stubbornness showing on her face, as she sprints gracefully forward, that work ethic of hers coming to play as an idea has hit. Liya puts one foot after the other, breathing rhythmic, and then she leaps, catching one of those harpoons and using it to vault lithely up and then again until she makes it to the back of the creature. She then flattens herself, both hands hanging on for dear life as she adjusts to the creature's totally strange gait. She can see Mayhem, which is good far as she is concerned. And then she starts to concentrate, but this time, Liya is not using her empathy, or not /just/ her empathy. There is a sense of heat round her hands, and a wave of wellbeing tries to waft out from her and into the poor moosething. "C'mon you, I need you to ease up, relax and let us help you," she says, a fierceness to her that is not often outwardly expressed.
When dangling to the right doesn't seem to take immediate effect with the creature's heading, Merrisol can only hold on to the stretches of wool in his sodden grip and wait for the wild swinging to even out. Another painful jab to the side from a tooting antler reminds him of the peril amongst the angle of branching horns. So basically, he spends a lot of his time /gyrating/ out in front of the moose mama... however soon enough he gets a good swing going, enough to hurl himself into the clutches of the right antler set. This would seem to do the trick as the nutured interest o the beast has its steps trending more and more to the right. This... could be good. Running in a circle, albeit a huge circle, is still considered traveling, and will not be so hard on those trying to keep up on foot. On the other hoof, there is a good chance the monstrous femme is now about to bear down on those who lagged behind.
Ailith sees the shift in course - and seems, if anything, pleased. An opportunity! Provided she can get to the center of the circle. This will involve not being trampled, first. She eyes the creature's course, judging how much time she's got to get into and out of its path.
The creature does start to veer to the right. A great snuffling and a tire-squealing warble from deep in its chest and it's tilting its rack. A misjudged collection of trees becomes a skull-jarring affair as is starts to collect them up like thick chopsticks. Liya's ascent doesn't cause the animal the kind of trouble that Merrisol's endeavors...not until she uses one of the Harpoons for leverage. That has the beast throwing itself forward and kicking out with both legs, first one...then the other. At the apex of the two legs being stretched out, it gives a hard shake before continuing to the right in its turn, a horn on the periphery of its rack gouging in at the ground and carving the frozen turf.
Maggie closes her eyes as Ailith's goddess answers that entreaty and soothing cool floods Maggie. Injuries, both external and internal knit quickly enough to stop mid-spasm. She murmurs a quick, "Thanks," then opens her eyes to see what is what. Liya? Mayhem? Uh... Looking up and around, she spots them as Liya climbs the beastie by the spears. Taking a step back, she does not hinder Ailith, though she tries to answer the question, "By... waiting, apparently." Though maybe not /right/ here. Bending, she scrabbles about in the snow until she finds her swords. They will need to be cleaned. Later. Sticking them into their sheeths, she frowns, "Can't help but feel a bit sorry for it. Her. I think she just gave birth and someone attacked her. Is Kerf holding her child?" She pauses as the screetching warble sounds and she whirls to watch the creature's progress. "Ooookay. We need to stop her." Eyeing the trees nearby, she licks her lips, "Uh... Unless you have a better idea, I'm going to smack her with a giant wind-fist." Just in case, she begins to call the winds to her.
Ruby is given a wonderful respite. The big monstrous thing is somehow urged off course and stops following her. A couple of double-takes help confirm this and she slows to a jog as it peels off and does horrible things to the forest. Ruby throws up her hands as she's hit with clods of dirt, rocks and snow and staggers, trying to keep in motion. She grimaces and shuts one eye. She can just make out someone on the things damned antlers. And someone on it's back. Spitting and taking a moment to curse her fate, she sets off after it again, at least parallel to see where the crazed thing is headed.
Ailith smiles at Maggie. "I plan to finish my song for her. T'is the best I can do until she slows enough for me to touch her. I have no woodcraft, to find this creature's offspring, but given the trail it leaves, perhaps not much is needed. If my song cannot calm it, I will follow its trail back and see where its child may be found. A mother cannot help but come to the call of her baby." Waiting for her moment, to cross the path without getting trampled, she darts for the center of the now circular route. Where a song of mercy might be heard clearly.
Liya is the one atop the critter's back, and she's hanging on for dear life. The fact that she got up there doesn't phase her, but hanging on, that's a bigger nut to crack. There's bucking and turning and other such ridiculous jarring motions, and she feels herself bounce, jounce and smash into the side of the critter, but of course, Liya is not very big, so hopefully it doesn't mind as much. She loses hold with one hand briefly, her breath whooshing out and a "Yikes" sort of yelp startling out of her. Scrambling, she manages to regain her hold in the next moment, so that she does not get knocked off, though it's a difficult and close call. Meanwhile, the warmth continues to waft from her, as she tries both to soothe and help the poor thing, with what little healing magic she has.
RPG: Merrisol declares that he has the Animal Empathy (ANI-EM) gift.
The main problem with the team scrambling over and around a behemoth of a hoofed quadruped is... definitely communication. The head can't keep the hindquarters apprised of plans, nor the hooves, and so forth. Just when Merrisol thinks he might have some control over the situation, the beast does its frantic buck, and everything around Merri, including Merri, drops out of the air. "Whoaahhh Nellie!" He rides one or another hollow spike, bouncing and grabbing for purchase within the thorny cage of keratin, while it lists dangerously to the extreme right and crashes through the treeline again. Which means more crashing into branches and brambles to endure, before the creature rights its head again. When it does, he is somehow still there, having wrapped himself around the base of the right hronking antler set and shivering under a layer of mingled Merri-moosey sweat. "Easy girl - something got you good, huh?" Of course he's taken to talking to the deer. There's nobody else-... oh hey. "Liya!" He spots the Sukhoti glommed somewhere on the giant's heaving shag. "Tell me we didn't lose the others in shadow!"
RPG: Maggie declares that she has the Wind Strike (WIN-WS) gift.
Maggie nods slowly, "Well... that's a problem, honestly. While we were running, I shifted us a bit out of Arden. So... following her trail here might not get you back to her baby there. I don't know what it would take you to. Here." By this point, she has built up a fair bit of wind around her. It whooshes here and there, wafting her clothing and hair this way and that until she looks a bit like a wind-sprite grounded in snow. The wind picks up detritus from nearby, snow and twigs, mud and glop swirling into a large fist, "Maybe if I can knock her over, you can get close enough to touch her. Between you and Liya, she might come out of this okay. Then, maybe we can take her back." Maybe. And maybe Merri is okay and not battered to death. A wish, a prayer, a plea... Though... If wishes were horses, beggers would ride like kings. Lifting her hand, she clenches her own fist, then swings forward as though delivering a blow to someone right in front of her. Ranging back from her hand, the enormous wind-fist arches back, then swings around toward the moose-critter with enough speed to whistle like a freight-train. Maggie still does not know her Oberon-given strength at times.
Ailith watches the beast, listening to Maggie. "No," she says. "Do not direct your power at the creature itself. We need to pull its thorns. It is *not* going to like that, but it is necessary. Help me to pull them." And then...then she stops talking. Deep breaths. Then...running. Using her own pace as the rhythm, she sings. The hymn with the calming melody can be heard. But while running, singing - those have to be some serious lungs on her - she takes running jumps, trying to pull out one of the spikes or spears - whatever's nearest, whatever she has the best chance of pulling out of the beast's flesh. Jump, grab, use the beast's own body as leverage to jump free.
Thundering along in a wide circle has bled momentum. Much better on straight gallops. Especially within a forest that it's making a mess of. All this exertion is not without a cost to the animal when wounded and so recently deprived of its home. The oxygen is too thin. The air it uses to help fuel itself a weaker gruel for its respiratory system. It stumbles when soothing efforts attempt to curb more of its instinctual needs.
The combined efforts make a warm fuzzy soup that tries to dilute the primal fee-fees that have the creature in the grips of such distress. Maggie's punch clips on a shoulder joint enough to create yet more instability, whooshing under where a hairy dewlap would be, and creates a brief vacuum that throws off more of its weird gallop. It drunkenly goes to its bloody knees and furrows the ground while back legs keep trying to vainly pump it forward. The earth fairly trembles as it goes down.
Ruby can't quite believe what she's seeing. She must be exhausted. That strange song in her ears and people actually trying to hug the beast into submission. Ruby didn't quite understand what the heck that phenomena was that buzzed the monster, but it can't be good. Her teeth bare at the gratuitous use of magic: That she can detect. When the beast goes down and it looks like the inevitable result is an easy target, she clenches her fists and eyes it with murderous intent. Casting about her, she spies one of the sundered trunks snapped down the middle to expose jagged splinters and shards of wood. It's a simple thing to make it a little more wieldy and send her heel into it to make a very rough and jagged lance. Muttering curses and oaths, she hefts it and advances on the group and the animal.
RPG: Liyandra challenges a difficulty of 8. Liyandra chooses Force and the gift PHY-KS. Liyandra succeeds.
Liya holds on, her voice now muttering in Sukhoti, soft and lyrical. There's more jouncing and bouncing, and then Merrisol calls to her, and she looks to Mayhem. The big cat actually pauses to look around, perhaps surprisingly, and then Liya's voice calls out, bardicly trained and knowing well how to project and carry. "We've still got folks with us. Hard to tell through Mayhem's eyes, but I think Maggie and someone else." And then she calls out. "This poor beast needs help. We have to get the harpoons out of it." Hey, she's up close and personal with some, so she's calling it as she sees it. A bit of a scramble, and she finds the nearest spear/harpoon thing, and she does much as Ailith, though she's not planning to drop off the big critter, just to get the nasty sticky thing out, and toss it down. "Easy girl, easy." She holds on for dear life, expecting there to be a lot of bouncing, jouncing and hopefully she doesn't get thrown.
RPG: Ailith challenges a difficulty of 8. Ailith chooses Force and the gift BLD-OB. Ailith almost succeeds.
Ailith is rather busy, since the spear she's got her hands on is pretty well embedded and she may have her father's courage, but not his actual strength. Tug! Tug! It takes effort, and more than one tug, to get a spear pulled free. It's not a pretty sight when it does, either. The spear's barbed, and takes flesh with it. But - the beast is now not moving, which makes the song easier for her to sing, the prayers of healing easier to say.
"Harpoons.. if there are barbs they'll do as much or more damage coming out as going in," he points out, distractedly. The beast has come full circle upon the section of woodland previously trampled, still there and pretty real thanks to Maggie's interrupting the journey earlier in her attempt to save hapless hubby. Merrisol can finally set eyes on some of the others of his group, within the smashed clearing, relief flooding through tense, shivering muscle. He feels the aftermath, more than sees the actual battering ram of wind that pops the weary creature off its stride, and braces for the new descent with a fistful of matted forelock. It's not a clean fall, nor does the uberelk lay still on its huge knees, but rather than jump clear, Merrisol clambers up the horns by various footholds, and attempts to yank the extra-stretched and filthy scarf free. Hey, it's still got sentimental value. From that swaying vantage point, he looks back along the struggling body and double-takes, spotting a certain amazonian figure on the approach with a large stabby branch. Ah.. Carp. What now? The scarf is abandoned as Merri takes his chances and leaps clear from that height. "Ruby! Explain yourself, or it is not happening!"
RPG: Maggie challenges a difficulty of 8. Maggie chooses Force and the gift BLD-OB. Maggie almost succeeds.
The running leap along the sapling does springboard her into the air. Just... not high enough. She flexes in an attempt to throw herself higher and that does work, but... in her hurry to get to Merrisol, Maggie did not take the monster's oddly roiling gait into account. A joint lifts about when she reaches it and she collides with it with a resounding SMACK. The rebound sends her flying forward in a whistling, tumbling hurrah of Maggie trailed by her own hair and dribblets of blood. Luckily, she lands in a snowbank with a crystalline ploof of flakes and shimmer of ice.
The bestial thing is nowhere as nimble as the two legged creatures scattering around it. Trampling along as it goes, it cannot avoid all those trees and undergrowth. Most is smashed flat and fallen log or trees are sundered to splinters and hunks of pulp careen off in all directions. The sapling that Maggie uses for a boost is summarily broken and adds to the cracking-snapping myriad of noises that contests with the loud huffing and puffing of the beleagered animal.
The other-shadowly mammal rears up it's head with the dangling Merrisol snagged upon one of it's noggin protrusions and follows it up with a loud bellow. It has more vigor after the compassionate care attempted upon its wounded hide, though it's eye rolls with the scents and stimuluous. A confused mix of rage and matronly instincts flooding forth from it in a radiation to anyone sensitive enough to pick up the wavelength. It's almost blinded by pain and protective instincts. And here, quite nearby, is a source that does nothing to resolve the conflicting signals. It shakes its head and antlers and offers a high warbling keen that transmits up through its resonating horns.
It runs on. It must keep running.
Ailith shakes her head, quickly, getting the fuzz from the fall cleared away. Noting that the creature has gotten...quite a long way, she winces. This would be much easier if she'd just brought a *horse*. As it is...getting ahead of it or catching up are infeasible. Taking stock of the situation, she decides to see if Maggie is unharmed in her snowbank. That, at least, may be something useful she can do.
Ruby risks a glance over towards Maggie as a branch of those antlers comes dangerously close to dashing her off her feet. And with an open mouth, she watches Captain Flame do a pretty amazing feat of agility. Words aren't coming. Only laboured breaths. There are distinctly less and less people running /with/ her. "Oh Bog...I knew it'd come down tah me...onlah...onlah survivah." She pumps her arms and dashes onwards, vaulting a fallen trunk and panicking against the tunnel vision she's acquiring the longer her panic has time to turn her bloodstream to high octane. "I...I tell everyone you was brave! An...Merri maybe was..." she cries out as she veers to the left towards a rather thick copse of trees. Maybe she can draw it that way and slow it down a little with the environment and gain some advantage by a little serpentine action.
Liya might be fresher since she's not been runnign quite so long, but she's following, and she caught that singing, so she starts to use her empathy to try to calm the beast, as well. Not sure if it will help or not, but if she can slow it down a bit, that might help. She's running, and Mayhem is with her, the big cat light on his feet and actually really agile at missing trees and things in the way. That Maggie has fallen is frightening, but Ailith is there, and Kerf - is still ahead. "Where are we running to?" she calls out, though she's trying to catch up to the beast, not too far behind it. The set of really odd emotions from the beast totally confuses her - "does that thing have a youngling somewhere?"
Grab on where? Brambles and branches, ice and fog, those are all the things Merrisol glimpses rushing and crashing over and around him before he is swinging free over the barren treetops in his makeshift hangman's noose. His legs are still kicking in a futile run cycle, waterskin clutched tighter in the one arm, threatening to pop. He manages to alleviate the stress on his neck by making an overhead grab for the taut bunches of scarf still hooked by the single curved horn, just one of the many jutting and twisting around him. Slicked with mucus discharge and.. whistling in a peculiarly hollow manner, too. For a while, Merri can't seem to fix his sights straight in any direction, what with all the non-rhythmic bumping and swaying and jarring against various horns. After learning to bend away from such pokes, he manages to peek straight down, rewarded by glimpses of tumbling trees and chaos.. and maybe there's people still running ahead of it all. At least one. Recalling Maggie's yell, he starts to call out, only to be drowned utterly in the beast's ensuing whinny and every reverberating tone that emanates from the antler-flutes. Shuddering in the onslaught, he finds himself twisted around to confront the maddened rolling eye of the moose mama. He stares back... then with painstakingly care not to drop it, rolls the waterskin down into the grip of his hand, and swings himself over more to the right of the massive cranium. A small test, to try and steer the deer? Perhaps in vain; he's no longer certain how many of the party are still with them.
Maggie rolls to a stop, dizzy and banged up by her close encounter of the knee kind. For a moment, she lies in the snow, letting it slowly turn pink with blood. Inhaling the cold air, only vaguely tinged with gross wafting scents from the passing moose-beast, she begins to rise on shaky feet. Sheething her swords, she takes stock of where things are. Ruby? Ahead. Check. Merri? A head and neck above by a head. A moose head. Ailith? Gaval? Liya and Mayhem? At least some are approaching. Ailith is given a wan smile and a nod as Maggie definitly considers a quick repair. "Uh. We need to catch them." But you need to be able to run, Maggie. "We're shifted enough out of Arden that Uncle Julian might not be upset about the trees it is destroying. But, I wouldn't swear to that." Talkative, ain't she? "Maybe we can flank it?" Looking up and after the beast, she spots something... "Oh... Oh no. Is that what I think it is?" She lifts a banged up arm, sleeve cut away or torn to reveal bruising alread purpling her arm. Her aim is lifted enough to indicate the creature's hind quarters. "Did... she just give birth? Is Kerf carrying her child?" This... could be messy.
The stench from the animal is quite potent to anyone that gets close enough. Like it was a member from the mustelid family. The eyesocket that's closest to Merri does a lot of stricken rolling about at something so close to it's head. Something so stanky and familiar. It cranes its muzzle upwards while it stares ululates in a keening vocal emit while Merrisol manuevers. It swerves to the left and the right, absolutely demolishing vegetation, heedless as to how it almost skewers itself into thick trunks, some branches managing to pierce it in the chest.
Ailith takes hold of Maggie's shoulder. "One problem at a time," she says, firm but not ungentle. "Beloved Queen, I ask your mercy; heal this warrior for another battle." Light gathers at the paladin's hands, the shade of sun-on-snow. It's cold, but pleasantly numbing as it mends. "With wits unaddled, I must ask - how are we going to catch up to it?"
"You...bloody bi-!" A hoof slams down behind her as the beast erratically charges after Ruby. Unsure about whether she's confusing it or having just dumb luck. The tree arcs forward wickedly by the felled trunk and crashes, branches whipping across Ruby's thigh and caboose, adding yet more motivation to not stop. She can feel the breath, an odd inverted suckling of this thin oxygen before blasting out another exhalation from it's heavily mucuous lined shnoz. She can't keep the pattern in mind long enough to draw it away, which is good for those catching up. Wouldn't do her much good drawing it further into shadow anyways...not with the thing so perilously close. She's still about to get stomped.
RPG: Liyandra challenges a difficulty of 12. Liyandra chooses Grace and the gifts PHY-KS, SKL-DS, and SUK-RH. Liyandra succeeds.
Liya sends a quick empathic thought to Mayhem, asking him to continue to follow the moose-beast. He is used to this sort of thing, and stays at that nice lope, not pushing up towards it, but keeping on track just behind it, even if it stinks to high heaven. For Liya, with that keen nose of hers, the stench is ridiculous, and her nature senses are no doubt also roiling her stomach. But she takes advantage of her natural climbing ability and her practice on riggings and jungles. She concentrates, sheer stubbornness showing on her face, as she sprints gracefully forward, that work ethic of hers coming to play as an idea has hit. Liya puts one foot after the other, breathing rhythmic, and then she leaps, catching one of those harpoons and using it to vault lithely up and then again until she makes it to the back of the creature. She then flattens herself, both hands hanging on for dear life as she adjusts to the creature's totally strange gait. She can see Mayhem, which is good far as she is concerned. And then she starts to concentrate, but this time, Liya is not using her empathy, or not /just/ her empathy. There is a sense of heat round her hands, and a wave of wellbeing tries to waft out from her and into the poor moosething. "C'mon you, I need you to ease up, relax and let us help you," she says, a fierceness to her that is not often outwardly expressed.
When dangling to the right doesn't seem to take immediate effect with the creature's heading, Merrisol can only hold on to the stretches of wool in his sodden grip and wait for the wild swinging to even out. Another painful jab to the side from a tooting antler reminds him of the peril amongst the angle of branching horns. So basically, he spends a lot of his time /gyrating/ out in front of the moose mama... however soon enough he gets a good swing going, enough to hurl himself into the clutches of the right antler set. This would seem to do the trick as the nutured interest o the beast has its steps trending more and more to the right. This... could be good. Running in a circle, albeit a huge circle, is still considered traveling, and will not be so hard on those trying to keep up on foot. On the other hoof, there is a good chance the monstrous femme is now about to bear down on those who lagged behind.
Ailith sees the shift in course - and seems, if anything, pleased. An opportunity! Provided she can get to the center of the circle. This will involve not being trampled, first. She eyes the creature's course, judging how much time she's got to get into and out of its path.
The creature does start to veer to the right. A great snuffling and a tire-squealing warble from deep in its chest and it's tilting its rack. A misjudged collection of trees becomes a skull-jarring affair as is starts to collect them up like thick chopsticks. Liya's ascent doesn't cause the animal the kind of trouble that Merrisol's endeavors...not until she uses one of the Harpoons for leverage. That has the beast throwing itself forward and kicking out with both legs, first one...then the other. At the apex of the two legs being stretched out, it gives a hard shake before continuing to the right in its turn, a horn on the periphery of its rack gouging in at the ground and carving the frozen turf.
Maggie closes her eyes as Ailith's goddess answers that entreaty and soothing cool floods Maggie. Injuries, both external and internal knit quickly enough to stop mid-spasm. She murmurs a quick, "Thanks," then opens her eyes to see what is what. Liya? Mayhem? Uh... Looking up and around, she spots them as Liya climbs the beastie by the spears. Taking a step back, she does not hinder Ailith, though she tries to answer the question, "By... waiting, apparently." Though maybe not /right/ here. Bending, she scrabbles about in the snow until she finds her swords. They will need to be cleaned. Later. Sticking them into their sheeths, she frowns, "Can't help but feel a bit sorry for it. Her. I think she just gave birth and someone attacked her. Is Kerf holding her child?" She pauses as the screetching warble sounds and she whirls to watch the creature's progress. "Ooookay. We need to stop her." Eyeing the trees nearby, she licks her lips, "Uh... Unless you have a better idea, I'm going to smack her with a giant wind-fist." Just in case, she begins to call the winds to her.
Ruby is given a wonderful respite. The big monstrous thing is somehow urged off course and stops following her. A couple of double-takes help confirm this and she slows to a jog as it peels off and does horrible things to the forest. Ruby throws up her hands as she's hit with clods of dirt, rocks and snow and staggers, trying to keep in motion. She grimaces and shuts one eye. She can just make out someone on the things damned antlers. And someone on it's back. Spitting and taking a moment to curse her fate, she sets off after it again, at least parallel to see where the crazed thing is headed.
Ailith smiles at Maggie. "I plan to finish my song for her. T'is the best I can do until she slows enough for me to touch her. I have no woodcraft, to find this creature's offspring, but given the trail it leaves, perhaps not much is needed. If my song cannot calm it, I will follow its trail back and see where its child may be found. A mother cannot help but come to the call of her baby." Waiting for her moment, to cross the path without getting trampled, she darts for the center of the now circular route. Where a song of mercy might be heard clearly.
Liya is the one atop the critter's back, and she's hanging on for dear life. The fact that she got up there doesn't phase her, but hanging on, that's a bigger nut to crack. There's bucking and turning and other such ridiculous jarring motions, and she feels herself bounce, jounce and smash into the side of the critter, but of course, Liya is not very big, so hopefully it doesn't mind as much. She loses hold with one hand briefly, her breath whooshing out and a "Yikes" sort of yelp startling out of her. Scrambling, she manages to regain her hold in the next moment, so that she does not get knocked off, though it's a difficult and close call. Meanwhile, the warmth continues to waft from her, as she tries both to soothe and help the poor thing, with what little healing magic she has.
RPG: Merrisol declares that he has the Animal Empathy (ANI-EM) gift.
The main problem with the team scrambling over and around a behemoth of a hoofed quadruped is... definitely communication. The head can't keep the hindquarters apprised of plans, nor the hooves, and so forth. Just when Merrisol thinks he might have some control over the situation, the beast does its frantic buck, and everything around Merri, including Merri, drops out of the air. "Whoaahhh Nellie!" He rides one or another hollow spike, bouncing and grabbing for purchase within the thorny cage of keratin, while it lists dangerously to the extreme right and crashes through the treeline again. Which means more crashing into branches and brambles to endure, before the creature rights its head again. When it does, he is somehow still there, having wrapped himself around the base of the right hronking antler set and shivering under a layer of mingled Merri-moosey sweat. "Easy girl - something got you good, huh?" Of course he's taken to talking to the deer. There's nobody else-... oh hey. "Liya!" He spots the Sukhoti glommed somewhere on the giant's heaving shag. "Tell me we didn't lose the others in shadow!"
RPG: Maggie declares that she has the Wind Strike (WIN-WS) gift.
Maggie nods slowly, "Well... that's a problem, honestly. While we were running, I shifted us a bit out of Arden. So... following her trail here might not get you back to her baby there. I don't know what it would take you to. Here." By this point, she has built up a fair bit of wind around her. It whooshes here and there, wafting her clothing and hair this way and that until she looks a bit like a wind-sprite grounded in snow. The wind picks up detritus from nearby, snow and twigs, mud and glop swirling into a large fist, "Maybe if I can knock her over, you can get close enough to touch her. Between you and Liya, she might come out of this okay. Then, maybe we can take her back." Maybe. And maybe Merri is okay and not battered to death. A wish, a prayer, a plea... Though... If wishes were horses, beggers would ride like kings. Lifting her hand, she clenches her own fist, then swings forward as though delivering a blow to someone right in front of her. Ranging back from her hand, the enormous wind-fist arches back, then swings around toward the moose-critter with enough speed to whistle like a freight-train. Maggie still does not know her Oberon-given strength at times.
Ailith watches the beast, listening to Maggie. "No," she says. "Do not direct your power at the creature itself. We need to pull its thorns. It is *not* going to like that, but it is necessary. Help me to pull them." And then...then she stops talking. Deep breaths. Then...running. Using her own pace as the rhythm, she sings. The hymn with the calming melody can be heard. But while running, singing - those have to be some serious lungs on her - she takes running jumps, trying to pull out one of the spikes or spears - whatever's nearest, whatever she has the best chance of pulling out of the beast's flesh. Jump, grab, use the beast's own body as leverage to jump free.
Thundering along in a wide circle has bled momentum. Much better on straight gallops. Especially within a forest that it's making a mess of. All this exertion is not without a cost to the animal when wounded and so recently deprived of its home. The oxygen is too thin. The air it uses to help fuel itself a weaker gruel for its respiratory system. It stumbles when soothing efforts attempt to curb more of its instinctual needs.
The combined efforts make a warm fuzzy soup that tries to dilute the primal fee-fees that have the creature in the grips of such distress. Maggie's punch clips on a shoulder joint enough to create yet more instability, whooshing under where a hairy dewlap would be, and creates a brief vacuum that throws off more of its weird gallop. It drunkenly goes to its bloody knees and furrows the ground while back legs keep trying to vainly pump it forward. The earth fairly trembles as it goes down.
Ruby can't quite believe what she's seeing. She must be exhausted. That strange song in her ears and people actually trying to hug the beast into submission. Ruby didn't quite understand what the heck that phenomena was that buzzed the monster, but it can't be good. Her teeth bare at the gratuitous use of magic: That she can detect. When the beast goes down and it looks like the inevitable result is an easy target, she clenches her fists and eyes it with murderous intent. Casting about her, she spies one of the sundered trunks snapped down the middle to expose jagged splinters and shards of wood. It's a simple thing to make it a little more wieldy and send her heel into it to make a very rough and jagged lance. Muttering curses and oaths, she hefts it and advances on the group and the animal.
RPG: Liyandra challenges a difficulty of 8. Liyandra chooses Force and the gift PHY-KS. Liyandra succeeds.
Liya holds on, her voice now muttering in Sukhoti, soft and lyrical. There's more jouncing and bouncing, and then Merrisol calls to her, and she looks to Mayhem. The big cat actually pauses to look around, perhaps surprisingly, and then Liya's voice calls out, bardicly trained and knowing well how to project and carry. "We've still got folks with us. Hard to tell through Mayhem's eyes, but I think Maggie and someone else." And then she calls out. "This poor beast needs help. We have to get the harpoons out of it." Hey, she's up close and personal with some, so she's calling it as she sees it. A bit of a scramble, and she finds the nearest spear/harpoon thing, and she does much as Ailith, though she's not planning to drop off the big critter, just to get the nasty sticky thing out, and toss it down. "Easy girl, easy." She holds on for dear life, expecting there to be a lot of bouncing, jouncing and hopefully she doesn't get thrown.
RPG: Ailith challenges a difficulty of 8. Ailith chooses Force and the gift BLD-OB. Ailith almost succeeds.
Ailith is rather busy, since the spear she's got her hands on is pretty well embedded and she may have her father's courage, but not his actual strength. Tug! Tug! It takes effort, and more than one tug, to get a spear pulled free. It's not a pretty sight when it does, either. The spear's barbed, and takes flesh with it. But - the beast is now not moving, which makes the song easier for her to sing, the prayers of healing easier to say.
"Harpoons.. if there are barbs they'll do as much or more damage coming out as going in," he points out, distractedly. The beast has come full circle upon the section of woodland previously trampled, still there and pretty real thanks to Maggie's interrupting the journey earlier in her attempt to save hapless hubby. Merrisol can finally set eyes on some of the others of his group, within the smashed clearing, relief flooding through tense, shivering muscle. He feels the aftermath, more than sees the actual battering ram of wind that pops the weary creature off its stride, and braces for the new descent with a fistful of matted forelock. It's not a clean fall, nor does the uberelk lay still on its huge knees, but rather than jump clear, Merrisol clambers up the horns by various footholds, and attempts to yank the extra-stretched and filthy scarf free. Hey, it's still got sentimental value. From that swaying vantage point, he looks back along the struggling body and double-takes, spotting a certain amazonian figure on the approach with a large stabby branch. Ah.. Carp. What now? The scarf is abandoned as Merri takes his chances and leaps clear from that height. "Ruby! Explain yourself, or it is not happening!"
RPG: Maggie challenges a difficulty of 8. Maggie chooses Force and the gift BLD-OB. Maggie almost succeeds.
