open Occult in the Swamps

[SilverHeart 741]

(Okay, so I'm a huge liar. Again. I'm only four days past when I claimed I'd get a post out. I think...)

 

"I...uh..." Mirror stared up at the huge fish-creature. "...Hi?" To see his face Mirror had to crane her neck back. She would have kept doing so, however the hood of her cloak began to slip off the back of her head. Mirror quickly lowered her head. And instead started to slowly step back, away from the Fish-Thing. Both to try to stay out of it's reach and to get a better look at it.

[Mickey Taker 347]

Cherry Bomb

 

@, @@Umbreon

 

Cherry giggled at Wish's teasing, "Aw Wish don't be mean, of course he's sweet.....he just won't admit it," Cherry grins mischievously at the golem, despite her own teasing she was genuinely grateful for his help carrying her on his back, as she laid on his back lengthwise with her flank hanging on one side and head and forehooves off the other, she looked behind her at her wound, noticeably becoming somewhat self-conscious of it before to look back at Wish, "Oh I love to talk! What do you wanna talk about? OH OH I know...let's play a game! Let's take turns asking things to each other. I'll go first! Um...," she raised a hoof to her chin as she pondered what to ask, "Hmmm...What do yo think we should do when we find Mr Pervert?"

 

Golbez Grandolfo

 

@@SilverHeart, @

 

Golbez rasised and pinted a claw at Mirror, "There's no need to be afraid Mirror, he's perfectly harmless...I think, anyway, too many of us have gone walk about as it is, and knowing Sabel and Cherry, either one of them will likely run into trouble and come running straight back, so we'd best prepare ourselves," Golbez sighs, rubbing the back of his neck as he sit's on his haunches.

Edited April 3, 2014 by Golbez

[Stormbringer 346]

@@Golbez,

 

(I'm so sorry about not posting, guys. Doing chemistry in school... ugh. Storm, Mirror, and Golbez are all with the fishy guy, right?)

 

Storm cocked his head, looking at the fish. "So he's not going to kill us?" he said with a slight tone of skepticism in his voice. The grey pony looked it up and down, noting the build. "It's just like the other ones that we saw back on the hotel ones. Or from what I remember, anyway." Storm did the same as Mirror, and backed up a few steps from the fish. Whatever it was, it seemed... Fishy. He laughed mentally at his own pun in his head. But really, the fish seemed to be a little out of place, being in a non-trying-to-kill-him state. Though, he thought, the...thing... that was in the cauldron seemed nice enough. It had given the trio information about what they needed to do, even if it was vague. Maybe the fish knew a way out of here, or at least where Doctor Mask was.

[EcstaticWind 572]

Poppy Seed

@@Umbreon, 

 

Poppy blushed as the Gryphon said thanks, but quickly shook it off in case Sabel noticed. "It's no trouble. Gotta lend a helping hoof sometimes. Hey, Sabel, do you mind me asking you some personal questions? Nothing too personal, though. Just enough to get to know you better." Poppy said, losing her sarcastic tone for once, leaving behind a caring and soft core.

[Umbreon 569]

Granite

 

@@Golbez,@,

 

"If this body could move its eyes, I would be rolling them..."  Granite mutters under his breath as he walks, trying not to react too much to the mares' conversation.  He would never admit he was actually starting to enjoy their attitudes...  It was a great change of pace of what he'd come to expect when he was awake, anyways.

 

As Cherry asks her question, Granite turns his head a little to look at her.  "...Who?"  It wasn't exactly a title he'd heard during his last time he was conscious.  Before waiting for an answer the golem takes a guess, turning his head back around to watch where they were going.  "Let me guess, that's supposed to be Savoba?  If so, I honestly don't know.  He's a lot more powerful than he looks...  If he brought all of you here, he's stronger than the last time I was awake too.  You can't reason with him, you know.  Others have tried...  Your best bet is probably going to be to do something he doesn't expect, try to catch him off guard."  

 

Granite stops speaking for a moment before adding on "Well, fair is fair, you said we'd take turns asking questions.  So that would make it my turn.  Assuming we do make it out of here alive...  What will the two of you do then?"  He turns his gaze towards Wish as he asks this to make sure to include her in it - not out of any intention to be rude to Cherry, but her answer currently affected him more than the pegasus' on his back.  As he turned his head to her he noted the doorway coming up down the hallway - if his memory wasn't deteriorating, they were almost back to the central chamber...

 

 

Mrglok

 

@,@@SilverHeart,@@Golbez,

 

The creature just slowly turned its gaze from one pony to the other, watching them move.  They had backed away - he took that as a good sign.  The zebra had never backed away, and the zebra had locked him in that prison.  Mrglok nods his head towards the ponies, a somewhat odd gesture considering his bulbous head, but he wasn't sure how else to make them be calm.  He didn't know enough words to communicate properly...  Maybe if they had a long time to just sit and let him slowly pronounce everything, but he didn't want to sit around.  He had to find his Pack.  He couldn't let the zebra put him back in the container.

 

"Need...  Go home."  He nods his head again, as though that could somehow add more meaning to the three small words, before turning his head towards one of the doorways.  He had no way of knowing it, but it was the one that the two mares and golem were approaching from the other side.  Abruptly the large creature dropped down to brace one webbed hand against the floor, the other one still gripping its makeshift club.  Using the wooden tool it points at the doorway that caught its attention.

 

"Smell...  Blood."

 

 

Sabellah

 

@@Windbreaker,

 

Sabel cocks her head a little as she glances at the mare.  She was having a hard time thinking, her thoughts were still on the floating crystal they'd left in the room above them.  "Huh?  Oh, sure, ask away...  I don't mind, not like I have anything to hide."  Well, she likely did, but Poppy wasn't a Guard.  And given their current situation, the small fits of trouble she'd caused in the past didn't seem all that important.  

 

Waiting for the question, Sabel starts to reach for the door handle that would take them back into the central chamber...  Hopefully the others had had more luck than the two of them had in finding Wish and Cherry.

[Mickey Taker 347]

Cherry bomb

 

@, @@Umbreon

 

Cherry looked back at her flank whilst Granite spoke about Savoba's power, not that she was paying much attention however, she was more concerned about how painful taking out the arrow will be, it worried her, it continuously gnawed at the back of her mind and although she wouldn't admit it, she was scared.

 

"Hmmh?" her attention was broken after just catching Granite's own question, it's was something she hadn't actually thought about since she was bought here against her will, no doubt there would be a bit of explaining to do at least back home.

At least it distracted her from her flank.

"Well...I think I'll just go home, my mom must be pretty worried about me about now, what about you Wish?" , resting her head on her fore-hooves she smiles over to her friend.

[EcstaticWind 572]

Poppy Seed

@@Umbreon, 

 

"Like I said, it's nothing bad and I'm not probing for secrets. I'm not a smart enough pony to try and use them anyway. I just have a feeling that I'll be hanging around your group for a while, so I may as well get to know you better. We can even take turns in asking each other questions if you like. Anyway, here's my question: Where are you from?" Poppy asked, letting her curiosity and caring side take over now that she was out of sarcastic comments for now. Just as long as she didn't have to think about their current situation.

[The Elusive Cinder 1,328]

Wish Scribe.

 

@@Umbreon,

@,

 

Wish shrugged.

 

"Keep looking for my brother, of course! I'm not really sure which way to go next though... somewhere less creepy than this place. I hear that there are these weird caves around Equestria - old temples or something - finding those seems like a good place to start!"

 

Exactly how and why Scribe might have come across these 'possibly imaginary temples' wasn't worth thinking about: to Wish, he was an adventurer - the best adventurer - and she knew that she world have to think like one to stand any chance of finding him.

 

All of a sudden, the young mare gave a little skip: ears flicking in anticipation.

 

"You two could come with me!" She next observed - beaming. "We could travel Equestria! I mean, We'd still need to look for my brother, but... well, we can look in the places that we want to go to first! Haven't you ever wanted to explore?"

 

As quickly as her ears had perked up - so too as suddenly had they drooped again with the revelation that the pair probably had better things to do...

[Umbreon 569]

@,@@Windbreaker, @@Golbez, @, @@SilverHeart,

 

Sabel

 

Sabel grins at Poppy while she opens the door back to the central chamber.  "Oh, I'm from the countryside near Las Pegasus...  Little nest kinda set up in the desert around there.  Pretty boring, reall-"  She pauses as she sees Golbez, Mirror, Storm, and...  One of the fish creatures that had been trying to kill them earlier!?   "What the hell is going on here!?  Why aren't they running from that thing!?"

 

...

 

Granite

 

Granite gave a small laugh as he lowered his head to try and push open the door in front of them.  "Not like I have much of a choice.  You don't grasp the whole 'master' concept all that well, do you?  If we get out of here alive, I'm still going to be bound to you...  Unless you pass me off to somepony else."

 

About that time the golem had managed to push the door open and stepped into the central chamber...  When abruptly a loud roar echoed through the room.  The golem's gaze snapped forward and he noticed two things.  One was the other gathered ponies...  And griffons...  In the room.  The second was Mrglok, brandishing a wooden club and starting to lumber towards them seemingly in anger.

 

Oh, bloody hell...  Aware that Cherry was still on his back, Granite quickly sits down and tries to (carefully) slide her off.  "Get off get off get off, hurry!"  As he feels the wounded pegasus slide off of his back, the golem runs forward.  The large fish creature veers off after him - it seemed fixated on the golem, intent on bludgeoning the stone pony with its makeshift weapon.  Its longer strides meant it quickly caught up with Granite, and the wooden table leg shattered over his stone back as it struck him.  In retaliation the golem jumped at Mrglok, managing to pin the large creature to the floor under the weight of his heavy body.

 

As Mrglok thrashed and snarled underneath the golem, Granite brings his gaze up to look around at the gathered ponies.  He couldn't very well get up or the creature would attack him again.  "I don't...  Suppose any of you know why this thing is out of its cage?"  In response Mrglok roared again, trying and failing to reach around to pull the heavy golem off of its back.

[Mickey Taker 347]

@, @@Windbreaker, @@Umbreon, @, @@SilverHeart

 

Golbez Grandolfo

 

With his focus on whoever Murglok could "smell" coming, Golbez found himself rather unprepared wen Sabel and Poppy made their unexpected appearance, only able to warn her too late, "Sabel don't raise your voice or you'll startle...oh bugger..," Instinctively the magician swoops in quickly, standing on his hind legs as he put himself between the fish beast and Sabel, "Murglok!...NO!...There are my fri-" Golbez didn't however get a chance to finish his sentence as the the creature turned it's attention to some-pony new, if you could call him that, for not even the magician could have predicated a stone golem charging at the beast.

Chaos had literally unfolded before Golbez and he found there was very little he could do but stand by and watch in dis-belief,"Wha...what the bloody..."

 

Eventually after watching the walking statue manage to somehow pin the beast to the ground, Golbez stepped forward towards them with a stern expression, "I actually let him out, because he asked me too. He wanted help to get his pack back from Savoba somehow, now would you kindly get your rocky flank off of him already? He was perfectly docile until you came charging in- " Golbez abruptly turned around, pointing a claw directly at Sabel, ",,and you weren't any help either after letting yer trap fly like that!" He glares at the griffoness, shaking his head before turning his attention back to Granite ,"And pray tell just who, or what, are you exactly?"

 

His temper had yet again gotten the better of him, blinding him and preventing him to notice that his assistant was cowering up against the wall near where Granite had left her.

 

Cherry Bomb

 

Cherry was preoccupied pondering to herself about Wish's offer, admittedly it did sound tempting but as she continued to think she came up with several pro's and con's.

Pro,Knowing Golbez was rather selfless he wouldn't mind if Cherry did want to go off in search of adventure for herself and would even likely encourage her, Con, Golbez was rather selfless and would evidently end up without an assistant, he would even likely encourage her to go and even more likely end up being lonely without her.

Pro, Is she did go she would be spending her adventures with her friend Wish, Con, if she didn't go, who else would look out for her? Cherry was well aware that despite Wish's assertiveness and trying her best to be brave, she was still pretty much a novice when it came to adventuring with still much to learn, not that Cherry wasn't a novice either, but at least she had more confidence in her abilities.

 

"Wish...what if..Wh-WHOAH!" Without warning Wish found herself tumblign off Granite's back and onto the floor rather awkwardly..and painfully, "OW..owowowow...ooooohh, Granite what...wha..ah...ah...hugh..." At first lookign somewhat annoyed at Granite her expression slowly changed to that of fear, she wanted to scream but the mere sight of what she saw before her even caused her voice to fail, only managing to emit the odd faint squeak.

She had never before seen such a sight. and it terrified her, it was like a nightmare turned real in her own eye's, she wanted to run, to hide, but her legs refused to even budge, she was quite literally petrified with fear.

 

It was only a moment but what seemed like ages to the red mare when she remembered her friend Wish, it was then she she finally managed to find the strength to move, pain pierced through her leg from her wound that would have normally made potentially scream the the place down, but she did nothing of the sort, she just didn't care about that right now.

As she moved awkwardly towards WIsh she snatched the small mare from where she stood and slid back up against the wall, clinging to her friend as if her life depended it on it.

Cherry curled herself up as best she could around Wish tryign to make them both look as small as possible, burying her muzzle into the Earth pony's mane in the foalish belief that if she just made herself small enough, the monster would simply go away.

Her wound was by bleeding quite badly now, her heart was racing, she was shaking...trembling even, with blood trickling down her flank and muzzle soaked with tears, she began to mumble to herself in an attempt to cling onto what sanity she had left that this fear inducing monster had wrought upon her, "pleasejustgoaway,pleasejustgoaway,pleasejustgoaway,pleasejustgoaway,pleasejustgoaway,pleasejustgoaway,...."

Edited April 19, 2014 by Golbez

[The Elusive Cinder 1,328]

Wish Scribe.

 

@@Golbez,

 

Wish bounded forward but was snatched back by her friend - the golem was surprisingly quick when it wanted to be - then again, it was significantly taller than her, so it wasn't much of a surprise. She felt Cherry nearby and fell quiet, if only for a brief moment. This was a lot to take in - times like this almost made her want to give up on her dream and just go home where it was safe and warm... perhaps she was out of her depth here?

 

Initially, she was about to squeak something along the lines of 'Kill it! Kill it! Kill it!' in response to the fish-thing, memories still fresh in her mind of having had to dispatch of the last one... but her concentration was lost as Golbez began to lecture Sabel.

 

"Why don't you just shut up for once?"

 

The mare's loud, somewhat shrill tone carried through the room with admittedly impressive force: it was a long way from sounding commanding or intimidating - mostly fearful at that monent - but it was getting there. She stepped forward, or tried to at least: Cherry was bigger than her. Instead, the filly settled for making a dismissive gesture into the room as she didn't so much regain her confidence so much as 'forget' to be afraid.

 

"You weren't there: you didn't see the last one trying to hurt us! You're always telling everyone what to do - your so set on putting everyone else down that you haven't even noticed that Cherry is hurt!"

[EcstaticWind 572]

Poppy Seed

@@Golbez,

@,

@@Umbreon,

 

She couldn't help herself. Poppy was just getting to know Sabel, she liked Wish, and she hated having to deal with this kind of thing. 'What would Aegis do?' She thought, deciding to intervene despite knowing that she wouldn't be able to do much against a Gryphon.

 

"I agree with Wish. We have bigger problems than this stupid misunderstanding. If they were charging, how about asking what they were running from? Or asking Sabel and I what we found? We're not foals, Golbez. We do have brains and if you'd care to shut your beak, use your brain and realize that we're in the middle of nowhere with no idea where we are or how to get out of here, we'll get things done and be out of here sooner!" Poppy said, taking a defiant tone. She glared at Golbez for a moment. "If you're finished yelling, Mister Grandolfo, back off!"

 

She put a hoof on Sabel's shoulder. "Come on, Sabel. Let's see about Cherry and Wish." Now she really did wish she had a drink with her. That way she could drink herself into a stupor and forget what may be the biggest mistake of her life.

Edited April 8, 2014 by Windbreaker

[Umbreon 569]

@@Windbreaker,@, @@Golbez,

 

"Everyone calm down for a second!"  Sabel wasn't used to being a voice of reason - in fact she had very little practice in the role, and it felt very strange to her.  "We can't afford to be arguing with each other, we've got bigger things to deal with!"

 

Almost as though on cue, Mrglok roared again as he tried to throw the golem off of his back.  Granite was managing to stay in place mostly because of sheer weight, and the fact that the creature's claws weren't doing much with the light scratches it could inflict like this.  "If I could interject..."  He's forced to stop for a moment as the creature again tries to throw him off, then turns his gaze towards Golbez.

 

"If you want to know the details of who I am, ask one of those two.  I've already explained once.  And if you would have noticed-"  He's again interrupted by a growl from the pinned fish creature.  "-this one charged ME first!  I was defending myself...  And the two mares."  He adds that last part almost reluctantly.

 

"Not go back!  Kill stone pony!"  Mrglok shakes again, quite violently this time, nearly hard enough to throw Granite off of him.  "Urgh...  Don't mean to rush you, but I think you all have a decision to make...  This one doesn't like me.  It probably remembers when Savoba forced me to put it in that tank in the first place.  If you really want its help I can let it up, but...  I don't imagine it's going to leave me in one piece if I do."  

 

At his final comment Granite turns his gaze back towards Wish - she was his current Master after all, and if she commanded him to move he wouldn't have a choice.  "NO GO BACK TANK!"  "Oh, shut up would you?  You're just going to tell Savoba you're free with all your shouting."

[Mickey Taker 347]

@, @@Windbreaker, @@Umbreon, @, @@SilverHeart

 

Golbez and Cherry Bomb

 

Golbez was both dumbfounded and felt overburdened with all the shouting and excitement going on, there was just too much happening going on at once for him to bare, he clutched at his head with both talons as one of his eye's continued to twitch non-stop "Cherry is injured? WHen? How?...Did Wish have something to do with it? That Stupid.....The beast will kill us all if that piece of garden furniture doesn't...How dare she talk back at me I...Is Cherry bleeding!? It must have been Wish's fau....I broke my ribs fending one of those things off by myself so what would she know...I'm the only one here with even an "ounce" of common sense compared to them, I....NNNnnnnnnnnnnnnngggggggg..,"

 

"I CAN'T TAKE THIS ANYMORE!!"

 

Golbez had finally, completely and utterly, lost it.

In a desperate bid to get away from it he spread his wings and abruptly takes off, circling the ceiling before flying back through the door where the monster had come from in the first place.

 

"Golbez! Wait! Don't leave us!" Poor Cherry was stunned from Golbez's reaction, it was a side to him he had never seen of him before. Was it something she did? Why was he so upset? Granted, on the flip side it was a good enough distraction for Cherry to turn her gaze away from the monster.

 

"Golbez! Please wait!" Releasing Wish from her grip Cherry flutters her own wings and lifts herself in the air, following Golbez on her legs would be near impossible but she would have far better chance by flying, while in the air the wound didn't even hold her back as she begun to fly straight for the door Golbez went through, flying past the beast in the process...flying past "too close".

 

As Cherry flew past, in it's struggle with Granite one the beasts arms swings out at her, not intentionally but it was heading for her all the same.

She was fortunate that her acrobatic quick-reflex's were still in check as she managed to just barely dodge the huge lumbering limb, but regardless she didn't manage to come out of in unscathed as a terrific pain shot through her leg having jolted it harshly in the process, the pain itself was just too much for her to bare as she screamed in agony before falling, yelling out again as she crashed onto the floor in a heap.

 

Cherry was by now in a truly bad way, her wound was bleeding very badly and her wing had somehow bent slightly after falling on the floor...and she wasn't even moving. ((she's not dead btw, just unconscious))

Edited April 19, 2014 by Golbez