4099/A Hunting We Will Go

A Hunting We Will Go
Date of Scene:	11 May 2016
Location:	The Corrosion Brines
Synopsis:	Yari takes Ferham and Sanary into a horrible hellhole of a swamp looking for plants. Toxic goo ends up /everywhere/!
Cast of Characters:	516, 691, Sanary Rondel

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Yari Takane (691) has posed:
Welcome to the toxic hellhole that is The Corrosive Brines. A dumping grounds for all manner of chemicals and other sludge, it's a living testimony that life /will/ find a way even in severe conditions. It's a dangerous area, and not just because of the chemicals that abound.

The flora and fauna have adapted to survive, most of which are either immune to the poisonous sludge, or are toxic themselves. Thus, for a ninja like Yari, it's a playground of murderous possibilities. Currently, dressed in the leathers of a Confederate soldier (with some long waders on, just in case she takes a tumble below!), she's standing on a particular massive root that's broken the marsh's surface. There's thousands of them, being the only respite from the deadly stuff below. Binocular's in hand, she's staring off in the distance.

She's sent her comrades some coordinates, though it might take a while for them to get here. This place does /hell/ on communications and other electronic equipment. Thankfully she's using magitek. Her tail flicks out, and a mosquito falls.

A five foot tall mosquito with a kunai between the eyes. This place is /hell/.

Sanary Rondel has posed:
Luckily for Sanary, she's... Not really dressed for hell at all. The opposite, in fact: She's in some rather fuzzy-looking winter gear, a white and blue mix of padded armor that's practically got her covered from head to toe. At least it'll keep her protected from the corrosovie liquids that are sure to be seeping through the area!

     She'll just have to grin and bear the sweating. Arriving at the coordinates about a minute after the designated time, the healer shows up with only her trusty gunaxe and a single riot shield on her person. Spotting the familiar ninja and that giant mosquito not too far from her, Sanary takes a moment to make sure she's not stepping on any sort of poisonous biological land mine before stepping towards her with a firm salute.

     "Ensign. Haven't been waiting long, have you?" She sounds formal enough, although the grin crossing her face might be throwing said formality off just a bit.

Ferham (516) has posed:
     Ferham had prepared especially for this sort of trip--a coating has been sprayed over her armor and various other areas to avoid any possibly toxic materials from getting stuck to her, and those that are around her often will notice there's something else subtly different? Hrm, is that undersuit of her's looking more reflective or skintight than usual? Wasn't it usually just a sort of black spandex? It's quite possible the femmebot is wearing something a bit more... water-resistant beneath her regular armor tonight for this excursion.

     Either way, she's using her grav-drives liberally to avoid actually having to wade through things when not necessary, her wings fanned out as she sticks near to Sanary. She is kind of her boss, or superior now, after all~

Yari Takane (691) has posed:
As Sanary arrives, Yari can't help but return the greeting after looking her up and down. A slightly odd choice of attire for the venue, but the armor will help. They're good to need it. The ninja steps into a sharp salute, formal and proper for a military woman!

She is, in fact, smiling warmly and her eyes are shining just a bit.

"You made it here faster than I expected, Captain Rondel. I'm glad you could join me." Ahem! Yari then offers over the binoculars, and points off into the distance. A duo of vines snake off in the direction she points in from the one the pair are standing on, sometimes dipping into the sludge, sometimes not.

More of those massive mosquitos buzz about between the area she points out, hovering along the vines in search of prey. Sometimes, the sludge seems to /move/. Eventually, the two vines converge in a circular island formed from several massive lillypads. One can almost make out what looks like some form of clover-like plant, only radiating green amidst the dark sludge of the marsh.

And right behind it? The grey form of a hydra, the eight headed creature currently chewing on what might have once been some kind of wolf adapted to the territory. Bones surround it. Some even look human.

"That's our target. I'm not very good against large creatures like that, so I thought you and Miss Ferham would be an excellent help. If you two can distract the hydra while I gather the plants, I can get enough to start my own garden of them. Make a poison powerful enough to kill an Exalted." She might be exaggerating. Maybe not.

Speaking of! "Miss Ferham! Thank you for joining us. Nnn. Good choice of attire, Ma'am."

She turns to the other two.

"Ready?" If they are, Yari will take point for once! The first part of the run along the vines is mostly uneventful. The ninja will toss a few kunai at those ravenous mosquitos! But as they get a third towards the hydra and the lillypad, something sloshes in the gunk below! A long, spiked pair of tentacles arise from the swamp, trying to lash out at Yari and Sanary!

The ninja does a backflip, barely avoiding the initial strike, but a third tentacle manages to grab that scaley tail! It's starting to try to drag her under, even as she starts to hack at it with her sword!

Up above, a trio of those mosquitos try to buzz down, and stick their suckers into poor Ferham!

Sanary Rondel has posed:
Letting out a half whistle, Sanary's already starting to prep her magical energies into forming... Bricks? Gray, magical bricks with the durability and strength of steel! Rather quickly, even, considering how it used to take her several seconds just to get one formed up.

     "Doesn't look too... Uh. That's a lot of heads on that thing." The healer narrows her eye slightly at the hydra as she looks it over, turning to Yari and Ferham a few moments later. Yari looks like she can probably take a hit, and she's seen Ferham enough times in combat to know that she's just as well-equipped for it as well, although...

     "You two sure you're gonna be okay if that thing bites you? Eh, well. We wouldn't be in this work if we couldn't..." Chuckling lightly to herself, she turns back to the hydra before letting those bricks fan out above her in a haphazard formation of... Okay, they're just floating around randomly.

     "Ready." And the mission begins! Sanary's fairly conservative with those bricks at the start, relying more on her gunaxe to fire freezing ice blasts at the oversized bugs. When those tentacles come out from the swamp, she switches to... Using the same exact gunaxe, but to hack away at the swampy tendril and even swinging her riot shield at it a few times for good measure!

     The bricks, meanwhile, continue looming like a cloud of... Bricks. It's hard to really think of them as anything else.

Ferham (516) has posed:
     "Indeed, we must give the captain our credit and respect for joining us so quickly," to Ferham's credit, she was good about giving respectto her superiors. "Not sure if this sealant will work, better just go lighter unless I want to get everything all mired with poison muck," Ferham flashed her heavy armor off, leaving just her wings and helmet attached to her, while keaping the skin-tight black latex 'protective' suit she'd worn underneath. She still had her whip out and at the ready, she was being careful.

     "I'm ready when you are, Captain, Yari," she nodded her head gently. She's surprised when the thing bursts up from the waters below, slashing at it's reaching fronds with her electromag whip and trying to hover out of it's reach!

Yari Takane (691) has posed:
Bricks!? Yari glances back and her tail gains a sway as she runs!

"You've been practicing." The approval in her voice is clear.

"If it catches me in its jaws, I'll be a snack. I won't let it catch me." Comes Yari confidently.

Thankfully ice is /very/ effective against these things, and they go down without a hitch. But those tentacles are a bit harder to deal with! Sanary's first series of hard hacks cause horible goop to splatter everywhere. It stinks, and it clings. Worse still, it's corrosive! Two eyes peek from below the goop, but just as Sanary swings that shield! WHACK!

The tentacles around Yari and Sanary let go! Yari helpfully makes a few handseals, and sends a ball of flame straight into the creature. It's flash-fried instantly, the creature dying from the combined attentions of Axe and Ninja Burning.

There's the sound of Yari swallowing as she smartly plugs her nose. Broiled swamp creature smells /nasty/!

But there's a second creature, that takes poor Ferham by surprise! That whip knocks away a duo of tentacles, but then four more start to lash out for Ferham, trying to wrap her up in a cocoon of the stinking things!

Thankfully, Yari refrains from using fire this time. She leaps for the writhing things, sword out, spinning in the air as she hammers sword-slices and hard kicks into the tentacle mass! A few of them start to fall off.

Meanwhile, the chewing Hydra is starting to take notice. It lumbers to its four feet, eight heads peering at the Feds currently dealing with tentacular troubles! The creature's stomach audibly rumbles from there!

Sanary Rondel has posed:
Sanary's feeling /much/ better about her choice of armor now. Sure, her heavier green armor would be able to weather blows better, but with corrosive substances like these? The thickness of the padded snow rabbit armor is really paying off in spades!

     Well, at least for the parts of her that are actually covered with the thicker material. Some of that goop still gets into the gaps in the armor, drawing a pained hiss from the healer as it burns through the skin, heals over from the magic, then re-burns. Not a fun combination! And to make things worse...

     "... Holy HELL, this place smells like ass. When did we crawl inside something?" Shuddering lightly at the stench, Sanary magics up some noseplugs directly inside her nose that surely won't get stuck later. She joins Yari in chopping away at the tentacle mass, even firing off a few blasts of ice magic at the larger 'body' of the creature to try and avoid the risk of freezing either of her companions by accident.

     Those bricks, meanwhile, continue to hover ominously. They're filled with brick.

Ferham (516) has posed:
     Giant Mosquitos?! It was like the Florida Everglades down here--at least the one Ferham had visited, which had probably been contaminated by mutagen. The gloves attached to Ferham's 'water-proof' suit at the moment bore long clawed gloves similar to the ones on her normal armor, but sleeker and lighter--allowing her to grab a few of the giant bugs and crush or otherwise mangle the pernicious critters before they're able to pierce the latex of her suit with their proboscises. Not any blood in her for them anyway, but her body's internal heat signature likely made her still visible to her. Her gloves wound up splashed with a bit of insect ichor however, in the process.

     "Persistent little things, aren't they?" Ferham looked over to Yari and Sanary as the tendrils over there released them, not seeing the tendrils that whipped around and grabbed her arms--pulling them behind her back. Just then, the stiletto heels integrated into her suit click together as more of the fronds begin to wrap around her from the foot upwards!

     "Uhh, could use a little help here, Yari, Captain--ngghh!" she struggled, wincing and showing teeth--but her arms were trussed and folded behind her back, and she was soon being converted into a femmebot mummy! Soon just her green eyes were visible as they peered out with a 'oh jeez help!' look in them.

Yari Takane (691) has posed:
"Somehow I think /we/ are the ones that did the crawling into." The swamp truly is a nasty, horrible organism.

Between the pair of Elites, tentacles fall or are smash-frozen into bits! The poor mummy-Ferham is slowly chopped out of her little problem, before one final chop from Sanary has the last tentacle freed! Ferrybot will fall to the vine...still wrapped up with now-dead tentacles. Yari toes the poor bot.

"Nnn. I think that look suits you, Miss Ferham." Smiling, she'll tease just a moment before starting to unwrap her!

Quickly, as the Hydra is heading their way!

With Ferham done, Yari nods to the pair.

"Wish me luck." The ninja has a bit of nervousness to her voice. It /is/ a mass of teeth and scales she's starting to charge towards. But she'll let Ferham and and Sanary go first! She's leaping along one vine, towards the plants!

Two hydra heads rise, and start to fall for Ferham, and then, Yari! The ninja doesn't bother dodging, trying to sneak over to the plants. She'll trust Sanary!

Sanary Rondel has posed:
A hack here, a chop there, and a whole lot of ice over there. Sanary's gotten quite comfortable with using the gunaxe, and when she and Yari finally get Ferham free from those swamp-gas covered tentacles...

     She can't help but snicker at Yari's comment on the fembot's condition. "H-hey. Come on, Yari. That's just..." Sanary trails off with another laugh, although she does at least take care not to look too long before helping her get Ferham free.

     That'd just be rude, especially in light of the hydra charging for them. Also, the hydra's charging for them!

     "Alright... We got this one. Ready, Ferry?" She calls out with a grin, then... Furrows her brow just a bit. Sanary's thinking about something! "Rerry.. Ferry... Nah, I got nothin'."

     Nothing important, apparently. Bracing the shield in front of her, she charges straight at the hydra, circulating magical energy inside her body to bolster her endurance as she slams right into it! A new trick, apparently, since it's keeping her from breaking every bone in her body on impact!

     The bricks continue floating in wait.

Ferham (516) has posed:
     "Mmphh, mpphh!" Ferham tried to muffle some vocal responses to Sanary and Yari as she struggled, looking like she made quite the show of it--her curvaceous form silhoutted in the mummy wrapping-like fronds as she twisted this way and that, pulling her legs back and arching her back as the material of the encasing fronds tightened--now blocking her eyes too, totally blotting out any hint of the person trapped inside.

     "Mnnn! Mmm!" Ferham had been aware that she was being chopped out before she was finally 'blind-folded', likely a bit hot under the collar as she struggled to avoid being struck even as her friends cut her out.

     When the fronds no longer supported her the wrapped up Fer went plummeting into the marsh itself, sitting up after a bit and giving Yari a bit of a look as she's teased, likely just her eyes able to be seen as the kunoichi unwraps her. Pulling her arms free from the folded position behind her back, she tore the rest of the scraps off her legs before her wings swung out again, her whip in hand as she jumped back into the air, noticing the Hydra is going for Yari--she'll try to put herself between herself and the monster, or otherwise distract it rather than let it grab the ninja girl.

Yari Takane (691) has posed:
Yari can't help but chuckle /just/ a bit at poor Ferham as she's given that face of pure indignation. She does help up the poor bot!

Sanary gets a wink.

Also, there's a freaking hydra coming after them! Thankfully, the brave Elites with Yari cover her well! The great creature charges in, the enhanced endurance of Sanary causing its heads to slam into her shield, arresting its movement! The vine trembles under the strength of the creature!

Ferham's own efforts help as well! One head turns to her, and rushes for the juicy looking robot! Far more delicious than little Au Ra! Big, fist-sized teeth and jaws snap at Ferham, trying to take a bite out of robo-crime!

Meanwhile, Yari is to the plants. Taking out a military spade, she's carefully digging them up, placing them in sealed pots that she stuffs into a bag. It's slow work. The plants are delicate, and she needs a good sampling of them all.

The hydra has its own plans though! The head near Ferham pulls back after a few snaps, and opens it's mouth wide! There's this horrible gurgling sound, it /hurks/, and then there's a horrible blob of black and green mess that's being spewed towards the robot!

If she gets stuck in that blob, it'll start sizzling and corroding her armor! Oh, and smells /awful/!

Yari isn't one to not help. When one head turns to her? She chucks a grenade at it. The Hydra swallows it! The grenade goes off, and the hydra twitches as nerve gas fills it's gullet. Those snapping jaws at FErham and Sanary go stiff for several moments! The creature's open!

Sanary Rondel has posed:
As Sanary grunts with exertion and digs her shield in to keep the head in front of her from thrashing around too wildly, she takes note of the creature's giant maws opening up and threatening to devour Ferham and Yari! Or puke on them. Neither sounds all that pleasant, really. But with all of her focus on the one head right in front of her and no free hands to even take potshots at it with her gunaxe, how's the healer planning to help her friends here?

     The bricks. Just as planned! That's the story, and Sanary's sticking to it. The bricks finally descend on the hydra, hurtling straight towards the creature's mouths. The accuracy still isn't quite at the level the healer would like, of course, but she's going for quantity over quality here while trying to just cram as many of those things (and all their painful corners) right into the hydra!

     A few of those bricks, meanwhile, flatten while moving closer to Ferham and almost look like shields (complete) that the Reploid could grab or take cover behind as she chooses. Not that they'd last long in either scenario, but... Well. Quantity over quality!

     Of course, Sanary's aim being what it is, she'll just have to remain stoic while some of those bricks pelt her in the back of the head, too. She's pretty sure that's just sweat, anyway.

Ferham (516) has posed:
     "I hope you're getting your plants in order over there, Yari--gah!" she has to evade quickly when the mouth dives for her and she can feel the snapping of teeth just inches away from her, feel it even--the femmebot cringing as she has to grab the large hydra's jaws to keep it from biting at her again--before she is half-thrown half-dives back out of the way, reeling back in the air. She lashes her whip out and tries to strike at the thing's face and eyes, until the black blob is launched at her.

     The effect is pretty immediate--once Fer got most of her body hit by the ichor, she realized it was eating through the water-proof suit she'd worn--and quickly centered a bit of freezing energy to it--trying to stop the compound from spreading as it dissolved her suit.

     The result, well, a large patch of one arm, one leg--each on different sides is visible missing from the suit now the mid-section and lower eaten through so as to leave the remnants of the suit a sort of close-fitting mid-riff bearing top and the lower parts a thong with straps still holding the legs and heeled boot portions up, thankfully.

     "So humiliating... and do you even know how much this thing cost!?" Ferham suddenly screamed, forming a large 40x40 inch boulder of ice and launching it into one of the Hyrda's mouths--or aiming for it's head.

Yari Takane (691) has posed:
Poor Hydra! Just as it's about to snap up a delicious looking Au Ra, out go the bricks! Whump! WHUMPWHUMPWHUMPWHUMPWHUMP! The stupid animal even swallows a few, one head choking on a barrage! It goes purple, and it's head falls dead!

The remaining seven heads then turn riiiiight towards Sanary. She indeed has it's attention! They all rise up, ready to chomp away on Sanary!

"I'm almost done! Three more plants!" Calls Yari, swiftly de-grounding another plant! She finds time to kunai a few mosquitos that are coming the group's way!

Thankfully, Ferham has a whip, and it proves useful! A few slashes, and the thing has a blind head! It starts to lash around, blindly biting into its neighbor! Suddenly, the heads begin to fight each other, and there's blood everywhere!

And then Ferham drops a massive block of ice on the thing! CRASH! Shards of ice slam into the creature, and it's forced into the muck! Some of it even sizzles, even it's own protections not quite enough! The beast is flailing, and dying thanks to the group's combined powers!

"Got it! Come, let's leave!" Yari calls to the others, pulling close her back, and then hucking a smoke bomb! POMF!

There's a very, very angry Hydra still lashing about in its death throes. The ninja is already running, leaping to that vine that brought them there!

Yari has the decency to toss poor Ferham a kimono. Blush!

"Are you both alright?" She asks as she's running away.

Sanary Rondel has posed:
Sanary prepares herself for the worst when she notices the hydra's heads turning for her, hunkering back with her shield and drawing some of the (non-swallowed) bricks back to bolster her defenses! Thankfully, that's not quite necessary with Ferham throwing the rest into a panic and gently inserting it into the corrosive swamp with that mildly worrying declaration.

     Like Yari, Sanary's also blushing faintly while following after the ninja and throwing some healing magic towards both her and Ferham. "Got what you needed? Ah... Yeah, I'm good! Just a liiittle sweaty. It's too hot in here! Out... Here. You okay there, Yari? Ferry?"

     Putting a bit of energy into her magical flying cheating anklets, the healer even whirls around to sort of hover backwards at a steady pace while keeping an eye on that hydra. There's no telling if it could come back up to try and (literally or figuratively) bite them in the ass!

Ferham (516) has posed:
     "Watch out Sanary, that thing is pretty hungry, even if it's got massive tissue damage!" Ferham would likely try to swoop down and carry the two girls and the plants right off, if she could--it depends on what the carrying setup Yari has for the plants. Either way, they'll be air-lifted home by a rather skimpily dressed valkyrie in the tatters of what looked like a black latex catsuit--so all in all a fairly normal weekday for them!