Scene #6352: Whim of the Wind-2

Owner	Pose
Wandering Dog	EARLY EVENING THE SOUTHERN DESERT The South of Creation is very warm, but as the sun starts to set, cold winds blow over. The location was sent to any and all Elites interested in the prize, a few hours before the race was supposed to start: getting to the body of the god-king Durod, through his trapped tomb, to be the one to claim his riches. The exterior of the tomb /was/ partially covered in sand, though the sweet scent of the air and the wispy elemental humanoids nearby show that Florivet, the bestial demon with an exposed upper body, a pair of thick wings, a bow on his back, and a lupine head and mane, has already arrived recently, and has probably spent the past several weeks clearing it. He may not have been the first here, but sitting near his 20-foot long boat made of bone, the demon waits for everyone to arrive. When the group is finally there, he speaks in his gravelly baritone, excited as he sips from a cup of wine and stands tall. "Excellent, excellent! You're all here. The rules, as a refresher, are simple. First to the body of King Durod is our victor. They will get all the wealth inside the tomb, as well as some of my own. Other than that, fight among each other to your hearts' content! When you're ready, we'll begin." Florivet rises...and the group can proceed after several moments! There are several entrances, on several sides of the pyramidic tomb made out of thick stone, and everyone has been assigned one literally just now. Florivet waits several seconds to make sure everyone is in position, and then pulls out a flaming pistol and fires into the sky, signalling that they can move forward. These entrances are thick and decently wide enough to get through with one-two people easily, though the first obstacle is immediate, and perhaps unexpected. As people move through their entrance, there's an extremely faint beep... And explosives detonate, rocking EVERY SINGLE entrance (though luckily probably not collapsing them, they seem decently sturdy with their construction) and possibly blowing up those proceeding inwards. Florivet, who had taken one of the entrances, is forced to dive for cover as he realizes something is up, burnt, battered, and knocked backwards by the detonation. It seems that getting through their entrances is the first challenge! They should also probably have lights prepared, as deeper inside seems to be very, very dark.
Seifer Almasy	For once, Seifer Almasy is early. Actually, he's really early; by the time everybody else arrives, Seifer's already standing there, stretching. He's dressed in his trenchcoat, he's got his gunblade over his shoulder. Underneath his trenchcoat, there's glimpses of a hell of a lot of military-grade explosives, like plastiques and C4s and all sorts of other things strapped into various safety harnesses, if one is particularly inclined to look at his coat. Seifer's ready to get this going. He's so ready, in fact, that once everybody's in place and the countdown's started, Seifer's going before the bell. It's blatant cheating. His explosive goes off before anybody else's, and anybody watching closely can tell - he was ready for it. He dives in head-first, arms in front of his face to shield him from the blast, rolling off the wall with only slight burns. Immediately, Seifer plants some C4 and presses it, then rolls off to the side, letting it blow open another wall. Fuck architectural integrity. Fuck history. This is a race. Seifer Almasy's in it to win it.
N'Raha	Out of all the other participants, maybe the Desert Catte Of Light is the most at home in an environment like this. The dust, the sand, the heat, the chill, all of it feels like home. Which is why perhaps the catman is in a bit of a lull as he wait for his erstwhile chosen partner to get herself ready and raring to go. Dressed in desert wraps with a scarf over his face to keep out the worst of the tomb dust they're going to encounter, the catman's ears twitch and flick a bit at the noises and everything. It's been a while since he properly raided a tomb. N'raha is doing some feline stretches outside the entrance when the countdown ends and that pistol fire starts The Race. He huffs, and escorts his Seer, swiftly moving to protect her from the blast with a burst of Aether and a blown cooldown. Bastion it is. "Thal's balls, what the hell is this. Explosions aren't supposed to be this early."
Tina Natsumi	Tina's arrived good and early at the starting line for today's race, dressed in her best and flashiest... Wait. Something's off. Aside from the cowboy hat, her gear looks much more practical than flashy. Thick gloves, sturdy fitted pants and a jacket with a bandolier, steel-toed boots, and barely any exposed skin beyond her goggles? She's seen enough deathraces on TV to know not to try and win with physical appeal. No, her best shot is following whoever's cheating the most! In this case, Seifer. After securing a 360-degree camera to her hat via a headband, the cowgirl starts running in as well while the video starts rolling. "Howdy, y'all! It's ya girl FreedomWithFries here, and today we're going into a god-king's tomb to poke at his corpse! Shit's haunted, so keep the lights on at home if you scare easy!" She warns her viewers as the livestream starts, yanking a piece of bright pink chalk out of one of her bandolier pockets and dragging it along the wall to her right as she hurries forwards. Hopefully, all those extra explosions won't render her return path useless. She doesn't seem interested in going for the lead yet, though, instead opting to follow the competition first.
Inga Freyjasdottir	Inga is as dressed for the environment as she can be in a lighter dress, a scarf wrapped around her head and lower half of her face. Seeing as moving fast is one of the things she's worst at, she's brought a mount. Or, well, borrowed one from Raha since her horse is not exactly trained for battle. The chocobo however, is, and while she feels pretty silly riding on a giant chicken, it would do the job. "Let's go then," she says, then sees Seifer take off even before the race has officially started. She sighs and rolls her eyes slightly, then heads in after Raha. The explosion has her clinging to the saddle, but Raha takes the brunt of the force so they keep going. Once inside they are plunged into darkness. For this, Inga has a quick solution. She whispers a word and the runs along her staff glow blue-white, illuminating the area.
Laina Reliah	The baggy clothed woman stretched as the demon laid out the rules. They were all exactly as she had heard with little to no changes. Good! She pulled her gas mask to her face, tying it to her head as she started to imagine the ways she could hinder her opponents, her eyes focused on her chosen entrance the entire time. Run faster than everyone else, get to the end first, win a whole bunch of money. Easy, right? Not when someone rigged the starting line with explosives. The gas mask wearing woman sprinted forward the moment the starting pistol fired, charging into her entrance. A catlike ear perked at the faint beeping, an all-too familiar sound at this point in her life. It takes only an instant of thought for her to realize what she was hearing. As quickly as she could manage, she pivoted on her heel, turned towards the entrance again, and dove outside. She rolled as she hit the ground, slipping to the side of the entryway just in time for the bomb planted within to explode. Laina grit her teeth and covered her ears as dust and fire poured from the temple, muttering curses under her breath. Someone cheated, wasting precious seconds of her time. Now there was no way she was in first place. With another quiet curse, Laina pushed herself to her feet and ran into her entrance again, wiping dust from her goggles as she held up a glowing crystal to light her way. She had some catching up to do.
Nyrinel	Nyrinel dies instantly in the explosion. BAD END ... Wait, no. That's not right. Let's try that again. Nyrinel /doesn't/ die instantly in the explosion. She's thrown, her attempt to edge closer ruined by the shockwave above and now slightly behind her. She's from a medieval world and plastic explosives are not within her realm of expertise, so it seems like it might be a problem she's unprepared to deal with... except she's from a magocracy, and Fireball is like /the/ Evocation spell of choice. So, she's instead catapulted inward by the shockwave. A bubble of bluish light with an oddly liquid quality to it surrounds her, ping-ponging off the walls until it finally comes to a complete stop, disappears, and dumps her unceremoniously on the floor. Her hair and robes are a mess. She ditches the mass of useless cloth, scrambles to her feet, and yells, "FINE! WE'LL DO IT YOUR WAY!" at nobody in particular. She puts her fingers to her lips and whistles sharply. The sand outside the tomb is suddenly disturbed by dozens upon dozens of corpses sitting up as if from an afternoon nap. They climb out of their shallow graves, fall into ranks, and hustle into the interior with her, a veritable army of the walking dead moving almost noiselessly into the depths of the tomb. Neither they nor their mistress seems to have any trouble with the dark.