Not a Creature Was Stirring...

Mage of Mist · #31

The H&H:
Sapphire found... More birds, well, that was exiting. At least she was still inside the inn. Curiosity started to take over though and the slimeoid started searching around the inn, trying her best to avoid the mass flock. If not... Eventually her curiosity would draw her towards the door to peek out of to see what the flib was going on.

Thorn's Treehouse:
Fernbiter snarls and swats at the birds the best he could, but was also being overwhelmed and started to be pushed out with the poor herrerasaur.

Thorn went to walk to the house after patting Scooter on the head, when she heard the snarling behind her. "... Now what?" Thorn sighs, turning to see the Ana predator and wolf, taking out a gloworb and tossing it down the hill for it to roll and distract the two predators, wanting to deal with the birds first than with a toothy-clawed thing and puppy at the moment. "No eat sssheeep, sssilly thingssss."

The sheep had all retreated into their cave to hide, noping all the way there. They just hoped no birds were in there either.

#32

The Horn and Halo

The slimeoid would find only that the birds were very tightly packed in and organised. The H and H itself at the back was, well, still the H and H. It just happened to be full of birds making a wall right now.

The golden werewolf shrugged "I dunno exactly. Some Gods hily place I'm sure, might even be protected." She started crawling out. Russel was already ahead of her.

<hr />

Outside

The animals that were lurking started forwards. All were predatorial-Ana predator, a jaguar, a wolf-none were seen working together before now .

Snarling as they opened their jaws, the creatures went to lunge at Tom. Each of them had what looked like slimy white tendrils hung from the insides of their mouths.

The cats too, they had these white appendages hanging from next to each claw.

The creatures charged, intending to leap at Tom and scratch or bite.

Others in The Encampment that had been forced out were suffering the same fate. Some were still running, some were fighting-and the ones that had been bitten or scratched already were left alone.

<hr />

Thorns Treehouse

The wolf and Ana forest predator watched the gloworb disappear, staying stock still before turning back. They both opened their jaws, revealing the white tendrils hanging down from inside their mouths and then went to lunge at the Floran.

#33

"Shouldn't we... stay here?"

The snow angel sighed.

"Isn't this supposed to be protected-?" She followed the werewolf outside, took one look at the predators and slipped back in, where it was "safe".

#34

Guin: ... Hey. You know we can't stay in there for long with all those birds right?" The golden furred werewolf tried to tell her new snowy friend.

#35

"But... If I fold my wings up like this..."

She demonstrated, surrounding herself in a feathery shield that went entirely around her.

"They can't bother me! You go... fight the monsters!" She encouraged, watching from the sideline.

#36

Looking back on this time in his life, Tom would embelish the story, adding things he said like "I don't get paid enough for this!", or "You want a piece of me!"

The truth is Tom didn't say those things. He didn't have time. Simply put, he was too busy trying to stay alive to think of any quips.

He was able to hold off a few of the beast initially, but it quickly became apparent that there were too many to just simply shoot at - they were still advancing on him.

But that's not what bothered him. Those tentacles sticking out of the creatures mouths. He could have sworn he saw something like that in some Sci-fi show he watched when he was back on Earth. And if this was like that show - he was not going to have a fun night.

"Fall Back, Hurry! Everybody! I can't hold them off for much longer" He said as he rose up and started back peddling, trying to shoot what he could down to give the civilians a little more time to escape.

#37

Phoebe stepped out, keeping a psychic box up around her. She didn't like those damn wards one bit, always problematic when you needed action. The witch started to leak a black sludge off her body, forming into an odd revolver and gathering around her as a protective ring to strike at whatever was there. With an annoyed grunt, the woman began to fire magical explosive rounds at the ones around Tom, attempting to cover him while she herself simply kept them back off her and worked to see what she could glean off these annoying, and unnaturally well coordinated, beasts. If nothing else, her own unnatural biology and psychic ability would keep her safe. Few things expect bodies that don't care about physics.

#38

The Horn and Halo

The birds building the wall in the inn did not seem interested in stopping. In fact they started to speed up their attempts at 'herding' once people started to leave, to remove the more stubborn residents.

They couldn't do much about the slimeoid however, and indeed seemed remarkably ambivalent towards her as she moved around in the back.

Guin, the golden furred werewolf looked to her sudden friend sadly and then shrugged. "Whatever you're going to do, I hope you have a good plan for when they start pushing you out. Good luck, Holly" she then scampered off out to join the retreating civilians.

<hr />

Outside the H and H/The Encampment

The beasts were indeed quite like the ones Tom had seen in that sci fi movie of his, as evidencef by the fact they left those they caught that got bitten or scratched alone. Oddly, when his plasma blasts or Phoebes magical explosive blasts did their work and killed the animals that threatened them, the fallen comrades got devoured by the others in the strange coordination. It worked somewhat to thin the way for the retreating civilians to sprint towards the Temple as unmolested as coukd be hoped for in this situation, but it also worked to make the group that they were shooting at to become a much larger group the more they attracted the others to the dead.

The majority of the civilians would have escaped out of the H and H by now, save the very stubborn Snow Angel and the strangely unthreatened Sapphire. Russel had naturally stayed behind to urge on as many as he could, and was one of the last to go. "I think that's everyone going who's going! You should go too!" He yelled to his friend, also starting the sprint

#39

Outside the H&H
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Tom spared a glance over at Pheobe before getting the notice from Russel that the H&H was clear as it was going to be.

"Count of three, book it. One...two...three!"

Tom didn't wait for Pheobe to confirm, when he hit three he quickly turned and started after everyone else

#40

Phoebe, being a psychic witch, started floating up and continuing to fire as she left, travelling in the air and abusing that whole "you can't get into melee range" thing. As she did, she tried to track a source of these. There was too much unification to not have a central controller, be it a person, thing, hive mind...She had experience with all of those. Hell, her adopted eldest brother was himself a source of a hive mind of strange interstellar parasitic predators. She was used to this stuff and rather unphased. Then again, it's hard to scare someone who's never afraid.

Mage of Mist · #41

Thorn's Treehouse:

Seeing as the 'odd couple' was distracted, Thorn went to head back towards the house... Though then heard the lunge and jumped out of the way!
"Hey! Sssshoo-" Thorn started, about to tell them to bugger off when she saw the white tendrils hanging from their jaws and claws... NOPE! NOPE! NOOOOPE! Thorn was not having any of that!

Eyes wide, the Floran grabbed out another gloworb and tossed it at the beasts directly, before then attempting to dash off, hoping they'd get distracted by the pretty glowy thing again.

Fernbiter, who got a message from Thorn, grabbed the poor speckled Herrera and attempted to fight his way towards the bed to hide under it with the scared dino, hoping to avoid having to go outside.

- - - - - - - - - - -

The H&H:

Curious, the slimeoid oozed her way over to the door, squeezing past the poor snow angel fighting her way in... And saw the chaos going on outside. The slimeoid wanted to go out there and help, but squeaked as she felt the snow and backed into the inn again.

"H-Hey, you... You weird... Things!" The slimeoid shouted from inside the inn, hoping to maybe distract at least a few and help the people escape that way.

#42

The Horn and Halo

The flock of multispecies birds burgeoned inside the Inn, the wall would soon start pushing out the Snow Angel.

Outside the Horn and Halo/The Encampment

Sapphires yelling did work to stop some of the beasts from pursuing the fleeing civilians, as they looked over to see what the strange slimy being wanted.

Phoebe and Toms efforts worked to make the creatures behind them become the thickest of the bunch they had to contend with as they fled, the fallen devoured by the still living. Tom would find however that despite his best efforts people ahead were still falling.

Nowhere near as many as would be had they not done anything however.

Unfortunately, it didn't stop one Ana predator once they got very close to the Temple from rushing from the side just ahead, barrelling into Russel even as plasma blasts smacked into the beasts hairy hide.

"Agh!" The man yelled at the impact, knocked over and getting up to reveal two things-the beast was dead now, but it had torn his arm and the cloak hung ragged on that side, plus one of the white tendrils had already attached to the wound and was fast burrowing into it. Slippery and wriggling, it only took seconds for it to disappear into the humans arm. "Oh. Great"

Phoebe would find the psionic links she was looking for, they interconnected all the beasts together-the beasts, the birds, and the things lurking off in the shadows. She'd also find one single strand connected to them all-this hivemind did indeed have one overall mind giving the orders to them. The link headed underground, below The Encampment-underneath one particular restaurant.

Thorns Treehouse

The speckled herrerasaur gave a strange loud noise as he was picked up and dragged under the bed by Fern-Biter, the birds in there... seeming to be thinning off.

The gloworb thrown directly at the odd couple by Thorn did get their attention this time, they jumped away from it as though they thought it was a grenade and then proceeded to try and examine it through scent and visual observation.

#43

"H-Hey! No shoving!" Holly shouted, trying to force back the wall of birds with her wings. They kept the force up, and soon shoved her right out the door. "How rude... Err."

She paused, staring down the savage looking animals.

"Uhhm... Gotta go!" She ran down the street, banging on doors to try and find an open shelter.

#44

Phoebe floated up quickly, firing at the beasts before dropping underground to follow the thread back to the source. The witch rummaged through her potions as she moved intangibly through the ground.

#45

Encampment
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Tom saw it all go down in slow motion - his shot hit too late, Russel go down, the beast falling with Russel's arm. One of the tendril's infect Russel . There wasn't a thing he could do until it was already too late.

Then as suddenly as things slowed down, they sped back up to full speed. Tom yelled for Phoebe to cover him - only to notice her gone. He still shouldered his weapon for a few shots then slung it over his back to scoop up the injured Russel. He then booked it full speed for the temple. There had to be something there to deal with this....Something.

Tom failed to notice the faint blue glow of the pendant under his shirt in all the chaos...

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Wooded Outskirts of the Encampment

As Phoebe traced the thread, she would notice an incredibly dense cluster of psionic links. Above ground, trees shook as something very, very big started walking towards the Encampment.

((Bolt, please follow the links

))