Not a Creature Was Stirring...

#61

"Yes. I expect so. I feel it. I also expect this whole place is trapped and all of them have monsters or aler-...And you just open the door...ugh..." She hung her head. Why does no one take the damn time to scout out things first? Half of the people in this world seemed to think they should just rush in and fight it head on. No wonder the guard did so poorly and all the fights had such costs. No one does any recon or gathers information of their enemy's weaknesses before hand! They all probably run right into tripwires and childish pitfall traps too!

Mage of Mist · #62

The H&H:

Sapphire stared menacingly, watching as they stepped closer and back, daring the slimeoid to leave the H&H...

"I... Am warning you!" She blurted out... Why did it have to be winter where 99% of her kind had either migrated or were sleeping? Though she did leave the building, flinching lightly at the snow, though it melted under the slimeoid shortly afterwards due to her maintaining a higher body temperature.

Thorn's Treehouse:

Fern-Biter listens quietly, ears alert... Before then taking his paw off the herrerasaur's snout and lightly nuzzling it with a concerned whine.

Near the Temple:

Meanwhile Thorn was barreling through tree branches and shrubs as she was making her way to the Temple as fast as she could, but ended up tripping on a tree root with a squeak and losing her balance, rolling down a rather steep hill towards the Temple and out of some bushes in a ball of snow, the dazed and snow covered Floran groaned and turned to look... Only to see that the outside of the Temple had even more infected creatures pretty much right outside it... Hopefully the ball of snow with twigs and leaves stuck to it acted as good enough camo to not be spotted despite all the noise.

#63

The Temple of Insanity

Russel could only guess what was going on in Toms head as his pleas to be put down were ignored by his friend, but his fear and cry of what was supposed to be 'What are you doing?!' when he was lowered onto the Temples flaming altar were strangled by the groans and yells of exquisite pain as the parasite burrowed up from his chest to his neck. Russel could only writhe in his terror of this place and what was going to happen on the altar next to Tom as he demanded something, anything, from this god-but he did near jump out of his skin when Tom slammed the Bowie knife in the altar.

Russel too was one of the ones who cried out at the sudden bout of flame from the Dragon statue, closing his eyes shut the man fully expected to burn up right then and there-only to find that he didn't. More than that a horrible inhuman screeching noise erupted through his skin near his neck as the parasite was burned to death inside and that pain caused by it halted.

Still, despite this, Russel really didn't want to be in here, and pushed himself off the altar using his remaining left arm, falling into a crumpled bleeding heap on the floor in an attempt to leave.

Such a commotion upstairs attracted one Felicia Ravager from below, bleary eyed even with her shadow-tinged eyeballs from under her wolf mask. She had come to celebrate with the other Knights but had gone to bed early. "What's-" she yawned "What's going on?"

<hr />

Outside the Temple of Insanity

Possibly much to Thorns dismay, somone was paying attention to the giant snowball. Fortunately for her, they didn't see the ball of ice as a threat. Instead they decided to charge at the huge thing and send it fast rolling inside the Temple in their frustration at not being able to get in themselves.

<hr />

The Horn and Halo

The beasts that dared Sapphire to step out continued to make a show if taunting her, trying to get her to move out further and darting in to faux snap at the other predator.

<hr />

The Hidden Lab

Phoebes phasing through one of the doors didn't set anything off, but nor would her psychic pulse show up anything too interesting. The room she was looking in was full of live animals collected from all over Ana inside pods, peacefully asleep with tubes being fed into the pods. There were computers lining the walls on the far side of the doors, but that was pretty much it for in here.

The room Holly had just opened the door to also didn't trigger anything. In here were tanks of small white, wormlike creatures swimming around in an opaque fluid, more computers, and even a few filing cabinets probably containing papers kept neatly inside. These were locked, naturally, as were the computers password protected.

#64

Temple of Insanity
====================================
Tom helped Russel up as he answered Felicia

"The town is under attack. Best I can guess some sort of Parasite is taking control of the animals - tried to infect a few people too. And considering how organized they are - there's something commanding the parasites"

#65

The Temple of Insanity

Russel stared ahead blankly, feeling faint after Tom heped him up. Damn, just how much blood was he losing with his arm missing? "Get... get me out of here... Tom". Even if Russel were to soon die of bloodloss this was the last place he wanted to be.

Felicias black eyes simply stared with a mild amount of shock at the explanation given by Tom as her fists slowly bunched together. "These parasites, they wouldn't happen to look like white worms would they?" She paused for a few moments before adding "... And your friend appears to be dying. Hang on"

~Solveig? Can you hear me? We have injured in the Temple, can you get here quickly? We need your healing skills~

#66

Tom help Russel lay down without injuring himself, then said.

"Russel, I know you don't care for this place, but it is safe and they can save you. When you are alive and things are safe you can go back to hating this place"

#67

Helped to lie down, Russel couldn't really move by himself now. Instead at Toms insistence he simply breathed out a pained and reluctant "Fine" to his friend.

Jent · #68

~... At the Temple!?~

The huldra Knight stared at a thick swath of trees as the incoming mental message broadcasted out in the link. She for the better part of the past couple days training out in the wilderness of Ana to better hone her skills. Unfortunately, today stacked several problems all into one terrible package. ~I will be right there, Felicia!~ A weakened signal relayed back to the Split; the distance muffling the quality. ~Keep them stable!~

She drove herself straight through the blockade of vegetation in a suit of glowing armor. Her feet glided off the ground of battered branches, rising up higher in the energy apparition formed by her inner power with Solveig soon matching the fallen wooden giants in height. The Knight would not let someone die on her watch, cutting through more of the natural barriers in her way with a clean slice of an energized blade.

Mage of Mist · #69

The H&H:
Sapphire went further out of the Inn in an attempt to drive them off, before the other predator attempted to snap at her, swerving away and lobbing a chunk of herself that was active with digestive enzymes at the predator that snapped at her. It'd just be a little tingly at first, but if not removed would start to sting and eat away at it.

Temple of Insanity:

The Floran cringed as she saw the beast running her way, trying to keep quiet and hidden... Before then squealing as the snowball she was in was sent rolling very quickly into the Temple! Rolling between Felicia and Tom, before the screeching snowball then crashed into a wall, collapsing into a large mound of snow and going silent barring a small groan.

#70

Holly looked around and wrinkled her nose. Worms. In tanks. What was this place? She gave a shrug to Phoebe. She hadn't thought of the possibility of traps but now that there weren't any she felt slightly Vindicated in opening the door.

"What? Nothing happened. Just a bunch of worms..."

She tugged on the filing cabinet. Locked. With a slight bit of frost magic she froze the mechanism and gave it one more sharp pull, seeing if it would give.

"I'm just glad to be down here. Away from...them."

#71

The Horn and Halo

The predator that snapped at Sapphire found its attempt dodged, then mildly yelped at the slimeoid piece that hit it. Though instead of turning around in circles trying to get it off it simply stayed stock still while its companion sniffed at the odd thing. Very strange behaviour indeed.

<hr />

The Temple of Insanity

Felicias expression changed to a mild form of horror at hearing how far away Solveig was, and the words 'keep them stable'. ~Alright Solveig I'll try. Please hurry! And be careful, some sort of highly organised parasite species is attacking the town~

"Solveig will be here as quick as she can, in the meantime we need to-"

Felicias sentence was interrupted by a rolling ball of white ice that barrelled between the pair of them before smashing into the wall and revealing a Floran. "-keep him stable. Thorn is that you? Are you okay?"

Felicia knelt down, and rather than tear off a piece of cloth created one from the shadows as she knelt down and removed Russels cloak from his bleeding stump of a right arm before applying pressure to it. All sorts of trinkets and stonecarving equipment were hidden in the pockets of the mans cloak that jingled when it was moved.

<hr />

The Hidden Lab

Holly would find that with the lock freezing and unfreezing it became brittle enough for her to break into the filing cabinets drawer. She would, however, also find that the interference with the lock caused a mechanism on the inside to spray out black ink, black ink that was aimed right at head height.

#72

Phoebe turned to check over the computers, tilting her head and looking through them. She was curious what they would say, and, if locked, she would simply breka out the fear powers she had to look through them.

#73

The Hidden Lab

Phoebe would find the computers lining the walls locked and passworded. Seemed noone was working in here right now.

#74

Tom's first aid training kicked in. He helped Felicia strip down Russel, then took the piece of cloth Felicia has made, one of Russel's chisels, and looking around, found nothing, so grabbed his belt. He tied Felicia's cloth around the stub, but the chisel into it, and turned the chisel until dangerously tight. He then secured the chisel, forming a tourniquet. he then used some of Russel's blood, and looking down at his watch, wrote the time on his arm.

"That aught to stop him from bleeding out, but Solvieg needs to get here ASAP."

#75

The Temple of Insanity

Felicia nodded to Tom. "I know. She's coming back as fast as she can, I think she was out training though. Sounded far-but I'm sure she'll be here as quick as she can. Now, Tom, please-tell me what these parasites looked like. It's important"

<hr />

Trees were felled as Solveig made her hurried way back. Even the infected animals yelped and dodged out of the way of the meleeing behemoth that was the huldra.