genessia | The Case of the Missing Cooki--er, Children

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The Case of the Missing Cooki--er, Children

WHO: Various Interested Parties (i.e. Anyone! Newbies, Oldbies, Applebees -- )
WHAT: The Mystery of the Missing Children!
WHEN: in...abouuuuuut... RIGHT NOW
WHERE: Fayren Woodlands and Fayren Farmlands mostly

Whoever you are, wherever you are, if you're in Genessia City or Fayren today, you may find yourself being accosted by an elderly woman in her late sixties. Her wrinkly sun baked skin is dotted with freckles, a long white braid over one shoulder with stray wisps of hair coming loose. Her posture was stooped and she walked with a slow hobble, muttering to herself and trying to get the attention of anyone who would stop.

"Sir.. Sir have you seen this girl?"

"Madame, have you seen this boy?"

"Oh poor me... poor me..."

"Wherever could they have gotten to..?"

- whenever she drew near enough to someone or if they slowed down to listen, she grabbed for their arm with a surprisingly strong grip, and spoke in a voice that was raspy.

"Such a sad fate...such poor children. Please, won't you hear me out?"

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The woman gave her name as Wuada Tuis and she solemnly informed anyone who listened to her, that several charges under her care had seemingly disappeared overnight. She and her cousin Ai Xudanon have been searching for the children (a total of six missing little ones in all) who may have been kidnapped somewhere between the farmlands and the forests in Fayren. Unfortunately they can't travel there as it is perilous for such elderly souls and won't such fine, strapping young creatures help them out kindly please. A reward of course, is offered.

[ OOC: OKAY. I'm going to be setting up multiple threads so HOLD YER HORSES <3; you can talk with the old lady, go straight on to investigate places, sit back and eat cheese or other. I encourage threadjacking because who doesn't like new CR? Also as a side note even if you didn't respond to the OOC post you can participate. The more the merrier :3 ~~I lied. You can't really sit back and eat cheese.~~ ]

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Ferris? Spooked? The very idea. When Ryner glanced over his shoulder to where she was following him, he would that she was keeping pace easily. She was also munching on another dango stick, her posture relaxed. At the moment.

"Hm?" Oh, were you going to want a dango stick too? Here, she offers one, mutely. Gotta keep your strength up! "Children are being kidnapped. Unfriendly entities are a given. The question lies in why they are being kidnapped."

Oh right. Silly him. He should have known who he was even talking to. Ryner eyed the stick and wondered if he should actually take it or not. Odds were she would see it as an insult to her fabled god if he said no. So reluctantly he took it and bit into one of the Dangos.

"Well that's what we're here for. To get those kids back and find out why they were taken in the first place. Still, it's gotten really quiet. "

Too quiet one might say.

"It's too late to turn back now if you're frightened." Ferris stated, almost teasing. Still, she couldn't deny he was right - it was ... there was something just -wrong- about the forest.

Before long the path started to get too overrun with vines, weeds, roots bushes and other such brickabrack to walk safely, so she - of course without any word of warning or caution to Ryner - slipped her sword free of its sheathe and danced forward a step, slashing past him at the offending plantlife.

Rattling followed the sound of plants dying a fast and painless death thanks to the blademistress cleaving a way through the forest path. The rattling didn't stop once Ferris did however. It began to rise in pitch, little by little, shadows on the ground starting to shift with the sound.

"As if there's anything a demon has to be afraid of~" A crooked grin that is a bit forced. He had plenty of fears but he couldn't help but match Ferris' bid for boasting.

He stepped out of the way the moment he heard the sword get unsheathed so he nimbly stepped to the side and let her hack at the plantlife.

When the noise grew, he narrowed his eyes and started forming the array for Izuchi in front of one hand as he eyed the surroundings.

"Sounds to me like you've managed to make the spirit of the forest angry." Naturally he didn't mean that literally.

"Yes, if anything the creatures have more to fear from a demon of perversion."

No way was she going to let a day pass without teasing him, even in such a serious situation. At least until the noise started up. Her posture shifted immediately from relaxed to on guard.

"Mm.." She agreed with this assessment - though she doubted much it was the spirit of the forest. Nothing more than creatures of the forest, at least - small ones at first varying in size from four and seven inches, each one larger than the next. Most of them black in color, there are a few with mottled browns or greys, camoflauge colors to meld in with the forest easier. Each has a three sets of legs, and four eyes on thin stalks, but the most threatening would be the thin tails curving over their backs; each tipped with a sharp point and twitching. Whenever one bumps into another, they immediately set upon it with claw and tail, rattling loudly until one of them is still again.

Ferris took a step back. Ew. "A nest."

Oops?

"Is that really something you wanna say now?" Ryner growled under his breath before the creatures revealed themselves. They reminded him a bit of Alpha's true form with how twisted their design was.

"Izuchi isn't gonna cut it. But if I use Kurenai the whole forest will go up in flames."

That left only one choice. He would need to analyze the equation of these creatures though.

"Look out down there!"

As if answering Ryner's conundrum a bolt of lightning fell from the sky and struck the nest with explosive force. Erza fell in gracefully behind the pair, neither of whom she recognized. They didn't look like the common folk but judging from the way they were dressed, and the fact that they were here, they seemed like residents of Fayren.

"Be careful, their stings are poisonous!", she warned whilst maintaining some distance from them herself.

If Erza hadn't seen the creatures take down larger prey before she might have attacked them head on. In fact she was going to try and avoid the beasts completely, but seeing that the route toward the nest had been disturbed prompted her to act.

"Did you -" Ferris' half threat stopped short when the smaller creatures suddenly flowed forward like water across the ground towards the pair, rattling angrily. At the same time, her skin prickled as she felt the energy in the air. Automatically she reached out to grab hold of the back of Ryner's clothes as she dodged to the side, to pull him out of the way. "Fast." She grunted slightly

The bolt of lighting left a majority of those smaller critters still in the nested area, crispy and dead. There were still more who had been able to avoid the ranged blast (and got blown away if nothing else). Ferris glanced over her shoulder towards the pretty redhead behind them. Poisonous stings huh? How bothersome! "Behind as well." She cautioned the other girl, before looking to her partner.

"It seems they think to surround us." Including Erza, as larger shapes formed along the path behind them, drawn by the sound of fighting and tiny death screes. "You'll have to handle those ones on your own." Something bigger was coming. A thought occured, and she shifted her grip to place it against the hilt of her sword. "Do you still have a handle on it?" Of course she means his stigma.

He was already drawing up the array for another spell when he suddenly felt that magical charge a mere second before their unexpected ally struck at the chattering horde of creatures.

"Wow that was pretty good!" Though not as effective as he would have liked. The fact that the lightning seemed more powerful than a top level Izuchi without modifications also spoke volumes of the creature's endurance.

"That's no good. These bastards are smart. Either that or there's a hivemind ordering them around." Ryner hypothesized before Ferris cut in. He nodded and immediately the iridescent tear drop shapes appeared in his eyes where the crimson pentacle once existed.

"Yeah. I Just need a few more moments to analyze their composition."

Ryner's disappointment at the efficacy of the lightning attack was shared by Erza. She'd eliminated far less of the threat than she'd hoped and now even more were swarming from the woods toward them. Erza contemplated Requipping her Flame Empress or Morning Star armors; each of those provided the kind of destructive force to deal with this many enemies. The thought faded almost immediately when, like Ryner, she considered the immeasurable damage to the surrounding forest. No, for now her present armor would have to suffice.

"Right."

At Ferris' warning Erza fell in behind the pair. She noted that they each kept a level head despite the circumstances which suggested they weren't entirely unfamiliar with this sort of thing. The man even seemed to be searching for a weakness using magic; a form of Archive perhaps? She would have asked but she needed to focus on the battle for now.

A hivemind was a pretty good guess. Some of the critters started to draw back to cut off any form of escape, clacking and rattling behind them. While ahead, a screech like the tearing of rusted metal announced the prescence of a massive creature that looked similar to the smaller ones.. nearly fifteen feet high, the majority of the creature's body was like a scorpions, from the four legs to the barbed tail, its carapace in a scarlet and black pattern.

From the waist up, the body is.. human, an armored shell cover her waist and upper torso. Where a woman would normally have a pair of arms, this thing had both the grasping pedipalps of the scorpion where her arms shoulder be, her head the most 'human' part of her. Until she spoke, where her lower jaw split in a hideous grinning rictus, her eyes gleaming red as blood.

Her claws clicked dangerously as she swayed for balance, glowering down at the gathered, "WHO DARES TO hurt my CHILDREN??" The final word a thunderous screech, painful to hear.

She's looking at YOU Erza. Well actually everyone, but mostly Erza. It's the red hair. As for Ryner, several of those smaller bittie scorpions are starting to make for his feet, intent on stinging at his ankles.

"Oh great. Something big's coming, you two!" Ryner warned, taking his eye off the chittering insects for a moment before his instincts told him he had to move out of the way to not be stung.

"Close but you were too late. Analysis of the creature's equation completed. Release!" he swiped his hand in the direction of the swarm on the floor and a flash of light erupted from his hand. Whether the power touched the creatures they shrieked and tried to scuttle away only to dissolve into sand regardless.

He winced and grit his teeth when he heard that loud shriek and turned a pointed glare to the mother of these things.

"You should've taught them better manners if you didn't want them to get picked on."

The arrival of the larger, more grotesque creature was a surprise but Erza stood her ground beneath the monster's glare. She smirked at Ryner's remark.

"That's my line."

They had to break away from here and the best way seemed through the mother scorpion. Lightning crackled from the tip of Erza's spear, licking at the ground and air before discharging in a wave toward the creature!

The scorpion beast let out a screech at the death of the tiny scorpi-bebes that get wiped out - turning to little more than sand. Few if any manage to survive the attack, in fact. She lifts her hands to her mouth with a sob barely held in check. "You are all monsters!" Pot, kettle black? "You intrude upon our nest, slaughter my children and you DARE have the audacity to criticize me on their UPBRINGING?" She snarls, stomping forward and her tail snapping forward to stab down at Ryner. "FILTHY MURDERING HUMANS."

And what's this, lightning? She's overbalanced after attacking Ryner, unable to retract her tail and dodge it in time. This leaves the thick, sickening smell of roasting scorpion meat as bits of her body start to char, her body twisting and writhing under the electrical attack. To add insult to injury, Ferris follows up Erza's attack by not giving the beast a chance to recover, her blade swinging through to cleave off the tail. Hopefully Ryner was able to dodge the scorpion's attack!

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The Case of the Missing Cooki--er, Children

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