Scion - Rada Campaign - Guest Appearance 2-3
So, I have the most awesome photo of Jacob ever! He's standing there in his badass, spike-covered armor on a pile of vanquished monster centipedes holding aloft a twin-necked guitar made of pure shadow! It's so totally metal! As soon as I get a chance, I'm sending a copy off to Hel with a note that says, "Who's lookin' out for ya? XOXO Hikage-no-Mikoto" She's gonna love it.
But the fact that Jacob ended up being way more metal than I thought could happen in a thousand years was just the highlight of our trip into the cliffs near Hiwalani's cave. Turns out the centipede infection runs deep here, and we're still cleaning it up. I'm taking a moment or two to type these notes to post once we get out of this dismal place.
But seriously, I wonder if Jacob's more old school or or death metal? Black Sabbath or Children of Bodom? I'll get him some albums to find out.
Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself...as usual. We found a group of three cave entrances near Hiwalani's lair, and entered the first of them, suspecting (correctly) that they probably linked up with each other somehow. The caves were narrow, but easily manageable. Cesar and Carina took the lead while Sam and Storm watched our backs. Helena, Jacob and I remained in the middle of the group.
Pretty soon, Carina, Sam and Cesar noticed a bunch of largish centipedes creeping around the stalagmites in the caves, trying to stay hidden but obviously stalking us. We didn't really care for that, so Cesar brought out his Onyx Skull while the rest of us fell back and watched as he filled the cave with an inferno that reduced to the centipedes to ashes in short order.
Somehow in the process, the danger of one's clothes burning off came up, and Cesar made a comment about how he wouldn't mind seeing MY clothes burn off. Lecherous jerk. (^_^). I told him that he'd already had his shot at that, referring to that time, after we'd defeated Daitokuji, when I traded him a strip tease for Daitokuji's Black Tie relic (which I keep with me always and now refer to as the LBT - Little Black Tie). He didn't miss a beat, and said he never misses a shot. It's true. He sure enjoyed the strip tease.
But about then, Helena started to get really jealous and upset. She didn't know about the strip tease, but she was sure getting the impression that something had happened between Cesar and me. So I told her it was nothing, just a joke Cesar and had shared after the whole Daitokuji thing when we were arguing about who would get the Black Tie relic. That seemed to placate her. ^_^ No harm, no foul. I mean, I'm not going to steal her man or anything, so it's all good.
We eventually came to a large chamber that held a deep pool of stagnant water. The room was crawling with centipedes: small ones, bigs ones, man-sized ones, and anaconda-sized ones! And to top it all off, there were a bunch of zombies and 5 really tiny kids - menehune children - who were writhing with centipedes as they were eaten from the inside by the infection. Unfortunately, they were being controlled by their parasites, and as the rest of the titanspawned creepy-crawlies surged toward us, the menehune followed suit.
We didn't want to kill the kids, but as carriers of the infection, they were a big threat. So as the others attacked the centipedes, I stepped forward and drew the menehune's attention, enchanting them with my beauty to keep them out of the fight while Helena and Jacob called upon their mastery over health to cleanse the infection and heal them. Unfortunately, the infection was too deep and virulent for Jacob to eradicate it. Helena could master it, but Jacob couldn't. And as he happens to be a god of fatherhood, it really pissed him off that he couldn't help save the kids. And he took that anger out on the centipedes. I'm tellin' ya, you do not want to make SuperDad mad!
Meanwhile, the centipedes began to swarm the rest of us. Three of them surrounded me and I couldn't get away from them. Sure, Cesar and I had popped our sun powers to incinerate any of the smaller centipedes that got too close, but the ones that attacked me were big enough to soak up the heat and keep coming. I was bitten once or twice, but was able to shrug off the infection without too much trouble. Fortunately, Storm stood near me like a sentinel juggernaut and annihilated most of my assailants. And Carina pounced in and finished off the rest, giving me a catty smile as she did so. I gestured my thanks by miming cat ears and doing a little Caramell Dance hip shake. I think that almost threw her off her game. ^_^
While all that was going on, Sam threw down a khaibit trap near the zombies, and as they lurched toward us, it tore at their spirits, damaging them. Then Cesar leapt into the midst of the undead hordes, blazing with fire and sunlight, and burned them to a crisp.
By the end of the fight, Storm had been bitten and infected, poor guy. But Helena was able to heal him like she'd healed the menehune. Jacob took care of healing the children of their wounds, so we were able to save them. They were weak and frightened, so Cesar created a duplicate of himself and had the duplicate guide the children from the cave and drive them back to the hotel. (^_^)
Despite all the centipedes we'd killed, we still hadn't reached the deepest recesses of the caves, so we kept hiking in. We passed the point at which two of the cave entrances joined up. We were walking along, on the look-out for more enemies, when suddenly there was a grating, squishing noise from above us. Most of the group heard the sound of the impending cave-in in time to leap clear. Jacob and I...not so much. So the two of us were buried under a shifting pile of dirt and centipedes. Yep, that's right. A huge pile of centipedes just collapsed upon us as their combined weight tore through the weak earthen ceiling over our heads. Was it worse than the sea of maggots in Di Yu? No. But it was still f**king awful.
Fortunately, I was still blazing with solar heat, so most of the centipedes were cooked instantly, which meant they weren't much of a threat to me. But there were so many of them that I couldn't dig myself free of them! I'm not that strong. >_< It's okay, though. I just sank into the earth and emerged safely away from the area.
Jacob, on the other hand, manifested his spiky armor and burst from the pile like a heavy metal legend! He began slaughtering the lesser centipedes around him with diseases from beyond the pale while Storm, Cesar, Carina and Sam tore through the ranks of the larger centipedes. Carina was amazing, pouncing from one centipede to the next and slicing them into pieces with her claws.
I kinda just got out of their way at that point. The centipedes weren't eager to get to close to me since I was burning them to death with my very presence. But they couldn't get away from Cesar, and after a few of them swarmed around Helena, he sprang into the middle of all of them, and in a flurry of heat, blood and bullets, he annihilated no fewer than four of the beasts in the blink of an eye. The moral of the story? Don't mess with Helena, 'cause Cesar will f**k you up.
Since I was mostly staying out the way, and the centipedes were obviously under control, I decided to have a little fun, and crafted a twin-necked metal guitar out of shadow. Once the last of the creatures was dead, I called out to Jacob and tossed him the guitar, throwing it high so he'd have to reach up to catch it. Then I snapped the picture I described in the beginning of this entry. Priceless. ^_^
Okay, we finished healing up and cleaning up, so we're moving on now. More later.
But the fact that Jacob ended up being way more metal than I thought could happen in a thousand years was just the highlight of our trip into the cliffs near Hiwalani's cave. Turns out the centipede infection runs deep here, and we're still cleaning it up. I'm taking a moment or two to type these notes to post once we get out of this dismal place.
But seriously, I wonder if Jacob's more old school or or death metal? Black Sabbath or Children of Bodom? I'll get him some albums to find out.
Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself...as usual. We found a group of three cave entrances near Hiwalani's lair, and entered the first of them, suspecting (correctly) that they probably linked up with each other somehow. The caves were narrow, but easily manageable. Cesar and Carina took the lead while Sam and Storm watched our backs. Helena, Jacob and I remained in the middle of the group.
Pretty soon, Carina, Sam and Cesar noticed a bunch of largish centipedes creeping around the stalagmites in the caves, trying to stay hidden but obviously stalking us. We didn't really care for that, so Cesar brought out his Onyx Skull while the rest of us fell back and watched as he filled the cave with an inferno that reduced to the centipedes to ashes in short order.
Somehow in the process, the danger of one's clothes burning off came up, and Cesar made a comment about how he wouldn't mind seeing MY clothes burn off. Lecherous jerk. (^_^). I told him that he'd already had his shot at that, referring to that time, after we'd defeated Daitokuji, when I traded him a strip tease for Daitokuji's Black Tie relic (which I keep with me always and now refer to as the LBT - Little Black Tie). He didn't miss a beat, and said he never misses a shot. It's true. He sure enjoyed the strip tease.
But about then, Helena started to get really jealous and upset. She didn't know about the strip tease, but she was sure getting the impression that something had happened between Cesar and me. So I told her it was nothing, just a joke Cesar and had shared after the whole Daitokuji thing when we were arguing about who would get the Black Tie relic. That seemed to placate her. ^_^ No harm, no foul. I mean, I'm not going to steal her man or anything, so it's all good.
We eventually came to a large chamber that held a deep pool of stagnant water. The room was crawling with centipedes: small ones, bigs ones, man-sized ones, and anaconda-sized ones! And to top it all off, there were a bunch of zombies and 5 really tiny kids - menehune children - who were writhing with centipedes as they were eaten from the inside by the infection. Unfortunately, they were being controlled by their parasites, and as the rest of the titanspawned creepy-crawlies surged toward us, the menehune followed suit.
We didn't want to kill the kids, but as carriers of the infection, they were a big threat. So as the others attacked the centipedes, I stepped forward and drew the menehune's attention, enchanting them with my beauty to keep them out of the fight while Helena and Jacob called upon their mastery over health to cleanse the infection and heal them. Unfortunately, the infection was too deep and virulent for Jacob to eradicate it. Helena could master it, but Jacob couldn't. And as he happens to be a god of fatherhood, it really pissed him off that he couldn't help save the kids. And he took that anger out on the centipedes. I'm tellin' ya, you do not want to make SuperDad mad!
Meanwhile, the centipedes began to swarm the rest of us. Three of them surrounded me and I couldn't get away from them. Sure, Cesar and I had popped our sun powers to incinerate any of the smaller centipedes that got too close, but the ones that attacked me were big enough to soak up the heat and keep coming. I was bitten once or twice, but was able to shrug off the infection without too much trouble. Fortunately, Storm stood near me like a sentinel juggernaut and annihilated most of my assailants. And Carina pounced in and finished off the rest, giving me a catty smile as she did so. I gestured my thanks by miming cat ears and doing a little Caramell Dance hip shake. I think that almost threw her off her game. ^_^
While all that was going on, Sam threw down a khaibit trap near the zombies, and as they lurched toward us, it tore at their spirits, damaging them. Then Cesar leapt into the midst of the undead hordes, blazing with fire and sunlight, and burned them to a crisp.
By the end of the fight, Storm had been bitten and infected, poor guy. But Helena was able to heal him like she'd healed the menehune. Jacob took care of healing the children of their wounds, so we were able to save them. They were weak and frightened, so Cesar created a duplicate of himself and had the duplicate guide the children from the cave and drive them back to the hotel. (^_^)
Despite all the centipedes we'd killed, we still hadn't reached the deepest recesses of the caves, so we kept hiking in. We passed the point at which two of the cave entrances joined up. We were walking along, on the look-out for more enemies, when suddenly there was a grating, squishing noise from above us. Most of the group heard the sound of the impending cave-in in time to leap clear. Jacob and I...not so much. So the two of us were buried under a shifting pile of dirt and centipedes. Yep, that's right. A huge pile of centipedes just collapsed upon us as their combined weight tore through the weak earthen ceiling over our heads. Was it worse than the sea of maggots in Di Yu? No. But it was still f**king awful.
Fortunately, I was still blazing with solar heat, so most of the centipedes were cooked instantly, which meant they weren't much of a threat to me. But there were so many of them that I couldn't dig myself free of them! I'm not that strong. >_< It's okay, though. I just sank into the earth and emerged safely away from the area.
Jacob, on the other hand, manifested his spiky armor and burst from the pile like a heavy metal legend! He began slaughtering the lesser centipedes around him with diseases from beyond the pale while Storm, Cesar, Carina and Sam tore through the ranks of the larger centipedes. Carina was amazing, pouncing from one centipede to the next and slicing them into pieces with her claws.
I kinda just got out of their way at that point. The centipedes weren't eager to get to close to me since I was burning them to death with my very presence. But they couldn't get away from Cesar, and after a few of them swarmed around Helena, he sprang into the middle of all of them, and in a flurry of heat, blood and bullets, he annihilated no fewer than four of the beasts in the blink of an eye. The moral of the story? Don't mess with Helena, 'cause Cesar will f**k you up.
Since I was mostly staying out the way, and the centipedes were obviously under control, I decided to have a little fun, and crafted a twin-necked metal guitar out of shadow. Once the last of the creatures was dead, I called out to Jacob and tossed him the guitar, throwing it high so he'd have to reach up to catch it. Then I snapped the picture I described in the beginning of this entry. Priceless. ^_^
Okay, we finished healing up and cleaning up, so we're moving on now. More later.