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Fantasy Cursed Island

Between spellfire the goblin was laying out, carefully arced over the magic field to still hit, wasn't making it easy to prepare for the soul gem bomb attack. Even Emfa and Joanne had to weave around the tarrasque to avoid getting an eldritch blast to the face.

"It's a warlock!", Adran realized out loud, "Only warlocks can use eldritch- - oof!" Wood elf met wood as Adran took one to the chest and hit a tree. "Motherfu-" he charged a pair of blast arrows and fired back at the goblin, momentarily forgetting that, hey, this spell concentrates a lot of force in a tiny area until he heard rocks moving. "Ah, shit."

"Afksinena!"

"Never mind!"
 
Asta went head-on with the tarrasque, putting his magic resistance to good use as he focused on the beast.

“Damn nuisance.” Niudisa flew up before firing a flare spell through the same gap that the goblin was casting through. The spell only had minor damage, but it was bright and distracting and would hopefully give them a moment to act.
 
Two goblin voices screeched back as the flare set, hastily trying to put it out. The tarrasque stung, bit, and clawed at Asta, but the archimera's hide and scale were extremely difficult to penetrate, especially around his mane, and being the unholy union of goat, lion, and viper taken to the next level, when the tarrasque did manage to get a successful sting in, it did diddly for the beast's cause.

"Ah, hell, we're gonna win," Adran muttered, hurriedly making hand signs to send Asta the Sending message 'Hey, we're supposed to get our asses kicked and fall back, quit winning so easy!'
 
Asta snarled as he got the message. He was proud, so throwing a fight didn’t sit well with him. Even so, he waited for another attempted sting before before recoiling back, as if it had done something finally.
 
Arrows, spells, and actions didn't seem to be doing much, and as even the mighty archimera was seemingly being handled by the tarrasque while fighting off the other party members. As soon as Niudisa's flare died down, the goblin spells resumed. "How does he have so many spell slots?", Adran grumbled before shouting something to the effect of "We're routed, fall back!", subsequently dropping the jar with Jerry in it as party members turned to run further into the forest.
 
The others pulled back to run after Adran, all of them being mindful of the jar. Niudisa pulled up next to Adran as they retreated. “I swear I heard two goblins just now...”
 
"Probably used a Tongues spell," Adran shook his head, reaching up to grab a treebranch and flip up onto the limb. 'Everyone hide,' he said to the party through Sending.

As Niudisa got outside the control range of the Anti-Magic Field, the field faded and the hedge grew back, the tarrasque waited for a moment, sniffing at growling. It started to follow the party's scent trail until its master called it back. It roared into the woods, scattering some bird Feeders hiding in the trees, before turning to walk back into the hedge, which parted like a gateway to allow the tarrasque through, closing back in behind it. The ones in the party with sharper senses of hearing could hear some grumbling on the other side, before the hedge parted again, this time a much smaller opening, and a goblin poked a head out, looking around cautiously. It was definitely a different goblin from the one they were familiar with. For one, it had hair, probably female by the style and her clothing, which was in much better condition than the old goblin's tattered robes and broken stick.

"Huh," Adran muttered, "We might be in trouble, here." The goblin, unable to see anything but tracks and evidence of a hasty retreat, with blood on the ground from Asta and the Tarrasque's scuffle, and a jar with a glowing point of light inside. The old goblin barked something, and she called back about what she saw. After some back and forth, and what sounded like the argument between a parent and child of "can I keep this critter I brought home?", the goblin girl hobbled out to pick up the jar and look at Jerry inside. Another call from the older goblin and the younger goblin was hopping back to the hedge and back on the other side.
 
Thankfully all the other party members were easily able to climb and hide in the trees. Except Asta. He had to find some large bushes and crouch down.

Niudisa gave a nod. “This does complicate things... It’s working so far, but now what? We’ve got two goblins to deal with.”
 
"Now," Adran shook his head, "We wait. Jerry's not gonna poof back for an hour, so we'll use that time to prepare."

----------------------------------------------
Jerry, due to her extensive background all over the place from theft to this, was somewhat fluent in most spoken languages and many written languages. The language the two goblins were speaking was broken, or at least not exactly the version of the language other goblins in these ruins spoke, but it was intelligible. The older goblin's name was Yidi, and he was old as balls. He wasn't very healthy, either, and relied entirely on his cane to remain upright for more than a few seconds. His skin and clothes were crusted with muck and fungus, and he could do with trimming his nails more than Jerry had when she'd woken up. The little one called him "raka", the honorific for one's grandparent.

The little one answered to "Lyak", and if Jerry had to guess, she was barely more than a child. Upon closer inspection, her clothes weren't really clothes. Well, her pants and her cloak were, but every bit of exposed skin from her waist to her throat to her wrists was covered in bandages. Like Yidi, she had a staff, but for her it seemed more ornamental than Yidi's walking stick. The muddier the ground got, the deeper the goblins' knees sank into it, and eventually Yidi barked at his tarrasque to lay down, Lyak climbing up and balancing the jar on one of the scoots before reaching down to help her grandfather up onto the shell. The tarrasque carried them the rest of the way through the tunnel, and into another cavern.

"Whoa," Yidi's part of the cave might have rivaled Urodor's, except for how flooded it was. At the end of the tunnel was a small bunch of wood arranged as a dock, but there was no boat present. Jerry wondered what was going to happen if Yidi meant to traverse this water, but the tarrasque just kept going, wading into the water and swimming. Of course, it was kinda like a turtle. She wondered how the others were going to get through here, though. Asta could... probably swim, but there was only so much space on his back even at full size, and Erina and everyone else were heavy combined. Niudisa might need to use the bubble spell again.

As Yidi's tarrasque swam through the swamp, what Jerry had thought were small islands raised their heads and nope, more tarrasques. "Gods above," how many of these beasts did Yidi have? The jar started moving as Lyak held it up to her face to get a closer look at the fairy inside.

'Raka, she's pretty!', Lyak chattered.

'She's annoying,' Yidi replied, 'Quit shaking the jar, you'll kill it.' Lyak settled the jar back on her lap to prevent murdering her new pet, leaving Jerry dizzy and stumbling around in the jar as the tarrasque pulled up to what looked like a small village. Half a dozen huts on stilts connected by rope bridges with more dock structures. The tarrasque pulled up to one of the docks in the largest hut, which Jerry assumed to be the one Yidi and Lyak lived in. The huts were definitely built for halflings, barely five feet at the highest ceiling, as far as Jerry could tell. Lyak ran to a partition in the shack and put Jerry Jar down on a shelf next to what was probably a bed, and then running back to Yidi.
 
Niudisa nodded. “Right. I think most of us prepared before leaving the forge though. Without knowing what’s beyond yet, there isn’t much more we can do.”

Asta spoke up, addressing Adran. “You better hope this plan works. Whatever happens to Jerry, I will do the same to you.”
 
"We can make arrows," Adran replied to Niudisa as he snapped off the heads of some of his arrows to replace with soul gems. "We don't know how many tarrasques are in there or how many we'll have to fight, but a good rule of thumb I learned when i was a kid, 'When engaging in a hunt, always prepare for the worst case scenario.'" He chuckled, "Never know when a bear is gonna decide your sled of elk looks chewy, and you look like desert." He shook his head at Asta's threat, "Polymorph isn't a complicated spell, Asta. If Jerry suffers anything fatal, she'll immediately snap back to her true form. She'll come out of this okay, what could he possibly do to her in an hour that's worse than her tail growing, anyway?"
 
“Very little, you should hope.”

Emil glanced over from his branch at the mention of a bear before looking around again.
 
"Or, what, Asta?", Adran turned to face the chimera. "If Jerry is hurt, what are you gonna do that's gonna help her out? Eat me, or save her?" Adran gestured to the world around him, "I wasn't aware that murdering the guy who came up with a working plan negated all possible negative consequences of that plan. Did any of you guys know that?"
 
Asta narrowed his eyes. “Don’t test me, elf. I’m loyal to Jerry. I’ll rip apart anyone who intentionally hurts her or puts her in harms way.”
 
"Do you ever wonder why that is, cat?", Adran replied, "Why you have this compulsion to defend Jerry with your life, even though you're entire categories of life form apart? Why you desperately want a union with her, even though no humanoid in their right mind would ever sleep with a beast?"

"Adran," Beri warned, "You should start running."
------------------------------------
Lyak had seemingly vanished after depositing some bread crumbs in the jar with Jerry. "Well, I guess I'm just waiting," Jerry muttered, twiddling the dragon crystal, shrunk down with her thanks to it being in her pocket when she polymorphed. "How do I talk to you?" Jeri was someone Jerry really wanted to get her hands on.

Eventually, one of the goblins reappeared, and Jerry hastily stuffed the crystal into her waistband to hide it. Yidi bent over his cane to look at the fairy, squinting through the light. 'Never cut up a fairy before,', he muttered as he looked the fairy over.
 
Asta snapped at Adran and bared his teeth before Niudisa fluttered over between them. "Alright, you two, settle down. Save your anger for the goblin and his pets."

Asta huffed, his breath throwing Niudisa off balance, before he turned and stalked away.
 
When Asta snarled, Adran was quick to nock a glowing arrow, somehow getting to his feet on the branch without using his hands. Wood elves. "Good," he shook his head and sat back down on the branch to watch the barrier. "That was easier than I thought."

-----------
Yidi looked the jar over for a while longer, and then out a window. He took the jar in one arm, leaning on his cane with another, and hobbled out of the main hut onto a rope bridge. Jerry could see in another of the huts Lyak was doing chores, running down under the hut's small mud platform to feed- were those baby tarrasques? "Oh, hell." Yidi bred these beasts. Jerry didn't get to see what else Lyak was doing as Yidi shut the door to another hut, this one was dimly lit but Jerry's fairy light more than illuminated all the shelves tightly packed with scrolls and tomes. Niudisa's wet dream, probably, especially with the display cases on the walls that weren't filled with scrolls, showing preserved insects and small animals stretched out on frames. Jerry gulped as Yidi set the jar down on a table and set about seeking out tools.

"I gotta get out of here." Jerry threw her shoulder to the side of the jar to try and knock it off the table, but Yidi just pushed the jar further from the edge and continued his hunting.
 
Niudisa shook her head once she was balanced again and sighed. “Men...” She fluttered off to find her own post to keep watch.

Asta quickly took to pacing. Anytime he spotted a feeder, he’d charge at them.
 
"What? That was part of the plan," Adran didn't understand what Niudisa was on about. If Asta was pissed, he'd just about rip a tarrasque in half. They were only the size of a cow, after all. Adjustments for unforseen events.

"Adran," Joanne shook her head, "I believe you should leave the plans to Jerry, before you change things and get yourself killed."
 
Shuffle spoke up from her perch. “Emil can calm him with the flute if it gets messy though, right?”
 
"I do not know," Joanne shook her head, "I have not witnessed such."

"He conked out when we had to restrain Jerry," Adran shrugged, "They both passed out, actually.
 
Emil spoke up. “As of the last time we checked, Shuffle, Asta, and Beri are susceptible to the enchantment.”
 
"Yep," Adran nodded, "So keep that flute on hand, we might need it to calm them down."

"Can you not make this spell progress faster?", Joanne asked after a while of not hearing anything.

"Can you cast Dispel Magic remotely?", Adran replied, "Because that's it. Unless he kills her or it wears off, Jerry's not turning back for another," he licked his index finger and stuck it in the air. "Twenty minutes." Soon after that, Jerry's voice rang in Niudisa's head.

'He cut off my wings, what do I do?' She definitely sounded pained, and the connection was shaky at best, poor mana control from however the goblin had pulled that off.

-------------
Lyak was, too her credit, probably better qualified than her raka to patch together his anatomy projects. She had a bleed above her right eye from where his cane had connected when she freaked out upon finding he had her new fairy stretched out on one of his display boards with her wings already prepared for display and examination. Lyak was at least trying to stitch the two holes closed and wrap a bandage around the fairy's torso.
 
Niudisa blinked. “Aw, hell...” She fluttered over to Adran so that Asta wouldn’t hear. “You had to go an say something. Jerry lost her wings. She doesn’t know how to proceed.”
 
Adran went a bit pale. "Ah shit." He looked over at where Asta was still murdering feeders. "Tell her to find something sharp, cut her throat. That should kill her fairy form and she'll bounce right back."
 

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