War of the kingdom of Peaches: A Royesland spin off [Completed]

[wickedlittlecritta]

"Lady of Small Things, I hope not."

 

[TrashRabbit]

"Here me out, when you do shit....other shit happens."

 

[theunearthlyfool]

Nicola opened her mouth to interject more than once, but never spoke up enough or in time and so just folded her hands under her head and counted the glass pieces in Finn's face.

 

[CelticSol]

"Oh, motherfucker. I can barely hear anything that is happening," She grinds the heel of her hand against her ear, as if it can silence the voice in her mind, "Don't be mean to me, Finn. I just went through an ordeal. I am delicate."

 

[wickedlittlecritta]

"If I was being mean, darlin', you'd know it," Finn told her.

 

[TrashRabbit]

"Oh, he's blessing your heart now, you're in for it, Jackie, stay with us, be strong."

 

[CelticSol]

"Maybe I'm just lonely but Finn calling me darling... I respect your sexuality but that hit different. Also, if you don't stop wishing for me to live, I'm going to die. Because you're fucking jinxing me."

 

[wickedlittlecritta]

"I will snap you like a twig, Thomas," Finn said flatly. "I don't know what you're talking about but I am afeared," he added to Jackie.

 

[TrashRabbit]

"Please," he said to Finn with tiered longing. And when that, as suaul did not elicit a reaction he turned back to Jackie; "Jackie do you need me to do you a heal, or do you think you're going puke and be good?"

 

[CelticSol]

"I need like... Five more minutes, and I'll be good. If you want Finneas to drag my fat ass up the stairs to save time, I'll manage that without puking."

 

[wickedlittlecritta]

"That is not my name," Finn complained.

 

[CelticSol]

"Finneganeas."

 

[wickedlittlecritta]

Finn groaned and bent down and picked Jackie up in a fireman's lift. "Call me that again, and I drop you," he said, and carried her up the stairs.

 

[CelticSol]

"Wait, no no no, bridal carry, Finn, FINN - I AM GOING TO PUKE-" And then Jackie pukes.

 

[wickedlittlecritta]

"Better out than in," he said, cheerfully, and kept going.

 

[TrashRabbit]

"There they go," Tom said to Nicola, as he suddenly, and unwilling found himself back in possession of the group's braincell.

 

[TrashRabbit]

At the top of the stairs the room opened up into a wide circular space with arcing windows that alternated with mirrors. Almost like a throne room, except that instead of a throne was a wide alter like structure and a brass and diode contraption that features many magical spheres- the spell forge that tom had mistaken the Ghost orb for at the previous level. The spell forge crackled with brilliant white and cyan energy as it was actively holding the time dilation barrier active. At the base of the spell forges steps sits a Hulking suit of armor- or a person, its hard to tell with how big it is and how armored it is. When Finn steps onto the marble tiles of the room, a little jolt runs through him and across the room in a shock wave.

The Armored Figure looks up. and for a moment, the adventurers can hope that, maybe it will just stare at them awkwardly untill they go away, but it lurches up, staggers even, moves like an over sized puppet to it's feet. The Cyan energy of the spell forge crackle through the joints of the armor, and it fetches a sword- no more of a cleaver off the floor as it rises. The Cleaver is larger than any knight with any sword has any right to be.

It squares up.

Then charges.

 

[wickedlittlecritta]

"Shit," Finn said, and tried to set Jackie down without dropping her and draw his sword at the same time, and didn't really succeed at either very well. Mostly, he just lightly dropped Jackie while swinging his shield up between them and the suit of armor, and the force of the massive sword's impact on his shield rattled up through his arm into his teeth.

 

[CelticSol]

To her credit, Jackie recovers from being dropped quickly. She forces herself up onto her knees as the knight crashes the entire force of it's body into Finn's shield. In the next moment, her bow is in her hand as her other notches an arrow. She is certain to line her shot carefully so she doesn't headshot Finn instead, and lets it fly into a chink in the armour between the pauldron and the helmet.

 

[TrashRabbit]

The Knight screams shrilly like a teakettle or something that's been trapped inside of a giant glass orb until recently. It hauls it's blade up over its shoulder for a second attempt at Finn's life with a methodical sort of malice.

 

[theunearthlyfool]

"Oh, you people are awful." Nicola hopped to her feet, grabbing her robe and stuffing her hat back over her short auburn hair. "Finn! Hold up, I was gonna try to clean your face up a bit!" She slipped the robe back on as she followed the rest of the way up the tower.

Just in time for an unreasonably massive knight to wallop Finn's shield with the most stupidly large sword she'd ever seen in her life. Jackie, looking marginally steadier than she had downstairs, nailed them with her bow. The knight's screech sounded too like the phantoms Nicola had only just banished, and it sent an involuntary shiver down her spine. ...Who is behind that armor?

Nicola normally considered herself quicker on the uptake than this, but her reaction was instinctive: pointing above her comrade's head at the knight, a glowing dart of magical force shot from her finger. Unfortunately, though the knight was quite big, Nicola was small, especially in comparison. Instead of a direct hit to match Jackie's, she not only barely grazed the knight but narrowly missed Finn as well.

"Shit! I'm so sor- aaargh!" Taking a deep breath, she stepped back, watching for just a beat as the knight hefted their stupid big sword back up, preparing to swing for Finn once again. This was long enough for her to notice that jolt of cyan energy dancing like lightning between the joints of the armor.

Magic. Now that she knew how to handle. "Okay, screw this." Nicola dodged past Jackie and Finn into the airy chamber where the spell forge was impossible to miss. Gotcha.

 

[TrashRabbit]

Tom, came up the stairs last like a man holding a pizza box wandering into a kitchen on fire- but he didn't stand idle for long though. This was par for the course for their battles and travels. Finn and Jackie fought recklessly, knowing full well that most of the time they were just stalling until one of the two magicians did something clever. His teleportation spell earlier, and his poor decision down stairs had flagged his confidence. He had not had to practice his craft in a clutch situation without his spell forge since before his mentor had passed on.

So while his hands went for the familiar form of the often used for the ocean themed barrier spell- that he used to rip through foes and push them back.

And it wasn't that the spell didn't manifest, even without his spell forge, he knew the shape of the magic like the back of his hand, and even without the pearl of the goddess he still had her blessing- not that he realized it. the spell crashed through the room, sparing Jackie and Finn, but did little more than stagger the knight.

The knight began to lift its cleaver anew and Tom stared at it agape.

He should have been able to rip it apart. It was why he'd done the teleportation spell from scratch and in his moment of panic he'd forgotten.... When he got his hands on Tuesday...

 

[wickedlittlecritta]

Between Jackie and Tom, the other knight stumbled back, giving Finn the time to get himself properly situated and go on the offense. He lowered his shield and darted forward with his longsword, one hand on the hilt and the other braced on the side of the blade, the point finding a gap in the armor and sliding in at the other knight's shoulder. He pulled back and away, raising his shield again, so he would be out of the way if Jackie shot again.

 

[CelticSol]

Finn's strike hits true, but that is by virtue of exceptional knight-y skill and a fuck-off big long sword, both skills Jackie doesn't possess. She lacked the plate armour and shield Finn carried that let him reasonably face the knight himself, so, contrary to her own nature, she can't attack too directly, since the knight could maim her in any number of fun ways if she wasn't fast enough - break her spine over his knee, throw her out a window, or even just stab her. She could take fire again with her bow, but she doesn't feel as if arrows will be able to inspire the sort of damage they need to cause to kill this thing before they tire out and/or it kills them.

Finn's attack has staggered the knight just enough, so, Jackie decides to do something stupid.

The knight faces Finn, so Jackie slides from her position on her knees to flank the knight and fall fully into the blindspot of his helmet. She unsheathes her daggers slow, to not draw attention to the noise of it, then she lurches to her feet, and takes hold of the knight's pauldron to haul herself up in a smooth motion that puts her on the knight's shoulders. She wraps her leg around his trachea tight for a hold, strengthening her grip on her dagger before she brings it down hard and fast into the gap of armour between the helmet and chestplate, the blade buried hilt deep into the knight.

Then, Jackie wraps her other leg around the knight, and holds on for the fucking ride as she tries to land another blow on the knight from her position.

 

[theunearthlyfool]

Nicola crept up to the spell forge, wondering how in the world Tom could've mistaken the contraption downstairs as the same thing. "Don't think I even want to know what his looks like, then," she muttered to herself before shaking her head and focusing on the puzzle at hand.

Her first instinct was to gently start prodding and poking here and there, sensing to see if the thing was trapped to explode or turn them into cats or worse when tampered with. Then she'd move on to the flow of energy, clotting here and gumming up the works there until she thought she could actually remove pieces without a thousand kilowatts of magical energy frying her small frame.

A wave of power splashed at her feet, drawing Nicola's attention to the battle. Tom had tried his best barrier spell to little effect besides destabilizing the knight a bit, but it gave Finn a chance to go on the offensive. She looked back to the spell forge, realizing with a slight plummeting feeling in her gut that she didn't really have time to be careful: the longer the others had to tussle with that guy, the less energy they'd have for the bigger fight presumably still to come.

She fidgeted for a moment, feeling more uncertain than she liked by a long shot. The longer she waited the more she thought about all the things that could go wrong, even with all her knowledge and experience. Should anything happen to her in this endeavor... It's fine. They can handle themselves, she thought of her friends.

Another glance over her shoulder saw Jackie had somehow climbed up on the knight's shoulders and was stabbing them while wrapping her legs around their throat in an attempted stranglehold. "...Yeah, okay then. Time to get moving." Nicola reached for the first piece of the forge her eyes landed on, an apple far more golden than any natural one she'd seen. To her pleasant surprise, though the energy coursing through the forge resisted, she was able to pluck it off with little more than a static zap.

The next was an unusual-looking knife she thought must be made of obsidian. Removing this, the forge really started to struggle. "Hm… psst! Hey, Tom!" she hissed, trying not to draw the knight's attention. She held up the apple. "Back me up, 'kay?" Without waiting for a clear response, she underhand-tossed the apple to Tom and went back to tugging bits off the forge. At some point she noticed the mirrors that sat between the tower's high windows, and threw one of her purple handkerchiefs at it. The cloth expanded as it reached the mirror, wrapping nearly and tightly around, just in case these also had something to do with powering the magic machine.

Once Nicola had removed enough of the clearly magical components, she started in on the machinery itself, breaking or simply removing parts she knew were vital to making the thing go: this way no one could just put the spell pieces back on and get it going again. With great satisfaction, the flow of energy rippled one last time through the spell forge, continuing down into the tower and beyond. There was a rumble, not like an earthquake exactly, that she knew would eventually make its way through all the kingdom of Peaches and everywhere the bloody time dilation had touched before vanishing completely.

With a smug grin she went to heft a brass pipe at Tom as well, but saw the knight was still standing. "Wait. Shouldn't all your armor have fallen off or something by now?"