-Cladinhold, Tavern Street, Ocellus-
“Where is she going?!” Colleen just watched charge out, nearly got shot and then attacked the shrimp with a double hoof swing.
“She’s going to scout out the nearby evil core machine.” I have a migraine and a headache at the same time.
“What?!” Colleen looked positively worried about this, I gave her a flat stare. “Isn’t she injured?”
“She’s not going to fight it, not alone at any rate after what happened with the last one.” What I just said filtered into Colleens brain as she fired a bolt from the stolen shrimp claw down the street, the energy struck a shrimp on a roof down the street and it fell backwards missing its head. She was capable even if her weapon was an on-site procurement as my cousin Mongoose was fond of saying. “At least these things seem easy to destroy and don’t worry about Pom, she can take care of herself.”
“Her name is Pom?” Colleen’s tail started wagging and she seemed unnaturally happy to even just learn her name and speak it.
“Let us not be distracted with that mademoiselle. If it is as Ozzy says, then she shall be fine on her own for the moment and I am willing to trust her judgement as she knows what her friends are capable of.” Jean flicked his rapier forward in a series of jabs the tore through a few of the shrimps that were starting to cluster together and fire continuous bolts of raw energy through the air while covering for one another. Dodo stomped forward to help Jean as I sat in his back. “We need to make haste and see to the protection of the fair townspeople!”
“Way ahead of you!” Bruno snorted with two shrimp impaled on his broadsword, he idly flicked them off it and then started to charge for a nearby alleyway. “I’m going to be where the most action is!”
“Weren’t we supposed to work together as comrades?” Jean looked confused and I sighed audibly, he turned to look at me.
“Our group isn’t exactly formalized yet and teamwork requires getting to know who you’re working with, we don’t exactly have time for that.” At this I slowly sat up while clutching at my head with a hoof and looked around for Shanty. “Also don’t call me Ozzy, it’s kind of a special thing to me.”
“I apologize for taking that what is special for you two milady, how about I make it up to you by sticking by your side as the greatest of friends!” As Jean spoke he raised his rapier to the sky, I noted that Colleen had taken off. She was likely going to try and keep Pom safe. Bruno was off doing his own thing and we were going thankful that at least one of them was a team player. “Since you are not looking to well.”
“Dodo, I be needing a lift!” Shanty came running forward and she leapt, Dodo aimed his beak where her hooves would be and heaved her up onto the roof by lifting neck and flicking head quickly. “I be keeping to the rooftops to keep them from firing at people from above!”
Shanty landed and started to run along the top of the nearby building while slashing her hooves at the several shrimp that landed there a few seconds second ago.
It took Shanty multiple hits and some quick maneuvering to avoid their weapons, but she was able to deal with them readily enough on her own once her hooves bashed and slashed through the metal armoring of the menacing metallic shrimp. Her hooves weren’t quite powerful enough to cut through metal, but she could take them out with enough raw force. Last I saw of her, she disappeared to the far side of the roof.
“You’re not looking too healthy. I’m sticking with you and frog guy Ocellus.” Smolder hovered over as I rested in Dodo’s seat. “Dodo, try follow and keep Shanty in sight, help out where you can… if you have enough of a mind to. Don’t go too fast and keep us all safe, okay?”
Dodo warbled in a mechanical tone, it sounded somewhat brave if confused. It was hard to tell when it was just machine noise, it did make my head feel a bit better though. It was then that Smolder smacked herself in the face.
“Right, remembered that I’m talking to what amounts to an animal, Ocellus tell that Jean guy to stick with us and we’ll form a mobile rescue and support group.” Which was what we were good at Smolder, also that was already his intention, but I might as well paraphrase.
“My friend Smolder agrees with the fact that a few of us should stick together, you’re with us Jean.” He nodded and I turned to Dodo. “Dodo go forward and turn left onto the next street. Jean, we’re going to try and head slightly towards the evil core machine while looking for people to help.”
It might not be the smartest thing for me to do to go towards the thing that was causing my head to feel like it was on fire, but I didn’t want to stay out of the action… I wanted to help.
Dodo started walking forward and blasted a few shrimp that showed up, a few buildings were now on fire and the people who could fight were staying behind to do just that and so far we haven’t seen any deaths. Dodo turned to the right and we looked down the street to see fighting going on in pockets, swords, spears and other weapons were use and were actually working against the shrimp that were crawling about all over the place.
“Tell me, what troubles you friend?” Jean asked worried as he saw me wince and clutch at my head.
“I can actually feel the magic of the evil core, it’s as unpleasant as you can imagine.” He nodded solemnly and strode forward ahead of Dodo who was happily blasting away at shrimp that were crawling into the street.
Smolder wasn’t idle either and she hovered around us blasting fireballs carefully, she didn’t want to set the whole town of Cladinhold ablaze. She wasn’t using the ribbon for this unless she could get close enough to use it without it getting damaged permanently.
Smolder was definitely getting a lot of mileage out of that gift and she loved it, I wondered if I could get her something just as cherished one day...
-South edge of Caldinhold, Pom-
I was in an alleyway and there were scorch marks on the wall nearby, I had avoided attention getting here and passed by several groups of shrimp. I placed my hooves against the stone walls and careful walked up to the roof and looked around to the south for the sign of the largest machine present.
Seeing what we were finally dealing with, which didn’t take long as it was hard to miss, I thought it was… somewhat adorable actually.
It was big, red bulbous shape with two wall eyes, a conical mouth at the base of the body and eight cylindrical segmented tube tentacles ending in large holes that were firing the shrimp into town seemingly at random.
We were dealing with a giant walled eyed octopus machine, said eyes held the evil red glow in their pupils so I already knew where the weakness of this particular machine was. If it weren’t so threatening, I would think it looked like a theme park attraction. It didn’t look like it could move very fast as far as mobility is concerned, but its tentacles would be dangerous in a close up range and then there was the matter of the odd lizard controlling it.
The lizard looked kind of like what I expected a goblin would be from Ogres and Oubliettes, he was generally four feet tall. He had, dark blue almost black armor, red belt with the skull symbol of the gedol empire, white gloves and purple boots, he also had tied up orange hair that spike upwards.
I know that this guy was behind all the shrimp based destruction going on in town, because he was standing on top of the large octopus robot and he was even directing its tentacles to fire more mechanical shrimp into town through those tube shaped tentacles.
Deducing that machine likely produced the metal shrimp, given there was more shrimp in town than even that large metal body could feasibly hold, then it was quite dangerous because it was a relatively mobile factory. I think ‘relatively mobile’ because it obviously dragged itself into position outside of town, I wonder how it even got there without anyone noticing it given the fairly large drag markings leading up to where it was currently settled.
I was close enough for the machine to fire the shrimp like cannonballs directly at me from what I was seeing and I didn’t want to get any closer to it so it could start targeting me specifically with those tentacles.
Right, time to go gather everyone for a rough… a puff of smoke appeared in front of me and I narrowly avoided the blazing skulls of energy that fired from the concentrating lizard by rolling off the roof to the streets below. How did he get over here so fast?!
The lizard somehow became bulkier with muscles in a matter of second and leapt down after me bringing his fists up. I rolled backwards and the ground shook and quaked when his fists came down cracking the streets, road and earth.
I stumbled and managed to grip the ground with my wool to stay standing and stable.
The lizard grinned at me and split into a hundred miniature copies of himself that all came running at me and clambering all over me biting and scratching. Some were going for the bandaged wounds in my side.
I vehemently defended my bandages to prevent them from ripping open the stitches in my side with quick swipes of my hooves and a periodic flexing of my wool that sent them flying off of me.
I had to release my grip on the ground and started bucking wildly, I was launching as many of the tiny copies of that lizard away and off of myself as I could until I saw something among the swarm. One of the copies was staying back and sparkling… I jumped forward and much to the tiny copies shock I nailed him in the face with a quick right thrust that sent the tiny lizard clone slamming into the wall.
This made a number of the smaller clones pop and the lizard clone I hit to increase in size, only the lizard I had smacked turned into being barely a foot tall version of himself. This was odd compared to his natural four feet in height and his supernatural muscle form which gave him quite a bit more intimidating mass. He charged me and slashed a knife at my throat, I easily dodged that attack and delivered a swift left hoof to his cheek knocking him back.
He growled and started calling something out, several of the smaller clones that had yet returned to him gathered on his body and he returned to normal size. This guy’s magic was ridiculous, was he trying to… of course he was trying to confuse me!
He leapt back and threw several knives around me, I didn’t move and they all missed and the one that was directed at me was easily deflected into a nearby wall with the back of my right hoof.
I tilted my head at him curiously, what had he been expecting? I would have been injured if I had actually moved.
The lizard frowned at me slightly and grumbled something. Likely something about me being a smarter opponent than he was used to, he put his hands together in an odd way again and started concentrating.
I narrowed my eyes at him and the energy building up around his body, he fired another fiery skull at me that was three times faster than it previously was.
I hopped to the right and watched as the energy in that attack dissolve a small portion of my wool on my left side before my body took on a golden glow and deflected the energy away from me. I was about to charge forward and capitalize on the lizards surprise only for him to be blasted by an energy bolt to the chest that opened a hole in his armor.
He gasped and then disappeared in a puff of smoke to reappear near the octopus, I turned to look at who helped me and saw Colleen already arming the stolen shrimp claw for another shot while looking around for another closer target than the distant octopus machine.
The lizard I just fought could fire some deadly magic that could damage my wool before it could deflect it. That was why I wasn’t relying on my wool to do that odd magic deflection thing for me, there were chances that it wouldn’t be able to do so in time and the strange fiery skull shaped attacks the lizard had fired were something it wouldn’t have deflected in time unless I was moving backwards.
The entire time the lizard had me occupied, the octopus machine had been randomly firing shrimp into the town. Now the lizard was standing on it and directing all the tentacles to focus in our direction. This wasn’t good thing for us, but it was at least a good thing for the rest of the town.
Colleen held her left hand out in front of me protectively as she took up a position in front of me holding the ripped off shrimp machine’s arm ready for a fight. I grabbed her tail with my right hoof and gave it a sharp tug, she froze up and turned to look at me questioningly.
I gestured for her to follow me and turned tail to start running down the street and quickly turned the corner. I don’t know how strong Colleen’s armor was, but she was uninjured thus far and I would like to keep it that way by avoiding being directly shot at by the mechanical octopus.
It was a good thing I managed to convince Colleen to fall back, because a second later several curled up metal shrimp bounced and rolled through the area we recently occupied at deadly velocities and this didn’t actually damage the shrimps.
The metal shrimp uncurled from wherever they eventually stopped after plowing through the wood and brick of nearby buildings, then proceeded to immediately chase after us while firing as quickly as they could.
Colleen returned fire as we fled the area, nobody else was around this part of town having quickly abandoned it near the start of the attack. We were leaving behind a horde of shrimp crawling and rolling behind us while firing whenever they could see us as we quickly weaved through the alleyways.
We needed to regroup and get help in dealing with the problem.
-Shanty-
I watched as a family fled their burning home as Dodo used his right leg to stop the entrance from collapsing on them, when he lowered his leg and pulled back the entrance finally collapsed. Jean organized the family and sent them towards safety, I sighed and looked around the rooftops for something to destroy.
Ocellus looks to be quivering in her position in Dodo’s seat and was clutching at her head. Smolder was watching our surroundings like I was for any trouble, especially from the south where Pom went.
She should be back soon with enough with information about what we were dealing with and she would be okay. I be knowing she’s not invincible and think she be needing to take care of herself better, but she is being stronger than the Smolder, Ocellus and me even when she was running around with her injuries.
For some reason there was a lack of falling shrimp and or things to break with my hooves. This be quite worrying to me as the attack wouldn’t just stop all of the sudden for no reason. Jean also be looking wary with his hand on the hilt of his sword.
The sounds of fighting were still going on to the north and east, as far as I could tell what was north and east anyway. We not be having a compass here, but it not be hard to discover which way was which.
I continued to trot along the rooftops looking for any more targets when I saw Pom, being followed by Colleen, come from around the corner running. What followed was a surge of shrimp and Colleen firing shots as quickly as she could make the shrimp arm do so.
“I know what we’re dealing with and we’re going to need at least Dodo’s firepower for it!” Pom shouted as she ducked and leapt over bolts coming at her from behind. Dodo and Smolder were already helping with fireballs and blasts of energy at the incoming shrimp swarm.
“What are we dealing with Pom?” Ocellus asked in a groaning tone of voice as she sat up, she was clearly uncomfortable with that machine being close to the town.
“Well…” Pom started to say before I yelped and ducked under a blast of energy sent my way. “We need to deal with these shrimp first and start holding our position to push back, that one almost hit Shanty!”
I glanced down into the street and moved along the roof until I was at a gallop and then I leapt. I stomped down on the metal armor of the shrimp and leapt forward with a flip and brought my left hoof down on the next one damaging it slightly in a crescent edged glow it generated.
I ignored the shrimp exploding behind me and slashed the shrimp in front of me with three rapidly swings from each hoof and then I turned about and bucked the sparking mass of damaged metal into a group of them. When the shrimp exploded, it took out several surround machines with it.
Jean was rapidly working his way through the shrimp with an ever increasing series of jabs that seemed to be creating pressure waves with each thrust. Smolder was melting them with her breath.
Dodo was either stomping them, slashing them in half with his beak or he blasted them with his energy blasts.
Colleen to the shrimp smashing with kicks and or shots from the stolen bit of machinery.
Pom was still going strong as she fired several small bark blasts that tore through the machinery with ease, however she needed to land a double hoof slam to do any decent damage in melee.
I be striking to knock the shrimp into others, get them to shoot one another and or hit them hard enough that they were destroyed.
By the time we be done, there be a pile of at least thirty or more of the metal shrimp lying around.
“Ugh, my head, so what are we dealing with Pom?” Ocellus hadn’t been able to contribute much, it being too hard for her to concentrate to use her horn.
“A giant red octopus machine, which is constantly generating these things.” It look like Pom be a bit exhausted as she pointed at one of the shrimp. “We need to take it out, but I really don’t want to get close because of the metal tentacles. I don’t know how they got it outside town without anyone noticing, but it’s there and it’s definitely from Gedol Empire given there’s this really weird lizard that can use magic protecting it from being approached.”
“I’ll relay this to the others.” Ocellus turned to talk to both Jean and Colleen as I approached Pom.
“Are you being okay?” I asked as I sat next to Pom, she took a deep breath.
“No, I’m feeling fairly tired Shanty, but I’ll be fine eventually. I just need some time to catch my breath.” At least she is being honest as she be catching her breath now and wiping the sweat from her forehead. “Might have stretched the injury in my side when I ran into that weird lizard, we need to take out that octopus or else the town will just continue being swarmed with shrimp. Has this area been evacuated?”
“It being mostly empty, we be saving a family from a burning home.” If there is one thing that be upsetting me more than anything, it be someone making someone else homeless without a good reason for it. I don’t be thinking Gedol be having that reason or any reason at all for that matter. “I not be very happy about it.”
“Homes can be rebuilt Shanty, bringing people back to life is much less possible and depending on the methods… it’s probably better to let the sleeping rest.” Pom came over to me and nuzzled my head and hugged me. “Its things like this that led me to being a guard in the first place, I want to help people and protect that life. Fighting giant machines leaves us at a bit of a distinct disadvantage though, I mean it really is asking for a bit much from us here to deal with something that large and dangerous. It’s like I’m dealing with Teatime Clockwork again…”
“Do you be thinking we can even be taking it out?” I asked.
“We can try Shanty. I think the machine might actually lack the ability to multitask, which is why it has someone giving it commands personally in the first place.” If Pom be thinking it be possible, then I be believing we can do it. I’m not afraid of getting hurt, I be wanting to be a pirate and they be getting hurt all the time. It was things like this that led Pom to be teaching me to defend and take care of myself. “The machine didn’t do much on its own when the lizard directing it was attacking me personally. If we can make that lizard retreat we can take out the machine a little bit easier.”
“The lizard can’t be too hard to deal with.” I saw Pom wince when I said that. “Is he being that scary?”
“He can do some pretty odd magical things. He did things like teleporting, increasing the muscle mass of his upper body in a ludicrous manner. He can splits himself into numerous smaller copies of himself and shrinks down personally when he does so. He also does this rather deadly looking thing where he fires a flaming skull of some kind that I’m guessing has more elements to it than the magic he puts into it.” Pom be shivering and poking at a section of missing wool on her left side. “Whatever the strange magic reflecting ability I have, it didn’t stop that particular attack before it took a chunk out of my wool, I would not want something like that attack to make direct skin contact.”
I was about to be commenting on that, but was interrupted.
“Okay Pom… we’re ready to… go...” Ocellus be looking sick.
“Will you be alright if we get closer to the machine?” Pom asked of Ocellus. “Even at this distance it’s certainly having a negative effect on you.”
“Yes, I should be okay.” Ocellus said weakly. “I just won’t be able to do anything productive, you’ll have to figure out how to communicate with Jean and Colleen on your own.”
“Right, tell them this and let’s move out!” Pom jumped onto Dodo’s left side and thrust her left hoof forward and pointing back in the direction she recently just came from.
Ocellus quickly relayed this to Colleen and Jean, they both acknowledged her words.