Coral Restoration Log [closed to those in the teams]

[thalassino]

Monday morning, bright and early, Station Master gathers those that signed on to help out, bringing them down via the elevator, before sealing it off, making it impossible for anyone to go up or down.

This is it. This is the day. We are going to fix the coral or... not fix it, really.


[ooc: please check each individual thread for more information. Also, as for the attack/defence part of the log, we are willing to play out the fights for you (apart from the NPC fight which will for sure be played out by us) however, we have given you the skills/attack patterns of the monsters, so if you'd rather, for the sake of speediness, play out the monster yourself, that is also fine, just let us know.]

Comments

West

[thalassino]

The biggest of the three creatures heads for the west team. It is gigantic, misshapen, as if who had originally thought up the creature had no interest in aesthetics and only cared for raw power. Of the three creatures, physically this one is the strongest, using the odd, almost growth like protrusions along its body, to crash into its opponents, the barriers that are trying to keep the water away from the coral. Each of its strikes is hard, powerful, but what it gained in strength, it sacrificed in speed. Of the three creatures, it is definitely the slowest.

Its ice core, its only weak spot (how could you even think to injure water!) is in its chest, covered by the thickest layer of ice. Seems like this will be a test of endurance, a chip of ice at a time to break down this brute.

[not_heavens_adam]

Well, didn't this thing look like fun? They needed to keep it away from the barrier, but how was another issue. Johnny clenched his fist and a long whip appeared out of nothing in his hand. He lashed out with it, but the leather simply passed through the water.

"Of course..." Time for a more hands-on approach.

The whip shortened and hardened as the leather changed to steel and the vampire leapt into the air, aiming to drive the blade into the ice at the center of the water creature. The blade barely chipped the thick ice, but it did manage to cause the thing to take a couple steps back simply from the force of Johnny's momentum.

He landed easily enough on his feet, but he could already tell his particular choice of weapons weren't going to make this very easy. "Hmmmm....what a fun little party we've got here." Hopefully one of the others had something more useful in their arsenal.

[asea]

Walter had remained at his original position a fair distance from the creature's emergence. It was there that he began preparing an eres after Johnny's preemptive attack, his fingernails glowing and a purplish glyph appearing under his feet as he cast:

"Slash the enemy with a sword of lightning – Thunder Blade!"

Tellingly, a sword of lightning emerged from the ground and swung to the side, cutting through the creature's watery membrane and making contact with the icy coat of its core before dissipating. The water, too, conducted some of the magic's current, and when all was done there sounded a faint but satisfactory crack.

It was still far from finishing the job.

The creature reared back with a reverberating cry, then struck hard ahead, using the momentum of its swing to hit, and, failing that, tackle its nearest target with its massive body. It was a fierce move, meant to compensate for the distance Johnny had created between itself and its foes.

[fightforastar]

Tifa was nearest after the others' attacks, but the creature--if it could really even be called that--moved clumsily with all that bulk. She dodged to the side of its charge easily enough, and the icy horn-like protrusions on what might have been its head and shoulders cracked against the ground where she had stood.

She didn't have anything like the magic or the weapons of her teammates, but she didn't find that any more daunting now than she had fighting monsters back home. They'd already discovered some kind of weak spot, so the only thing for it was to keep pounding away at it until it gave out.

Still with the momentum of her dodge, and before the creature could recover from its attack, her foot flashed forward. It passed through the watery film of skin, and her metal-edged boot connected with the ice beneath.

There. Another small chip to show for it.

[not_heavens_adam]

They might be here all day, but at least they were having an effect. The creature seemed to stumble with the new blow, but it didn't fall and only seemed more aggravated by the things attacking it.

The sword in Johnny's hand changed again from a longsword to a broadsword, he could provide the speed, the sword needed to have more of the punch. He tore forward again, aiming to strike into one of the chips already formed. There was a satisfying crack, but it was still mostly surface damage.

The creature swatted him off of it as though the vampire were a bug, but Johnny landed on his feet easily enough, really no worse for wear. The water might be forceful, but it was those icy spikes that were the real danger.

"Anyone got any plans on knocking it off it's feet?"

[asea]

He didn't, so Walter said nothing. He could do teamwork, certainly, but it wasn't where his aptitude lay – and there was only so much trust he had in strangers regardless of their assignment.

Of course, the creature was uninterested in the conversation. It lumbered about in a rampage with its protrusions, cracked or not, swinging dangerously at anything that stood in its way. Even that had purpose, as it moved in a manner that clearly indicated its intent to close distance and reach all of its targets at once. If one protrusion missed, another would swoop in for the opening.

He was the farthest away still. Undeterred, Walter squared his shoulders and another glyph appeared beneath him. The incantation for this eres was longer, and he was merely halfway through the creature's rampage:

"Brilliant vanguard of the heavens, cry havoc – "

[fightforastar]

"I'm not sure attacking separately's going to do it," Tifa responded with a glance over at Johnny.

With the creature lumbering about like that, there wasn't much of an opening for her to attack anyway. She ducked between its horns to get in a few quick hits, but there wasn't enough force behind them to do the necessary damage, and that wasn't her intention. Whatever Walter was doing, he needed time to finish. The least she could do was try to keep the thing distracted.

[not_heavens_adam]

"You're probably right." They needed to do it together, but maybe whatever Walter was doing would get a good hit on it. Of course, an immobile target would probably be easier; not that it was the fastest now, but it couldn't hurt to hold it up a moment either.

A moment was probably about all he could give them.

Johnny leapt high into the air and seemed to explode in a huge swarm of bats. The swarm circled the creature and wrapped around it's legs in an attempt to hold it in place, creating essentially, a bat chain.

[asea]

A moment was all he'd needed.

" – and with your wrath lead my enemies to their doom! Indignation!"

Lightning gathered above the creature and struck down with a thunderous clap, straight toward the icy layer surrounding the core. It was more powerful than the previous eres and served to further splinter one of the small cracks they'd made, but more importantly, the force of the current, too, was stronger, and the creature was shocked in place. Though it would be unwise to attack while the water continued to conduct the eres, the creature would be hard-pressed to recover immediately after the effect.

That moment would be their chance, before they would be forced to remove themselves from its range quickly.

Walter had already broken into a run toward the creature for that all too small window of opportunity. He was a skilled practitioner of crystal eres, but he was a master of iron eres, the physical arts; his place was in the front lines.

That time was probably shorter than even he thought it to be.

[fightforastar]

Tifa kept close by the creature but out of its touch, and watched Walter to judge the timing of the attack. He would know best when his magic had run its course and they were clear to strike.

The watery mass was just beginning to stir when he reached it, and Tifa leapt in to join him, timing herself to drive a powerful kick into the core in sync with her teammates' attacks.

[not_heavens_adam]

Johnny waited, watching through the bat's eyes, and as soon as the two had hit their mark, the swarm of bats wrenched the thing's legs forward. The combination of lost balance and the momentum of Walter's and Tifa's attacks sent the thing sprawling backwards and down to the ground.

The bats fly up and regrouped over head, leaving the vampire hovering in the air. His sword rematerialized and he let himself fall, aiming to dive bomb the core.

[asea]

The creature was unwilling to stay down and turned over as fiercely as it could with a grunt (a sad excuse for a roar, as it were), pointing a series of odd protrusions along its side upward to thwart Johnny's descent.

Walter, having had thrown his own kick into the prior attack, had used the surface of the ice to rebound and land a short distance away. He had done so in time to see a different protrusion swerve toward him with the creature's turn, and he only managed to erect a black sphere around himself before the force propelled him through the glass window into a small building.

The protrusion that had dragged on the ground left watery streaks along cobblestone, and as it felt the brief impact, the creature finally roared without restraint at Johnny.