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The creature sat on its throne a smile creeping along its dirt mattered face as he watched the new ants scurry struggle about. It seemed these ones could at least follow directions. A simple thing that so many others before them had failed to do. Perhaps if they had the creature wouldn't be so bored now. So utterly unamused.[break][break]

However, this new batch looked to be a bit more refined than the last, even if only by a little bit. Time would tell now, would they survive the onslaught of what was to come, would they fall into the hellscape? Who knew, but the creature so desperately longed for them to reach him, simply so that he could have the pleasure of killing them with his bare hands...

---

[break]

Il-Seong and Chae-Yeong found themselves dumbstruck by the realization of Ippo aggroing the creatures and not being able to use his abilities as everyone else, in the party. Il-Seong seconded, Sami's words with a pained expression toward Ippo, he followed up on Sebastian's comment, "I'm also curious about that," he said turning his attention back to the statues at hand. The moment of reprieve of wondering how easy Ippo's tutorial must have been for him to make it through the guy was just really lucky, or far more skilled than he had thought. Either way, he was jealous and annoyed all at once.[break][break]

Chae-Yeong moved toward her brother, placing herself in front of him, and Ippo, she didn't know what she could truly do with her binder besides smacking the statues with them on occasion if they moved too close but that did little to no damage on her end for the most part, not without the others severely weakening them beforehand. [break][break]

Il-Seong and Chae-Yeong listened close as Enigma spoke, they both nodded in unison to the man's words, the approaching onslaught of statues causing a bead of sweat to roll down the side of both their faces. A heavy gulp could be heard coming from Chae-Yeong as she watched everything unfold. [break][break]

Enigma would find that his words were spot on, the tight formation would in turn disrupt most inexperienced parties, however, with Sami charging forward and his maddening aura taking effect, the new batch of statues would once again become eradicated after entering his range, as they did, Engima's butterflies and whimsical shapes would crash into the lower half of one of the statues with a spear, causing it to stumble forward.[break][break]

Its spear plummeted to the ground only for its body to fall over it, tripping two more of the statues on both sides of it. This disruption to the formation allowed Sami the opportunity to slip beneath the statue, his taser would make contact and the stone statue would crumble. Its spear toppled to the side, however, another would quickly reach to pick it up, while one of the fallen would reach of gripping Sami's leg with such force it would bruise.[break][break]

Though their initial attack was successful it didn't stop the formation from advancing, instead, they continued to trudge forward, Sami's maddening aura was enough to cause many of the statues from stepping around him, sans the one gripping his leg, its head turning to a 90-degree angle as it tried to pry its broken body forward, using its free hand for leverage against the dirt.[break][break]

The red was slowly approaching still, thus as the group continued to move forward the distance between the formation of statues came far quicker than any would've liked. The last spear-wielding statue would find itself toppling into rubble as Sebastian's feather blade slammed into its center mass, its spear quickly picked up by another statute from behind. [break][break]

However, the other two feather blades would simply flop harmlessly to the side. The spider boy had overestimated his strength as if they could sense such as two of the statues breaking from formation and closing in on Sebastian, one having been the statue that had picked up the fallen spear. [break][break]

The spear-wielding statue would whip its spear outward, clashing with Sebastian's spider legs, it twirled the spear around with expertise unbefitting that of a statue before leveling the tip of the blade of the spear toward the boy's chest and jabbing toward it. [break][break]

Like before any spears that were fallen were picked up by statues behind in the formation, Enigma's butterflies had only proved to topple their movement for but a moment as they tripped over one another, but as they regained their footing the assault continued. Only 12 of the statues remained at this point, 3 of which were now moving with only the upper half of their bodies. One held a spear and broke away from the formation moving to stab Chae-Yeong and Ippo, or perhaps Il-Seong. [break][break]

Chae-Yeong rolled to the side dodging the spear strike. The statue readjusted its spear aim after such, aiming toward Ippo's stomach. Ippo let go of the Il-Seong and in doing so, Il-Seong fell to the side as Ippo was able to dodge, thankfully. Il-Seong's fall had allowed him to also dodge, he assumed that Ippo had done such on purpose to save him. Chae-Yeong smacked the statue with her binder, causing it to turn near her. At that moment Orvis had made his way closer to Il-Seong, giving his bone handle for him to prop himself up on. [break][break]

When Grumble attacked the nearest statute, it knocked the spear out of the statue's hands, as the slime crashed into its side. Il-Seong nodded to Orivs's words, using his blade to further prop himself up as Orvis lifted him with the bone club that hooked himself onto. Following Orvis's lead, Il-Seong stabbed at the spear-wielding statue causing it to crumble into rubble. [break][break]

Then to the sibling's surprise they heard, words and could see them, they could physically see the words above, Ippo's head. They found themselves bewildered. 11 Statues remained, and though none had spears of the year they were still closing in on the party, before they knew it the party would find they had made their way closer to Sami and that the statues had moved to form a semi-circle around them, and were still slowly moving to try and encircle them completely. [break][break]

Three spears remained now on the ground, one to the far east of Sami and Sebastian, one to the north of Enigma, and one to the west of Orvis, statues were already reaching for it, and a single statue each were now moving forward to deal damage with a melee punch to each party member. All the while the red tint of the ground was slowly closing in on them. [break][break]

---

- Sami takes one instance of E-rank damage. [break]
- Sebastian has one instance of D rank damage becoming toward his chest. [break]
- 3 Statues are trying to pick up the fallen spears.[break]
- Everyone has a single statute coming toward them striking out to damage them.[break]

[attr="class","landtag2"]Sami , enigma , Ippo , orvis peck , sebastian

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The Forge

"Simply place it in the fire, watch it burn, fear not for time does not turn. The fire brings warmth but is always out of reach. Only worthy sacrifices may be given, and a gift it may beseech."

 

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A bolder would come crashing down to the side, pesky boulders always got in the way. That's why they liked smaller boulders so small they were mere grains, they could bury itself in it, use it for protection and for surprise. So far they found that with a simple stab of its tail they could take down nearly all those fleshy things they had seen. Ever since they opened their eyes they had one desire; kill and eat. By grabbing one of those squishy things it was easy to hold them down and stab them.[break][break]

They found they rather liked the sound they made, how they squirmed, but soon they stopped after it injected them. It snapped its pincers, quickly snatching up another person that had tried to hide behind the boulder. A red liquid ran down its arm, and with a simple motion it raised the fleshy thing up, then slammed it down into the ground. Once, twice, and then a third. The squishy thing stopped moving then but more red liquid came out. It bit into it, before tossing the body toward the side, this one tasted gross. Perhaps it was the brown and yellow stuff that came from it when it stopped moving. [break][break]

Yuck! One of them tossed the squishy thing toward the area of a nearby ledge. Finding that it flew and landed near some squishy things coming up a rocky path. [break][break]

[break]

As Dakota, and Zhao walked up the rocky path they would hear scurrying, a dark visage would make its way forward before revealing itself to be a giant scorpion. This scorpion was a size just a little bigger than that of a full-grown wolf being 3 feet in height with a tail that ran just as long. They snapped at the air around them with their pincers, before scurrying forward intent on killing and devouring them, evident by the mutilated corpse that had been tossed in front of their feet.[break][break]

[attr="class","landtag2"]@dakota, @dandy

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