Fire Emblem: Curse of the Goddess [IC / Conditional Acceptance / PG-16]

[Skaia 578]

Tsetseg seemed to be all the more thrilled about flying as Adelaide continued to explain more about it. Mentioning that her pegasus would get more tired in the rain, though, Tsetseg looked to the horse and started petting it saying, "oh, sorry sorry about having to do this." All the same, she didn't seem to have much reservations in getting on the pegasus and going atop the skies with Aleithe. "Of course I've wanted to fly, who hasn't wanted to fly? It's amazing. Woooo!" Looking down from the sky, the girl saw a small glint of light that caught her eye, though as she looked further she didn't seem to see anything. "Hmmmmm....hmmmmmm..." The girl continued to look around, before shaking her head saying, "I can't see anything useful. Nope nope." Letting  out a disappointed sigh, the girl then looked saying, "I guess we should head back?"

---

Alois was not too convinced at the notion of lighting a fire in their ramshackle shelter, but it was already too late as he could swear the boy had already made his way away from them. Sighing, he said, "well, maybe it'll light all the grime on his hair on fire." Moving out of the shelter, though, it seemed that everyone was getting ready to congregate for the night. With a meal being ready to be eaten, Alois was at first concerned with the combination of foods but found it to work out surprisingly well. This surprise goodness was a bit soured by Penelope trying to regale them with facts about mushrooms, though he couldn't help but add along with his own anecdotes about poisonous mushrooms, adding to the already discomforting topic.  

---

The next day, the group made their way out of the shelter and started to go moving across the river. When Licorice explained what she had heard about the village, Tsetseg merely shook her head. "I've never been out this far before, nope."

Meanwhile, as Cat looked to him, Alois' mood only seemed to worsen as he said, "it sucks. And nobody likes it."  Not saying any more on the matter, the boy merely walked with the others as they had managed to find a way across. Seeing the fixture, and looking at the beavers attempting to eat through it, Alois joked to Sienna saying, "maybe they'll get going if you bark at them." Seeing the wolf pup then do so, Alois chuckled saying, "see, he's got  the right idea." 

Once the group got to crossing the river, Gunther had offered to go first. Watching the armored man make his way across rope and rocks, the whole set up seemed to hold and he was fine on the other side. "Looks like it holds up well enough." Shrugging, the boy walked over saying, "I'll go next. Probably good to have some strong hands on both sides." 

As Alois began his trek across the river, Tsetseg merely hung back. Priding herself to be quite the adept fish, she elected to go later than most of the others, but looked to the horse with them. She wasn't sure if this kind of crossing was the safest for them, but, she didn't say much on the matter and instead tried to think of alternatives. Naturally, the only thing she could think of was Remy riding atop the pegasus to make their way across, and simply seemed in awe of her own daydreams. 

[Saikazo 241]

Shiro had a nice night out. The food was alright, not really his thing, but edible. While everyone else slept in some sort of shelter, he slept outside in his frog form, letting the rain soak him and feel just absolutely perfect. Honestly, this was the best he had felt the whole trip, and he loved it. Still, all good things had to come to an end, he supposed. The day came, and they were off once more.

Shiro was quiet as they headed back to the rope that was supposed to help them across the river. Without a word, he slipped into the river, waiting slightly downstream from the rope, keeping an eye on those that crossed, obviously preparing to catch anyone that slipped from the rope. He'd stay in the water until everyone crossed. Only then would he come to the other side with the others.

[Asriel Dreemurr 38]

The night passed slowly and fitfully for Edrick. Gunther's soup of mushrooms and apples had gone down easily enough, but he could hardly bring himself to eat very much of it in spite of the difficulty of the day's trek along the muddy roads. After a certain point his stomach had just twisted up into a knot and he had to call it done. As the others settled in to sleep inside of the, still very wet, shelter, he could really only sit with his back against the wall and his eyes closed. Trying to sleep, but unable to find it as a thousand worried thoughts danced about in his mind. When he did manage to sleep, he was gripped by nightmares and visions which he scarcely remembered upon waking. When it was his time to take the watch, it took hardly any effort to rouse him and he found the watch itself a welcome change. Even if that was only because he could distract himself by chasing shadows with his eyes and looking off in the direction of every sound. It was only after his watch ended that he fell into a deep enough sleep that he was only properly roused in the morning, and when he woke he almost felt more tired than he had been before he slept.

When he stepped out of the shelter and into the sun, it was made quite obvious exactly how dirty his hair had been. A large, black mass still sat clumped on the top of his head, but around the rest of it strands of golden blonde hair were left shining in the light and idly blowing in the breeze. In retrospect, his hair had been remarkably stiff these past few months. No doubt Penelope was going to be giving him quite the earful over the course of the day about it. Well, at least it might give him something else to think about.

As they came to the river, Edrick was once again struck by nostalgia. It wasn't as big as the Lanti to be sure, but it was a river all the same. For a moment he could see the few small fishing boats that some of the townsfolk manned crossing it, hear the conversations of a few old, retired soldiers sat on the shores, and if he squinted he thought he could see the steeple of his home town's church on the far side of the river. Then he blinked and the vision passed. Had it really already been a year?

"Uh...Bad beaver, shoo!" Sienna's words snapped him out of his revere and brought his attention over towards the tree to which the rope had been tied...where he saw a beaver waddling up curiously. The commotion surrounding it hardly made much sense to him. He'd seen them much bigger. All the same, he turned his attention towards Link.

"Yeah don't worry about that. They're skittish." At least the ones in Pontus were. "And I'm a pretty good swimmer so I can go last." 

[Sethera 290]

Catriona was a little unsatisfied at the answers given to her. It seemed that the only person who had been to the village, Alois, didn't have much to say about it. Shaking her head, the woman walked with the others. Seeing some mushrooms brought back memories of the night prior, when Penelope had regaled them all with tales of poisonous mushrooms and their various effects. Not something she had wanted to think about while eating mushrooms, but after glancing at the expression on her sister's face, the woman had closed her mouth before she could tell her off. Let her have her fun, she thought with some guilt. She's still so young...she shouldn't even be here. She should be at home, studying from her books and playing draughts. Not trekking through the wilderness and chasing after a fairytale. Except by now she had learned that there was more than a bit of truth to those "fairytales," enough to give her confidence that the being they were looking for existed, or at least used to exist. But if they found nothing, if the Great Dragon had already died or disappeared, then...

We shall cross that bridge when we come to it, she thought. There was no use in wracking her wits over "what ifs."

When they reached the ford, the river was still swollen from the previous night's rain, but the area where they were was shallow enough that any person over 6'0" or 182 cm could walk across without their head sinking below the current. Gunther was one such person, though he would find the going slow and difficult. With every step, pebbles turned beneath his feet, and, were he not careful, he would easily find himself losing his balance. Thankfully, his crossing was done without too much trouble, the river calm compared to the day before. Next up was Alois, who, while shorter than Gunther, would still be able to keep his head above water by hanging from the rope.

Back on shore, the beaver looking at the stick, rather than be intimidated by Rohns or Sienna, turned to face the two, arching its back and opening its mouth wide to show off its oversized teeth, emitting a cry that sounded uncomfortably akin to that of a screeching human baby. Two more beavers came out to join it, one charging at Edrick right after he finished speaking, the other aiming for Ciela, or more specifically, Remy. The second beaver did not join in on the attack, instead waddling toward the swaying tree.

At the same time, four more beavers exited the underbrush on the opposite side. Two surrounded Gunther, screaming and spitting at him, a third started to tug on the stick that the rope was tied to, and the last entered the water with hardly a splash, nothing but the top of its back, head, and tail appearing above the surface. It made for the opposite shore, but seemed to change its mind at the last second and swam for Alois, who was in the middle of his crossing.

"What madness is this?!" Catriona shouted, unsure how she was supposed to react to these aggressive animals. Put a person in front of her and she could cut them down. But an animal? She had little to no experience dealing with them. Not even her time on the border helped her now. Animals had, for the most part, been smart enough to stay clear of what had been armies in all but name.

"How annoying," Licorice muttered with a sigh. "It appears that we stumbled into their territory."

OOC

Spoiler

Angry beavers! Also here is a map of how things look right now.

Animals are drawn out while people are labeled with letter names. You should be able to figure out who's who by the letter and the color. For instance, the purple C is Catriona and the black L is Licorice. Also, even though, direction-wise, everything is flipped around, and downstream is actually north, for the purpose of making this map more intuitive to view, downstream is at the bottom and upstream is at the top.

Edited March 20, 2019 by Sethera

[LordCowCow 840]

As Penelope debated the best time to cross she noticed Edrick. He offered to go last which was well and good. It made sense. However. "There is absolutely no way we can go into a civilized city with you looking like that, Edrick. Look at you, dirt is literally falling out in clumps, how did you hide this all this time?"

She didn't get much time for an answer before...before....they were attacked by beavers?

Thrown off for only a moment she immediately went into lecture mode. "Once a beaver detects another scent in its territory, finding the intruder takes priority, even over food. Because they invest so much energy in their territories, beavers are intolerant of intruders and the holder of the territory is more likely to escalate an aggressive encounter. These encounters are often violent. In fact there was a report once of someone having their leg chewed off by such a creature and dying due to blood loss."

She tilted her head and watched as several of their group got ready for combat. "So I suppose watch your legs."

While she didn't want to fight these creatures she couldn't figure out a save way across without trying to scare them off. She readied her Wind tome, hoping to only have to use it if a beaver got near, and moved towards the edge of the water.

---

Having gotten across safely Gunther was quite relieved. Though he could feel some water that had gotten inside his armor and knew if he didn't remove it for a bit to empty it out he'd likely start to prune.

And that's when he noticed the beavers. A large group of them approaching with aggression in their movements. Realizing that they had stumbled into the animals' territory he understood where they were coming from. Not wanting to hurt them he knelt down a bit to speak with the creatures.

And then an arrow, shot by Tsetseg, hit one of the beavers. The animal let out a disturbing cry and the beavers around him started to close in. "I do not mean to harm you." he said to them. "We are just passing through. Let us go and we'll leave your home alone." he spoke softly, calmly, despite the large teeth that he couldn't help but wonder how much they'd hurt. Most of them seemed to hesitate but then one that got hurt didn't. "Listen, I can help you. You're hurt, I know, but we have ways of healing the injury." He knelt down and watched the beaver. Making sure to not make any aggressive moves.

He knew it was dangerous. If this wild animal decided to attack him he was putting himself in harms way...but he wouldn't hurt an animal. Especially one they had wronged to begin with.

[Skaia 578]

As Alois began to cross the river, holding onto the rope as he did so, it soon seemed that the barking did not stop the river rat from keeping to try and bite down on their rope. Worse yet, it seemed that this beaver had friends as it had called in a whole swarm of them. "What..." With a look of disbelief on his face as they started to charge them, Alois was certain that were he ever given a sign that coming back home was a sucky idea, it was this. As the Beaver started to come and harass him, the boy lashed out with his foot, kicking it away saying, "shoo, shoo1! Away!" This did not seem to do much to deter it, as the beaver continued to charge at him and start to tackle against him. Holding on tightly, still trying to kick the rodent away, he then caught the littler princess's final remark and shouted back, "what!?" 

Tsetseg, meanwhile, seemed to hone in on the beavers as they began their onslaught on the party. Simply seeing them as beasts that were assaulting them, Tsetseg got her bow drawn rather quickly. Knocking an arrow into it, as if on autopilot the girl simply fired an arrow straight to the beaver that was looking to gnaw the rope on the other side of the river. While the arrow managed to hit the beaver, Tsetseg was surprised to see the hearty creature not seem to mind it. Getting ready to go at it once again, the girl then saw the effects of her attack, watching as the beaver went to attack Gunther, who meanwhile had a troupe of beavers just looking at him. Putting her down for a moment the girl  said, "oh...oh, whoops."

[Saikazo 241]

What the--- what was going on? Immense confusion swelled up inside of the frog, watching the group being attacked by beavers. Beavers. He hadn't seen any before, but he never imagined such beasts would be so hostile. It was so weird to even think about. The group was being attacked by beavers. He supposed he should stop gawking and musing over the events and actually try to help out the group. The issue was, the river wasn't deep enough for him to swim effectively, so basic underwater combat wouldn't work here. Still, he needed to try something.

He hopped over to Alois, using his oversized frog bulk to ram his head against the beaver, trying to drive it back. These things didn't seem deterred by bigger creatures, but he'd do his best here.

[Sethera 290]

Last time, on Fire Emblem: Curse of the Goddess.

Though our heroes managed to defeat the dreaded horde of Awakened at the abandoned shrine, their search for clues of the Great Dragon's location is not over. Led only by the words of Urvan, leader of the Pelinna Patrol, they know that the legendary wyrm is "north" of the Pelinna region, and only that. They headed west, where there was said to be a village, hoping that the village will give them more clues as to their next destination. However, the path to the village was rainy and tiresome, and before long they found a river blocking their way. Staying the night, they decided to cross it in the morning, having found a ford upstream. However, daytime poses other dangers, as that area is teeming with territorial beavers!

Catriona had not expected this.

Beavers. She had never heard of a beaver before, let alone seen one, but apparently her sister had. Listening to the younger girl lecture on about animal behavior, of all things, was starting to give her a headache. She just wanted to be across the river and done with this. Still, it looked like the beavers wouldn't let them move through their territory without a fight.

Across the river, Gunther had managed to calm down the beavers surrounding him, though one of them, the one that had gotten shot with an arrow, jumped at the armored knight again. Gritting her teeth as she watched the man do nothing to defend himself, Catriona turned her attention to Alois, who was still in the middle of attempting to cross the river. His crossing, however, was currently imperiled by the presence of yet another beaver. Still, the beaver looked to have been distracted by Shiro, and had started to attack the Protean instead.

It wasn't much better on their side of the river, if in fact, it could be said to be better at all. To the south, three beavers had gathered around where Edrick, Ciela, and Adelaide stood. And two chose to mob Ciela, or more accurately, Remy.

The horse screamed in pain and started to kick out with its hooves wildly. Here now was where the difference between a charger, or warhorse, and palfrey, or riding horse, stood out. Most chargers would not panic at being attacked, but unless trained for battle any horse would give in to its baser instincts. So she had learned on the field. And it was for this reason that proper warhorses were worth their weight in gold.

Unfortunately, Remy, though belonging to the recognizable Mirial White breed--famed for not only their speed as a racehorse, but also their elegant looks--had not been trained as a warhorse.

Harassed by the beavers, the stallion started to buck and thrash, uncaring of anything save getting the animals off of it. Ciela, his rider, looked to be barely holding on to the reins.

"I'll help!" Adelaide shouted, leaping off her own pegasus and running forward to try to calm the raging beast down. To most people, such an action would be suicidal, but for somebody with experience, who rode an equine of her own, it was risky, but possible. Still, luck worked against her this time, and a stray hoof hit her in the eye, knocking her to the ground, barely avoiding being trampled.

The third beaver of the group, rather than join its fellows in the attack on Remy, lunged for Edrick instead. Lastly, the one near Sienna had jumped up to attack her legs.

This isn't something I was trained to deal with...but no matter. I will take down anything that stands in the way of our mission, be they bandits or beasts.

Catriona dashed forward, sword at the ready, whipping it out for an overhand chop...and missed, her blade burying itself in the dirt. The woman felt her face grow hot. This...was not how she expected this attack to go. She was used to fighting human foes, not animal, and human beings were a little...taller.

With any luck, the others will have more experience at taking down these creatures.

To the side, Licorice watched the fight in growing disbelief. To think mere beavers could...then again, these seem to be rather ferocious beavers.

OOC

Spoiler

Yes I am back! And the battle is still ongoing.

The beavers are relentless in attacking the group. Currently:

• x2 attacking Remy with Ciela on him
• x1 attacking Edrick
• x1 attacking Sienna
• x1 attacking Shiro
• x1 attacking Gunther
• x2 not doing anything but surrounding Gunther

 

[Cheshire Toon 141]

Lincoln Harkinian was sometimes too stealthy for his own good. As everything around him descended into chaos, he remained frozen, barely breathing, unsure of what his next action should be because he had no idea how to react to their current predicament. Gunther had made it across the river but was, apparently, trying to negotiate with these “beaver” creatures. Alois was submerged in the stream and clinging to the rope as he fought one of them off, all the while Catriona swiped at one on the bank. 

Rohns had taken up a post behind his leg, snarling and snapping at anything that got too close, but they seemed to ignore him for the most part. That was good at least. Now to survey and figure out--

Ciela screamed from behind him. Link spun around and saw Remy onset by beavers and kicking at them wildly, desperate and panicked, while his rider barely stopped herself from being thrown. Adelaide came over to help but was kicked in the head for her troubles. She went down cursing and clutching her face.

Think, think, think… He knew nothing about beavers but they resemble gigantic rats, which he had more than enough experience with. Rat-chasing, also known as rat-snatching, was something newly recruited soldiers would be forced to do any time the cooks got too loud about their pantries being overrun. From his time as a rookie he had learned two things from that; a) rats feared fire, and b) rodents were scared away by loud noises most of the time. Plan A was obviously not an option so he could only hope that the beavers were similar enough to rats that Plan B worked. 

He pulled his broken heater shield off of his back and then drew his sword. Then he took a deep breath, steeled his eardrums, and began to slam the flat of his sword into the metal shield. Krrng! The noise was deafeningly loud and so high-pitched his ears rang. Link swung again. Krrng! He started to approach the mob of beavers attacking Remy, drawing back his arm and swinging again. Krrng!

“Shoo!” he yelled loud enough to be heard over the echoing noise. “Get out of here!” 

Edited May 16, 2019 by Cheshire Toon

[LordCowCow 840]

Gunther instinctively raised an arm as the beaver struck. Yet he didn't do anything from stopping the beaver from biting down on him. "I want to help you." He said, keeping his voice steady and calm. He wasn't about to lay down and die but his success with the other two showed him that they could get out of this without killing the animals. "I don't know if you can understand me." Gunther said. "But I just want to help you and then get out of here." He could hear the struggles of his allies on the other side. He wanted to help. But...this was all that he could do.

Hopefully it would be enough.

This wasn't working out well at all. It seemed ridiculous that this would be the battle the struggled with. But she had read how wild animal attacks could often lay low even trained soldiers.

If they didn't do anything they might actually become seriously injured here.

Yet none of them were used to fighting against something like this.

Which led her to one decision. "Catriona, I'm going to cross the river. Once we get to the other side we can keep going until we're out of their territory."

Upon saying this, holding her tome in one hand, she made her way across the river while holding onto the rope with her other hand. She was prepared to use her wind tome to knock back any beaver that tried to stop her but otherwise she intended to get across the river.

Though she had to admit she didn't expect it to be this difficult to cross. It was just water right? She knew how swimming worked so this shouldn't be difficult at all.

[Skaia 578]

Alois had never thought this would be how it ended. Fighting on a rope, over a river, with a giant frog aiding him in fighting against a beaver. Being as close as he was to it, Alois had never felt so validated in thinking that his home really did suck. Of course, he was still safe on the rope and was glad that the beaver was no longer trying to kill him, specifically at least. But he wasn't exactly keen on the razor biting rodent to be within a mile of their rope, and still kept kicking at it all the same. His attention, however, was momentarily diverted as he felt a new weight tug down on the rope. "Wait- what - what are you doing?" Alois shouted towards Penelope, baffled both by her trying to cross at this very moment and also that she had an open tome in hand. 

There were several scenarios going through Alois's hand as to what she expected to do with that, with probably the best case being her wanting to whack any beaver that got close with all the weight her twig arms could muster. All the same, trying to gesture for her to go back Alois shouted, "rope is kind of at maximum occupancy at the moment." 

Tsetseg, however, was having quite the rough time figuring out what to do. The easiest shots to take were the beavers across the river with Gunther, but she both felt inclined to shoot them and let them be at the same time, seeing the large man talk to them. Her other options were not too great, either, as everyone seemed to be quite clustered together in dealing with river faring creatures. The young huntress furrowed her brow, and seemed startled as she heard the horse start to go wild and even more so when she started to hear a metallic clang out of nowhere. Seeing the green man walk forward banging at them, Tsetseg figured she'd assist there by getting onto all fours and slowly making her way across the ground. 

Going around him, the girl tried to slowly and quitely flank the beavers, and if any of them had made a move towards anyone else in their group, was ready to leap and pounce at them.

Spoiler

Yes I'm still in this rp. 

 

[Saikazo 241]

Shiro was... pretty annoyed, to be honest. All they were trying to do was cross a river and they were getting attack by furry, angry beavers. He really wished he could do some sort of animal communication, but sadly that was out of his abilities. It was a shame to, as he could imagine animals would have some interesting things to say. Although he could easily imagine these beavers would just be screams of rage and "get off my property!"

Well, at the very least, they didn't have to kill all these beavers to 'win' per say. They just needed to get everyone across the water and then they could run. So that meant getting Alois across the river. "Hurry and get across!" Shiro shouted at Alois as the human kicked at the animal. Shiro opted to grab the beaver as it was distracted, pulling it under the water and away from his teammate. He just needed to keep it down here long enough for Alois to get across. He could then throw it away or something... he only hoped this worked.

[Asriel Dreemurr 38]

Beavers. They were under attack...by Beavers. Edrick had expected a great many things, and though so much of this misadventure of theirs had involved things that were, in no uncertain terms, unexpected...this took the cake. He was so utterly baffled by the hostile intentions of these beavers that he had scarcely noticed one of them approaching them. Had he died and gone to the abyss? Had he caught something from fighting the undead? Was all of this a fever dream? Was he going to wake up back home, being chided by his father for drinking too much Zeilla the night before? These and a thousand other questions ran through his mind before, inevitably, it happened. The beaver in front of him jumped up and bit him on the ankle. The pain shocked him back to reality, but first,

"Tâmpit!" He swore, kicking the creature off and spending several moments jumping in place, clutching his injured ankle. Eventually, he turned his gaze down towards the rodent with open malice. All the confusion and frustration over the past day boiled over into one thing. If he killed this beaver, the world would make sense again. He did not know how. He did not know why. All he knew was that it had to die. So he gathered up his discarded spear and, in a plainly inspired recreation of the technique Link had drilled into him, stabbed the rodent in the body.

Except it didn't die. The young Pontic was once again left questioning reality as the creature turned its head and began biting at his Iron Lance. Without thinking much, he lifted the spear and began shaking it.

"Letgoletgoletgolegoletgo!" He shouted as he shook the weapon around, failing to dislodge the creature. He was becoming so frustrated and confused that he actually started to cry as he tried in vain to shake the beasty off.

[Sethera 290]

The riverside had become a chaotic melee. On one end, Link was currently slamming the flat of his blade against his shield in an effort to scare the beavers away. One beaver stubbornly clung to Remy while the other jumped off and started hissing at Link while backing away slowly. However, it didn't look as if it would run away quite yet. Its fellow persisted in attacking the horse before falling off as the stallion's struggles became more violent. Kicking the beaver with a stray hoof, Remy fled upstream, and somehow, miracle of miracles, Ciela managed to stay atop him, though she had little control over him at the moment. Her shouted commands for him to stop went unheeded and ever fainter as the horse ran further south.

Adelaide slowly got up, stumbling as she did so, but ended up falling back down again, squishing the beaver that was just kicked underneath her. The beaver struggled for a bit but it looked like it wouldn't be getting free just yet. The third beaver was currently preoccupied with attempting to bite through the metal of the iron lance that Edrick wielded. It held on even through the boy's wild shakes, even while bleeding from the lance wound. Growling, the beaver finally let go and started charging at Edrick again, not putting anybody else in its eye.

Meanwhile, the beaver near Sienna and Catriona had run at Sienna again. The Protean looked as if she was ready to do something--perhaps transform--but the beaver was faster. The animal had leapt on her and bit down, hard, on her right hand, clinging to the woman the whole time.

"Get off her!" Catriona shouted, fury at her own helplessness rushing through her. The woman ran forward but did not attack. The beaver was far too close to Sienna to attack. She could miss again and hurt Sienna in the process. So instead she ran forward and grabbed the beaver around the middle in an attempt to make it let go. An attempt the animal didn't seem to take too well to.

In the river, the beaver there had tried valiantly to fight back against Shiro, but in his larger form, was unable to do much but flail uselessly, especially after being kicked. It sank underneath the water, where it seemed to become even more slippery and hard to grasp. But, for now, it was stuck.

On the other side, the beaver currently attacking Gunther seemed confused by his soft tone of voice. Slightly lulled, its jaws began to loosen from their clamp on the knight's arm.

Licorice watched all of this a frown. As things were, she might cause even more of a mess were she to jump in. So instead, she made do with standing back and making sure no more beavers got near. The black fox ended up scaring away a couple that looked like they wanted to join the fight. Glancing to the side, where it looked like Ciela and Remy were fleeing, her frown deepened, and she ran after them, transforming into her larger form once she passed the melee. It would not do for them to get too far.

Spoiler

Turn 3

Beavers are still in full swing.

• x1 being crushed underneath Adelheid at the moment
• x1 backing away from Link
• x1 attacking Edrick
• x1 attacking Sienna
• x1 being dragged underwater by Shiro
• x2 watching Gunther
• x1 attacking Gunther
• x3 scared off by Licorice offscreen

Also Ciela and Licorice are currently offscreen, above where Adelheid is.

 

[Wind Rider 10]

Never before would Sienna had thought that beavers... Beavers, of all creatures, could prove a nuisance to her and the others. Who knew beavers were so territorial to the point that they would attack armed and armored men and women. Nonetheless, a threat is a threat, and these beavers had to be dealt with.

Gunther had gotten surrounded across the river, but had seemingly calm the beavers, minus one that was attacking him at the moment. There was something funny about it, a big armored knight being assaulted by a overgrown rodent. Sounds like the start of a classic adventure tale. Shaking the thought from her head, Sienna had her own beaver to deal with, one she had hoped to simply scare away with a quick transformation, the beaver was surprisingly quick. It had leaped up and had bitten down on her hand, causing the protean girl to yelp in pain. It felt as if her hand was being crushed between two sharp rocks.

"Get off her!" Sienna heard Catriona shout as she rushed to her side. She had grabbed the beaver and was trying to pull the rodent off Sienna, much to the protean's discomfort as this just seemed to agitate the beaver even more. Possibly out of pain, or just not wanting to harm Catriona in some way, Sienna refrained from transforming, and resorted to simply bashing the beaver over the head with her beaststone. "Get off! Get off!!" she cried in pain.

[LordCowCow 840]

Gunther smiled as he noticed the beaver becoming slowly less aggressive. It was odd. They had large, dangerous, teeth. Yet he didn't fear being injured by them like when he was in a battle. He felt more calm than he had in any of the previous encounters.

"That's it, no need for violence." Gunther said. "Now, hold still, I'll make sure you're all fixed up."

The Knight had some training in first-aid, it was one of the things he had been taught during his training, and something that he was happy to learn. Given the lack of healing magic it was important for soldiers to know how to fix up wounds themselves. That and his general knowledge on animals...yeah, he felt he could do this. The wound wasn't that deep, either, which helped.

So, carefully, slowly, and continuously murmuring soft reassurances, Gunther began to work at fixing up the injured beaver.

"I don't suppose you could get your friends to stop, too?" He said towards the other beavers. Though he realized they likely couldn't understand.

---

"rope is kind of at maximum occupancy at the moment."

"Well then MOVE!" Penelope shouted back at the boy. "If we all meet up on the other side we can just get out of here no fight needed. But I can't do that with you standing around like a log."

She continued on towards the boy, and the other side of the river, while keeping an eye on the nearby beaver. A beaver which seemed to not be a problem anymore as Shiro dunked it under the water.

Which was somewhat disturbing when she thought about it. How long was it that beavers could hold their breath again? She didn't think it was as long as a frog but were Proteans different?

What would a beaver Protean be like anyway?

Shaking her head she went back to the task at hand. Checking over at the side of the river she had left she was dismayed to see the mess it had become. "Everyone!" She tried to be heard over the noise of the beavers attacking. "Work together! If everyone gathers together they'll have a hard time harming us." Any injury during this fight would be a failure. Whenever a battle could be avoided, it should be, that was her goal. The fewer battles they had to partake in the better chance they had at succeeding in the overall goal.

[Saikazo 241]

Ode to Peaceful Currents

It was like an entirely different world under the water. The sounds of combat above were muted by the sound of the rushing water, and his frog eyes were perfectly adapted to take in the beautiful scenery. He could see the colorful fish swim by him, seemingly disturbed by his giant frog form, as if they were afraid he was a new predator. The rocks on the river's bed were smoothed to a nice round shape, and the sunlight was refracting, creating a rainbow of colors that danced among the water.

This would be much more profound if he wasn't trying to drown a damn beaver down here.

Still, it was indeed peaceful, and he found himself enjoy this moment while he could have it. It didn't seem Alois would be swept away by the river, so he could take this time to enjoy the beauty of nature.  

[Skaia 578]

Alois looked flabbergasted as the princess told him to keep moving on. Were it so easy, he was pretty sure that he would've been able to do that easily. However, there was a beaver attacking him, and so it was not actually easy. In fact, one would even say that having a giant over sized river rat with giant teeth trying to gnaw out one's leg or the rope they were holding onto would make it quite difficult. As he was about to shout back at the princess, he looked back to the rodent. "Shiro? Beaver?" The boy looked confused as the two had apparently just disappeared from his field of view. "Well, okay..." Looking back to the girl he shouted, "fine! But put the book away. Last thing we need is you down stream and down one book." With that the boy began to make his way across the river yet again, only to now see Gunther was...talking to the beavers. "Of course he is." Alois continued his journey across the river, simply mumbling to himself. 

Tsetseg had been successful in her prowl, having made her way to circle around and get a flank on a beaver. Looking at them, the Locrisian hunter had turned her attention to the one that had been getting ready to strike at the Pontic boy. Seeing it begin its run up, Tsetseg began to crouch before leaping forward, trying to tackle the beaver in the middle of its charge. 

[Cheshire Toon 141]

The noise didn’t have the desired effect. Only one of the so called beavers hesitated, waddling backwards, still gnashing its wicked-looking front teeth and hissing at Link. Rohns rushed in front of him to growl back at the angry rodent, ears pressed flat and his still-budding teeth bared. 

“Back.” Link stepped forward and pushed Rohns behind him again with a sweep of his foot. The cub made to snap at his ankle, muscles still wound tight and ready to lunge at the first sign of a threat, but his teeth met with the thick leather of the soldier’s boot and went nowhere. “Rohns!” he rumbled the canine’s name without turning away from the beaver he was engaged with. Rohns, shaken free from the boot with a firm stomp, whimpered at the sound of his name and hunkered down with his tail between his legs. 

It was complete and utter chaos. Ciela was somehow miraculously clinging to Remy as he fled downstream, having knocked off the last beaver clinging to him, and was rapidly being pursued by Licorice. Catriona and Sienna where wrestling with a beaver somewhere behind him, unsuccessfully from the sounds of it, and he thought he heard Penelope and Alois shouting but they were quickly drowned out by Edrick. “Let go let go let go let go let go!” he screamed, attempting to rattle a beaver of his spear and becoming more and more panicked each second that the rodent clung tight. Finally, with one last desperate swing, he sent the water rat sailing through the air, but it came charging back at him as soon as it found its footing. 

Tsetseg jumped out of nowhere and tackled it to the ground before it could reach the Pontic.

Link nearly laughed at the image, but his concern for Edrick reigned in the hilarity of the situation. He kept pressing forward, forcing the beaver he was facing to backpedal, until he was right beside the young man. “Edrick!” Up close Link could see he was on the verge of crying. He brushed his shoulder against Edrick’s. “Breathe. Breathe and remember what I taught you the other night!” To their left, Adelaide was struggling with a beaver beneath her, and to their right, Tsetseg was wrestling with another one. Link drew an ‘X’ in the dirt with his foot. “Control the battle. Don’t let them pass this spot.” 

Adrenaline was roaring through his veins. This was wild, but it was nothing like a battlefield, surrounded by the dead and dying wherever you turned. He could handle this. “You help Tsetseg, I’ll get Adelaide. Just get the rat to turn her loose and send her back to the rope. We’ll hold here until everyone else gets across. And don’t kill it if you can help it. Never resort to killing if you can avoid it.”
 

Edited May 29, 2019 by Cheshire Toon
Changed text color to read easier.

[Asriel Dreemurr 38]

The Beaver releasing its hold on his spear did not do much, if indeed anything, to actually settle Edrick down from his little episode. He was too shaken, too tired, and too wet to actually do much settling down at all right now. His breath was shaky and ragged, and his stance was honestly not very good at all. Still the Beaver wasn't dead, and he wasn't anywhere close to the world making sense again. He almost didn't react in time as the thing charged at him, but a blur of motion that was strangely adorable came from outside his cone of vision and took it to the ground. He stopped for a second, tears still streaming down his face, and bothered to actually take in the world around him. Sure enough, that adorable blur of motion was TsegTseg. Oh. That...made sense. He thought. Sort of.

"Edrick!" The paternal voice of someone he could actually recognize drew his attention to the side, and he found himself looking at Link. Okay. This was mostly normal. Since when were his cheeks that puffy? "Breathe. Breath and remember what I taught you the other night!" That actually almost stunned the boy in his less-than-ideal state. What was he talking about? Was it Link that taught him that recipe for crispy fried potatoes? No...no that was his mother. "Control the battle. Don't let them pass this spot." Okay, that made more sense. Right. Breathe. Breathe. How did you breathe again? Right, with the Diaphram. Was it supposed to taste like poop?

Questions as to where the fecal taste was coming from aside (it was probably the foul nonsense running out of his hair), Edrick was at least able to get himself steady again and properly look over the battlefield around them. It felt ridiculous to think of it that way, when they were fighting off beavers of all things, but that was what it was. Right, what did Link tell him to do again? Help TsegTseg? Well, he could do that. And something about not killing the beaver? Well that didn't make sense, but he wasn't really in a mindset to do much questioning right now. Now, just to...

"Stop...squirming!" He shouted as he eventually just flipped the spear around and tried to deliver a hefty bonk onto the Beaver's head. He missed, and then he swung again and nearly caught TsegTseg in the head. It did not seem that he had noticed quite yet.

[Sethera 290]

Catriona tugged on the beaver, but to no avail. The animal just would not let go. Gritting her teeth, the woman continued pulling, while Sienna started to bash it over the head with her beaststone. The combined effort managed to loosen the beavers grip just enough that it fell off of the girl, though the marks of its teeth left large, bloody imprints on the Protean's hand. But there was no time to focus on that. The beaver was still at large.

"Now, we end this!" the white-haired woman shouted, whipping her sword out to slash at the beaver. Scoring a long slice down its side, she huffed triumphantly. Only to stop when the animal lunged at her. Stepping back, the woman held her sword in front of her in a block, but even so, the beaver managed to get through her defenses due to its small size. Soon Catriona had a large furry rodent clinging to her leg.

Things weren't any better elsewhere. Adelaide had finally gotten off of the beaver she had squashed, but she looked far too groggy to do much else at the moment. The beaver, taking the opportunity to slip free, chose to attack the nearest thing, which happened to be Rohns. Nearby, the beaver Link was fending off wasn't doing much except making weird spitting sounds while it continued to back away, before finally giving up and running for the hills. The one underneath Tsetseg was squirming, trying to get out from underneath the girl, but it wasn't having much luck. Still, if nothing was done, it seemed like it would eventually wriggle itself free.

While Shiro had sank underneath the water and seemed to be holding the beaver hostage there, it was still slow going crossing the river, especially with the current tugging at the ones doing the crossing. However, Alois at least had managed to touch land on the other side, though he was still partially submerged to his waist. As soon as he arrived, the beaver that had finally let go of Gunther turned and started growling at him. The other two didn't look interested, however. Further back, Penelope had reached a little over the halfway point when she would notice a log being carried down from upriver, headed straight for her.

All the while, Licorice continued to run after Ciela and Remy. Which only prompted the horse to run faster.

Spoiler

Turn 4

• x1 beaver attacking Catriona
• x1 beaver struggling underneath Tsetseg
• x1 beaver attacking Rohns
• x1 beaver being held underwater by Shiro (not shown on map as currently underwater)
• x2 beavers currently nonhostile and next to Gunther
• x1 beaver growling at Alois

 

Edited May 29, 2019 by Sethera

[LordCowCow 840]

"fine! But put the book away. Last thing we need is you down stream and down one book."

"And what, pray tell, am I supposed to do if one of the beavers attack me? Splash at them? I'm not sure if you noticed but I'm not exactly a muscular girl." Penelope snapped back, coughing as she accidentally swallowed some of the river water during her response.

When the coughing cleared she realized that a log was coming in fast. She could speed up but she wasn't sure if she'd outrun it. Nor was she sure she could keep her footing if she rushed it. So she attempted to use her magic to stop the log. Unfortunately it was difficult to get her bearings in the water and the Wind spell missed the log, merely taking a chunk of the bark off, and it continued towards her.

Running through the physics of the situation and trying to calculate if it would be best for her to dive or try and climb over the log as it came closer she almost missed as the large frog shot from the water and intercepted the log.

She breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank you, Shiro, that was rather kind of you." She told the man before continuing to make her way across. She noticed that Gunther had calmed the beavers down and smiled. She knew she could count on him.

As long as Alois didn't take too much offense to the angry beaver in front of him, that is.

---

Gunther smiled as he finished up administering what aid he could give to the beaver. "See, that wasn't so bad was it?"

A splashing noise drew his attention and he looked up to see Alois coming out of the river. With Penelope not too far behind. The beaver, too, seemed to take notice and hopped away from Gunther in order to growl at the boy.

With a sigh Gunther knelt down near the beaver. "It's okay, he means no harm. He just wants to get across and out of your territory."

The beaver didn't seem convinced by his words. Gunther let out a sigh. He supposed it only made sense. The beaver likely didn't even know what he was saying and was merely reacting to what he perceived as a threat.

"Er, Alois, could you perhaps...show him that you aren't going to hurt him? I don't think we need to really fight them...we're not trying to stay here after all."

He looked across the river at the rest and groaned. "It might be more difficult to convince them, though."

[Skaia 578]

As Alois managed to cross the river, he heard the princess speak back to him, only for the boy to look back. Annoyed he started saying, "by not - " he cut himself off, simply mumbling to himself as he saw a new opponent in front of him. Looking back to the beaver, Alois cracked his knuckles as he got ready to punch a beaver. Before the two could get to their confrontation, though, Alois could only look to Gunther with a slight look of disbelief.  The boy looked to the knight, the beavers that were staring at him, the beaver that was staring at him, the sky and back to the knight. Pinching the bridge of his nose, Alois started, "yeah we'll just chat over tea and - you know- alright, but I'm going to punch this thing if it bites me." 

Looking to the beaver he said, "hey." Alois put his hands to his side as his voiced seemed to be more confused then anything else. "I'm...not going to punch you? So don't bite me. Or the rope. You know? You," he pointed to the beaver. "Me." He pointed to himself. "None of this," he made a biting motion before shaking his head. "Are we...clear?" 

Tsetseg had grappled the beaver fearlessly, and in spite of its best efforts, had managed to hold onto the creature. As it was wriggling around, the young huntress was having difficulty keeping it in place, just barely being able to do so as a culmination of all of her protean hugging practice. As Edrick had gone to smash his spear into the beaver, the small girl let out a yelp as it had almost hit her head. This did nothing to help her grip on the small creature, but the girl grit her teeth as she said, "I got this, got this, got this." The girl thus attempted to keep the beaver grappled more, pressing more of her, albeit small, body against it to keep it pinned to the ground. 

[Saikazo 241]

From his spot underwater, Shiro could see that Alois had made it across the bank. That was very good, very good indeed. Just a few more people and they'd be done. He then noticed that at some point, the smaller princess had climbed back into the water. Well, that just seemed kinda foolish. To make things even worse, a log was being carried down by the river. It probably wouldn't be as much as a problem if this was the normal currents, but the rain from last night would make this much worse than usual.

And so he let go of the beaver, swimming up to the surface and blocking the log with his considerable bulk. It felt like someone had punched him as hard as they could, but it was much easier on him than it would be on the princess.

"Thank you, Shiro, that was rather kind of you." He was given thanks, so he turned his head to nod at the princess. As he did, he noticed the beaver he was trying to drown came up to attack him, but it was hit by the log instead, falling further down the river.

Well, that was easy.

[The Last Occultist 16]

Ciela

"What the hell are these beavers?!"

Ciela clung to dear life as Remy was startled by the sudden beaver attack, belting out from the group and running out of control along the downstream. Back behind her, she could see Licorice was chasing after the two of them... but the fact that she was in her beast form meant that Remy thought of her as another predator, worsening the situation. Seeing all this, Ciela grumbled. Even with their adventures so far, ultimately Remy was not a war horse, and thus never had any training in regard to handling his fear response. In the first place, she did already read up about these sort of stuff, but she just never got the time nor the heart to get Remy used to sudden shock before.

"Calm down... calm down, Remy. Those beavers are far from us already, let's just stop and turn back, alright?"

Ciela rubbed Remy's neck in hope of being able to calm him down. There had to be some way for her to get Remy to stop... but what?

---

Adel

Adel woke up in a daze, with sharp pain on one side of her head. There didn't seem to be any bleeding, but the damage probably was internal. It didn't seem that she was suffering from a concussion at least. Tyltalis surprisingly was still near her, but more than that, apparently she had squashed a beaver right under her when she was still disoriented from the kick earlier. Adel decided to finish it off, but her disorientation really didn't do her any favors, and the beaver slipped away.

Off the corner of her eye, she saw Link was approaching her. At least she was now not being actively attacked by anything, so she used the opportunity to apply one of her salves to her damaged eye after the kick earlier.

"What... even is happening right now?"