Arcane Tales

"What is that!?" Lucien exclaims.

""Trouble""

*Kari pets the rabbit to try and calm is down. Kentaro draws his gun and shoots at the snakes eye.*

*The rabbit purrs like a cat and rubs his nose against her neck. The shots burst one of its eyes splashing a gooey yellow liquid all over them. The snake dives back underwater backwards and, not even a second after it sinks, it emerges again behind them, whipping its head at Kentaro and trying to bite its head off with its sharp teeth.*

=====

*He can't find a door of any kind, nor any buttons, switches or triggers.*

Kelphy: <Maybe we can consult the Archive...?>

Alto whips around and fires fires a barrage of light arrows at it.

*Kentaro jumps back and shoots at its other eye.*

*Hurt by the arrows and after losing its last good eye, it dives back down. It emerges again, but this time its eyes are regenerated. It abrupty whips its head into Lucien, swinging him into the air.*

Allina: <What the hell!?>

*A second snake emerges and spits a ball of a sticky green (and poisonous) fluid at Kari.*

*Kari covers the rabbits ears with one hand and runs off shooting at the snake. Kentaro shoots an armor piercing shot at the other snake.*

Lucien sends his shadow arms outward and grabs one of the snakes by the neck and swinging himself back on to dry land.

Alto charges up a bigass light arrow attack and fires it at the poison spitting snake.

Creed fires ice shards at the snakes.

Derek: <Sounds like a plan. I just hope Undine doesn't show up again...>

*The two snakes withdraw underwater just as three more emerge. One of them's eyes become fully green and it stares at Creed, static. The other two stretch out of the water some more and arch over the isolated circular platform the group is standing on, spitting more poison at them from above.*

=====

*In the Archive, they find another of those diskette hologram projectors as well as a shitload of metal bookcases full of files, documents, and books. Sure enough, there's a whole section on airships. Kelphy starts searching through the books, checking their covers to find any related to the metal bird-shaped airship.*

Kelphy: <Maybe we should try those two diskettes you kept in your pocket, we may not have another chance and they probably contain precious historical information...>

*She then remembers the whole battle against Undine and them swimming for a while.*

Kelphy: <Oh, no, are they ruined?>

*Derek takes out the diskettes, which are obviously drenched.*

Derek: <I'd say that's a yes...>

Lucien, Alto, and Creed use their abilities to form shields to deflect the poison away.

[Bullshit. Bullshit everywhere.]

*The two fire armor piercing shots at the monsters heads.*

*The attacks cause the two attacking snakes to burst into more poison, which also rains upon the group. Those not protected feel their skin burning upon contact with the poison. The distanced snake takes the chance to stretch its head out towards the group at high speed, swallowing Creed whole. It then bites at Kentaro's head with its sharp teeth. A smaller snak darts out of the water and wraps itself around Kari's body, trying to pull her into the water, hissing into her ear.*

Allina: <Creed!>

*The platform shakes and cracks up right under Alto's feet. Allina stumbles forward and gets back up, creating a light sword to attack any incoming baddies, and shoves Alto lightly.*

Allina: <You gotta do something!>

-----

*Seconds after seing the snake darting towards him extremely fast and swallowing him, Creed's shot out of a valve into a small space with water by his chest. It's a spherical place, half of it looking like green guts that emanate a dim white light, illuminating the place and the other half like transparent glass, though it is soft and sticky. Through it he can just barely see a shitload of snakes coming out of around whatever he's in, waving around near the water's surface. The light breaking through the surface makes their yellow eyes glow, except for the ones below a dark circle at the center. He starts feeling quite numb, but not sleepy.*

=====

*She sighs and takes one of the diskettes, inserting it in the projector and pressing the same panel button she did before. The same woman from before appears, but the hologram is kinda messy, with a lot of noise and static. They can hear a relaxing piano tune playing in the background every few seconds.*

Woman: <After months, we've... he's finally chosen a test subject... young orphan that voluntee... says he doesn't have a name... called it--him, project CRONE... I... feel right anymore... ... .... ....>

Kelphy: <...Did she stop?>

*It is obvious they're missing a lot of what she recorded, considering the condition of the diskette. After a few seconds just staring off into the distance, motionless, she resumes speaking.*

Woman: <...burned down a small laboratory... insurgent leader Toros Nightingale... I...>

*She bites her lip and turns around, walking off in the same place, becoming smaller.*

Woman: <...I'm so....can't do this.>

*They hear a man's voice echoing and she comes back, standing so close to whatever device was recording her they now only see a giant head floating where her whole body used to be. Luckily for them, the static and noise suddendly stops and they start hearing the tune clearly.*

Woman: <...I don't think I can keep doing this. He's six. Six! I know--he volunteered, but... nothing good will come of this, there are other ways to restore the balance! ...Nigh...*sigh* ...Nightingale is right. I-->

*The hologram disappears with a fading "zzzuuuuu" sound. Kelphy just stands there staring blankly at the device.*

Derek: <So... Crone was here during his childhood. Maybe that explains why he chose to put his base of operations here.>

*He clenches a fist and punches it into a nearby wall.*

Derek: <People do terrible things to good people.>

Creed tries to use his ice magic to flash freeze the whole mess.

---

"What can I do!? My magic isn't strong enough yet to deal with this!"

*Kentaro jumps back shooting at the snake and grabs the one wrapped around Kari and pulls her back.*

[I wish I had inexplicable "plot" invisiblity.]

*The snake breaks through the platform, slamming Alto into a wall from below. The rest of the platform starts falling apart, and Allina dives into the water. The snake that tried to bite Kentaro shrieks and rams him with its head. The other one lets go of Kari only to wrap itself around Lucien. At this point, the stone is basically collapsing under their feet. Underwater, a snake darts towards Allina and she slashes at it, keeping it away. She sees a glowing sphere of water with Creed inside at the source of the snakes.*

-----

*It doesn't work, maybe because that's too powerful a spell, maybe because he's inside that... thing. Green fluid starts dripping down to the water from the green insides of that thing and he sees the rock platform above shatter and someone with a light sword diving and slashing at a snake.*

=====

*She stares at him sadly, and proceeds to switch the diskettes and hit Play or whatever the button is called. A middle aged man with black hair in a lab coat as well shows up.*

Man: <The subject... now 24 years old... After successfully controlling.... many of the minor... it is time to undergo the experience ... true meaning of this project... Crone... unite and restore the balance... control the ruler of the magic... Aeldi...>

Kelphy: <(What...?!)>

Man: <The rebels... calmed down... exiled... leaders Toros Nightingale, Sephira Emeraude...Alda Colsun ... main continent... >

*They hear the sound of a door opening. Kelphy looks back abruptly before realizing it comes from the hologram. Crone walks across the hologram briefly, passing in front of the man, looking exactly as he does now. The man widens his eyes and turns to the right, where Crone is probably standing.*

Man: <...Ready... control... true hero...>

Crone: <...Up....foolish...Origin-->

*As they are hearing Crone's voice, the hologram disappears with a fading "zzzuuuuu" sound.*

Derek: <So that's how he got his powers. Interesting.>

Alto crumples and Lucien is ensnared.

Creed begins to lose his strength.

*The platform parts keep shattering till they're too small to stand on and everyone falls into the water. One of the snakes' eyes glow red as it stares at Allina. Another one swings its head at Alto and Creed, hissing loudly.*

-----

*He feels like he drank way too much beer, and one of the valves starts making weird sounds and excreting more green juice, like it's salivating.*

=====

Kelphy: <I can't believe this...>

*She takes a folder from a case and another one falls to the ground that reads "Aeldi Prototype B.ZERO". She grabs and keeps it and takes the first one to Derek, opening it.*

Kelphy: <This one has an image of the airship on it, I'm pretty sure it's some kind of manual...>

OOC: One Deus Ex Machina coming right up Tae. Hopefully its a legit one. If not you'll have to do what you said you would have to to save everyone. Thought I'd help.

Alto summons up an immense amount of strength and raises himself to his feet before swinging his sword downward at the ground. When the blade hits the ground an explosion of light erupts blinding everyone briefly. When the light clears there are golden orbs of light everywhere just floating around the large chamber.

Alto pants, "Aeldi... Arte..." he wobbles and the light orbs waver before he summons up more strength, his hair briefly turns light, "Aeldi... Arte" another wobble before he stands tall and his hair lightens even more, "Aeldi Arte, Saint's Radiance!" the spheres spiral all around the room faster and faster until they enclose upon the serpents in the water and out.

---

Creed sees this and utters an audible, "Oh... SHIT!!"

---

The orbs spin more and more and more until eventually it forms into a tornado of light around every serpent before slamming into them producing an absolutely gigantic explosion that sends everyone flying backwards and blows Creed out of his fleshy prison and into the air where he flips several times and lands on the only patch of dry land left where everyone has noticeably landed in various states of disarray. Alto himself has passed out and drained himself of most of his mana for the time being.

*Derek opens the manual and studies it carefully and quickly, turning a page about every 15 seconds.*

Derek: <Interesting...>

*A weak flash of light occurs coming from the center of Alto's back and blood starts flowing from that area. Everyone's heads hurt a lot and they can barely keep their eyes opened. A big ass white sphere emerges from the water and flies up the room until they can no longer see it. Mist surrounds the group and soon, they're in a forest. In the horizon they can see Fahren's tower.*

Allina: <(...What...what happened? ...My head hurts,)>

*She then notices Alto and holds her right hand out towars him and blue sparkles swirl around the wound, slowing down the bleeding, though not too effectively.*

Allina: <...Is everyone okay?>

Jade Rabbit: <...Owwie.>

=====

*He learns that the airship uses no kind of mill or fan mechanism to fly like every other known model, and instead runs on magic that must be provided by a person or item. He also learns that the airship can detect specific sources of magic, fly much faster than every other model, and that to enter it one must activate the sphere on its downside with magic. At this point they've walked back to the airship already.*

Derek: <Princess, do you think you can channel some magic into the airship? We need to use it as a startup mechanism.>