Kirito casts the Initiative spell, followed by a painfully failed attempt at Weather Set, and then Unbreakable and Shield.
At the temple meanwhile, Yuki uses the powers of her arcane bow to Physically Boost herself – feeling a rush of immense power flow into her! She then takes up a defensive position and tries to reason with the turtle hermits, but they don’t appear to be listening.
Instead, they each yell fiercely and rush forward to attack with a flare of radiant white spirit fire wreathing their forms!
With each step, the muscles in the turtle hermits’ bodies ripple and surge, bulking up and out as each hermit transforms into a massive twelve-foot tall giant by the time they have covered the distance between themselves and the two Samurai on the steps.
One lunged forward to meet Yuki, while the other made his way to Rai – as they did so, both giants radiated a blazing white spirit energy from their arms and clenched fists.
“You have breached the boundaries of the contract!” the giant turtle hermit attacking Yuki yelled – “for that, you must return immediately!”
It then brought both of its mighty fists down toward Yuki’s head (Ancestor’s Rebuke + Iron Fist Style), attempting to smash her into the ground. Yuki was too quick however, moving back and out of the way with incredible fluidity as the giant’s blow shattered the stone steps where she had just been standing!
The giant coming at Rai meanwhile, arrives before Rai can get his Physical Boost up!
“You must not die here Go-Uda. It is not your destiny,” the giant says, picking Rai up in one hand and hurling him across the large koi pond – where he crashes into the raked pebbles one hundred feet away for a somewhat reduced 15SL Damage – (half again with Luck and a ninja roll at the end).
Springing to his feet and attempting to activate Physical Boost – Rai is shocked to experience the nasty effect of Drain when failing to successfully cast an advanced spell. He takes 4 Damage through his body and the spell fails to go off.
At that point there was a splashing sound heard from the koi pond and looking, the Samurai headed for the temple watched as nine strange turtle creatures rushed from the waters to block the Samurais’ advance. Each was about the size of a large child and ran upright on two legs. An odd bowl-like depression on the top of their heads held water from the pond that seemed to slosh about as they moved, but didn’t fall out.
Kirito recognized them as Kappa from the old stories of lore he had heard as a child – a type of mischievous water spirit.
Then to the front of the shrine there was a tremendously sharp crack, as a huge fracture abruptly appeared on the large stone slab with holy Shinto Script.
Moments later, the entire slab shattered explosively into a million fragments, creating a billowing cloud of dust. As the dust cleared, a glorious radiance began to shine through, from which suddenly slithered a twenty-foot long Naga priest. The Naga priest was surrounded by a brilliant blazing aura and was hard to look at without shielding one’s eyes. It was armed with a ten-foot long naginata and wore blessed jade chain armor and a hearthstone in an orichulum amulet. Rising up eight feet on its serpentine body, and without a word, it went forth attempting to strike down Yuki with its long weapon.
Once again, thanks to Physical Boost and a defensive readiness, Yuki managed to slip the attack before the massive blade could cleave her in two.
As this went on, Udo mounted Bleach and rode forward – the white tiger actually leaping right over all the Kappa and bounding up the steps toward Yuki’s side. With nothing to stop him, he took a swing with his tetsubo at the giant that had just tossed Rai into left field.
With a great heave, Udo cracked the giant across the shins for 17SL Damage!
The giant grimaced in pain and glared at Udo a moment before smiling wickedly. This didn’t promise to be a good sign for Udo next round…
Roka meanwhile, activated Heavy Hitter and sprinted towards the temple, attempting to tumble over the Kappa along the way. Unfortunately, the little buggers could also jump rather high for their size and gang-tackled Roka before he could clear them. Scrambling out from under them, he found himself surrounded by the strange fish-smelling creatures.
“Eeee! We gots one!” they chirped and cricked in excitement as the swarmed in.
“Get off him you fools!” Jenna the Samurai-Ko said, as she waded into the Kappa and sliced two of them in half with a double multi-strike.
Then Miya, still back with Kirito, took a quick aim and shot an arrow at the head of the giant attacking Yuki – which, when coupled with Uncanny Shot – thunked deep into the thing’s skull for 12L straight to wounds, bypassing armor!
“Great shot Miya! Do it again!” Roka cheered (Born Leader Surge for another Uncanny Shot) – to which, Miya duplicated the astounding shot – penetrating the giant’s skull a second time for another 14L Damage straight to wounds, bypassing armor!
With that, the giant turtle hermit that had been attacking Yuki dropped dead on the steps – as the white spirit flames enshrouding him slowly flickered out.
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(OOC – on to round 2!)
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Topic: Mythic Nippon Adventure III (Read 361496 times)