InsaneJournal

They had known there had been a risk of this exact thing happening when they had approached the beautiful oasis that was the garden and water, but still they had risked the monster attack that was likely given the nature of this place. In the end, it was the magical dagger that they had managed to get the previous day that had helped deliver the killing blow. With Shang-Chi as the distraction, Xialing had stabbed the creature many times near its grotesque eyes and the slow acting poison it was covered with did what it was supposed to do.

Sure Shang-Chi had to still dance around to avoid being eaten by the creature as it went through its death throes, but slowly the creature succumbed to its fate. Finally, Shang-Chi dropped down to the ground and let himself breathe for a few minutes, covered in gross slime from the many times the froghemoth had tried to eat him.

"You know, this wasn't the kind of family bonding I had in mind when I asked if you wanted to take a weekend off and explore Vallo with me," he said, as he laid panting from his little patch of grass on the ground.

This place was a nuisance, they had better things to do than wandering between rooms, collecting random objects, solving puzzles, and fighting monsters. This was a bad game. The only thing she was thankful for was that they actually had weapons. For a brief moment she had allowed herself to hope that this oasis would be a brief pause, but that had gone before the monster had even made an occurrence.

Xialing emerged from the lake, dripping wet after the monster had finally fallen, back in the water but not far enough out to be fully submerged. At least the water actually was as refreshing as it looked.

“It may not be what you had in mind, but it tracks with previous family bonding.” Considering before this they had their reunion, and trip to Ta Lo to go off of.

Dropping to the ground beside him, she carefully placed the dagger in reach of both of them. She was glad they had their small collection of found goods, and part of her wondered if the necklace and gold coins had anything to offer as well besides their obvious use. “Are you okay?”

"I'm covered in slime and it's tingling a little, but not enough to go throw myself in that lake just yet," he explained, covering his face with the back of his thankfully clean hand and blocking out the light for a minute. He could feel the start of bruises and aches, but he didn't feel any broken or fractured bones thankfully.

Finally turning his head and looking over at his sister, he asked, "How about you? You were the one riding that thing like a bull in some cowboy bar. You get hurt?" He wasn't worried though, he had been keeping an eye on her while playing the distraction and hadn't seen any obvious injuries.

Tingling slime. She didn’t have a lot of experience in the slime department but, “You better hope that isn’t poison then.” or cause some other adverse reaction. She had ended up with some on her when she was fighting the thing, but the crash into the water had taken care of it.

Xialing shrugged. She’d feel it soon enough, and she had some scrapes on her legs, but it could have been worse. “It wasn’t as demanding as hanging onto a dragon fighting the Dweller-in-Darkness.” Which was probably more challenging than the bull in a bar some people saw as entertainment. It had been a much, much shorter fight as well, which helped.

"Remember me fondly if I do croak," because yes, he had to make a frog joke even now. He even had the nerve to smirk at her before rolling up into a sitting position. "I hope we get a nice room next. Should we clean up and see if we can find anything useful here before something tries to kill us again?"

Because he had no doubt that things wouldn't calm down just because they had dealt with this frog monster. This was probably just one of the easier creatures to fight, in all honesty.

The look she gave him either said she was not amused by his jokes, or she wasn’t making the connection. Either way she wasn’t going to elaborate. She looked back toward the lake, and minus the monster, it was nice. The waterfall especially. “It’s too bad we don’t have any water bottles.” the water from the falls might be drinkable. But they would just have to make do with the time they had here. Hopefully they had a bit longer to enjoy.

Picking up the knife, Xialing got back to her feet, and then turned to offer her hand to her brother to help pull him up. “The room is nice, if you ignore the monster.” If you could call it a room at all, given their surroundings. “With any luck it was the biggest predator in the immediate area.”

The deadpan look had been expected, but still he rolled his eyes. It was fine, not everyone appreciated his humor. "We can look around and see if we're lucky enough to be gifted with some," he said, grasping her hand and heaving himself up with the leverage. Once he was steady on his feet, he nodded beyond the frog monster and said, "I'm going upstream to wash up first and then maybe we can eat some of the rations we do have after we look around."

It was a mixed bag of things, but at least they weren't going to starve.

Heading off to wash off, he called back, "At least we're in this together!"

“That would probably be too easy, but perhaps there is something we can use.” She didn’t know what, but they had to at least try.

Bottles or no bottles, she’d look around for anything that might work as a carrier for water to bring back to their ‘safe room,’ and if there was anything else that qualified as food for them to eat in the area. She’d go upstream to take her turn once he was back. “Try not to get eaten.” she called back in return, with the slightest hint of a smile.