Polaris (polarized) wrote in valloic, @ 2022-09-23 18:41:00 |
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With that in mind, Lauren had decided to meet with Lorna toward the end of Lorna's shift at the forge, because Lauren had wanted to visit the forge. It sounded like in this place she could use a weapon, because sometimes powers just failed. So she had poked around at the different options of weapons, looked at what was being made, and options that could be made, and then had left with Lorna mulling over possibilities.
She was starting to regret the decision now though. They were almost back to the waypoint to take them to the apartments when this…thing, half woman, half spider (what was with spider-like things attacking them?) had come crawling through the forest. Huge, completely disturbing, and with smaller versions of spiders-minus the human-like torso, surrounding it.
Lauren had thrown up a shield around them the second they had come into view, holding the creatures back while trying to figure out just what they were. When the spider-queen, if that was what she was, immediately threw some sort of lighting-like power at she shield, Lauren found herself gritting her teeth and digging her heals into the Earth. What the hell kind of creature was this?
This is why Lorna didn’t take Dawn to the forge. At least not when Vallo decided to go completely topsy turvy. She hadn’t been in the world for long but she’d noticed that a lot of the crazy seemed to happen in the forest as opposed to the city. It might not be completely immune, but at least the daycare that Dawn was at had several different types of security and nearly every worker at it had magic or some other sort of strength.
Lorna wasn’t trying to determine what anything was anymore. Not with the endless night and creatures running amok and causing havoc. She almost preferred the ones she was used to back home, but at least here she didn’t feel any guilt when she had to rip something apart. There was no looking at something from another pov. These things just wanted to kill.
She’d begun carrying small bits of metal around on her body again, rings, and bracelets, loops of it curled into her pants and her boots were always steel toe, giving her better movement. It helped to have something on her to call to, though thankfully iron ore was easy enough to pull out of the ground in the forest as well.
She rose in the air as she pulled at the surroundings, fashioning a crudely put together sword and hovered it over toward Lauren in case she wanted that as well. Then she sent flecks of metal toward the small spiders, determined to get rid of as many of those before focusing on the spider-queen.
Lauren shoved forward with her shields, knocking back as many of the creatures and the queen before they found their way around. She had no weapons training, but the basic movement of stabby end into the creature wasn’t rocket science, and combined with her shields could be effective.
She used her shields to slam a number of spiders flat into the ground, squashing them before stabbing another with the sword she grabbed above her. “I’m getting really sick of spiders.” she said through gritted teeth as she focused going back and forth between her powers and weapons. Taking these things down was different. Lauren may have been directly responsible for a lot of deaths, but this was not the same. These might as well have been the sentinel spiders for all it mattered.
They needed to take out the queen spider, whatever she was called, if she was just capable of summoning more. “If we don’t take out the giant one she might just be able to keep summoning these things.”
Right. Logically that did make sense because the damn thing did seem to be able to keep calling new ones forth, no matter how many they managed to take out. Lorna had little desire to be hanging out in the forest fighting spiders all day.
She glanced around the area, trying to see what they could use to defeat the queen spider, before looking back over at Lauren. Lorna had felt the telltale pull of a large piece of metal about half a mile away. It’d take her a little time and some concentration to draw it over to them, but she thought it might be big enough to do some damage to the queen spider. Especially if she jammed it into her.
“Do you think you can distract them with your shields?”
There was a lot of spiders, too many for her to be using her more deadly bladed attacks on them. Shields had to be her main focus. They were less deadly, but a lot bigger. “I think so.” She would make it work, because like Lorna, Lauren had no desire to deal with these things for an extended period of time. Without Andy, she didn’t have the ability to wipe them all out in one go.
She pulled another shield together, bigger this time, driving the spider's back again towards the queen. Maybe she focused on her, the smaller ones would rally to protect her? She wasn’t sure how that would work, but it was worth a shot. When one of the spiders found its way around the shield, she sliced it clean in half, before aiming another blade at the queen outside the shield. Whatever Lorna was planning, Lauren was determined to hold out until then.
Lorna focused on drawing out the metal, forehead creasing as she strained to yank it from the earth. Once it was out of the ground it was easier to pull it forward but maneuvering it through the forest without taking out too many trees or some random building Lorna couldn’t quite see took more concentration. She had to try and map out the entirety of the forest in front of them, her gaze shifting to see the electromagnetic spectrum instead of the trees and spiders.
She manipulated the metal as it got closer, getting the end coming toward them into a jagged edge before ramming it into the spider queen. The thing let out an awful high pitched squeal and Lorna repeated the movement, whirling the other end of it into the queen before the giant spider collapsed to the ground and didn’t look like it would be getting back up again.
Lauren watched the spider queen fall through her shields, but it took a moment for her brain to catch up with her eyes on what she was seeing. The giant spider was already on the ground, probably dead, before Lauren realized that it was a giant metal shard of…something, that had essentially impaled the creature twice.
Gross. But effective.
Which also meant the number of mini spiders was probably limited. Taking them down wouldn’t be for anything. Hopefully. It would suck if her death attracted even more of the things.
Dropping the big shield, she focused on creating ones she could slam down into groups of them, especially ones that got to close. Thank god she couldn’t really feel what squishing one of those things was like with her shields, because Lauren would have been sick by now, she was sure of it.
Lorna let Lauren do her thing, keeping her eye on the giant queen to make sure she didn’t get back up. Thankfully it didn’t move again and the little spiders seemed to be going down a lot easier, though the squelching noise made when they were squished was not one she ever wanted to hear again. If there were more of these things somewhere, someone else got to deal with them.
Yuck.
Lorna wrinkled her nose before glancing over at Lauren. “I think we’ve had our fill of anything spider related.”
“Vallo has to be doing this as a sick joke at this point.” she complained, slamming one of the spiders into a boulder, before cutting another one in half. One nearly managed to wrap its eight legs around her own leg before she was able to throw it off of her, a feeling of disgust running down her spine.
She was going to need like six showers after that.
Some of them started to scatter, scurrying off into the forest, where Lauren had no desire to chase after them. She was breathing hard at this point, and wanted nothing more than to get back inside and away from these things. “Do you see any more?”
Well, that was even more disgusting.
“No.” And Lorna wasn’t picking up on anymore via the electromagnetic sphere either. “I think it’s time we get the fuck out of this forest.” There were plenty of other people who could handle anything else that might pop up in the next hour or so. They’d done their due diligence.
Lauren scanned the area around them, arms up and ready to attack if needed, but after two passes she still didn’t see a thing.
“You don’t need to tell me twice.” Lauren agreed with a nod. “Before they or something equally as disgusting finds a reason to come back.” Lauren picked up her pace, wanting to reach the Waypoint as soon as possible to get the hell out of this place.