Aoi Azul's Story

Havasikaji reached out and touched the statue, and immediately let loose an unearthly scream. The golem's power was trying to rip away her inhuman abilities - to make her normal again. Thing is, she relied upon her inhuman abilities. As a half-demon, to destroy her inhuman abilities would be to destroy her.
With a shout, she pulled her hand back from the Gollum. This time, it's hand did not lower as she had not completed the form. She knelt on the ground. Smoke rose from her body, and she looked different; half of her body suddenly became demonic, with brick-red skin, glowing yellow eyes, sharp fangs and a curved horn. The other half of her body - the right side - remained human.
"That hurt," she gasped, "like hell." She slowly rose. "I... I don't think I can make it through here, guys. The power... if I were to let it fully course through me, it would kill me. It returns us to our natural forms; well, this is my natural form. To destroy it would be to destroy me."

Finding the item she wanted, a small seed that seemed to have unique properties, she consumed the item to no real effect.

This is... This effect is persistent. Well, with some of my power still available, I'll need to plan carefully.

Her small allowed her to mostly avoid getting too involved with those around her, but as they all moved forward and began interacting with the golem like entity, she thought for a moment.

A riddle. Original. Well, while they grasp for ideas, I'll see if my own can work.

Moving forward, the small feline walked forward up to the right side of the golem (its right), and attempted to use acrobatic maneuvers to get around it, through whatever small openings existed. It was during this attempt that Temperance's inherent physical abilities would be tested as to their effectiveness in this area.



Regardless of the outcome, Temperance would dust herself off and once more reach into her bag to fetch another item, albeit with some annoyed noises if it was a failure.

As Aoi watched and watched as others interacted with it, as people interacted with it, and specifically the arm, while others flapped about trying to circumvent the challange, Aoi became more and more sure his answer that he thought was ridiculous was actually correct. And because of that...

"Haha! Ahahahahahahahahaha!"

He ended up laughing over the silliness of it. He was pretty sure he had all the pieces now, though it was only thanks to Casren and a few others he put it all together....at least, he thought. There was still a chance he was wrong, but since it seemed like most people were trying to bypass the challange rather then face it, he decided he could wait any longer.

Waving off those who tried to bypass it, he just said what came to his mind.

"No no, dont try to skip any of the challenges. Dungeons with power like these, if you try to bypass it you will only likely forfeit any reward you could hope to get. No, in order to actually win and succeed, you need to complete the challenge...although I must say, I was not expecting a literal challenge like this...but I think I know what it is now. Well, Casren and the others did help me figure it out".

He walked over to the center of the room, near Southpaw, and then lay on the ground on his stomach and he put his arm out to mimic Southpaw.

"Now, I was not certain at first, but now I am. Look familiar? This position, the same one that Southpaw is using, is an Arm Wrestling Position. Oh, right. As for the riddle, I dont think this thing will kill us. It seems to only take enough power to make us equals sure....but maybe I am overthinking it, but that might not be the real objective. It only took our power so none of us could cheat, but left anything vital for living. After all, my powers are also tied to my physical body. If it was completely negated, it would require my DNA being rewritten, and that would have probably killed me. Anyways, I think I understand the riddle now too...I think multiple of us need to do this arm wrestling thing, work together to achieve divine power? Could be a reward, or could be what people consider to be the most divine of all...teamwork, cooperation, friendship".

Aoi stood up, and proceeded to push on the stone statue.

"That's just my guess though. And there is always a possibility this will still end up triggering a trap that causes this whole room to flood and kill us, so you should only proceed if your confident with my deduction and reasoning".

That said, Aoi was fairly confident he was right, at least this time. But this was a serious out of the box type challenge, so he had no certainty or guarantee on how helpful he could be with the next one.

He also ignored the fact that in terms of pure physical strength, the short fourteen year old might not do much. His skillset was less powerhouse, more tactical. He knew how to deal with a variety of trouble, and could show some power...but his specialty was logic and tactics, and producing sonic waves.

Two of the five Aschen, specifically Duram, and Michael moved carefully among the group as Marlene issued her next set of orders. Several of them kept their flashlights on the golem, while Michael, and Duram stepped up to the Golem itself, then they produced high-yield satchel charges taken from the armory that Marlene procured the guns.

"Put the charges around the legs, and see if we can find a weak spot, maybe a stone door, or something else." Marlene said, thumbing her chin.

Several clicks, and beeps followed as the men set the charges, and the three women moved about the walls of the chamber, looking for any discernible writing.

They would ignore the others, unless interfered with.

Southpaw Sentry's arm was significantly lower to the ground than when it started, but not all the way. It would seem the party was on to something with the arm wrestling bit. It lowered with each member of the party- even so when a hellhound landed on the outstretched hand.



On the walls inscribed, over and over and over again, were the same words that had previously echoed through the chamber. Unfortunately for the small feline Temperance, there would be no way to slip beyond Southpaw Sentry.

As the charges were braced around the Gollum's legs by the Aschen his mouth deepened back into a frown. Not because he feared at all for himself: Southpaw Sentry would prove as impervious and indestructible as the door which came before him.

There was a low rumble. It was a familiar sound to most. The rumble stopped abruptly. After a moment's pause, a strange scent would be sensed by those with noses. It was methane based, absolutely horrible, and caused Casren to faint for a moment from where he perched.

When he regained consciousness, the vampire in bat form would look down and see Havasikaji crumbling under the effects of the Gollum. He flopped forward and glided down, landing on her and chirping comfort. They had to continue!

"Would my venom help?" Casren asked Havasikaji, hoping he could understand her as they both shared veins of darkness.

He sent chirps around the cavern again, realizing that something about the charges had changed- in that they had unhinged and fallen to the ground. In the Gollum's palm, his pocketknife had clattered to pieces.

It would appear the fart of the Gollum served to further deweaponize the party -and oh was it gross.

Irral watched the others enter the door, and saw that they lost their magical abilities. Having already dealt with that exact thing and having had to deal with its consequences, he decided against going through the door, and opted to return to his home in order to heal. With a flick of his wrist, a portal opened behind him, and he stepped through it, vanishing.

Irral was gone.

Picking herself up, Temperance walked backwards, staying away from the scent that began spreading. She put the solid blue Orb she had taken out back into the bag, seeing it have zero effect. Then, she waited.

Ugh, what rotten luck. I'll let these hotshots figure it out; my usual tricks are all disabled.

"Ugh... that stench..." Havasikaji muttered, still in her weird bloodied state. Casren, as a bat, walked over to her and asked if he could help her with some sort of venom. She wasn't exactly sure how he could speak to her, but at this point enough weird crap had happened today that she was completely unfazed. "Venom? What do you- wait, you aren't going to try to suck my blood, are you?" she narrowed her eyes, suspicious.
The... fart... had destroyed her oak staff, as well as her sense of smell ("Damn soldiers just HAD to try to blow him up, didn't they?" she muttered to herself in her native language). The others seemed affected as well, but not as much as the man in the hoodie. As soon as the fart hit him/her/it/them, they began to shudder violently. They let out a loud screeching noise, like metal upon metal, that would hurt the eardrums of all nearby. He would then collapse, no more than a pile of clothes and... other things.
A metallic voice, devoid of emotion, rang throughout the room. You have angered the Arkeyan Lord Gorahnal. Your price shall be in your blood.
There was a stunned silence, and after a minute, Havasikaji grunted, "Well, that can't be good."
She turned to Aoi as he solved the riddle. She nodded respectfully. "Good thinking, kid. However, I won't be of much help, being in this weakened state I am in right now."

“Darkness is as darkness does,” Casren chirped, himself only a little surprised she could understand him while in bat form. “I can lend you vitality, strength - the venom, like a reservoir. You cannot he turned, I take it?”

Bat Casren went to amble onto Havasikaji, when suddenly there was an outburst. He blinked and curled his ears - how loud! - but then, too, turned to Akio and the others who seemed to have figured it out.

The whole room could flood and kill them, granted the fart almost did, but collectively arm wrestling the Gollum with the glowing eyes seemed plausible, and ridiculous.

Worth a try.

Casren looked to Havasikaji, “Shall I?”

As Temperance retreated from the scent and spectacle, Southpaw Ssntry’s hand lowered even closer to the ground. At this point his eyes were pale green, still glowing, the color washing from them as the arm lowered.

It lowered again, ever so slightly, upon Irral’s departure. As the great draconian being left he might have heard a whisper; a thanks.

Few remained to make their decisions on how, or even if, to proceed. Southpaw Sentry stood still, a smile cracking the corner of his mouth.

Havasikaji was a bit suspicious of the bat that stood before her, but she was in great pain and needed something to relieve it from her. "Very well," she said in her thick accent. "Go ahead and work your magic."
She looked nervously over at the pile of what used to be the man in the hoodie. She could see strange machinery bits poking out. She wondered what that guy's deal was, and what would happen now - especially after what the strange voice had said.

Nimble for a seemingly old man, Dorant got tired of holding the creatures hand, and decided to instead hop up and sit on it. Shortly thereafter he reached into the satchel that swung at his side and pulled out a book, from which he began to read, his lips quietly muttering the words to himself as he smiled.

The book's title was in an ancient language that maybe one out of every ten thousand people would be able to read, but those who could read it would see it for what it was, a silly romance novel.

The old Dragon, stuck in his human form, seemed to have lost interest in the proceedings as they were no longer actually proceeding.

Selene growled out "You damn fools" as the Aschen bomb setting set off a gollum fart .

Selene wasn't sure if it was her anger flaring or something with touching the gollum that caused her to take on her demonic form her tattoos glowing as her hands shifted into claws and demonic wings grew out of her back.

The Hellhound on the the other hand seemed bored and lay down taking a nap on the gollum's hand.

Aoi waited and watched as...people ignored him entirely. With the exception of one or two, maybe three people, it seemed that no one had even bothered to listen to him. And his mind started to percieve some of them in his own way out of annoyance.

The Dragon, not being helpful at all as if he wanted his hand held the whole way, reading some book and not even trying to help.

The soldiers, completely messing around and not even bothering to actually attempt something, instead trying to break through what seemed to be the same material as the door, in otherwords impervious and so pointless to try.

The witch or demon or whatever she was, calling those Power Ranger fools which they certainly were, but also didn't seem to be trying or even acknowledged he said anything.

And there was also woman, who after trying to bypass it instead of at least trying to solve this directly, seemed to have given up and decided to make everyone else do everything since she couldn't just sneak past and bypass everything.

Meanwhile, Aoi had just explained his whole theory, the proof for it, and about how they could easily solve this puzzle, but instead of everyone with the exception of a few listening and cooperating, as the riddle indicated, they decided to do the exact opposite. Hence, he was pissed, and this was how Aoi saw everyone right now.

"Casren, since your in a bat form, you may want to brace yourself...this is going to get loud..."

Even though his powers were muted, they were not gone...and Aoi was pissed enough to face the Recoil he would face from using his powers while in a dampened state. But this had to be done, and so he took a deep breath and...

"WOULD EVERYONE, FOR A MOMENT, STOP SCREWING AROUND AND PAY ATTENTION?! Listen! If you are going to just screw around and mess everyone up, then you should just leave! This is a dungeon! We are supposed to listen to and cooperate with each other to complete challenges together, as a team! And yet, it seems that only a few of us are even going to bother to do any effort! Well how is this, no one is getting any damn treasure unless they actually participate! Here I am, I pretty much figured out the riddle on my own, but it seems like no one here actually wants to even bother trying!"

He was loud, but not just normal loud. This was "everyone's ears would be able to hear this even if they were covered and plugged" loud. Although it seemed like he had not totally lost it, it seemed he was not going to let this slide either. Although certainly, he saw the advantage in having more meat shields...err, allies to be useful, but if these allies would just slow them down and make them stop, then he should just cut the baggage right now.

"So listen! If you want any treasure from this at all, then as the riddle clearly said, you have to work with everyone else! Otherwise, you should just stop slowing down the rest of the party and leave the Dungeon to let those who actually want to make an effort be able to do something!"

With all that done, after using his powers while dampened....Aoi ended up throwing up on the ground a little, but otherwise seemed to not be getting hit too hard. Oddly enough, he actually looked a bit better.

"Ahhh, that felt good to get out. Ah, sorry about that Casren, but at this rate if I didn't do anything I might just end up killing everyone so....this seemed like the best solution".

Although parts of what he said were dangerous, Aoi seemed a lot happier again despite vomiting. Even though he was shouting and angry just a moment ago, it seemed that either Aoi got over anger easily....or had scary emotion control, and was still half a step away from cutting off the head of whoever bothered him next while just appearing peaceful and calm with a smile on his face...a scary smile, but still. It was as if alll the shouting was not even anger at all, only to get people's attention...and perhaps his real anger was the cooler, hidden, more icy kind.

After that, he took out one of his emergency chocolate bars and began to eat to help him get his strength back...or to have excess of it, should he need it.

Cryoface managed to find enough breath to bellow in something closer to his usual tone, the one he used to use when breaking up fights in Gambit's. "The woman is right. We must all push together if we are to progress...I cannot seem to move this alone in my weakened state. If you are not interested in working together with the rest of this group, I hear the sounds of battle coming from outside the temple. Perhaps your skills would be better put to use there. Except you Aschen, you can fuck right off to wherever you came from. Whenever you land on Terra, you bring nothing but trouble."

"I second this ice man's opinion, as well as that of the child here," Havasikaji said, waiting for Casren to perform his magic or whatever. "This Gollum seems to want us to work together, and tampering with such things would be foolish. So let's all work together, touch the hand and do some shitty magical friendship stuff, and somebody keep those soldiers away from here." She glowered at the Aschen troops. "I may not know much about the nations of other places, but I have heard of you 'Aschen' from the common folk," she said, spitting out the name of their empire out in a very accented way, so it sounded like "Ash-skawn". "You act like you can go and do whatever you want, like you own the entire Multiverse. Well, I think I speak for all of us when I say that you are not welcome here. Leave this place now, and don't come back."

Selene's eyes turned dark and she spoke in a Demonic voice "Watch your tone child...I case you haven't noticed me and my Hellhound have both been holding this damn statue's hand just like you... So don't you fucking try to lecture me!"

The Hellhound woke and let out a cold growl. "Silence Malik.." Selene commanded the Hellhound in her normal voice.

Malik the Hellhound went back to his nap.

Temperance's arms moved to cover her ears. How loud and inconsiderate. The formerly silent feline was going to speak, but then realized Telepathy was useless. They wouldn't understand her even if she said anything. Nonetheless, she did vocalize. Some people could understand Pokemon, even with the language barrier, so she could only bank on that. Turning to the obnoxiously loud Aoi, she tugged on his pants to grab his attention, and vocalized, quite upset.

Meowow Me-Meow MeMe-Owstic, Me-owStic!

(You're far too loud and rude, Little Boy Blue!)

Likely not anywhere near intimidating, but it was clear there was displeasure taken, regardless of if he understood her or not. She then walked up to the statue once more and stood to the side in front of it, turning to face the rest of the party. Then she stood in place waiting, this time crossing her arms, and looking ever so slightly more annoyed than her usual deadpan face let on.

Casren did his best to be gentle. He moved close to Havasikaji and opened his little bat mouth, clamping down with needle fangs and focusing his venom outward. A mortal would be turned into a vampire of the night by such a bite, however a half demon would find the venom to be a source of vitality.

After administering the venom, he curled into her neck and flipped his ears down to avoid the loud echoes of voice, from all present. Oh dear, he thought to himself as everyone proceeded to shout.

In the moment of silence that followed the exasperation’s Casren let out a series of chirps. He flew, a little clumsily as it had been a while, back up the the thumb of the hand. From here he gave a brief speech, Knowing at least some would get the message.

He implored the Aschen to join the party in touching the hand, or to at least stand back and stop showing aggression towards the Gollum. To the others he asked for peace, and to encourage the Aschen to join them. He mentioned the fart as a key point, and paused when he realized his prize possession, the cell phone, was a shattered mess. Casren the vat visibly faltered, but puffed his little chest out again to say one last thing.

“Power Divine. This must be worth it, for all of us, if such a promise has been made.”

The lone group of Aschen soldiers watched in slight frustration, and intrigue as the satchel charges seemed to fall apart under some perverse magical influence. They racked their weapons, but the guns seemed to jam.

Marlene quietly stood, and stared up at the golem, her mind pushing against the strange dampening so that she could mentally percieve all possible futures.

It seemed none of them bore fruit against the golem through conventional measures.

She scowled, and furrowed her brows.

"We're going to have to play nice." Marlene commented. "Let's negotiate this obstacle." She said aloud, gesturing for each aschen operative to place their hands in the golems.

Marlene committed each person's face to memory, she would work with them here, and order they be hunted like animals as enemies of the empire once the dungeon was negotiated.

Havasikaji grunted as Casren sunk his fangs into her. The energy coursed through her, and soon she returned to a human state, except for one odd feature; green and black vein-like structures repeatedly rose and fell on her body. She breathed deeply and smiled. "Much better now," she said, and her voice was a note deeper.
She watched as Casren and then the Aschen soldiers touched the palm. She eyed these latter suspiciously, but they seemed to be going along with it. Thus, she placed her own hand upon the palm of the Gollum.