Masks 2

Hmm... Inside the crab? Was that a good idea? Well, Maria was doing it, so who knows if it was a good idea or not. It didn't seem immediately fatal, though, so Theraea was going to follow her in and scope the place out!

Ken hops on his drone and starts buzzing away from the crab, while shooting at it! He got that quintessential 90's aesthetic down!

Finn does what Finn was planning to do: RIP AND TEAR AT THIS CRABFLESH. Get RIGHT UP IN THERE AND START STABBIN'. Maybe throw a few lightning waves, too.

Candy picked up a conch shell from the ground, finding it to be filled with weird many-eyed bugs. Pouring it out, she promptly said her cool one-liner and blew into it, blasting the crab with a sonic burst that seemed to GREATLY irritate it! It took a swing at Candy in response with one of its razor-sharp claws, but Candy was carried out of the way by the timely intervention of Lady Light. She fired off a few blasts before setting Candy down and continuing the fight.

The blast hadn't done much hard damage, but the poor crab sure looked discombobulated.

Maria surfed up to the church and jumped through one of the windows, rolling to her feet inside to see the giant mass of incredibly disgusting, purple, veiny flesh inside. Finn was also there, having just arrived.

Theraea came in through the other side, finding the same seen with a wall of flesh between herself and the other two. Ken, meanwhile, stood outside firing on the crap while sky-surfing on his drone. It wasn't doing much, but it probably felt good.

Jim was still on the ground, still intensely fighting the crab-legs with his sword. He couldn't really take a hint. Nocturne and La Chat kept on battling the cult while the Demon threw up a grapple hook and began climbing up towards one of the church windows.

As everybody stood inside the ruined, fleshy cathedral, Finn drew her sword and began hacking and slashing at the flesh. She fired off lightning as she did this, which seemed to cause the crab ENORMOUS pain as it shuddered, cried, whimpered, and flailed around outside. Its claws smashed into numerous buildings before the crab itself began bashing its shell against them, trying to get the heroes out!

This knocked them all of their feet as they rattled around inside the church. The Demon was swinging on her rope outside, yelling as debris struck her.

Esen sees that hitting the crab inside of the weird cathedral shell seems to be hurting it.

"I can grab someone if you need it!" she says, holding herself up off the flesh with a tendril embedded in the ruined wall. "Take that you fucker!" She tries to stab a lot of holes into the flesh and make the crab bleed.

Sam had stared dumbfounded at the propane tank for a full five minutes. Finally, he looked at his brother ineffectually fighting the crab legs, then to the propane tank, then to the group going to the cathedral, then to his brother again, the propane tank, and then his brother one last time. Gears in his head seemed to turn, but maybe not click. Finally, he cupped a hand to his mouth to shout.

"JIM! DO SOMETHIN' COOL!"

Sam hurled the propane tank in Jim's direction, hoping he'd maybe.... Cut off the cap and send it rocketing at a leg joint, or something.

GROSS GROSS GROSS-

Maria heard the yelling and- WHOOPS- stumbled over to the window, holding into the wall to try and NOT get thrown out. A wave caught her board, and she positioned it under the Demon before hoisting her up!

Then she was gonna like, EUCH- slash up all this gooey stuff with Finn! Die you horrible thing! Die!

Is there electricity in this area? Ken uses his technopathy to short out a couple wires and tase the Crab.

Theraea tried to keep herself stabilized by bracing against a wall. She dug around in her possessions, retrieved some kind of cylinder-esque device covered in glowy etchings, and with a flick of her wrist, transformed it into a pair of piton-esque tools, which she promptly jabbed into something meaty to keep herself anchored. If she managed to not get tossed around after this, she took some time to look around for any particularly important parts of the crab's anatomy in here. See if there was something that could take it down quickly if it suddenly received impromptu surgery.

Okay. Okay, so shit's fucked out here, but that means we're doing SOMETHING.

But everyone else needs to know this works!!! She's gotta communicate!! TEAMWORK.

"HEY! GET IN HERE IF YE CAN!!! IT'S ALL SOFT AN' SMUSHY IN HERE!!!"

And with that, she dives in, alternating between FROST SPELLS and BIG STABS. Gotta figure out the elemental weakness of Eldritch creatures... She's GOTTA.... This works like pokemon, right?

Esen swung in through the window and unleashed her hookshot, wailing on the flesh. Theraea, looking at the fleshy mass, didn't see something that looked super important. It all kind of defied any and all anatomical sense. Nevertheless, she'd stabilized herself. Maria ran at the flesh, having saved the Demon with a surfboard, and began stabbing with her knives. Lady Light zoomed in through the window and began blasting and punching chunks of flesh away with her powerful sunbursts, as well.

And then Finn, unleashing both a frost spell and a giant stab at once, actually managed to do something rather unique. Her claymore turned to a frosty sort of glistening ice charged with icy energy, and sliced through the crab meat, leaving behind an icy cut. Continuing her strikes, she tore into the creature again and again.

Outside Sam threw a propane tank at Jim, who did backflip and kicked the tank right into the creature's mouth. He then threw a few of his explosive knives, detonating the tank inside the crab's mouth. Nocturne and La Chat had withdrawn from the combat onto a safe roof, having nearly been overrun by the cultists.The Demon, having been saved by Maria's surfboard, climbed off and limped to safety. It had been a rough start to her day.

Ken, surfing on his drone, managed to fire off a bunch of ordinance at the crab. He wasn't able to shock it from inside, as the cathedral currently lacked internet access.

The combined damage to the crab caused it to begin to stumble through buildings, crying out as it did so with its mournful chirps. Inside the cathedral, a final stab from Finn combined with blasts and slashes from Lady Light and Esen finished off the crab. It began to fall.

"CLEAR OUT!" Lady Light said, rushing to grab Maria and Finn to pull them to safety. She figured Esen and Theraea had their extractions covered, being the proud owners of super grapple hooks and wings.

"Eh," Sam dudetimed and dodged a cultist swinging a barnacled boat oar at him, drawing a pistol to the cultist's head, "I give that an 8/10, I guess."

He pulled the trigger then rushed forward to join up with the rest of the group, keeping an eye out for anything gun-adjacent on his way.

Huh. That went by pretty quick. Shame she couldn't do much to help, but Zil won't dwell on the uselessness of fire right now!

"Everyone okay?" She calls out instead, her voice still soft despite her massive form.

Okay, so burrowing in with pitons was perhaps not the best plan here, because apparently it was already taken care of! That's good, though! The being taken care of part, not the being in here part.

And then Theraea was outside, because that's how teleportation works. She descended to the ground and watched as the crab wiped out a chunk of the city.

"...Everyone make it out??"

"I'm fine, mostly," Ken confirmed.

His drone was fine also. But that is to be expected.

Esen zooms out of the cathedral-crab and lands on the ground outside.

"Let's hope there aren't any more of those."

Finn goes tumbling out and presumably gets caught by Lady Light!

"Aye, well enough! The big bastert's doin' the fall, though, so clear the hell out!! Even that big, I imagine yer gonna take some damage from the thing!"

Lady Light grabbed Maria in one hand and Finn in the other and flew out through one of the windows, zooming out from underneath the falling crab and landing near the others. Jim, similarly, did several backflips out from under the crab. He landed on his final one near the group. They were all safe, for now, and the giant crab was dead.

As they stood there, the cathedral crabshell began to collapse in on itself, slowly crumpling down as the crab withered. A few moments later, human blood began to form around the crab in a puddle.

"Ew," the Demon said, glancing at it as she walked up to the group.

Nearby, the group could see an unblocked undercity access point. It looked ominous, but Sam remembered that the Fish Cult presence had been strongest down there.

The deepest depths of the city was probably where they'd find Siren.

Sam splish-splashed through to the group.

"YA'LL WE NEED TO GET TO THE UNDERCITY, THAT'S WHERE THE FISHY FOLKS CAME FROM!"

He looked around at the sea of blood around them.

"... Damn. Hey, if any of ya'll stub yer toes on some fish-guns, let me know. Really want to see if I can shoot one of those things."

"Well, how advanced are fishpeople technology? I could probably pick it up. With my brain, not with my hands."

Ken starts snooping for Fish Cult Technology. Hopefully Fish-guns.

Hm. Time to do some scouting...

Theraea walked closer to the Undercity entrance and had her computer-thing scan for Dimensional Activity! Try to figure out what they might be dealing with before they charged blindly down into Fish Hell.

Esen looks at the undercity access.

"I don't want to go down there. Fuck."

Finn shoots Essen a warm, cocky smirk, a wink, and a thumbs up. "Nothin' tae fear! Whatever's down there, we got this. All this is standard issue magical bullshit - we'll be in and out in no time!"

Finn then turns and powerwalks after the Demon of Angel City, powerwhispering all the while. "Oi, 'scuse me, O Wise an' Great Wizert-Teacher - this sort of thing normal fer magic bullshit? Just. Massive cities underneath other cities? Crabfolk? 'Cause this doesn't sound like what I was imaginin', but I'm not really sure WHAT I was imaginin'."

Ken and Sam both found discarded fish guns on the ground. They glowed with faint runes, and were covered in barnacles, rust, and little bits of coral. They were just waiting to be picked up...

***

Meanwhile, Nocturne went to stand beside Esen.

"Yes, but we have to go down there. Take a moment to rest, but then we have to keep moving," Nocturne told them all. "Time might be of the essence."

***

Theraea used her scanner, but found that the activity was so intense and abnormal that it actually jammed her scanner. It was overwhelming!

***

The Demon looked to Finn.

"This is definitely not normal," he said to her. "This is about as abnormal as abnormal gets. But we'll get through it."

"Cool! Cool. I can't get a read on anything down there at all. This, um, scanner is designed specifically for this kind of thing, so there's something really strong down there." Theraea's antennae drooped in a worried kind of way. "Just be ready for anything, alright?"