Masks 2

Finn stops in her tracks, skidding to a hault. "Little lass...? No, don't-- I'm coming, Orla!"

There's a pause. All at once, something scary comes across the young wizard's face. She charges forward, blade readied in a charge.

"DON'T YEW DARE LAY A FINGER ON HER YE ON HER YE SCALY WRETCHES!!!!"

Esen reached out with her hookshot and grabbed the child, slicing the eel in half with her other shot. However, when she tried to pull the child in, there was a lot of resistance.

A weird amount of resistance.

***

Ken went off down a corridor to begin scavenging a drone, a mysterious air bubble forming around him as he went. As he did so, he noticed that the drone didn't feel like a drone at all...

Uh oh.

The drone shifted into a light-tipped tendril. And then, from the darkness of the ceiling, a giant set of toothy jaws descended on him. A giant anglerfish struck!

***

Jim nodded and went with Sam to back him up down a corridor! However, as they reached Lone Star and began to free him, Sam noticed that this wasn't Lone Star at all. It was some...spongy, glowing thing.

And Jim wasn't actually there with him.

And then the maws closed in!

***

Maria swished the water around the girl. It seemed to swish around her, being a real, physical thing...

***

Zil heard Candy's suggestion that they check it out...and nothing else from her. Just a suggestion to see what was down there in the corridor...

***

Theraea began fiddling with her reality anchor! It'd take a moment, but everybody around her was acting weird. Dumb.

Not right.

Based on her Weaver training? She was definitely being mind controlled somehow.

***

Finn rushed down the corridor and sliced the bonds holding onto her. As she went to help the girl up, though, she found that she disappeared. She was replaced by a white, spongy, glowing tendril.

And then she looked up in time to see the maws coming down.

Oh god it was real! Maria ran forward to tear the seaweed away from the girl then, and bring her back to the safety of the group of course!

Okay. Keep calm. Deep breaths. Focus on what's real. You can't trust your senses. Examine your thoughts. Where did they come from? Did you think them? Or did something else put them there? Keep it separated. Focus. Focus, dammit.

Theraea worked quickly on the device in her hands, trying to devote all her attention to it. She couldn't trust anything else right now. The moment she'd finished with her modifications, she would let it charge for a few seconds, then set off a pulse of Objective Reality. God, she hoped this would work.

As time slowed to a crawl, Sam realized what must've happened. Looking pretty pissed off, he pulled the pin on the grenade, dropped it into the fish's maw, and leapt out of the fish's jaw, all in perfect time.

Esen is confused. She thought her hookshot was pretty damn strong, strong enough to pull a kid. She almost takes a step in and then stops herself. This is just too damn suspicious.

"Hey, guys? Guys??" she shouts as she looks around for the group. Were they still there?

Ken tells Polybius to eat the bite. And then shoot bullets into her mouth.

What...? No!! ORLA!!!! SHE WAS AN ILLUSION!? I HOPE SO!!! UGH!!!!!!

FINN DODGES THE MAW. FUCK. FUCK!!!! SHE'S SO PISSED AND SO WORRIED RIGHT NOW.

Maria ran towards the girl, readying her knife to free her from the seaweed. And then, of course, she didn't feel or look right. She looked...spongy, and bright. But not the right kind of bright. And then she saw the tendril, and looked up just in time to see the maws closing in...

Regrettably, Maria's distress broke her concentration, causing the various air bubbles around to collapse!

***

Sam pulled the pin, threw the grenade in, and dodged out of the way as the water surged in.

Fortunately, the grenade was swallowed by the giant angler. It blew the fish apart (the fish's insides absorbing the blast), and Sam was free to swim back!

***

Polybius jumped into the anglerfish's mouth, getting several fresh dents as the fish bit in! This gave Ken an opening to shoot a few rounds into the angler before the water closed in, making his gun ineffective.

And now he was underwater with a pissed off, injured angler biting into Polybius!

***

Finn tried to dodge the Maw, but she was no Sam. It bit into her, the armor taking the worst of the blow as the angler tore her around!

Unfortunately, the air bubble then disappeared, causing the water to close in! Oh God!

***

Theraea set off a reality pulse from her anchor, dispelling all psionic effects in the area! Illusions were shattered, revealing the angler tendrils for what they were. Unfortunately, this didn't do much for the poor people already under attack.

Only Esen, Theraea, Zil, Nocturne, the Demon, and Candy were still around. La Chat, Sam, Jim, Coyote, Finn, and Ken were all gone!

Of course, then the water surged in.

NO BABY BIG TEETH AAAAAA-

Maria pushed against the creature with a swift current, and kicked back to try and escape! It took her a moment to notice again but uhh. Oh. Air. Right, NOT AGAIN BLUGH, she tried to get bubbles back and make a good one without creating a vaccum- shit, could she see anyone?? Nononono- she took whatever air space she could around herself, and threw her remaining grenade into this nasty maw! Then, she tried to escape, and hunt down her team-mates!

...

You know, she wasn't going to call out and possibly have anyone waste their breath in answer, but she remembered someone here was almost certainly FINE right now.

"MARCO!"

... She was not from this Earth.

"... THERAEA!"

FINN STABS AT THE ANGLER OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD--

Ken tells Polybius to crush the angler between its body and the ceiling. After she scrapes off the meat, Ken'll jump on Polybius and swim to the rest of the group.

Sam realizes how deep he is, both literally and figuratively, and tries to swim back to the group.

"MARIA??"

Theraea panicked a bit at the current situation! She'd race about, giving the old Hug of Life to anyone nearby to keep them, like, alive, while also calling out to the others and generally trying to locate them.

Finn couldn't get a good stab in, as the thing had her by the back. AAAAAAAAA!

Reflexively, she reached her hands back and shot a burst of electrical energy into it. This caused it to let her go (and gave her a good zap in the process), at which point she turned around and cleaved into its head with her claymore. Taking water in her lungs, she began desperately swimming back towards the group!

***

Polybius couldn't move in the water, but she COULD fire off her laser-based weaponry. Blasting into the angler, she managed to quickly destroy the damnable fish. At this point Ken grabbed onto her and began kicking back towards the group. Polybius could not swim...it was unfortunate...

***

Maria blew the angler apart with a grenade, then shouted out through the water. Her godvoice carried far, and Theraea answered!

Just as the main group was beginning to suffocate, Maria reunited with them and recreated the vacuum. The Demon coughed out a spell that filled the vacuum with air, allowing Maria to grab Sam, Finn, Jim, and Ken who were all nearby and swimming back. La Chat was a little further out, and seemed to be bleeding a lot as she stumbled through the air pocket Maria had made. The others, though they were more lightly injured, still had a lot of water in their lungs.

Nocturne rushed to La Chat and began giving her medical attention. At the same time, the Demon made a health potion and handed it to Finn.

The air pocket existed once again! And they were safe for now, though many of them had drowning and biting related injuries.

Esen retches as she coughs up water.

"Oh god, we're gonna have to finish this fast. I don't think we'll survive much more like that."

Ken spits out a mouthful of seawater.

"I feel like there must be an easier way to defeat Siren instead of head on."

"So I'm gonna need a new grenade or gun"

Sam tightened the knot on his bandana.

"Again."

Trap predicted! It still sucks these guys could play with emotions like that, though.

Rubbing at her eyes, Zil glances around!
"Everyone alright? Shit-- who else needs medical attention? I can help, if there's anything too much to bandage." Nothing major, exhausting herself this early didn't seem smart, but the more people they had available to fight and help, the better.

Theraea took a moment to catch her breath! That was all pretty bad. At least everyone was alive!

She looked at Ken. "I- I don't think there's another way? If we can't seal the dimensional breach down there, there's not much of a way to stop all of this. We just... have to keep going, once you're all ready."

Everyone suddenly DIDN'T have water in their lungs and that was probably weird. No drowning on the Lifeguard's watch. At least when she wasn't being horribly attacked or whatever. Maria armed herself with her shotgun and normal assortment of knives, and handed the rest of her weapon bag to Sam. "Knock yourself out."

"If you want to try and figure out a workaround, I'm all ears. I just don't know how that works out when everything surrounding us is already under her control." She sighed, and would help out on the medical attention train. If La Chat needed to stay in the middle with her for a bit, she could hold onto her for the time being.

Finn flops into the bubble, coughing violently.

"Orla-- that-- that wasn't really her, was it?! She's alright, right?!"

"It was an illusion," the Demon said to Finn, helping her up. "We need to keep moving..."

The group continued on from there, with La Chat limping along with Maria as the medigel did its work. Eventually, as the pressure in their brains mounted, they came upon a hatch beyond a large cistern. The hatch was covered in the same eldritch runes as the church, and only Maria was able to touch it. For everybody else, their bandanna burned.

Opening it, they went down into...

[Nobody post til Kadis has posted. She goes next. :D]

…into the vaulted temples of the ancient lizardfolk, where the Song of the Deep was heard millions of years ago. The pale stone is buried in a thick layer of black slime. As the heroes pass, tendrils of black veins reach towards them, drifting in the pitch-dark water.
 
Siren floats before the high temple, a ruined facsimile of the palace above. Her eyes are closed, focusing on the deafening psionic song that fills the mental air. Beside her is a dolphin kinda… thing with way too many mouths and a bladed fin-tail. The stone tiles of the square are completely gone. In its place is a black chasm, lined with sharp teeth and surrounded with a roaring whirlpool. This is where the veins lead, and as Siren sings, huge inky black tentacles reach towards her, following its song. The surface of the tentacle’s skin is unpleasantly oily, and pops with black suckers shaped like hands.

There is something very dark in there, and very, very big.

Siren looks up at them as they approach with a villainous scowl. Gooey black drips from her eyes.  “God. I love my fish, don’t get me wrong, but… Reelly? Can’t even krill some dumb carp minions?” Her eyes shine with excitement and a big shark grin spreads across her face. “Doesn’t matter. You’re too late, fishies. Tide’s coming in.”

In a flash, she draws her spear and leaps on top of the dolphin monster. “C’mon, Stormy. Time to save the world!”

Then she CHARGES MARIA AS HARD AS SHE GLUBBIN CAN.

Sam sure hoped there were more high explosives in Maria's Goody Bag.