RP:Xicotl Frostmaw Battle - Krice & Kreekitaka
Part of the Dissonance Theory Arc
This is a Warrior's Guild RP.
Summary: The last stand against Xicotl begins. Several members of the Warriors' Guild rush into Frostmaw to tackle the psuedo-diety head-on, with Krice and Kreekitaka attempting to approach ground zero from the north.
Frozen Hunting Grounds
As you come into the area a chill rolls over your body. The old hunting grounds used by the frost giants are now used by you. The grounds are used to hunt for food, skill, and to prove ones self within the frost giant community. Its is also said that exiled frost giants are forced to live within this wilderness, and are never to return, unless they wish to be killed. From this path you may head east, back into Frostmaw, or west further into the hunting grounds.
The scenery is disturbingly quiet; it is nothing like the tranquil stillness that would encompass the city after a hard day's work. There are no bird songs, no chirping of newly hatched wyverns, no playful yips of stray winter wolves waiting for the butcher to come out and feed them fat trimmings. From the skies, it is clear that the Frostmaw Wilds have been emptied of the wildlife normally seen in abundance, and the icy walled city is still. More notably, a crater spanning the entirety of the Aramoth academy through the city’s western gates has left the foliage and buildings collapsed. The surrounding areas have been ravaged by avalanches and fissures due to the severity of the quake heard from the Venturilian plains. Most notably of all is what is at the center of the crater: what appears to be a gargantuan tree, its branches raised high as though to absorb all the light of Kazafash above. The tree is so large that it casts an oppressive shadow across the ravaged city of Frostmaw. As Krice and Kreekitaka approach the edge of the crater from the north, the divots in the crater’s steep cliff-face become more clear. The heads of humans, elves, frost giants, and other sentient races all line the cliff-face, masses of hair and viscera staining the snow red. A branch cracks somewhere and the hundreds of heads all whip around towards the source. Immediately noticeable is the fact that their eyes have been removed, replaced instead by woody tendrils. These thralls turn in unison until they all face the uyeer and abnormal man. Bloody maws open, and deafening shriek rings out from all the stolen bodies, an alarm or warcry of some sort. Other thralls begin to claw their way out of the ground, human, frost giant, and animals that did not escape in time alike. Lurching forward, the hundreds make their way up the embankment towards the pair, seeking to gnash teeth and claws against any fleshy surface to transmit Xicotl’s will. The overwhelming miasmas of varying energies and magics blend together with the pungent stench of plant matter, decay, and detritus from the crumbled architecture. Above, bark peels away on the gigalith to reveal two sets of glowing eyes. Xicotl has awoken.
Krice came from the sky, dropping sideways head first off the back of his dark green wyvern into the thick of battle; with his black katana already in his right hand, and his slightly longer white katana in his left, he was ready to strike. Normally, falling from one hundred metres would be considered a death sentence, but this was no ordinary man. The wind of his momentum whipped at his body, offering intermittent opportunities to glance at the weaponry strapped beneath his shirt to his midriff (not that anyone was up there to witness it). Usually, his face was marked by a calm, almost lackadaisical expression. Today, in the face of this arboreal monstrosity and the destruction wrought by it, he wire so determined an expression that people less familiar with him could have considered his focused stare a little manic. This branchy bastard had killed the world once before; he absolutely would use every heightened sense and evolved skill at his disposal to ensure that the tragedy of the future was not repeated. Turning his left wrist inward, steady despite the gravitational forces acting upon it, Krice brought his white katana forward and announced his first attack with the crack of sound breaking ahead of the blade. A crescent of dense icy air shot forth from the powdered mithril and spread outward across the ground beneath him, shattering the smaller skulls of some plantified elves as they emerged from the dirt. A moment later, the enigmatic swordsman landed in a compressed crouch on the shoulders of an enemy Frost giant, in the shadow of Xicotl's mass, under its illuminated stare. The moment his feet squished shoulders, Krice drew his black katana across the throat of the enemy Giant and pivoted off its unsteady body to land groundward beside it, bringing its large head with him. He discarded it and, already covered in blood, rushed into the emerging figures with his black katana swinging to continue those death blows, marked by occasional thrusts of his white katana to dispatch more distant enemies with his air strike. Overhead, Gylworliath the wyvern screeched her unease and did not come closer, though she didn't retreat, either; with Talyara the witch healer atop her back, the winged beast soared high to keep the elf close to observe, but not so close as to be in danger.
Kreekitaka had been forced to dismount his own creature a fair ways back, which was unfortunate because it meant trudging through the snow on foot. It wasn't like he wasn't dressed for the cold, with a white cloak that kept him fairly well insulated, but it was still irritating to drive his pointed feet into the snow. Still, could be worse. He could have just had to plummet into the pile like he'd just witnessed Krice do. That could be a problem, since Kree had taken Mathollak's warning to heart and come loaded for dire tree bear, and the kind of firepower he was packing would be bad news if the swordsman got it on him. As the horde turned to look at him as he approached the crater, Kreekitaka pulled the first ripcord on his sash, dumping a supply of potions into his water tanks. Basic ones--enhanced strength, enhanced speed, enhanced durability... fire resistance? As the potions rapidly filtered through his water supply and into his bloodstream, something strange happened--his normally blue-green shell began to shift in color, turning first to full green, then yellow, then a brilliant, angry orange. And as soon as the colors stopped changing, he pulled a second ripcord at the same moment as he pulled a vial of some kind of glimmering rainbow powder from his pouch--and smashed it over his own head. The ripcord, this second one, flooded Kree's water tanks with a chemical that ignited instantly and burned for long periods of time on contact with water and oxygen. The vial he smashed over his head was filled with specially-treated pixie dust imbued with the size-changing magic of a pixie. With a roar, the uyeer began rapidly increasing in size--ten, fifteen, twenty feet tall at least!--and simultaneously lit his entire body on fire that burned white/purple. Drinking deeply from his water/conflagrant mix, he leaned forward and heaved, spraying a cone of the vile mixture all over Xicotl's legions as they approached. Caustic smoke flowed out of his gills and mouth, filling the entire area around himself with flames and death, and that was when the thunder began to roll as his jawblade left its holster, every impact of the now-gargantuan weapon charging up its power. They had told him to bring fire, but would there be anything left of the earth after The Dragon Crab had scorched it?
The heads of a near dozen undead thralls are incapacitated, but more step forward to take their place. The frost giant’s slit throat bleeds for a good few seconds, but once Krice has used the thralled giant as a springboard, leafy foliage sprouts from the neck and encases the head to protect from further damage. The only saving grace of Krice’s initial attack is that those who have had their skulls shattered lie limp on the bloody snow as the woody tendrils retreat to find more suitable hosts. As the pair focus on holding their own ground, Xicotl moves to expand his own. The frostmaw mines just a few miles away are collapsed, as are all the outposts and solitary buildings surrounding them. The deafening roar of snow and detritus being swallowed into the earth overshadow the screams of those who had taken refuge deep in the mines or within their homes to try to remain safe. At the center of the crater where Xicotl has risen, the bark peels away to reveal his fleshy core, which now grows to accommodate the new additions to its collection. A ripple of energy pulsates out from Xicotl’s core, and both Kreekitaka and Krice would not only feel the disorientating magic attempt to take hold, they would very clearly hear the call for the sheltered residents of Frostmaw who have not yet succumbed to come out on their own volition and aid in the cause, to further the growth of the inevitable. Not even a entity is above using mind games to further their own agenda, it seems. Abovehead, there is a screech as thralled wyverns take to the sky to spread the joy of Xicotl’s power. Other warriors pulled from the Aramoth Academy and the Warrior’s Guild stumble as a great wave of disorientation hits; it seems virtually no one can escape the waves of nausea. One by one, citizens of Frostmaw stumble out of their homes, taking slow shambling steps towards the crater. Still a few dozen meters away, they do not seem to pose a threat, at least, not yet. There is a deep rumbling as a hulking mass of rotten flesh rises from the detritus. A white dragon, with patches of flesh missing from where other wildlife had feasted on its corpse. Woody tendrils, unmistakably from that of the entity, wrap themselves around the exposed bone and viscera, and green fluid can be seen coursing through its veins as thralldom takes hold of it. When its eyes open, leafy tendrils are there in place of pupils, and its jaw drops limp to reveal more of the foliage within the dragon, puppeteering the dead beast as its own. The puppet of Xicotl takes a shambling step forward, easily crushing one of the few wooden structures left standing under its claws. The earth trembles as its claws wrap around a stone outpost and pull. The structure is torn out of the ground and launched directly at the equally gargantuan foe; if it were to shatter on impact against Kreekitaka’s shell or weapons, surely there would be a great deal of collateral damage to Krice or his eyes in the sky, or the several makeshift triage tents and evacuation routes set up on the fringes of safety.
Krice couldn't initially see anyone else through Xicotl's thralls because their numbers were so many, and the giants towered over his 6'2" frame. Once Kreekitaka had grown into a gargantuan bipedal bomb, the warrior saw him. Given the masses surrounding him, he had little time to scrutinize the uyeer but looked long enough to discern that he was indeed a familiar ally. While Kree scorched the thralls around him, Krice continued with his thrusting and slashing, though adapted to battlefield outcomes; those who remained standing with simple decapitation were upgraded in his on-the-fly battleplan to become proud owners of crushed skulls as well. For the most part, he used his white katana’s air strike to ensure obliteration of craniums, while slashing and stomping on the heads of those who stumbled too close to escape the black katana. Though focused on the threats immediate to him, Krice was not so distracted as to miss Xicotl’s call to the city, or the hordes of thralled wyverns that took to the skies. He spared a moment to look up, seeking the vision of his witch and wyvern. It took only another moment to spot Gylworliath and Talyara high above, the former gliding and weaving along air currents to remain aloft while simultaneously avoiding the enemy wyverns who attempted to strike her. On the ground, Krice returned his attention to the masses at Xicotl’s base and trusted that his wyvern would be able to keep herself and the witch atop her safe. If the warrior felt that wave of disorienting magic, he at least didn’t appear affected. With his black katana at the fore, he moved through the elves and giants en route to the emerging dragon, killing only those who literally were in his way - with a well-placed strike of steel followed by a stomping boot, if needed, to crush the skull. He didn’t arrive in time to stop the dragon from throwing a whole structure at the massive Kreekitaka, but a flurry of snow underfoot announced his placement beside the half-eaten beast a moment later. Possessing the heightened strength and speed of a human evolved beyond his ancestor’s limitations, Krice jumped from the ground to the semi-skeletal creature’s back, using his katanas alternately for purchase where needed. His intention was to find the dragon’s head and pierce it somewhere under the skull, around the nape, to cause it to screech just enough that Kreekitaka might notice an ally interfering with it in some way. Thereafter, Krice would strike the creature where possible, cutting away at the tendons and muscle visible between half-eaten flesh to prevent it from moving effectively. The ultimate goal was of course to fell the beast, but priority was given to incapacitating it - partly to ensure Kreekitaka’s uninhibited destruction of the masses below. He couldn't do anything about the villagers en route to Xicotl's side, but he -could- try to smooth the progress of the battle for his seafood ally.
Kreekitaka was in his element, all things considered. An army at his feet to mow down with wild swings of his jawblade, those who avoided getting pulped turned instead to kindling as the alchemist's fire cleared a path before him. What a time to be alive! That was when the sickening wave of energy hit, and the clawing began at his mind--and the rage inside him boiled to new heights. NOTHING touched his mind but his own thoughts, and he'd been affected by mind-manipulation enough to know exactly how to fight it. He seized at the claws within his mind as though he'd grabbed them with his own mighty crushers and began to wrench at them, trying to pull them into pieces with his iron will. The others around him might not have been so lucky, but unfortunately they were, for the moment, beneath his notice. His fight was with Xicotl and its minions, and if those who were not yet thralls wandered too close to his area of fire he might not be able to save them from his flames and smoke. The earth trembled, though for once it wasn't his own doing, and when the humongous dragon emerged he couldn't help but flare his paddles and inhale fire again in anticipation. What he didn't expect was the dragon to use an entire building like a catapult stone. By this time, Kree had fought and burned his way nearer to the swordsman, or so he thought. Unlike the others, who hadn't been part of this mission at the start, the uyeer had "reach Krice" as a mission objective from the beginning, and now the risk of collateral damage was becoming greater what with the potential for stone shrapnel. So instead, Kree lifted his jawblade, braced for impact, and--noticed that Krice was already -at- the dragon and doing his best to hold it at bay. Dang, that guy was fast. Fortunately, this meant he didn't have to try and deflect it--instead, he spun the jawblade around, used the toothed side to hook into the stones as soon as it came into range, and brought the building into the dirt beside him, crushing whatever unlucky thralls happened to be in his way. Now that the dragon was occupied, it was time to clear a path straight to the tree itself, and Kreekitaka let loose another tremendous gout of liquid fire and smoke, charging as he did so, his jawblade lashing out as he did so in a continued, constant buildup of energy. The way he figured, the closer he got to the tree itself, the less the people out at the edge of the crater would be affected by the whirling torrent of death that he left in his wake. One claw went for another vial at his waist. It wasn't time yet, but soon. "KRICE," he roared, as soon as his mouth was empty, his voice hoarse and thick with effort, "GeTAH! DAH!own! NOW!" Whatever the uyeer had planned, it was going to be a doozy, and he wanted to be sure his ally had sufficient cover before he did it.
The towering Xicotl seems to shudder and writhe in glee, seeing the bloodshed nourish its roots below. The glee is short-lived though, as fire sears through the wall of lowly minions. While effective at eliminating the fleisher creatures, those undead creatures and beasts claimed by the roots with scales power through the inferno, getting ever closer to the civilians. Still, while the creatures that longed to be rebels fought against mere distractions instead of the true source, Xicotl was free to continue as it wished. Another pulse of mind energies radiates outwards from the core, disorienting all in its path. As the flesh and foliage of the giant dragon thrall are torn apart with impossibly quick and precise slashes, a scream rings out that is far too familiar to Krice to not garner some sort of reaction. Should the enigmatic swordsman look up, he would see the thralled wyverns find purchase on Gylworliath and Talyara, sending them both on a direct collision course with the ground. Those at the triage tents rush forward in an attempt to intercept, but are cut off as the Frostmaw citizens pulled from their homes begin to encroach towards the injured witch and her mount. Strangely, all visages of auras and magic will be absent from the battlefield; neither that of the living or unliving, including Kreekitaka’s own, could be visible from such a vantage point. The slightest hesitation would be all that would be needed for the roots on the thralled white dragon to shoot out, to seek to impale Krice where he stands. Meanwhile, as Kreekitaka prepares his next attack, a voice whispers in his mind, “What impeccable musculature. Incredible form. Truly someone worthy of expanding the glory of the seas…” Though it is spoken in Kreekitaka’s native tongue, the words spoken in a voice not unlike his own still rings true in his mind’s eye. The battlefield distorts, as woody tendrils are transformed into beautiful fractals of coral intertwining between the buildings. Water rushes through the city in Kreekitaka’s third eye, transforming this frozen wasteland of lesser fleshy mortals into a winter wonderland for the expansion of the superior uyeer empire. From between the waterlogged buildings that would undoubtedly become great structures for larger, better buildings of the finest sandstone, two of the most beautiful uyeer women he has ever seen in his life emerge. Though at some points, the snowy ground below and the growling of thralls pass through them, the mirages still approach with a crown of golden pearls for Kreekitaka to take, and his own voice rings out in his mind again, “All it would take is one simple push of someone who would undoubtedly get in the way of your glory. One little push to confirm your allegiance, and you’d be granted the world at your claws.” That someone, Kree would somehow understand without being told, was the silver haired swordsman, who would be busy being given his own decision to make.
Krice was happily--read; focused and voracious, not gleeful--slashing away at the dragon using a combination of his black katana’s blade and the white katana’s air strikes. Given his sensitive hearing and Kreekitaka’s mammoth size, his ally’s warning was easy to hear over the noise of war. Well aware of an impending attack, Krice prepared to depart the decrepit avian by withdrawing his swords and shifting a foot forward. The protective tendrils that short forth from the beast mostly missed him, though one almost decapitated him clean; downgraded to a deep gash in front of his right ear by a timely dodge to the left. Grunting in discomfort, the warrior pushed against his scaly ride’s back and jumped rearward for the ground, feet-over-head in a gradual turn to land atop another enemy Frost Giant stumbling around below; no one could ever call the warrior wasteful in battle. One maneuver to another always resulted in something. After using both swords to separate the Giant’s head from its neck, Krice dropped to the ground into an immediate sprint, gaining distance from Kreekitaka - away from the crater - to follow the puppeteered thralls that approached the citizenry in the east. As he went, the warrior used his black katana to slice off more heads while his white one cut and ‘air struck’ the roots animating them, hoping to incapacitate them while simultaneously dealing some kind of blow - however small, given its size - to Xicotl. Overhead, Gylworliath and Talyara fared well for a time. The wyvern herself was a war-beast, granted to Krice during the raid on a Rynvalian island several years earlier, and Talyara had clearly cast some kind of protective barrier around them as it shimmered gold and spasmed upon impact from attacking wyverns. While Talyara used supplemental magic to protect them and fight back, Gylworliath used her long talons and sharp teeth to drop a few thralled wyverns to the ground below, screeching and gnashing at their attackers. Still, even a war-beast had her limits, and she began to lose altitude as she battled a particularly persistent trio of wyverns, working not only to kill them but to protect her rider--she’d do the same for Krice if he was the one in the saddle, despite his skill through decades of fighting. In a golden cushion of Talyara’s magic, the wyvern met the ground mostly on her scaly feet with one set of talons submerged through the throat of a thralled avian, who flailed for only a few seconds before absolute death took it. The landing was hard enough that Talyara felt a jolt, but not so that she was dislodged from the saddle. Grounded, Gylworliath screeched out a set of rhythmic noises seemingly to communicate, and in the distance, Krice glanced her way with a hint of panic in his eyes that she - and thus, Talyara - was so close to the main battle. Still, he continued onward, turning just a little to advance on the fallen witch and wyvern while maintaining his current mission - cutting roots and severing heads. A blue light engulfed Gylworliath, undoubtedly from Talyara, and she moved around the local battlefield to protect her female rider who ran for the triage tent. Though he had hoped to help Kreekitaka damage Xicotl, Krice opted to stay around the outskirts at least while the crabman used his engulfing magics and concoctions, occupied anyway by the thralls that sought to damage the triage setup. With the same speed, skill, and tactics he had utilized from the start, the enigma protected the healers and the patients they had managed to draw from the edges of the battlefield by dispatching those that advanced upon them, moving deeper into the fray only when his efficiency cut back the attacking numbers.
Kreekitaka couldn't stop for Talyara, nor could he spare a thought for Krice at the moment. Burning a path straight to the tree was now taking up all his spare concentration--and especially now that voices whispered ever stronger in his head the closer he got to it. Coral shapes and beautiful women filled his vision as the monster promised him the world. The lone figure of Krice remained present--wait, was he running away? Fleeing?! That little--oh wait no, Kree had warned him to get down, that was fine. "Io be -granTAH!eDAH!- HHHTHe worohDAH!, hmm?" he snarled, pushing forward again, aiming for that fleshy tear in the tree's bark. Uyeer women were shoved aside, the king had no time for dalliances. "If ao I DAH!oo is swear TAH!oo serve? TAH!oo pyedge myseff an' cowTAH!ow TAH!oo a TREEEEEE?!" His eyes burned, now with a deep hatred in addition to the literal flames surrounding his body. "I AM KREEKITAH!KA," he thundered, slamming the teeth of his jawblade against Xicotl's bark and pulling, making an attempt to wrench open the thing's wound even further, "an Io have HHHTHis worohDAH! aorighTAH!." He braced and took aim with his jawblade, flooding his gills again with the burning fluid in preparation to spit. "BuTAH! if iTAH! is yours TAH!oo give, HHHTHen iTAH! is mine TAH!oo rip from your grasp! I wage my own war! Now BURN!" And with that, several things happened all at once. Firstly, Kree spewed his alchemist's dragonfire directly into the wound in Xicotl's bark. Secondly, he pressed the blue gem on the hilt of his jawblade, unleashing all that built-up kinetic energy into a colossal blastwave. Lastly, he smashed the vial over his own head, spraying himself with more of that powdered pixie dust. The torrent of flames was swept up in the shockwave and compressed, causing secondary detonations that spread the fire even wider. The earth around him shook and curled, rolling like the sea as the pressure forced it up and out, raising a blinding cloud of dust and flaming debris that ripped apart any minions fool enough to stand in the path of the weapon. And the vial that Kree smashed over his head shrunk him back to normal near-instantaneously, leaving a vacuum bubble in his wake which slammed shut with a secondary noise like thunder and a blinding flash of light, as the sudden collapse smashed his water tanks entirely and detonated his entire remaining supply of fuel, the resulting explosion of which acted like a -second- shockwave, igniting the mist of dust and alchemist's fire that hung in the air and raining burning death over an even wider area while the inrush of air fueled the flames into a hurricane-force whirlwind of self-sustaining pyroclasm. Now, since the crab was still protected by what remained of his cocktail of defensive potions, and since he was basically at ground zero of the devastation he'd unleashed, there was no way he'd be able to maintain his footing. Instead, he was -hurled- through the air, away from Xicotl--interestingly enough, in Krice's direction. Maybe they'd get to fight back to back, if the fuel-air bomb Kree had managed to smuggle right up to Xicotl's smug face hadn't killed it.
The citizens of Frostmaw move past the battlefield, and the thralls still standing after Kreekitaka and Krice’s onslaughts strangely ignore their presence until it becomes clear why: starting from the base of Xicotl, the ground remaining where the crater is begins to collapse, allowing the entity’s root avatar to stand to its full height. Similarly, the crater’s edge begins to expand, and the frost giants, humans, elves, and dwarves all alike jump from the edge of the widening crater’s lip like lemmings into the sea, giving themselves willingly to Xicotl’s cause. Having believed the illusion granted, the swordsman was playing directly into Xicotl’s whims. As Krice advances towards what he believes are his beloved witch and mount at the supposed triage tent, the true beings make it to safety at the edge of the forest as Kreekitaka turns to face Xicotl. A blue blow engulfs the area, so calming, but then the illusion fades. Leafy foliage slips away to blood and viscera, and the retreating thralls shift forms, morphing back into panicked Frostmaw citizens, broken from their trance by the sprays of blood. “He’s one of them!” A citizen screams as a group scrambles to get away from Krice. No one else will have seen that just seconds before, there were enemies standing in front of him, not civilians. The citizens barely make it a few steps before thralls are upon them, snuffing out their lives with decisive stabs from Xicotl’s vines. Things were working exactly to Xicotl’s advantage. At least, that is what was hoped as the illusions of loved ones maimed and promises of glory were asserted to some of the most annoying pests littering the battlefield. Though the behemoth does not move, recoiling only slightly at the presence of a fiery vortex thrown from elsewhere on the battlefield. The charred flesh from Kailani’s attack from across the field recoils into the wooded hull of the entity as Kreekitaka approaches with violent intent. Some beings could just not be bought, it seemed. As Xicotl’s precious avatar of itself is torn asunder and filled with fires and explosions, wave after wave of new growth rushes to protect the core. It is not enough, and the entity sustains serious damage. For a moment, all is still as the blackened and charred remains of the tree and the exposed tendrils stand motionless in the blistering aftermath. The core relights itself, visible from within the charred bark of the tree, signalling that Xicotl was not dead quite yet. An inhuman screech rips through the air as a projectile tears through the center of the core, splattering gore and detritus on the moat of roots and living thralls below. It would appear that the holdout team has taken a gamble on this fight as well. Kreekitaka will have only moments, if not more than a few seconds, to get to safety at the outer edge of the crater as the behemoth twitches and writhes, new growth replacing old. Xicotl looked terribly worse for wear, but it was still determined to take the people of Frostmaw as its own. As vines and foliage wrap around the tree and core, the roots come alive, slashing and whipping around in blind search of the uyeer amongst them. This fight was far from over yet. The dim light of the fleshy core sinks from the middle of the tree-like body, until it disappears under the growth of vines and growth. It would seem the opportunity to attack Xicotl directly has passed.
Krice may have been bleeding from the gash alongside his right jaw but it did not hinder him at all. He dispatched thralls and cut away roots with relative ease and obvious efficacy, like he’d done it a thousand times before. As he moved outward from the center of the crater, however, things grew a little less clear; the line between enemy and foe a little more hazy. He had never been the cause for fear in civilians, nor had he ever seen them run in terror from him, so to witness it now threw him just long enough from his concentration that he felt a pang of bemusement mixed in with panic. There was enough space between him and the surrounding enemies that he had time to stick his black sword into the soil - just the tip - and release it. With renewed clarity of mind, he surveyed the battlefield, the terrified civilians, and the corpses at his feet. Naturally enhanced eyesight and a keen sense of smell told him that some of the blood on his weapons was indeed human, pure and untainted by Xicotl. He had somehow killed four innocent people and consequently terrified the rest. Despair worked its way into the shadows of his expression. Turning his head, the enigmatic swordsman looked toward the place where once Gylworliath had been, only to find that she no longer stood anywhere within sight on the ground. Was she a mere fabrication as well by the magics emanating from Xicotl? It would explain why Talyara didn’t scream, look his way, or react to her surroundings as intensely as he might have thought she would. All a lie. After the shock subsided only a few seconds later, Krice turned in preparation to approach the arboreal bastard at the center of it all but halted himself before he took a step; Kreekitaka was there, still large and still exploding things. Retrieving his black katana from the earth once more, he remained at the outskirts of the crater, a little further back from the thralls that gave themselves to the evil tree. On the edges of war with the triage tent somewhere several metres at his back, Krice moved to ensure that no thralls stepped more than a meter past him, cutting roots and decapitating heads--definitely evil heads, this time; he wouldn’t be fooled twice--effecting a ‘no thrall zone’ between himself and the healers working so hard to save fallen Frostmawian citizens. Overhead, Gylworliath screeched to communicate with Krice and he looked up. She was fine, Talyara in the saddle was unscathed, and that golden glow remained around them as strongly as it had been when first the witch engaged it. The wyvern moved toward the forest as her male rider allowed himself the relief of knowing that they were safe, clearly aware that Kreekitaka and the massive tree he was fighting were throwing dangerous, widespread magics all around. Gylworliath flew to keep herself and Talyara clear of the danger, but she never hovered, circling and weaving as needed to avoid what few enemy wyverns remained, and to keep as close as possible to Krice while maintaining some semblance of safety by distance.
Kreekitaka was now on a timer even more than he usually was. Without water tanks--and with the nearest triage tent at which he'd set a spare now collapsing into the crater--the uyeer was going to have a difficult time of it in a few minutes, especially with how he'd just been on fire a second ago. As Xicotl's avatar collapsed and struggled, hurling its viscera all over the place and beginning to extend its tendrils, Kree checked his jawblade quickly by tapping it against his arm. It seemed the secondary explosion had charged it up again, though of course not to the same level as it had been before. Krice was already getting himself out of the blast zone, but for the most part Kree was not at all as quick as his swordsman ally. In order to follow, he'd have to get creative. He whipped one more vial from his utility belt and smashed it against his head, dumping powder all over himself yet again--and shrinking himself down to the size of a pixie, right as he aimed the jawblade at the ground and fired. Now that he was utterly tiny, the shockwave wasn't going to deal any damage--but the recoil was going to launch him like a flea on ketamine up and out of the crater, and his smaller size made locating him with those blind flailings that much more difficult. This time, he actually had some measure of control as to his direction, and so he tried to aim for a decently thick patch of snow, where he'd melt some of it and be able to breathe. It was a shame he wouldn't be as much help with keeping the civilians safe, but as he flew he took notice of the battlefield and felt some measure of relief that Krice had convinced the nearest civilians to start running back towards the healing tents. The fact that some of those civilians were Krice's kills entirely escaped him, as he hadn't been watching at that precise moment. At least they'd managed to save some people. In contrast to his previous noise and thunder, the uyeer crashed into the snow with a tiny "paff" noise that went entirely unheard in the chaos. Staying small would give him better access to snow for better breathing, which was unfortunate because that meant he now he had a very long walk back. With any luck, now that Xicotl was gone, he'd encounter some kind of bird on his way back to the other tents, which would let him cover the distance a little quicker. In the meantime, though, it was time to start walking.
A deafening roar rips through the skies, one that will be heard nearly as violently as the initial quake that had sounded the beginning of the end. Though Xicotl was heavily damaged, his expansion for now was still complete. The crater now reaches through the furthest edges of the town’s mercantile center. At least, there are much less thralls at its disposal now, but at the same time, there are far less that can be saved.