(Skyseas of Gensokyo) Nazrin Quest (Part 4)

[DracoOmega]

>Not anxious to go down again. North tunnel.

>You turn and make a break for the north tunnel. Whatever this haze is, it seems little disturbed by the air stirred up from your passing. In fact, you swear you can almost feel it clinging to you as you sprint away. Still, each breath you take as you run feels comparatively fresher than the last; stale and old is at least better than whatever that was. Even so, your lungs feel somehow... unpleasant, even for that short exposure. They don't precisely ache, but there is some lingering sense of something... off. Your breath feels thick and slightly raspy. Perhaps it's just lingering distaste for the aroma? That is certainly not in short supply.
>You think you've given yourself a generous lead on the haze and the air here seems free of it, at least as best you can tell over the lingering sense of it in your lungs. The tunnel itself has so far been nondescript and largely straight, though it appears to curve eastward a short distance ahead of you.

[Oldmansour]

>Better not pause in case that crap's still following. Continue.

[DracoOmega]

>Better not pause in case that crap's still following. Continue.

>You continue forward, not at all eager to let the haze catch up with you. The tunnel carries on in a similar fashion for a little while, then you round another corner and your heart sinks. A couple dozen feet ahead there is a dramatic sheer in the rock, similar to the one you noticed along the southeast tunnel of the previous chamber. In fact, judging by their relative positions, it may even be the result of the same geological event. The key difference here is that it cleaves perpendicular to this tunnel, rather than down its middle. The result is a virtual dead end; you can see a thin gap along the floor where both sections of the tunnel still overlap, the floor ahead of you being nearly flush with the ceiling beyond that. You could probably reach an arm through the gap, but your head is certainly out of the question.

[Oldmansour]

>Dead end. Really should have seen that coming.
>Back the way we came

[DracoOmega]

>Dead end. Really should have seen that coming.
>Back the way we came

>This was a very poorly positioned geological event.
>You turn and head back the way you came. Around the halfway point of the tunnel, you start to detect that foul smell again, and not far beyond it you can see thin traces of black haze in the air.
>You think you can hear... scraping noises from somewhere ahead of you, like rocks being moved.

[Oldmansour]

Well, I got nothing. As I see it, we either go forward and meet a painful end, or go back to the dead end, and wait for a painful end.

EDIT: Fuck it. I have an idea, gonna run with it. If we're gonna lose, I'm gonna be a little creative first.

>Could we see through that cloud at all, or was it opaque?
>Back up a few steps, and take two slow, deep breaths. Then hold our breath.
>Produce the umbrella.

[DracoOmega]

>Could we see through that cloud at all, or was it opaque?
>Back up a few steps, and take two slow, deep breaths. Then hold our breath.
>Produce the umbrella.

>While the haze did obscure visibility somewhat, it was no more than mild smoke might. At close range, there was little impairment, though your maximum sight range might be somewhat impeded where the haze is denser.
>You back up a few steps, then take a pair of deep breaths and hold them.
>You reach into your pack and withdraw the tie-dyed umbrella.

[Oldmansour]

>Hold the umbrella in front of our face, like a windscreen from the gas.
>Charge through the cloud as fast as our legs can carry us, and hope to merciful Shinki heaven that gas isn't corrosive.
>As soon as we can determine when we're out the other side, drop the umbrella down from our face. Guaran-damn-teed she's waiting for us out there, and she won't catch us unawares.

[DracoOmega]

>Hold the umbrella in front of our face, like a windscreen from the gas.
>Charge through the cloud as fast as our legs can carry us, and hope to merciful Shinki heaven that gas isn't corrosive.
>As soon as we can determine when we're out the other side, drop the umbrella down from our face. Guaran-damn-teed she's waiting for us out there, and she won't catch us unawares.

>You raise the umbrella in front of your face in the hope that it will at least repel some of the haze before you. Then you take off down the tunnel as fast as you still have strength to run. For all your injuries, your legs have managed to make it through alright and if there were ever a time to push the reserves of your stamina... Soon the haze is all around you. You aren't certain whether the umbrella is warding off some of it, but it's certainly not clearing an open path ahead of you; the haze seems to hang heavily in the air, almost as if it were resisting the push of wind against it. On the bright side, if this stuff is corrosive, you can feel no sign of it. On the other hand, you will certainly be at the limits of your breathing if it extends much past the chamber ahead.
>In the periphery of vision around the umbrella, you see the tunnel give way to the chamber where you first encountered this dark mist. As you cross into it, you feel your foot catch against something thin, but taut. At this speed, there's no chance to catch yourself. You go flying face-first towards the ground.
>You hear a pair of sharp snapping sounds from above you.

[Oldmansour]

>Impact or no, don't inhale, whatever happens.
>Second things second. Swear inwardly. This bitch is going down.
>Drop the umbrella, then roll to the side.

[DracoOmega]

>Impact or no, don't inhale, whatever happens.
>Second things second. Swear inwardly. This bitch is going down.
>Drop the umbrella, then roll to the side.

>You manage to keep from losing your breath from the impact, but you're running short of it regardless.
>You swear inwardly. You think you've put up with quite enough from her at this point.
>You let go of the umbrella and quickly roll aside. You hear the sound of a couple rocks clatter against the ground where you had been fallen a moment ago, though oddly few for a trap. Then you hear something spring from the wall above you.

[Oldmansour]

>'Where' above us? In front of, behind, to the side, which direction?

[DracoOmega]

>'Where' above us? In front of, behind, to the side, which direction?

>From behind, and perhaps slightly to the left. If you had to guess, you'd say it was from roughly above the tunnel you just exited.

[Oldmansour]

>Can we determine if she's coming right at us?

[DracoOmega]

>Can we determine if she's coming right at us?

>It sounds pretty close to that, at any rate.

[Oldmansour]

>Roll over onto our back, and, if she is indeed coming at us, give her a slash. Right across the gizzard. And assuming that distracts her, get up and run whichever direction takes us out of this gas.

[DracoOmega]

>Roll over onto our back, and, if she is indeed coming at us, give her a slash. Right across the gizzard. And assuming that distracts her, get up and run whichever direction takes us out of this gas.

>You roll over onto your back as the youkai fills your field of vision, nearly on top of you already. She... seems to have more limbs than the last time you saw her. From the back of her midsection sprout two pairs of arachnid legs, banded yellow and brown and each tipped with a sharp-looking claw.
>You transition your roll into a slash, but she flicks a wrist out before you've even barely started the motion. A tether clings to your arm and she fiercely yanks the blow aside, evading it narrowly. Then she lands heavily upon you and it's all you can do to keep the breath from rushing out of you. A claw dives towards your right forearm.

[Oldmansour]

So yeah. This kinda sucks. Bad.
I'm going to be mulling over this one for a while, so, if anyone else has any ideas, anything at all, feel free to give them a try. It'd be one more idea than I've got.

[Hello Purvis]

I did try to warn you.

We have...about one real hope. And it's not much of a hope at all. But, chances are, she's probably never been in a real scrap in her life. I suspect, strongly, she has never been punched in the eye, or hand to deal with any kind of proper pin.

The problem is, we can't fully leverage this as she is way way stronger than we are; so it would only be a short-lived advantage. If we could wrench an arm or something, to the point that strength no longer matters, we might have some temporary ground. But we really can't depend on grappling like we could with a more normal foe, she's pretty much the same as that oni we fought but with a lot more tools.

Also, we might do by trying to jab the sticky ends of one of her tethers into her eye or something.

[Kilgamayan]

I think how exactly she landed upon Nazrin may help, because if she's busy focusing claws on Nazrin's upper limbs she might be susceptible to a few kicks at her lower body.

Also this is probably a very good thing for story, even if it makes the combat that much harder. Mercy means a lot more coming from the winner than the loser, and that gets ratcheted up even more if the loser went all-out like it seems she's doing.

EDIT: On the other hand, if she just belly-flopped on top of Nazrin and is now pinning her, Nazrin might be able to temporarily stun her with a kiss. >_>

[Oldmansour]

EDIT: On the other hand, if she just belly-flopped on top of Nazrin and is now pinning her, Nazrin might be able to temporarily stun her with a kiss. >_>

You, sir, are a genius.

Alright, assuming that doesn't work, and I'm sorely tempted to try it, then that leaves us where we are: Completely at the mercy of someone that wants to kill us and has outclassed almost entirely. And we can't breathe. Be nice if we could show her mercy if we win, but the winning part's the sticky wicket.

I like the idea of sticking one of her own tethers to her eyes, assuming we can put our hands on that particular resource. The only idea I had about how to get her off, so we could run away long enough to get clear of the gas (if we can get clear of the gas, which I'd hardly bet on) is, and you're gonna think this is cruel, but... Jab our torch in her face. If it's physically possible to do it. No matter how much she wants to kill us, she'd have to give us a little breathing room if we give her a face full of fire. Wouldn't she?

[Kilgamayan]

Well, whatever we do, I think we can all agree that Nazrin needs to get the right forearm the heck outta Dodge. How should this be done?

[Oldmansour]

That's something I've been thinking about quite a bit. Cutting the tether attached to it is no problem with the sword, but at the angle we're at now, I don't think we have the leverage to do it. If we can get her off of us, then freeing our arm from her should be a simple matter.
As for how to stop her from tearing our arm to pieces first.... I don't know. I doubt we can jerk it out of the way with it tethered; she can just jerk it back to where she wants it to be. I thought about trying to reach over with our other arm to grab it, deflect it, slash it with our knife, something. But she'd just knock it aside with one of her five other limbs.
The only hope I can see is that we get our torch into her face before her claw hits us, and that'll distract her enough to either halt the claw's progress, or knock it off course enough so that it won't do too much damage. Then, hopefully, we can get out from under her, cut the tether, maybe cut her to disuade pursuit for a couple seconds, give us time enough to try and get out of this cloud so we can breathe without killing ourselves.

[Kilgamayan]

If the torch is in Nazrin's free hand, then go for it.

Honestly, I even prefer the torch to the eyestab, in terms of fixing things up after the battle. (Not that I'd object to an eyestab if it was the only option, or if everyone else thought it the best idea.)

[Oldmansour]

It's not. It's in our tail. That's why I can't be sure of the physics involved, I don't know if it's physicaly possible to pull it off. And if it isn't, then I've gone from one potential idea to no ideas at all.

[Kilgamayan]

Well, what's in Nazrin's left hand?

[Oldmansour]

At the moment, nothing. My first instinct would be to grab a rock and try to hit her in the head with it, either by lobbing it or bashing her, depending on our available leverage. We could draw one of our other two bladed weapons, but we have to assume she'd just knock them out of our hands. Be the sensible thing for her to do. Plus grabbing a rock would probably be faster, assuming there's even one the right size within reach.
And yes, it might be possible for us to transfer the torch to our hand and jab it in her face from front on, but there's two issues with that. Chances are, we wouldn't be able to do that before her claw hits our right arm and causes potentially massive damage, and using our tail means that we'd be attacking from her peripheral vision rather than her looking at the torch. If she could see it coming directly at her, it would probably meet the same result as our kunai or knife: batted out of hands.

[Kilgamayan]

Well, if you're looking to disrupt what she's doing, and you're worried about not being able to grab anything in time or being able to prevent it from getting parried, I think your best course of action is to swing the knees up into her groin/stomach/whatever they happen to connect with.

[Hello Purvis]

So, are we largely agreed on some kind of fighting dirty? Because I get the feeling she's probably never had the wind kicked out of her. Also: I would recommend doing this next bit step by step, rather than a few actions at once as is typically.

[Kilgamayan]

Yeah, I'm down.

Knee to the gut/groin still seems like the safest bet to me, even after dwelling on it.