[Event] - Medena

[zenpc]

Who: Medena and you
When: Sunday, April 24 (morning)
Where: Stephanie Cruiser High School
Before/After: n/a
Warnings: Big angry earth dragons being big and angry



For the past week, Stephanie Cruiser High School has seen a plague of plant life in place of its students. Vines broke into the building, crawled over the lockers and decorated the classroom walls with colorful blossoms. Some of the hallways have had their walkways replaced by soft, tall beds of grass. Nothing important has been permanently damaged, though some thick roots have broken into the ceiling of some classrooms to let in precious sunlight. Maybe the students would have appreciated that.

Sunday morning, the earth shakes, centered around the gymnasium, and anything left on books and shelves in the classrooms clatters to the ground. A mighty roar bellows from beneath the ground, splitting the earth and making needing a key to the gym a moot point. The ground bubbles like boiling water with rocks instead of air, pushing the tile around and shoving the doors haphazardly out of the way as a reptilian face made of fertile dirt breaks past the surface.

The roots and vines of the school begin to writhe with new life, lashing out at anyone nearby. Large blossoms shift and clamp down like maws, biting out in defense for whatever parasites dare crawl over Medena's new body.

Medena's bejeweled eyes have taken on a dangerous glow, no long a vibrant green, but a toxic violet. Her body pulsates with a signal, and all the wildlife and monsters in Underwood are going to feel it and share her displeasure.

Her plants are growing at an alarming rate now. Those exploring the gym will see roots snaking in and out of the earth in search of nourishment.

Clearly, she is not a morning dragon.

Comments

[ghostlyheiress]

Lynea only gave a charming smile and a wink to Marlene as both an answer and appreciation for the buff. For Anais, the assassin only gave a dismissive sigh, tossing the now empty box over her shoulder. "You make it sound so unwanted. It wasn't like this little group is so inconspicuous, especially Patches over there."

Like everyone else, Lynea also found the plants rather annoying, though with the fire and Haste, It made keeping the annoyance at bay menial than threatening. A quick slice here, a quick slice there. No wait, two slices for that one.

"Aside from the plants which a good Druid or gardener couldn't cure, what's the hubbub? And who's the new guy?" She asked, pointing with a nod of her head to the priest.

[bittersaint]

"Let's see," Nadir said, his tone light despite a more considering smacking of a plant, glancing again at Benedict's words. "Not your business, unless he feels like speaking up for himself. Aaaand not your business."

That seemed to sum it all up. "But you'll probably find out anyway along with the rest of us, so why ruin the suspense?"

He was considering Benedict's words now- the plants were hostile, yes, but defensively so. "Try not to hack too much at them," he told the group as they continued on.

The gym was coming up quickly. Pakerion, Marlene had said. Druid territory.

"...Kharveryos changed his surroundings when he appeared at the community hall," he remarked to no one in particular, uneasy. But if it was anything like that- but she wasn't supposed to be hostile-?

[marleneonthewall]

Marlene kicked at another vine as she followed behind Nadir. Why did they keep going for her ankles?!

"Well whatever it is, it seems right pissed off," she said.

The gym doors were covered in a layer of writhing vines. Marlene drew her sword and nudged Nadir aside so she could fling an ice spell at them, freezing them solid.

She looked at Anais. "You first, pally."

[vallinar]

The more Anais studied the plants as they moved, the more she realized Benedict was correct. They were more defensive than anything else, and, frowning, Anais returned her sword to it's sheath upon her back. She kept one hand on the hilt, however. Over the years, she had become quite adept at drawing it quickly. Somehow, she had the feeling that would come in handy here, especially if whatever was doing this was only trying to protect itself. Not that she blamed it, really. It was in a strange place, after all, and Anais recalled how confused (and a bit angry) she had been when she had first come here. She could only imagine what was going through this creature's mind in the time it had been holed up in the gymnasium.

She waited for Marlene to freeze the vines before she moved any closer to the gym doors, although she did turn to look at her, frowning. "I do have a name, you realize." Even so, she didn't feel like arguing the semantics.

Regardless, she pushed the doors open with one hand, the other still resting on the hilt of her sword. It wasn't until she stepped just inside the gymnasium that she stopped entirely, eyes widening as she saw the very thing she wished she hadn't seen in the center of the room. Sitting there was Medena, and she did not look at all happy.

[zenpc]

No. No she did not.

She was less happy than she had been upon first waking. There were no druids, the earth was unfamiliar, and her plants were being elbowed and slashed and frozen.

Medena did not like the cold.

She greeted their entrance with a deep roar that put her rock jaws on full display and called for the earth to tremble around her again. She snapped out her neck forward to strike at Anais like a cobra, but rooted to the ground as she was, the distance was a few feet shy of making contact.

Frustrated, Medena lowered her head back to the ground and settled like an agitated porcupine with sharp rocks forming quills around her body while her blossoms began to release a toxic aroma into the air. It would not be a quick process. They would notice the sweet smell first and have several minutes before anyone began to feel tired. Once the fatigue began to set it, it would escalate rapidly until its victims were in a comatose sleep.

[fatedecree]

Not good, not good, not good, not good—any aroma leaving a flower of any nature, regardless if Benedict knew what the aroma was or not, was certainly a toxin. This was just one of those common-sense thing you picked up when you started healing on the field. At this point, he was readying a series of antidotes, and suddenly felt that ping of exhaustion writ large. He stumbled on his way towards the door.

He needed to wait, but supplying the mana to preparing the spells was more important than waiting, because whatever it was—"Try not to inhale!"—he shouted, covering his mouth with the sleeve of his tunic. Then, with a glare towards Lynea, "says the Cleric, who is here to watch your smart behind."

[ghostlyheiress]

Wow, they were pretty seriously tense over little more than plants. Either they were disappointingly amateur or something definitely was up, and the eyepatch guy was right. She'd learn soon enough. wait-

"-Kharveryos? I missed out on that?" Lynea suddenly threw in, with an obvious edge of disappointment in her voice than a sane person should.

Then came the roar, loud and as intimidating as ever, followed by the sudden burst of aroma. It didn't take a genius to know what the scent actually was, and for an assassin, it chimed in on one of the few skills. After all, only the idiotic would use something they didn't have some knowledge or a little resistance in.

"It's just a little neurotoxin." She followed after Benedict's outburst, suddenly working out any kind of kinks in her joints to slow the numbness that would soon set in. "Just keep yourself moving and your mind focused and we can probably hold out long enough until you're all set with that cure, yeah?"

[bittersaint]

Shit.

Nadir knew Medena. Had known Medena. This was not a beast he was familiar with, angry and violent, yet inherently peaceful and accommodating. To see her in such a rage made her seem an entirely different creature.

And not a single goddamn druid to be found.

"Try to contain her!" Damn it, damn it, the last thing he wanted to do was attack an ally, even if she was in such a state, and none of them were suited to doing much of anything but attacking. "Maybe if we can tire her out she'll calm down!"

Unless they got tired out first. The smell hit him first, sickeningly sweet, and he jerked his head back initially as though that might help him avoid it. To no avail.

"What the hell do we do," he said more exclusively to Marlene, clearly out of his element, if only in the rare event there was something attacking him that he didn't want to hit back. Gathering himself he continued, "switch it up a little. Give Conrad as much of a boost as you can for that antidote he's working on."

[marleneonthewall]

As soon as the doors were open and she saw the angry Medena, she whipped her phone out to see what the app had to say about her.

Nothing. Couldn't find a match. With a frown, she typed a quick message to Mal Jack and sent him the picture, a note that he was missing one.

But she didn't have too much time to spare for that, shoving the phone back into her pocket as soon as the others got into a tizzy about Medena. She set a firm hand against Benedict's shoulder blade, channeling the power of ice to him, giving him the ability to focus better and cast faster. It was different from her passive buff, greatly reducing a spell's cast time in exchange for incurring part of the mana cost herself.

"Either somebody fight 'er or talk to 'er, I don't care which."

[vallinar]

Anais jumped back the minute Medena snapped at her, although she couldn't reach her anyway. Being a paladin, she had helped face down far scarier-looking things than Medena, but, regardless, a dragon snapping at you would never not be a particularly scary thing.

Still, Medena was not normally aggressive. Perhaps if they tried to talk to her...? Frowning, Anais tugged the sleeve of her shirt forward to use that as a temporary barrier against the toxin she released, and, after a moment, she dared to move a little closer to her.

"Medena, I know we are not your druids, but please do not do this. We were displaced just as you were. We do not wish to hurt you." Of course, that was contrary to them chopping at her vines earlier. Oh, she would be mad at them for that, Anais was almost certain. What she wouldn't give for a druid right now.

[zenpc]

Her roots her and her vines ached. Her blossoms had been assaulted. The ground here was different. The taste was atrocious. The air was worse. There was not enough sunlight. Everything was wrong, wrong, wrong. Medena knew what weapons felt like. They had been close. They were here now.

She did not hear Anais.

Medena opened her jaw and lashed out with her tongue: a thick vine that moved like a whip to wrap around Anais and yank her forward. The pulling would continue, dragging Anais toward Medena's open maw while the earth rumbled and churned around her.

[fatedecree]

"Let her go, please!" Benedict noticed a restored bit of energy as the antidotes began to slip away. That assassin—never appreciative, those types. Never. He took a deep breath, brought himself upright, and focused on chaining a cure for Medena afterwards.

Heal the monster.

Right. But...

"Please, please, drop her, please..."