a goose

IC: (Ga-Koro Markets) Pain. Pain the likes of which he hadn't experienced since he was merely a man. The Lesterin hissed, and glanced over his shoulder – the Toa had found allies. It appeared he had escaped in the nick of time. The diskette made him stumble, nearly throwing him off balance, but his momentum kept him moving forwards. He'd have time to rest, to heal, once he was safe. Heh. To heal. How ironic. OOC: ??? to Le-Wahi. A big thank you to @Vezok's Friend for this collaboration, and to @Krayzikk for reverse-kneecaping my guy.

IC: (Ga-Koro Markets, Alley) And the rush of water was exactly what he had been waiting for. "Sorry to cut and run, my dear," the Lesterin announced with a smirk, the glow of his mask now revealing him as having climbed up to the ceiling of the hut. He dove through the wall, which crumbled far too easily… Had Leah come through the door frame, she might have noticed the rot at its edges. Had she waited before releasing the surging water, she might also have noticed that the walls were similarly weakened. The Jutlin alone couldn't bring a building down in the time it took the Ga-Toa to catch up with him, but the surge of water through the floor and around the room was more than enough to finish the job. As the walls of the hut lurched inwards, the Lesterin was already running, with every intention of putting Ga-Koro as far behind him as possible. OOC: @Vezok's Friend

IC: (Ga-Koro Markets, Alley) Caught in the geyser, the Lesterin flopped in the air like so much rotten meat, and came back to the ground with a splash. It was quickly becoming apparent that he'd bitten off a tad more than he could chew; with the Toa Maru now furious, and far less concerned about collateral damage, he was sorely outmatched. Time, he thought, to make his retreat. He realised that he had landed next to a hut, thrown some ways away from the Maru. That gave him a little time, but he still had to buy himself more. He didn't even clamber fully to his feet before breaking through the doorway with unusual ease, crashing through quite nearly on all fours. They'd been fighting too long on the Toa Maru's terms – it was time to reclaim the advantage. OOC: @Vezok's Friend

IC: (Ga-Koro Markets, Alley) The Lesterin hissed in pain, but refused to drop his grin, his yellow eyes gleaming with equal parts fury and bloodlust. "You know, that doesn't look great. You might want to get it checked out-" His taunting was interrupted by Leah's next volley of strikes, and he was forced to duck back in order to evade them. He quickly realised his error. He felt his balance shift beneath him, threatening to tip him over into the hole. There was no way to regain it – not with the water around his feet, and certainly not with his centre of balance already so distorted by his proportions. His only option was to try and catch himself. The crooked man cackled as he reached out to grab hold of Leah's arm, intent on either halting his fall or taking her down with him. OOC: @Vezok's Friend

IC: (Ga-Koro Markets, Alley) The crooked man's laughter was harsh, grating, like steel scraping against rock. "What, you expected that to work? I must admit, I hardly expected you to be quite this entertaining." The miasma was weakened, the severity of its effects reduced – its range, too. But rather than wash it clear, the water merely dampened it. "You can't cure what you do not understand. Take your little speech, for instance-" He moved very slightly forward, but still kept his distance. The purifying water appeared to have had some impact on his appearance, too, revealing features beneath the grime and the rot. This close, and with that benefit, Leah could truly see the Lesterin's face – or, rather, she could recognise that she couldn't see it. His sunken eyes were not quite so sunken as they seemed, but instead peered out from behind a Kanohi, twisted and scabbed over until it appeared to have become a part of him, and rendered unrecognisable in the process. "Your insistently shallow focus is not a moral failing, but a tactical one. You treat symptoms, and never fight the cause." He grinned, lifting his awful hand as if to proudly display it, shifting his grotesque fingers. "Over and over again, you make the same mistake. You try to 'cure' me, and still your approach is only skin-deep…" He seemed to move in the blink of an eye, his swipe scarily fast – and now, thanks to his step forward and his obscenely long limbs and digits, he was within reach of Leah, clawing at her eyes with boney talons. "This is the product of a diseased mind." OOC: @Vezok's Friend sorry for the wait, had to do some thinking and then consult with Krayzikk

IC: (Ga-Koro Markets, Alley) "Tut tut, Toa – weren't you listening?" The Lesterin stepped nonchalantly over the newly-formed gap, carried safely across by his grotesquely long legs. "If you wash me out to sea, I only become someone else's problem. Or, worse still, the high tide drags me right back to your very own doorstep." He was looking around, now, milky eyes scouring the water's surface for any sign of his foe. "And I believe the both of us are quite aware I'm not just talking about myself. Your days of 'out of sight, out of mind' are over, my dear; all your Husi have finally come home to roost." OOC: @Vezok's Friend

IC: Caana (Hanaloi, Forest) The screech of the 'Rahkshi' was a mistake – it gave Caana just enough time to react, side-stepping it with ease and twisting to keep both Hambra and her new opponent in sight, in the process almost unintentionally dodging the attacks of the two Dashi. Her escape, however, had sacrificed her visual on Hambra; she couldn't be sure which of the illusions was the real deal. "No, Jahagir, I am not." Still, there was an easy solve… but Hambra wasn't her main concern, nor were the little ones, hesitant though she was to underestimate them. This newcomer with the Kualsi, her mask made her unpredictable; left unattended to, she would quickly waste Caana's energy and attention. "In fact, I hold just as much disdain for them as you." Her next actions took a split-second, too fast to allow preparation or caution in her opponents, only hard-coded reflex. Semraed's instincts and reflexes were good, Caana had witnessed as much already, but if this worked then even she couldn't react in time. Switching to her right hand alone at the midpoint of the staff, she swung it at the 'Rahkshi's' centre of mass. She knew it was unlikely to connect; it didn't need to, only to become the focus of her target's attention while Caana summoned unfocused Soulsword energy into her left hand. Her mask still active, she waited for the Kualsi-wearer to be struck by the feint or to teleport – wherever she moved, Caana could quickly catch sight of her (she expected it to be close, the better to defend and back up her clan leader) and use that moment of vulnerability to toss the energy at her face. A blind woman would be unable to make use of that Kualsi, after all. And as for the Dashi… those, she left to the Kavinika. And then, of course, if the Kualsi-wearer did move beyond her reach, her Kanohi would give her enough time to switch targets. It seemed to her that Semraed, too, could stand to lose a little visual acuity. OOC: @Mel @Keeper of Kraata @Nato G

yeah that moc is absurdly sick, I'm glad I bent to peer pressure and brought back the Mystix

IC: Muir (Wise Man’s Archive) Muir's eyes narrowed. The chairwoman of the Cultured bloody Gentry. "Muirtagh Fenn. Lawyer." He glared at Cyrix, then turned his attention back to Niici. "I must admit, I expected my first meeting with a member of the Cultured Gentry to be in court. Preferably with said member in the dock." OOC: @Emzee @BULiK @ARROW404 @Keeper of Kraata

IC: (Ga-Koro Markets, Alley) As he felt the ground beneath his feet shift, the Lesterin moved – fast, but not quite fast enough. The water threw him off-balance, sent him stumbling into the wall of a hut; as he caught himself, his fingers dug into its surface, and black rot branched like veins from where he touched. "Heh. That's quite the impressive trick, Toa." Though his tone remained snide, something had changed in the crooked man's demeanour; he spoke through gritted teeth, and his sunken eyes were seething. "I know that Purity is a lie – that everything you wash your hands of isn't truly gone, and instead the water just carries your filth out of sight. We toss our plagues into the ocean, and still believe it pure." OOC: @Vezok's Friend

IC: (Ga-Koro Markets, Alley) "Me? Why, I'm no one, my dear; just some poor sap who took a tumble into the wrong puddle of viscous ichor." The Lesterin smiled as he spoke, and took another step forward, closing the distance. If the Toa wished to outrun his miasma, she had better try harder than that. "And I want… nothing. Which, as it so happens, answers your other question, too: I work for nothing. Or perhaps it's better to say I serve nothing – after all, when you work for nothing... Well, it's hardly going to pay." OOC: @Vezok's Friend

IC: Montague (The Unfortunate Fikou) "What other way is there to solve this? This is both mystery and affliction. I- I know that you, too, must have felt the draw, the pull." Montague's tone was grave, now, the matter clearly one of the utmost seriousness to them. "It is curiosity. Curiosity is what brought you to my door, just as curiosity is what drove me to plan this expedition. I doubt we three alone have shared these dreams; our experiences are not unique, and even my own sister shows the signs. Loathe as we may be to admit it, we are not special. We were not chosen. We chose ourselves. "Why is it our dreams that turn more terrible with each passing night? Why is every person on Mata Nui who has drowned and lived to tell the tale not speaking of this? It is because, whether it be out of fear or apathy, they do not want to know. But we three, we need to know. That is why we remember our dreams, why we obsess over them, why we swim deeper into the abyss each night; we will not be satisfied, we will not be free, until our curiosity is sated... For better, or for worse." OOC: @Perp @Nato G

IC: Merrill (The Eyries) Drunken stumbling was, of course, an ineffective way to win a fight. Merrill had cut her teeth brawling in bars, against men – Skakdi included – who were a ****** of a lot bigger and a ****** of a lot stronger than her. Sure, being drunk often made her clumsy; she'd had her fair share of stumbles. But it didn't make her slow. "The Hunt, huh? Do we look like Rahi to you, ******-for-brains?" The Kaiakan's low aim made it clear enough that he was shooting at her legs; the time it took to ready his bow gave her ample opportunity to sidestep once he finally shot, with the added benefit of making her a moving target. When the next arrow whistled past her shoulder, and he continued aiming at that same spot, she laughed. "Mate, you really ought to shake it up a little. And also, quite frankly, if you wanted to avoid profanity, maybe you shouldn't have shot at people minding their own ****** business, which is a little bit more of a fox pass in my book." The Kaikan was circling and shooting, strategising, but doing so on a few faulty assumptions. The first was that he was dealing with a shambling drunk, and not the bar fight champion of Seprilli; the second was that her next attack would be aimed at him. That Merrill charged at the Kaikan was to be expected – she knew it as well as he did, which meant that she knew to aim herself just a little bit ahead of his mount. But what wouldn't be expected was that she was fast, faster than any drunk with injured legs had a right to be, and the way she thrust her left shoulder out in front of her made the reason plain; already, the wound from that first arrow was healing. Drink didn't slow her, it just blinded her to risks; pain didn't slow her, because the drink numbed her and her mask took care of the rest. Merrill wasn't a drunk. She was a berserker. She let out a battle-cry that would put any Skakdi to shame as she ran her collision course with the Kaikan's mount, too fast for a change in direction to make any difference – after all, the greatest weakness of any rider is that crucial moment between their order, and its execution. Merrill had already picked up too much momentum by then, and no arrow would stop her. At her side, her fist was ready. And when her gauntlet hit that Rahi, the rider would get a lot more distance from her than he expected. OOC: Sorry for the delay, @capMARVELOUS and @BULiK, but hey – better late than never

IC: Muir (Wise Man’s Archive) "Shared it with who?" OOC: @BULiK @Keeper of Kraata @ARROW404 @Emzee

IC: (Ga-Koro Markets, Alley) "Composting? I prefer to think of it as withering. And I am afraid I couldn't stop it if I wanted to." Leah's plan, while clever, served only to prove how insidious the miasma was; even with the mist swirling around the Lesterin, it continued unabated. The same could not be said, however, of the crooked man himself – with his visibility limited, he tensed and looked around in confusion, waiting for an attack that never came. It was only once she spoke again that he was able to refocus. "Now, as for explanations, those I am quite able to provide; I wouldn't want you to think me uncooperative. Please, ask your questions." OOC: @Vezok's Friend

dark walk quest theoretically still exists

IC: (Ga-Koro Markets, Alley) But the miasma was already getting worse – or, perhaps, it wasn't changing at all, and it was the length of exposure itself that made the Toa Maru feel increasingly unwell. Something about it crept under the skin, crawling deeper and deeper with each passing moment, bringing with it the heavy, sticky heat of fever and the familiar acid burn of vomit rising in the back of the throat. The crooked man himself sighed and pouted, with a comically wide frown that didn't reach his watery, jaundice-yellow eyes. "That was unfortunate," he admitted, standing still. The Ga-Toa was on edge now, and backing her even further into a corner was risky. "Perhaps not so much 'wrong place, wrong time' as 'wrong person.' My money is on a weak heart; the poor thing just couldn't cope with the stress." OOC: @Vezok's Friend

IC: (Ga-Koro Markets, Alley) "Oh, I've been told that I am very sick indeed." He took another step toward Leah, the ground immediately turning foul beneath his feet. He moved his fingers, gently, dancing on air with a sense of awful anticipation; though they were largely bone, long and twisted, rather than the clicking and clacking one might expect they instead produced more of a soft, wet crunch, like the sound of walking upon autumn leaves. This was, perhaps, due to the tattered skin and what might best be described as gristle that lingered still around the knuckles. And there, on one of the fingers of his right hand, right where the bone splintered at the joint, was the slightest touch of fresh, red blood. The Lesterin smiled; those teeth that were not rotten yellow were either black as tar or just plain missing. Despite the cavities and the decay, all were unnaturally sharp, and his breath was unspeakably foul. "But you should be careful, my dear; I'm terribly contagious." OOC: @Vezok's Friend

IC: (Ga-Koro Markets, Alley) The concentration of water in question was behind her, and slowly approaching; had Leah not reached out with her powers, she would still have been alerted by its footsteps, or the increasing intensity of the smell. "Say… you look familiar. Aren't you one of the Toa Maru?" The unsettling smell was only a part of the miasma that surrounded the sickly brown-green Lesterin in the weathered black coat, as if disease and decay oozed from his very pores and poisoned the air itself around him. Mere proximity to him was already beginning to have an effect on Leah, a gut discomfort that would soon evolve into queasiness and nausea. OOC: @Vezok's Friend

IC: (Ga-Koro Market) The markets were eerily quiet, left practically deserted by the throngs of people who had rushed to see the harbour's new arrivals. Adding to this, a strange smell seemed to linger over the area – musty and stale, like mould and decaying plantlife. The site of the altercation was unmistakable, and even went some ways to explaining the smell: around the entrance of an alleyway, the vibrant green of the lily-pads was replaced by a dessicated brown. Like the stench of rot and filth, this withering only grew worse further into the alley, trading brown for a blighted, dead black. There was no blood – the cut had been too small for that – but there was no denying that whatever happened, had happened here. OOC: @Vezok's Friend

"Mm." god, I've been waiting so long for this

IC: Caana (Hanaloi, Forest) .:Thank you.:. "Mm." The Mask of Perception had multiple benefits. Though she could not move faster than others, she could think faster, make in a split-second a carefully considered decision, and multitask with terrifying efficiency. These were her most frequent use cases; less often, but to even more deadly effect, she used it for archery. To aim with pinpoint precision, to consider all the factors of an arrow's trajectory, these things took time – time limited not by physical prowess, but instead by the speed of thought. Caana had no such limitations. At the rate things were moving, she might be able to fire off one shot. That was the opening. And if she missed, she would sacrifice a major advantage in the process – after all, there weren't many soulswords trained to manifest a bow and arrow. She stood to lose more by taking the shot than by keeping her cards close to her chest, at least on that front. She'd need distance, protection, and a good vantage point. Her Tonfa would likewise be unhelpful here, at least for now. Getting close enough to her enemies to make use of them would only be to their advantage. The staff, then. She took it from her back, two-handing it, the better for control. "Jahagir Hambra," she said, solemnly. "Kuychar Semraed and Falki. It has been an honour and a pleasure meeting you, and though I regret that events have taken this turn, I earnestly look forward to doing battle with you." With a look of genuine remorse, she made to sweep Hambra's legs, taking advantage of the Tajaar woman's momentum. In the same move, she raised her staff as a spear, aimed to stab her as she lost balance. Simultaneously, aided by her Kanohi, the message went out to Vazaria: .:I am at my most effective as an archer; get me some distance and cover me. With me are two Dashi and the leader of the local Tajaar clan, skilled in disguise by way of illusion. I have seen her turn invisible, and take the form of an Ash Bear. I have no intelligence on the others.:. OOC: Make that two dozen Kavinika, three Rahkshi, and two Menti. Now, let's have some real fun! :^) @Keeper of Kraata @Mel @Nato G

IC: Caana (Hanaloi, Forest) An agent of Zataka, then, and on a collision course with her. It took a lot to surprise Caana, but that just about did it. .:And I, Caana. Have you learned what became of the missing Mashtet? What force is at work on Hanaloi?:. OOC: @Nato G

IC: Caana (Hanaloi, Forest) The moment of impact approaches. All will be tested. Caana activated her mask, the better to scan the soon-to-be battlefield. She caught sight of their goal, a group of Dasaka larger than her own. And to her left, fast-approaching the space between them, were Kavinika on the ground and Rahkshi in the air, led by… A Menti? .:Who are you?:. OOC: Ideatalk directed specifically at Vazaria @Nato G

IC: "Wither, weather, patent leather; boney break and tendon sever." The cadence of a nursery rhyme, but with words unfamiliar to Sera. The voice had the tone of a hushed whisper, and yet it carried clearly through the Ga-Koro streets – odder still, it sounded sick somehow, strangled and breathless, and where the wind took it went also the stench of rot and disease. "Whither with 'er will I go, hither hey or thither ho, whether hither weather's fair and thither weather's wind and snow; ever with her will I go." The Matoran knew, on some instinctual level, that the voice meant danger. Something about it made her teeth grind and her shoulders tense, not least the fact that it seemed to be getting closer. Even from here, in market side-streets, she could hear the commotion at the docks – if she could just get there, get to the crowd, she'd be- "Well, whatever have we here?" Shіt. The Lesterin was tall and twisted and truly, deeply wrong, like an elastic band stretched too far too many times until it lost its shape. His head lolled forward like some raggedy doll, his arms and legs too long and thin for his body, and his fingers – gnarled bone broke through metal and skin, as if they had violently torn through the flesh to reach their new, ghastly proportions. And the closer he came, the stronger the smell – earthy, like moss and decay, but with the sickening-sweet overtone of rotting fruit. "My dear, you don't look well at all. Whatever is the matter?" She wanted to run. She wanted to tell him it was that dаmned smell, that awful stench of maggot-meat and dying leaves. But her legs refused to listen, and when she tried to open her mouth, she gagged and choked back vomit. "Perhaps you're running a fever. May I take a look?" Something in her snapped as he reached a tattered hand out towards her and she slapped it away, nicking her hand on the vile, splintering bone. The tall man smiled a twisted, awful smile, his porous yellow teeth on full display. "Oh, you'll wither now for sure." "G-get away from me!" She pushed past the laughing Lesterin and ran for the docks, ignoring the sweat on her brow, her pounding heart and the burning pain around her cut. She just needed to get to safety, to people- Most of the crowd around the harbour had more pressing things to worry about than the pale, hyperventilating Ga-Matoran who came running from the markets, eyes wild and hands clammy with sweat. Some noticed, however, when she clasped those hands to her chest and promptly collapsed, seizing on the ground and then turning terribly still. "Weak constitution," the crooked man sighed, watching from the shadows. "How disappointing." Those who came to inspect Sera's body might have heard a snatch of whispered rhyme on the breeze: "Wither whether with 'im go, or whether with 'er stay; whether young or whether old, we'll all be withering someday…" OOC: :^)