[center][h3]Ms Fortune[/h3]
[b]Location:[/b] Carcass Isle - Where All Things Must Come
Level 8 Nadia (15/80)
Koopa Troop’s [@DracoLunaris], Blazermate’s [@Archmage MC], Hat Kid’s [@Dawnrider], Geralt’s [@MULTI_MEDIA_MAN], Ace Cadet’s [@Yankee], Sakura's [@Zoey Boey],  Link’s [@Gentlemanvaultboy]
[b]Word Count:[/b] 2480[/center]

The moment that Nadia felt the ground underfoot begin to change, she made a mad dash back to the sanctuary of the nearest boulder. With every step the beach beneath her became more unstable and mucky, less like sand and more like a bog of tar. By the time the feral reached her shelter only a moment later, she needed to pull her leg free from the sticky black quagmire that would in just a matter of moments blanket the entirety of the Kosm’s accursed cove. The morass clutched at her so doggedly that she almost lost her foot to it in the process, and even after popping it back on she soon realized -from the slow ascent of her surroundings- that her refuge wouldn’t keep her safe for long. Grimacing, she bunched herself up and leaped over to the roof of one of the oyster-encrusted hovels that had arisen from below.
Nadia looked around in an effort to grasp the full scope of the changes to the beach, trying to get her bearings. Floating sea corpses, random stuff from around the island, and pitch-back tar. [i]Everywhere[/i]. She took a deep breath. If her fears came to pass and the fight really wasn’t over, her team might be in for a seriously bad time. If not for a static and dependable battleground their slobberknocker with the Orphan so far might have gone very differently, and now it looked like the Seekers’ theater of war would be in constant flux.  While the others could probably slog through the gunk, especially the tallest and most physically powerful among them, its viscosity limited movement to such a degree that fighting in the muck was basically impossible. “This is some raw-ass butt,” she concluded.

Naturally, it only got worse from there. She stared, paralyzed, as the Beached Thing made its presence known off the coast. Unlike the Orphan, a grisly affair of blood, guts, and twisted flesh that shambled and lunged like a horror movie monster, the BT appeared to be uncannily human in shape, normal except for the strands in place of fingers, the freaky umbilical cord, and the hands where a head ought to be. It walked like a man too, swinging its arms as it ambled toward the shore at what could only be described as a leisurely pace, as if it struggled with the molasses that now coated the beach too. Its cord writhed in a terribly disquieting manner as the creature dragged it along, like a worm in the water. Aside from its staggering size, it almost struck Nadia as something incapable of fighting, or even being fought, which in turn made it all the more ominous.

“You’ve gotta be [i]kitten[/i] me,” she groaned, making the pun unconsciously. “That wasn’t even its final form? How’re we even supposed to fight this…this giant-ass ghost?” After taking a second to pull herself together, however, and hearing Link point out a significant silver lining, Nadia began to realize that this might actually not be that bad. In a way it even made sense; when she and the others challenged the Skullgirl back in the Dead Zone, she also evolved throughout the encounter, with her third and last phase the strangest. That form also moved around the least, making it an easy target if you could get past the utter pandemonium of her skeletal legions. After a quick breath in through her nose and out through her mouth, Nadia rolled her neck, then her shoulders, then stretched her arms. “The final stretch,” she murmured, a thin, wry smile on her face. With some of her vitality and stamina restored by her Nyawn, she stanced up, ready as she was going to get for one more round. If this thing was some kind of vengeful spirit, then it was past time the Seekers laid it to rest.

Nadia’s first order of business was to get up to the BT in order to hit it, since that eye over its heart looked like the mother of all weak spots, and Link’s idea gave her one, too. Remembering when the Hero of the Wild used that same lockdown power on his spear earlier, particularly the way it hurtled away with all the motive force it stored up while in stasis, she charged up her water purr-essure to rocket herself his way. As Link walloped the immobile boulder she sailed in to land on top of it, light enough on her feet that one punch from the swordsman was more than enough to counteract her impact. “Don’t mind me!” she told him with as cheery a wave as she could muster. “Just think of me as-?” She fell silent as the shriek of Bella’s leviathan tail heralded the departure of a railgun shot, aimed for the BT’s heart. Owing to the instability of the rowboat beneath her, however, the Abyssal’s shell missed the mark, and slammed into the eidolon’s shoulder, producing a burst of inky, icky tar. “Think of me as-” Nadia tried again, only to be drowned out a second time by a tremendous, deep reverberation, a long and bassy groan almost like the lowing of primeval cattle. It swept over the beach like a gust of wind, playing at the startled feral’s ears and hair alike. She swallowed. “As a…cat-apult,” she finished, and not a moment too soon. The rapid blinking of the boulder beneath her culminated in a shattering of its illusory chains, and very abruptly both rock and rider hurtled away.

When it came to hitting the eye Link aimed well, but not perfectly. His makeshift projectile flew on a collision course toward the vicinity of the lower sternum, and at about the halfway point Nadia sprang off the rock, revving up her right forearm like a drill as she cruised in on borrowed momentum. A burst of vital fluid pushed her faster still, although less-than-ideal aim and timing caused her to overshoot her target, and just a heartbeat later she plunged her arm into the monster’s left bicep. Behind her the boulder strunk the BT’s chest hard enough to stagger it, and with glee the cat burglar carved into the viscous flesh she’d landed on.

Instantaneously her arm started to slow down, and before Nadia knew it she was stuck, buried up to the elbow in the gunk. “Uh oh,” muttered, trying to pull her limb loose, only to find out after repeated attempts that she couldn’t get free without leaving a part of her behind. Even worse, when she braced against the BT’s body to try and yank her arm out, her shins and left palm got stuck, too. “Uh oh, uh oh, uh oh.” As her mind raced for any solution, the titan’s lowing drew her attention upward, where she spotted a host of [url=https://i.imgur.com/UfoxHZZ.png]creepy jellyfish-things[/url] floating out like balloons from the pit of the BT’s neck. They began to spread over the beach, and as they drifted, the monster began its attack. It lifted its ten finger-strands from the water, revealing a human hand on the end of each, and whipped them toward the gathered heroes like enormous cat-o-nine-tails. Some flailed around with closed fists, but others reached out with open hands, seeking to seize hold of whatever Seekers they could and reel them in for consumption.

The BT’s attack posed an even greater problem for Nadia. When it moved its arm, Nadia moved with it, and when it changed directions it jerked her hard enough to drive her even deeper into the muck. As the side of her head splatted against its body, stuck fast, her brain went haywire from fear. “Nyaaaagh!” she yowled, and from her blue blood she created two copycats to help extract her from the colossal mire. It was then that the feral’s luck took a turn for the better, for the moment the doubles jammed their hands into the goop, it began to sizzle and steam like fat in a frying pan. They went on the offensive, clawing away at the BT’s bizarre flesh until it was weak enough for Nadia to wrench herself out with all her parts intact. Realizing that the turnabout must have something to do with her blood, she planted her feet against the giant’s arm, re-absorbed her copycats and put all that hydropower into a massive double eruption from her legs. The next second she blasted off, leaving a messy crater behind in the nightmare’s bicep as she swooped back down toward the beach.

She struck one of the tar-balloons on the way down, causing it to rupture explosively. The trauma stunned her, rendering her totally unable to optimize her landing. All she could do as she fell, dangerously close to unconsciousness, was hope that one of her allies managed to catch her.

Her comrades did not let her down. “Oof!” she grunted as she came to a stop in Geralt’s strong arms. “My hero,” she gasped, clapping her hand on the Witcher’s shoulder by way of thanks. While she wouldn’t have minded coming to a stop in Ace’s embrace instead, which would have put the shoe on the other foot from earlier, she wasn’t about to be picky when it came to saving her skin. After a brief moment Geralt set her down on solid ground, and as the BT’s strands came whipping their way, they split up once again. Nadia ended up on top of another shack, where she looked up at the Bt to see the extent of the damage. What she found left her disappointed. The hole she’d blown in its arm had already scabbed over with golden crystal, and despite taking an enormous hunk of solid stone to the chest, the BT seemed pretty much fine. Unless the team could crystallize every inch of the colossus and turn it into one big, gaudy statue, it seemed like they would need to target that repulsive eye specifically. That, unfortunately, was a task easier said than done, especially with the diaspora of their enemy’s Gas Bags over the beach.

The team’s ranged fighters had a better time of it, especially Kamek with her snipers. With spell, arrow, or bullet they could blow up the gas bags from afar, and plug away at the eye from a safe distance while avoiding the BT’s strands without too much trouble. Before they could get too comfortable, however, it revealed another nasty trick. With a wave of its arms it hurled handfuls of golden, goopy humanoids that homed in on their targets, curving through the air like wraiths from beyond. Though vulnerable to being shot down themselves, those living missiles aimed to tackle the Seekers from their perches and into the tar, where they could try to drag them beneath.

Still panting, Nadia bent over again, her hands on her knees as she shook her head in frustration. Not every crazy idea was meant to be, and even if it couldn’t be called a disaster, her latest stunt had taken a lot out of her. Now, with no good way to attack this thing owing to her close range and flagging stamina, she found herself up the creek without a paddle. But she couldn’t just sit back and let the others struggle without her. [i]Think, you stupid cat, think[/i], she thought, glancing around. [i]There has to be something, anything…![/i]

Movement in her peripheral vision caught her eye, and she glanced over with a snarl. “What now!?” She spotted four dark shapes waving at her as they stood in the tar, murky and indistinct, and for a moment she couldn’t tell what she was looking at. Something about them bothered her, however–some inexplicable familiarity. The cat burglar looked closer, the giant BT all but forgotten. She crouched on the edge of her shack's roof, squinting, but even then it took her another couple seconds to recognize what stood before her.

When she did, Nadia fell to her knees, her mouth hung ever-so-slightly ajar. For the first time in untold years, tears welled up in her eyes. Those four figures, those Dagonians…one tall and chiseled, one long and lean, one broad and boisterous, one squat and surly. Just the same as she remembered them from [url=https://i.imgur.com/Ap83rZR.png]that old drawing[/url], one of the few mementos that withstood the test of time. As she stared, spellbound and speechless, the broad one hucked something at her. Though lobbed underhanded and slow, it bounced off the feral’s forehead before dropping right down into her hands. She glanced down to see a small container with a number of [url=https://i.imgur.com/nUykM7X.png]pinkish grubs[/url] floating around inside, with a label that read [i]LIVE CRYPTOBIOTES - FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION[/i]. She looked back up to see the thrower laughing. The familiarity of his raucous guffaws, so strong that they just about bent him over, caused her tears to run down her cheeks–even if she couldn’t hear them now, she remembered just what they sounded like. The others threw their gifts one at a time, and Nadia caught them all. From the tall one she received a box that jangled as if full of coins, from the skinny one she got frame housing a collapsed [url=https://i.imgur.com/TUdbgDJ.png]weapon[/url] of some kind, and from the squat one she was somehow not at all surprised to receive a six-pack of beer. [i]Timefall porter[/i], she read. When she looked up again Nadia saw the four men turn away, as if to leave. “Wait!” she cried, springing to her feet. “Don’t go! I have so much to tell you! I…” Powerless to do anything, she could only watch as the Dagonian thieves disappeared one by one.  The broad one saluted, the skinny one bowed, the tall one blew a kiss and finally, after a moment of glowering, the squat one cracked a side-grin. He winked, waved goodbye, and was gone.

“You jerks.” Nadia’s head fell, and she squeezed her eyes shut. “Always got places to…to be, h-huh? Couldn’t spare your…your little girl any more time?” she whispered, her voice cracking as she wiped her tears away with the back of her hand. “Well…I can’t explain it. Not even a li’l bit. But ya gave me somethin’ precious. Then…and now.” At the press of a button the collapsed firearm expanded to its full size, bursting out of the frame in the process. Nadia planted her feet and took aim, wincing for only a moment as the gun drew a measure of blood from her to load. “I sure as hell ain’t gonna waste it.” Even if she’d never used a gun before, they all operated on a similar principle: aim and pull the trigger. And with a target this big, how could she miss?