“Hoooly shit!” Mahito crowed at the revelation of the horrific abomination, apparently having been hidden among their ranks for at least a little while now. The curse felt a little shiver down his spine in spite of himself. He wasn’t overcome by pure terror as many humans would be, finding the beast’s appearance rather fascinating. No, his fear was a much more logical thing. This thing could really fuck him up, so he was wisely afraid of it. Just a little. “Man, I need to remember that trick!”
“Hey, jackass, you know what this thing is!?” Domri called to the Man in Red over the screeching cries of the goatman as it lumbered forward, splattering the snow with the strange, inky substance that leaked from its maw.
“I’m afraid that I don’t.” the scarlet showman replied, though Mahito suspected it was less a moment of ‘I don’t know’ and more a moment of ‘I can’t/won’t say’. While his assistants shrunk back in silent horror at the knowledge that one of their rank had been replaced by that thing, the showrunner reached into his jacket and produced a heavily dented track-tie, the makeshift bludgeon he had used to (unsuccessfully) fend off the ill-mannered sailorman. The spectre was largely unimpressed by the improvised weapon, but a weapon was a weapon, he supposed.
As the trio of human(oid)s stood around bickering, Tuskers was the first to pick up the nerve to take action. Taking on a defensive posture, the massive boar circled the failed experiment as if facing off in a territorial dispute, pawing the ground and snorting furiously. Lacking anything that could be considered natural instincts, the goatman wasn’t drawn into the bestial display, but instead hurled itself at the first target that presented itself like a massive, horrible missile.
Tuskers met it with a wall of bone and tusk, battering into the misshapen creature and beating it back, if even for a moment. Domri was quick to leap to his pet’s defense, darting around and swinging his club at the goatman’s hooves before nimbly ducking out of reach of any counter-attack, but the Man in Red wasn’t so hasty. Instead, he glanced over to check what Mahito was doing, only to notice that the curse was nowhere to be found.
Hooking it’s massive, clawed hands around Tuskers’ namesake tusks, it’s upsetting excess of joints making them appear more like tentacles than anything that could be considered fingers, the cryptid wrenched the boar to the side and toppled him over, expecting to find a vulnerable underbelly beneath. Instead, the goatman found itself looking at the grinning, stitched face of Mahito. His body was shrunken and elongated with too many legs, much like a centipede, allowing him to crawl beneath the boar largely unnoticed. Right up until now at least.
“Boo.” the spirit ribbed as he used his thumb to flick
something at the goatman’s face with surprising force. The creature got a brief look at the cocoon-like thing as it ricocheted harmlessly off of its skull. Then, abruptly, the writhing, undulating mass of the transfigured human reached a fever pitch as it erupted into a devouring mass, swallowing the experiment’s head in a metre-wide mass of pallid flesh. Mahito was, honestly, a little disappointed. He was hoping the barrier would have been much bigger, but the collar evidently wasn’t finished with him yet. “Bummer… ah well.”
Mahito allowed himself a moment to pout before winding his body up like a spring and hurling himself towards his opponent, returning to his more humanoid shape as he reached out a hand. Grinning maniacally, he placed a hand on the goatman’s chest as it made short work of the transfigured human, reaching for its soul.
As if he was entering a concert hall, the curse was suddenly bombarded by phantom stimuli as he brushed against the monster’s spirit. There was a solid core there, an amalgam not unlike one of his own soul isomers. But there was more, a slushy, chaotic outer layer which the beast’s soul rested in like a yolk in albumen. It was unusual and overwhelming enough to give the spectre a moment of pause, just enough for the goatman to take its retaliatory swing.
With a monstrous backhand, Mahito was sent flying into the distance, barely managing to bring his guard up in time. The curse gasped as he slammed back-first into a tree, a blow strong enough to ensure that a normal human would never walk again, but nothing but the source of a few bruises for a creature such as himself. Sucking in air through gritted teeth, the spirit clambered to his feet, making sure that everything was in the right place. The goatman didn’t hit his soul, but he had felt a weird sensation as it touched him, like someone had walked in on him while he was on the can. Not that he knew what the felt like, but he imagined it was a similar sensation.
Perhaps it couldn’t reach them through flesh, but the thing had
some interaction with souls. With his best guess, Mahito would have bet decent money that this thing was a soul eater, and that the extra atmosphere of spirit around its true soul was that of its victims. Or maybe he was completely off and it just had some moderately magical claws! This thing was a mystery, but he was fairly sure that he could kill it, and that was all he really cared about.
Back across the clearing, the goatman was growing frustrated at it’s clash with the others. Every time it would move to engage Tuskers, Domri and the Man in Red would take their chance to swing at it while it was occupied with its opponent of relatively equal strength. If it ever tried to switch its focus to them, however, Tuskers would eagerly take the opportunity to knock it on its ass. It’s whole body trembling, the goatman reached up to grab it’s own horns, holding them for dear life as it’s skull rattled around on its neck.
“What the hell did you guys do to it?” Mahito asked with a chuckle as he made his way back over. “It looks like it’s having a breakdown!”
“Something’s wrong.” Domri said ominously, backing away cautiously with Tuskers following suit.
“I’m inclined to agree.” the Man in Red murmured, glancing to one of his assistants and gesturing for them to hand something over. With a whine of ever-heightening pitch, the goatman’s frenzied convulsions reached a feverish height as black ichor erupted from it’s severed lower jaw, spraying the snow like a firehose.
“We ArEn’T hUnTiNg An AnImAl RiGhT nOw!” the monster gurgled and wailed, barely audible over the sound of rushing liquid and its own body’s screeching, squelching protests.
The beastmaster and his beast leapt away nimbly, ensuring that they didn’t touch the stuff. Mahito, on the other hand, tossed out another transfigured human and shrunk himself down, hiding himself in the shadow of the lump. Finally, the Man in Red stood strong in the face of the stream before tossing a coat into the air, interposing it between the path of the ichor and himself. The garment perfectly sailed forward, interrupting the blast aimed his way, leaving a comfortable area around him without so much as dirtying his top hat.
It only took a few more moments for the stream to peter out, leaving the twitching goatman standing in a sea of black snow. For a moment, Mahito thought that was that, right before he heard a horrific sizzling accompanied by an acrid smell, noticing a moment later that his makeshift shelter was slowly but surely melting away, with the Man in Red’s coat ‘shield’ following suit. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the stuff had formed into a thick, lumpy mat on the snow, which the curse could tell from a mere glance was going to be sticky as all hell.
“I recommend not touching the goop.” the scarlet showman said as he took a small run-up across his little island of untouched snow and nimbly leapt across the black sea to safety. “That’s the scientific term for it. ‘Goop’.”
“Yeah, wasn’t planning on it.” Mahito scoffed, his arms shifting into wings as he vaulted himself into the air. One more jab from the collar came as his wings shaped themselves back into arms after only a few seconds of flight, but it was enough to carry the curse to the other side. “So. I need to touch it again, but that’s not gonna happen like this. I say we run and gun this guy.”
“I… think I know what you mean.” Domri said, frowning a little at the unfamiliar term before starting off into the forest. “Guerilla warfare!”
“A fine idea.” the Man in Red said before calling to his employees, the whole group trailing behind him. “You heard the plan, everyone. Do try to keep up.”
Party Members: Mahito, Domri, Tuskers, the Man in Red
Current Location: the Forest
Desired Location: the Forest
Actions: Fight the goatman! (Only room for one monster here)
Focus Count: 5/5
Inventory: Survival Gear, two unsummoned polymorphic soul isomers, one use of Domain Expansion
