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Monkey Mischief: Primate Pantomime

Scene details

Setting: In which our heroes face off against Reize's greatest rival yet: Rhesus Seatlan.

Log


 With a flick of his wrist, Ivo sends Hauteclare's blade spinning rapidly to shear away at some hanging vines, striding forth deeper into the jungle once they fall at his feet, the path momentarily cleared.

> BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecXbegh5uiw

 Though his lighter Oradian-made cloak is supposed to keep him cool, sweat nevertheless dapples his brow. The heat intensifies and the humidity grows less bearable as they advance from the river and the village where they have moored the SaGa, but that is not why Ivo feels himself to perspire. He simply cannot help but imagine what his father would say if Gilbert knew that his son was using Hauteclare as a flying machete.
 Ivo can't imagine him ever doing such a thing.
 CUT TO CHIBI THEATRE BALCONY SEATING, A LA STATLER AND WALDORF
 Chibi Luan: Didn't you once trim a hedge with Hauteclare?
 Chibi Gilbert: Yes, but my technique was better.
 (both laugh)
 HERE AND NOW
 Ivo shivers despite the heat, then shakes it off.
 "How're you feeling, Reize?" he calls to their fearless leader. "A bit better now that we're on solid ground?" They may have ended up fighting herbs with herbs, as it were, to try to get Reize coherent again, but Ivo is starting to think he's not quite aware of how intense Reize's experience was, and is showing concern.
 Not that Reize should trust anything this FAKE IVO says.
 "Rui, the tracker is indicating that the monkey's nest isn't far, but fairly high up in the trees," Ivo then says to her, deftly hacking at another set of vines barring his way and ducking under a low branch, his cloak swishing as it trails in the dense undergrowth of ferns. "We're fortunate that the Carnelian Bracer's elemental aspect allows us to pinpoint its location so closely, but we'll still have to climb. Do you think it'd be safe for you to fly and scout up a good way up?"
 Vampires may thrive in Oradia, but the low canopy is surely not without its dangers for bats, who may have to contend with carnivores both animal... and plant.



 Despite the earlier points of the adventure, Reize has been doing significantly better since they've grounded. While not completely in his element within the forest, the woods of the jungle is just as fine.

 The explorer slashes through a few of the vines as he makes way for the group, supplementing Ivo's usage of Hauteclare.

  He turns back towards Ivo and Ruidosa, "Doing better now!" He gives a chipper smile, beaming while he looks ahead. "I'll give those thieves a 'what for'." His expression forms into a scowl. "Take my treasure, will you?" He grits his teeth and he wanders ahead. He looks at Ruidosa, showing a bit of concern to see how she's faring off.

 

Ruidosa La Crima isn't bothered by the heat. She walks along and pokes a tiny fang from her lips as she considers the situation. She frowns at herbs fighting herbs and when they're done she ..... kicks a barrel of them overboard. There. That solves that problem. (No it doesn't. She kicked off a barrel of ale.)

She then absconds into the forest and frowns a little as she looks upwards into the trees. "In uncharted jungle like this? Pfbt fat chance." she says. "But I'll risk it if I have support. and I do. I hope." she says shooting Reize a glance before he looks over to her. She's faring okay. She's mostly grouchy about earlier still. Screw herbs and monkeys and monkeyherb better not be a thing.

Ruidosa La Crima rolls 1d20>=10.
Comment: Monkey Herb is a thing.
Roll(s): 12. Total result is 12. This is a success (by 2).


 Ivo glances down at his hand as the pommel of Hauteclare's detached hilt begins to pulse with a faint red light, the otherwise difficult to interpret aetheric sensor revealing their proximity to their target. While Reize and Rui negotiate just how much support she can expect, he endeavors to determine exactly where they'll need to ascend. Looking up into the high branches of the towering trees about them, he sidles about to find an angle through which to peek into the dense canopy.
 "There."
 A cluster of small monkeys have gathered upon a precariously narrow branch far above, the nimble creatures showing no concern with what for another animal might be a perilous position. One of them is wearing Reize's bracer and dancing about, a vine wrapped about his neck as though it were a scarf.
 "Eek! Eek!" the monkey screeches, before stuffing what looks like a handful of herbs into his mouth and pantomiming a strong reaction, rolling his eyes back and spasming about. The other monkeys shriek and clap.
 Our heroes seem to have stumbled across a dramatic reenactment.



  "..."

 Reize looks at the monkey pantomiming the reaction. Then he looks at his boomerang. Back at the monkey.

 You know what?

 Screw being nice.

 The boy brings his boomerang back, winding it back nice and gentle. However, he then spots the one with the bracer, dancing around.

 Reize is going to aim nice and carefully.

 ....And he chucks the boomerang right at the two monkeys.

  One for vengeance. The other for his bracer.

 

Reize Seatlan rolls 1d10+2>=10.
Comment: Reize the Hunter of Monkeys
Roll(s): 4. Total result is 6. This is a failure (by 4).

Reize Seatlan rolls 1d20+2>=10.
Comment: Hunter of Monkeys - Revengeance
Roll(s): 11. Total result is 13. This is a success (by 3).

Ruidosa La Crima rolls 1d20>=10.
Comment: You know what, I shove an entire monkey into my mouth.
Roll(s): 19. Total result is 19. This is a success (by 9).

Ruidosa La Crima looks upwards and narrows her eyes. Monkeys...

She leaps into the air, turns into a bat with a flap of mist and with a flap, flap, flap flap into the air takes off after one of the nearby clapping monkeys, before turning back into a humanoid...and with two hands, shoves the small monkey into her mouth, she doesn't chew or anything, just, into her mouth the monkey goes, as she roars.

"BEWARE!" she says muffledly. "FOR YOU ARE TINY AND GOOD WITH KETCHUP!" she screeches as she swallows an entire monkey whole.

Well that happened.


 Ivo watches as this dramatic reenactment quickly becomes significantly more dramatic in ways that perhaps no one intended.
 "Eek! Eek! Eeee--"
 The rhesus monkey prancing about as Reize -- a Reizes monkey, if you will -- is clobbered by the flung boomerang as the applauding monkey nearby is glanced. While the latter slips and is able to cling to the branch with one paw, the perpetrator of the performance is in free fall. The two monkey friends lock gazes. Monkey-Reize reaches out toward his monkey friend, their paws almost touching--
 *CHOMP*
 --and then Ruidosa stuffs the monkey still clinging to the branch entirely in her mouth. Thinking that she must be part-serpent to be able to unhinge her jaw like that, the other monkeys scatter into and around what must be their warren in a high-up hollow of the great tree.
 "So much for climbing," Ivo murmurs, as he watches Reize-monkey plummet to the ground. Figuring that the quest is more or less complete, he looks up speculatively, wondering what else the monkeys might have pilfered and stashed in that warren up there, which might at least suggest a little climbing should be in store--

> Reize-Monkey has used Monkey Herb.

 --only for his gaze to snap back down and eyes to widen in alarm as the falling monkey hits the ground with an improbably thundrous impact.
 Reize-Monkey, mid-fall, gulped down the herbs that he had stuffed into his mouth in a pantomime of Reize's earlier misadventures, and the results have been extraordinary: he has grown to the size of a mountain gorilla, muscles bulging, and slammed the ground hard to break his fall. Shaking off the earlier impact of the boomerang, he roars and beats his chest before picking up a bent branch and trying to hurl it at Reize as though it were a boomerang. ...it's just a club, basically, so it won't return.

> Rhesus Seatlan has attacked!

Reize Seatlan rolls 1d20>=10.
Comment: Evading Rhesus's Clubo-Not-Rang
Roll(s): 8. Total result is 8. This is a failure (by 2).



 The young explorer has a bit of a satisfied look of vengeance, considering that the monkeys took his treasure. That is personal to the boy! Given that the boomerang makes its mark, he catches it with a grin.

 "That'll teach you!"

 However, his eyes widen as Ruidosa shoves one of the monkeys into her mouth.

 ...Oh. Right. Yeah, she tends to do that.

 However, what is unexpected is the money mimicing him ingests the herb, transforming into a more dangerous creature.

 TRACK CHANGE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7U-uWLDRT7c - Ys Seven OST - Vacant Interference

 As if returning the favor, the bent branch is flung towards Reize....

 *CONK!* Reize's head reels back from the impact, his body flung away and he rolls back messily on the ground. "Ghggghghh....!" He grimaces, laying flat for a few moments. He starts to push himself back up, gritting his teeth. "I'll make you see black and blue! And you will have your friend give back my bracer!" The boy immediately springs towards the monkey, dishing out various roundhouse kicks on its leg with a boomerang swing.

 

Reize Seatlan rolls 1d20>=10.
Comment: Hot Combo Chain
Roll(s): 10. Total result is 10. This is a success (by 0).

Ruidosa La Crima manages to scatter monkeys. Good. Good. What's bad is that MONKEYHERB makes Monkeys into fight beasts apparently and Reize is fighting one. Well she's sure he can handle it just fine. It's just a monkey. Speaking of Monkeys she can't eat another so soon after doing that trick once so she chases further up, turning into a bat again and flapping upward.

"I hate monkeys. I'm going to eat you all and when I do...!" she screams. "...well I'll have indigestion. BUT YOU'LL ALL BE GONE!" she screams in her tiny bat form as she bursts upwards fast!

She's on the chase!

Ruidosa La Crima rolls 1d20>=10.
Comment: Is She flying into a monkey trap? Success means No.
Roll(s): 4. Total result is 4. This is a failure (by 6).

Ivo Galvan rolls 1d20+2>=10.
Comment: Combo follow up: Orbital Blade ambush!
Roll(s): 1. Total result is 3. This is a failure (by 7).


 The oversized monkey is massive, sturdy, and shockingly agile, able to move with all four limbs with equal dexterity. Yet its fighting technique is not up to par. Though trying to ward off Reize with dangerously flailing arms, the boy's narrowly slip past that brawny guard again and again, each impact accumulating until finally even the mighty foe must stagger back, overwhelmed.
 "Perfect...!"
 Ivo may not move swiftly, but makes up for it by biding his time and then moving decisively. Anticipating that Reize will be able to drive their foe back a bit despite his size, trusting in their leader's skill, Ivo repositions and summons Hauteclare's blade back to him. What with it still floating about from hacking at the vines earlier, he has an advance. All he needs to do is make sure he repositions properly in the next few seconds so that the blade's arc of return is as it should be to strike at their foe, following up neatly on Reize's combo.
 "...whoa!"
 What Ivo does not anticipate is the oversized monkey, instantly becoming frenzied, beginning to ferociously pound the ground, the earth seeming to quake from the impacts. The Cosmopolitan trips and stumbles and Hauteclare's blade wavers, zipping dangerously close to Reize instead of striking at the enemy and, at worst, potentially pinning his scarf to the ground so that he cannot jump to avoid the ground pounds rattling his skull.
 Above, Ruidosa's reckless charge causes the remaining monkeys to scatter, seemingly in abject terror, yet she is being led into their defenses. The monkeys have cunningly allowed their warren to be surrounded by various smaller predators with whom they have a cautiously symbiotic relationship. In this case, Rui in bat form risks getting snatched up by a surprisingly swift and larger variant on a Venus fly trap. Will the eater become the eaten!?
 She could turn back into humanoid form, of course, but if she does, at this rate, we're going to end up with the giant monkey grabbing her and climbing up a tree like it was a skyscraper, King Kong style.

Reize Seatlan rolls 1d20>=10.
Comment: Does Reize Avoid Getting Caught Up In the Quake?!
Roll(s): 6. Total result is 6. This is a failure (by 4).

Ruidosa La Crima rolls 1d20>=10.
Comment: Avoid Becoming Platfood.
Roll(s): 11. Total result is 11. This is a success (by 1).



 There is the initial advantage that Reize had when he struck the larger monkey. However, that advantage quickly depletes as an unintentional fratricide occurs. During the ground and pound from the larger ape, Hauteclare's blade loses course and catches Reize off guard as he was pressing forward with the attack.

 "GACK!"

 He is yanked back and slammed into the ground, rattled by the shuddering earth. "Eggthh!" The jagged earth crashes against his body, twisting part of his arm and his back. His head rattles from the shuddering earth.

  He reaches into his satchel to procure some chili powder. He is going to throw it at the creature to get its senses down.

 

Reize Seatlan rolls 1d20>=10.
Comment: Ruin a Monkey's Day with Potent Chili Powder
Roll(s): 14. Total result is 14. This is a success (by 4).

Ruidosa La Crima can hear the vines move and she avoids being a venus fly traps lunch to burst through the next canopy layer like she's a bat out of hell.... pause... okay maybe she IS a bat out of hell, because here she is again! turn back into a humanoid form to land among a tree branch just in time for 'Swallow a Monkey' to reach it's cooldown.

She attempts to shove another monkey into her mouth.

"I'M EAT ALL YOU FILTHY MONKEYS UNTIL YOU GIVE BACK THE BRACER!" she screeches as she sends monkeys scattering at her attempt most likely.

Ruidosa La Crima rolls 1d20>=10.
Comment: ...Swallow another monkey wholesale.
Roll(s): 4. Total result is 4. This is a failure (by 6).

Ivo Galvan rolls 1d20>=10.
Comment: Magitech Art: Deep Freeze, to pin monkey in place!
Roll(s): 3. Total result is 3. This is a failure (by 7).


 Ivo manages to clamber to his feet and hastily return his blade to his hilt as Reize recovers and reaches into his bag of tricks. There's no time to apologize in the midst of battle. He just has to think of the next technique that might be effective. Reaching into his cloak for a blue elesphere and loading it, Ivo desperately launches the point at the giant monkey's feet and causes ice to manifest and crust over them, trying to pin him in place. But he does not have enough time for the aether to build sufficiently to match the primate's strength. When Reize casts chili powder in the confused monkey's face, he begins sneezing intensely and flailing in confusion, falling back and shattering the ice that Ivo was attempting to form. While the technique was not successful, at least their foe has collapsed and is not able to press the attack for the moment, Reize's success giving them both a chance to coordinate properly.
 But Ruidosa's plight could potentially demand their leader's attention. When she transforms out of her bat form, chasing down the fleeing monkeys, there should be no further traps in her way and thus nothing to impede her from devouring more foes before they flee with their ill-gotten gains. However, putting her full weight on the narrow branches where the monkeys scamper risks one of them breaking under her. Will she have to transform again to avoid plummeting to the ground?
 ...Is she heavier because she ate a whole monkey?

Ruidosa La Crima rolls 1d20-6>10.
Comment: Monkey Weighted Branch Walking
Roll(s): 19. Total result is 13. This is a success (by 3).



 The use of the chili powder was a last ditch effort on Reize's end to get himself out of a a sticky situation with the Hauteclare pinning him into the trajectory of the rumbling earth's wrath.

 Unfortunately, Reize is still not in the greatest shape. His arm a bit twisted, but he manages to pull himself back together as Ivo retracts the blade. Reize immediately springs up and he grits his teeth.

 "Okay! Let's take it from the top! We'll force it to unconscious!"

 Reize immediately takes his boomerangs, pressing the advantage while it's collapsed on the ground to just rain down on its head with the boomerangs.

 Whackwhackwhackhwackhwack!

 Better to press while it's at a disadvantage.

 

Reize Seatlan rolls 1d20+3>=10.
Comment: Beating the Brain Cells out of the Downed Rhesus Seatlan
Roll(s): 7. Total result is 10. This is a success (by 0).

Ruidosa La Crima starts to fall, before stepping on a paraell branch and turns towards the monkey she tried to swallow... the monkey's eyes go wide.

< Dual Branch Drifting!? >

DEJA VU!

She leaps into the air in an attempt to fly to the next canopy layer, turning into a bat again as she takes off after the escaping monkeys. She may be trying to find the main stash at this point. Where the monkeys keep everything they pilfer.

"YOU DAMN CHIMPS!" she screeches.

Ivo Galvan rolls 1d20+3>=10.
Comment: I've been waiting for this!
Roll(s): 17. Total result is 20. This is a success (by 10).


 Ivo has tried advanced techniques. He has tried elementally imbued attacks. Nothing has worked so far. It is time for him to think truly outside the box, to go above and beyond, to exceed his limitations. As Reize sets upon the big monkey, swinging his boomerang again and again, clobbering their staggered foe, it looks for a moment as though the resilient primate might recover with another surge of fury. Thus does Ivo make his decision. He lunges forward--
 "Raaaahh!"
 --and proceeds to stomp on the downed ape over and over. A cloud of dust rises as Reize and Ivo wail on their flailing opponent until, at last, with one ferocious stomp upon the incapacitated monkey's gut--
 "BLURGH."
 --he coughs up a big gob of sodden herbs and, after a few moments, shrinks back to the size of a standard monkey, eyes swirling.

> Rhesus Seatlan is defeated!
> Acquired Monkey Herb (Lightly Used).

 Meanwhile, above, the monkeys thought they had a chance to get away, sure that Ruidosa would be unable to navigate the narrow branches like them and/or fall into one of their traps. Instead, she unveils the extraordinary new technique of Dual Branch Drifting, a veritable Tarzan as she skids before launching into a renewed aerial assault. Preventing the little miscreants from absconding with their treasures, she is able to corner a cringing monkey, clutching the Carnelian Bracer that it nabbed in the confusion, in a tree hollow filled with seemingly random objects, most of which are shiny in some capacity. It looks up at her with big piteous teary eyes, cringing fearfully.



 After the assault onto the larger monkey, Reize watches the creature belch out the herbs and shrinks back to the size of being a standard monkey.

 "Whew..."

 He immediately reaches for the herb and stuffs into his satchel so that it isn't mis-used by another one of those monkeys.

 He won't ingest it! Really! Trust!

 Reize looks over towards Ivo with a beaming smile, "We did it!" He reaches a hand out to high-five Ivo, and then he pauses.

  "...Huh, where did Rui go?"

 

Ruidosa La Crima rolls 1d20>10.
Comment: Shhh it'll all be over soon.
Roll(s): 4. Total result is 4. This is a failure (by 6).

Ruidosa La Crima LUNGES at the Monkey and tries to swallow it.....

But she isn't big enough for the tree hollow's opening.

So she's gnashing and biting and screeching at the entrance probably scaring a monkey to death as she shkes the tree from high above.

She wants the bracer or she's gonna bring this entire tree down! >,<

Ivo Galvan rolls 1d20>=10.
Comment: Noticing where Rui went in time. In time for what? Well...
Roll(s): 5. Total result is 5. This is a failure (by 5).


 Ivo, panting softly yet unusually bright-eyed, high fives Reize, grinning at his boon companion and partner in beatdown dispensation.
 "What a rush," he says.
 The urbane Cosmopolitan feels, perhaps for the first time, like he understands battle maniacs a little better than he did before. Ivo takes a moment to try to convince himself that this is just the adrenaline talking and that he prefers more sophisticated hobbies.
 "Hm? Good question..."
 So only belatedly does it occur to him to start looking for Rui. He looks up to the canopy, but in his current position, the leaves obscure what is happening. There is a large cracking sound and branches tumble to the ground, so he looks there, worried that Rui might have been upon one of them, and then up to see if she was but transformed into a bat to break her hypothetical fall. But he doesn't see her anywhere. That sound of cracking and creaking is getting louder, though, and more branches are falling. What's going on?
 "I think--"
 The world will never know what Ivo thinks. For Rui, stuck inside the tree hollow, is flailing so aggressively that she shakes the tree containing the monkey's treasures. Stopping up the hollow, her quarry cannot escape and thus at least cannot abscond with the bracer. But with the tree swaying, the rest of the monkeys scatter to its far end, and at last, all the chaos and the unbalanced distribution of weight leads to the inevitable: the tree snaps at its base and plunges down to the ground, one of its branches clobbering Ivo as it falls and laying him out. The impact may or may not expel Rui from where she is ensconced, but at least it will almost certainly also knock out the monkey trapped inside, so with luck, the bracer will be safe.
 Safer than Ivo, anyway.



 Given the situation, Reize looks over at the monkey that made fun of him earlier. His eyes furrow a bit and then he thinks over for a moment. The boy doesn't feel satisfied with his 'revenge' for the monkey making fun of him.

 ....

 It is moments later that the monkey will have a few apple slices over its eyes, almost like glasses. And a few funny 'marks' over its face.

 Dusting his hands off, Reize feels satisfied in his payback for what the monkey did to him before. It is short-lived as he sees Ivo going ahead to track Ruidosa's whereabouts. As her fiancee, he should follow suit!

 He is treated to a spectacle of Ruidosa stuck inside of the tree hollow, flailing. A large sweatbead manifests at the back of his head. "Ahh..." He rubs his shoulder, looking a bit embarassed, but then chaos follows suit.

 Monkeys scatter and the tree snaps at the base. "... Ah." Ivo is belted. After venturing back into the tree, he goes to inspect the monkey, take his bracer back, and exacts the same vengeance on that monkey that he did to the other.

 Dried fruit over its eyes like glasses and funny marks on its face.

 Reize is feeling petty. Look, he's a 14 year old kid.

 

Ruidosa La Crima snaps and growls and makes sounds and yells and-- oh god the tree is actually falling she fails down with the tree and is thrown into the air the moment it hits ground... dipping into an arc with a fall down to her butt somewhere behidn Reize in a dustcloud. "Argh!" she goes and whines and sits there on the ground, whining.

"OOwwwwwww." she goes. Before she burps up a mobnkey. The monkey. Wet and horrified takes off suddenly somewhere into the jungle away from whatever this creature was he was just inside. o.o


> Reize has regained the Carnelian Bracer and the capacity to imbue his attacks with fire! The quest "Monkey Mischief" is complete.
> The party has acquired Unidentified Monkey Treasure Trove!
> ...but Ivo cannot identify items while he is unconscious.