Expedition Ezchift [Open]

[OOC--I got permission from Kei to do this. :B]

Xilingshi Nailah Zoraki

Ambush... certainly Xilingshi was used to that term, and the harsh truth that it conveyed. It reminded her of those fights against the Fire Nation during the War of Tipped Scales. In fine, a few measley pirates were not about to do ion the great and legendary Xilingshi Nailah Zoraki. No, 34 years of living on this rock had taught her a few things, and while some of the pirates might have been benders, none of them were a match for Xilingshi. Of them and of her own crew, she was the only airbender, and would use that to her advantage. Initially, she began trying to bark orders at the people around her, but naturally, no one listened to her since she did not have any authority over them, so she left them to their own devices. She still didn't have any reason to care about any of them. They were not her friends; they were not her soldiers, or even airbenders. She was not obligated to protect them, and so instead, she went off for herself. Twirling her staff, she fended off a few pirates before taking to the skies. Two of the crewmates went to try and board two of the pirate ships, and so Xilingshi aimed for the 3rd one. However, instead of trying to board it, she aimed a precise string of compressed air towards the side of the hull towards teh water line. Taking a deep breath, she swung her arm from her glider to launch this air-based projectile. For a moment nothing happened, but as Xilingshi unclenched her fist, the compressed air exploded, blowing a hole in the side of the boat, whicih rapidly began to fill with water. True to the nature of a signature Tekina-Kaze "bombing raid", Xilingshi did a somersault midair and landed back on the deck of her own ship, indifferent to anyone else's reactions. She was not here to show off; she was here to get things done... and the battle was far form over.

Mood: Ugh Condition: Focused

Link: Xilingshi

(Ooc: posting from my phone so no character box.)

Once the archers were taken out, Ahlya darted for the ship on the starboard side. She bended her pieces of stone back together to create a small platform for her to stand on that she used to hover up to the enemy ship's deck. The blood from her ear was starting to drip onto her neck now, but she had no time to patch it up. She made it to the deck to find Cyrad surrounded by three waterbenders. Ahlya jumped off of her stone plate and bended it to give it a much sharper edge before she lodged it into the skull of one of the benders.

Ahlya only got a quick glance at Cyrad before having to confront the other waterbenders. Both his leg and his side seemed to be wounded. He looked to have managed a wrapping around his leg, but he hadn't yet gotten to taking care of the other wound. Thankfully, Ahlya's killing of one of the waterbenders distracted the other two taking their main focus away from Cyrad long enough for him to aid her in taking them out.

Ahlya quickly dodged a water whip to the face and bended her stone plate out of the dead bender's head to defend herself. She used it as a mini shield to protect from the water whips, but it was shrinking fast while chunk after chunk was removed. Ahlya pounded her foot onto the floor boards to raise the fallen rocks and used them against the waterbender in the same way she did to the archers. This time, however, she aimed for the eyes and nose to disorient one of the waterbenders. She nailed him in the eye eventually which distracted him long enough for him to drop his whips and for Ahlya to pull out her knife from her boot and stab him in the neck.

Kei

The Expedition crew had swiftly dealt with the Pirates and after melting the ice around the Expedition ship, proceeded onward with their voyage. The minor injuries some had received during the exchange with the pirates were entirely healed by Jurishe’s water bending. The crew had arrived at an outcropping of rocks in the middle of the ocean. The fact that rocks were located above water this far out at sea was puzzling enough, but it wasn’t all that was strange with the rocks. There were eight large rocks that were the size of Kei's boat evenly spaced out in a circle around another rock that was in the center of all of them. The rock in the center was several times larger than the ones on the outside. The distance from the rock on the inside to ones on the outside was about 100 yards. All of the rocks were bare and were simply gray boulders that protruded from the ocean. Kei took the boat and sailed it close to the rock in the middle. Up close, it was clear the rock had no visible entrance. “We are going to have to have a quick swim in order to enter the temple. The swim isn’t a bad one so each of you should be fine. Since we will get wet, take these, it will keep whatever gear you want dry to remain dry.” Kei handed everyone a couple of leather waterproof bags. Kei himself had carried three bags, one had some of his clothes and equipment, the second had his food, and the third contained a couple dozen torches. Kei stood at the edge of the ship facing the massive rock in the center. Doing his best not to appear embarrassed as he was standing in his boxers, Kei gave a quick speech to the crew members. “Upon entering the water, the Expedition into Ezchift begins. I don’t know what we will find down here or what dangers lurk, but if we stick together and do our best to aid each other, we WILL make it out safely. Remember that for now, we are all comrades and we should act as so.” Kei lastly said with a smile, “Follow me” and jumped into the ocean. Kei swam to a hole in the side of the center rock 10 feet under the surface of the water. Kei didn’t look back but he assumed that the other Expedition members were following him. Kei entered the hole in the rock and then began to swim upward once he was in it.  About 5 feet up, he hit air. It was dark and nothing could be seen, but Kei felt land in front of him and got on top of it. He removed one of the torches from the leather bag and lit it with a spark of electricity. The burning torch revealed a small cavern. Behind Kei was the pool of water that he had just emerged from and in front was a dark doorway. The cavern appeared man made, as the walls and corners of the room appeared smoothly cut. The air was damp and cool, and the sound of water dripping and crackling of fire from the torch echoed throughout the Cavern. As Kei was waiting for everyone to emerge from the pool of water, he quickly put on all of his clothes and equipment. One by one, everyone was coming up the pool of water. When everyone was ready, Kei asked who was willing to carry a second torch and Jurishe kindly volunteered. Taking out a second torch from the bag, he lit it and handed it to Jurishe thanking her. The Expedition crew began to head for the doorway and upon nearing it, a staircase large enough for two people to walk shoulder to shoulder was seen proceeding downward. It was impossible to see the end of the staircase as darkness shrouded everything past 20 feet. “This walk is a long one,” Kei warned everyone, “The staircase will take us straight to the bottom of the ocean.” With that, Kei took a step forward and began his decent into darkness.

Mood: Excited Condition: Healthy but a little wet

Character Info Link: https://lastairbender.rpg-board.net/t1576-kei-heiwajima#16933

[OOC- If you don't feel you have anything you want to post to what has happened so far, its no big deal. I'm going to post the next part tomorrow night.]

Kei

The expedition crew continued descending the stairs for the next 8 hours. With the end of the stair case still nowhere in sight after this time, Kei decided they should rest for a while before moving again. Kei did his best to rest comfortably on the staircase, but lying down on a staircase was not the comfiest thing in the world. 7 hours later, the expedition crew was once again on the move. Two hours later into the journey, the stairs stopped and the expedition crew came across a single gray hallway. Written on the walls were many strange hieroglyphs. The air down here was damp and heavy as they were no doubt many miles below the surface of the ocean. At the end of the hallway, the crew was led into a large room. The walls, floor, and ceiling were tiled with hexagonal tiles. In the center of each hexagon was a different symbol. Kei didn’t know what the symbols meant and doubted anyone else in the crew knew. The symbols were probably ancient and their meanings were most likely lost in time. On the side opposite of where everyone entered the hexagonal tiled room was a stone slab. The stone slab had a frame carved around it and on the frame were more symbols forming some unidentifiable language. Above the frame were 4 orbs embedded in the wall. A red orb with the universal symbol of fire on it, a blue orb with the universal symbol for water on it, a green orb with the universal symbol of earth on it, and a very pale blue orb with the universal symbol of air on it. This room was as far as he and Ul had gotten when they first tried to enter Ezchift. The stone slab was actually a door blocking the entrance into Ezchift, but Kei and Ul could not open the door. It became apparent to them eventually that based on the orbs above the stone slab, the door would only open if a bender of each element was present in the room. As Kei and Ul couldn’t match these requirements, they were forced to leave. Kei knew he would get through the door this time as the expedition crew met the requirements of having at least one fire bender, one earth bender, one air bender, and one water  bender. Kei wasn’t disappointed and as the expedition crew entered the hexagonal tiled room, the orbs above the stone slab glowed and the room began to rumble. The stone slab began to sink creating a hole in the wall that led into Ezchift. Kei and company walked into the doorway that led into Ezchift. The room was dark, but the torches in Kei and Jurishe’s hand illuminated their surroundings. It appeared as though they had entered what was once a grand hall. The room was two stories with the second story being a balcony that overlooked the first floor. There were doorways around the room that seemed to lead to other parts of the building. Despite whatever grand history it may have once had, the entire place was trashed. Junk and rubble littered the floor, the walls appeared cracked in many places, and behind them by the door way the expedition crew had just entered from where the stone slab was once at, Kei noticed that many human skeletons were laying there. It almost looked as if they died trying to escape this place... It was at this moment when Kei saw a person hunched in the back corner of the room facing away from the expedition crew. Something about the person filled Kei with dread, but Kei decided to ignore it and called out to the person. “Hello?” All of the sudden the person crouched in the corner bolted straight for Kei and when he had gotten closer, Kei saw that this figure wasn’t human. It was humanoid, but the creature had pale white, wrinkled skin. It was bald and had no hair and had pointed ears. The creature had no eyes and its open mouth revealed fangs. It had claws on its hand and wore no clothes and was completely naked. This sudden event nearly gave Kei a heart attack. The creature moved with speed that was nearly inhuman and was immediately next to Kei. Kei tried to keep the creature back by slashing it across the chest with his dagger, but the creature didn’t seem to notice the pain and ran straight through the blade right into Kei knocking him onto the ground and landed on top of him. Kei kicked the creature off of him and the creature rolled back. When the creature got to its feet it released a loud shriek that echoed throughout the buildings. From the many doorways around the room, other similar shrieks could be heard coming from no doubt other similar creatures. Each shriek was terrible and very dreadful. Kei didn’t know what these things were, but it was nothing he had seen before. Suddenly many other identical creatures began pouring in from all the other doorways into the Grand Hall charging straight for the expedition party. Kei didn’t count, but he knew there were at least a dozen creatures for each one of the the expedition crew members.

Mood: Slightly Shaken Condition: Little Tired

Character Info Link: https://lastairbender.rpg-board.net/t1576-kei-heiwajima#16933

[OOC: You can control these creatures as you want when you fight them, but keep in mind they don’t feel pain and the only way to beat them is to strike a lethal area such as the head. Note  your character shouldn’t realize knowledge this straight off the bat.

[OOC--this thread moves so goddamn fast.]

Xilingshi Nailah Zoraki

It seemed that the battle was theirs, and that they had secured victory. Xilingshi soared high over the battlefield to secure their safety, and she shot at other pirates and any stragglers to ensure that her and her team made it to victory safely. Only after clearing the way around their own ship did Xili land back on deck, wordlessly twirling her glider and closing it up again. She was unhurt, having stayed airborne for most of the time, and the lack of any airbenders among the pirates meant that Xilingshi had dominated the skies just as she had during the War of Tipped Scales. She only returned to see what was happening once they had stopped at a collection of rocky outcroppings in the middle of the ocean. Xilingshi was no geographer, but she too knew that this was unusual. but, even she listened to the instructions that Kei gave, nodding in understanding. She, like many of the others, stripped down to her smalls (which were simple and white; nothing to them, really) before the swim, and having lived and fought along a rocky cliff surrounded by coasts that made for prime resting places for naval strikes, she was used to the water and could swim well herself. Once she and the others emerged from the water, Xilingshi used some swift and efficient airbending to dry herself off like a high-powered air-dryer, doing the same with her clothes and staff a moment later. There was more than one reason why this woman was an airbending master. Those tattoos of hers were not just for show. The puzzle here was fairly obvious. Xilingshi did not say anything (she had spoken very little on this journey thus far, staying fairly cold-footed and aloof most of the time, which was just something she did with people she was not familiar with), but she contributed her part when it was clear that an airbender was one of the elements required here. Xi was instantly intrigued by the ruined buildings, but the spiritual side of this airbender woman was very uncomfortable. There was a presence here... a very malevolent and foul one... and she could feel it vividly. It didn't take long for shit to hit the fan either. Within minutes, they were surrounded by swarms of these spirit monsters that Xilingshi didn't even want to think about--just that they needed to die. She positioned herself in front of the party, where most of the monsters were, and took a defensive stance. She did not say anything, but instead confronted the monsters directly. If there was anyone in the party she wanted to protect, it was that waterbender healer girl (for that reason actually), and perhaps ensure that Kei the leader didn't die so he could get them out of here safely. the rest of them... well, none of them could be chalked up as very tragic losses. Xi gave abattle yell before lunching right into the thick of things, using her staff and some vicious air slices to try and do these creatures in. They did not seem to feel pain, but as a seasoned warrior responsible for ending thousands of lives over her long and bloody career, Xi knew that most things could not take a shot to the threat or the throat. She aimed for the latter, her air slices decapitating creature after creature, even if there was no end to them. She was light on her feet with the movements of a lethal dancer. She was taking an offensive but her maneuvers were defensive. This was a woman of skill, and it was clear that she was very used to protecting other people, as if they were her own soldiers. There was a reason Xilingshi was a leader, and it was not just because of her ability to direct troops on a battlefield.

Mood: Concentrated Condition: Pumped

Link: Xilingshi