The Southern Road [POST HERE FIRST]

Crovan smirked at her fluster and nodded at the mental image of Naoki's tail twitching, "Indeed."

<exit directly to Naoki's Office>

The Scar Harvestman would get through the open lands to the free plains hours after the first Ao outriders, the two other riders still keeping pace with it to track its movement. Now in more open territory, the monster notices the men on horses and lets out a low hiss. Beads of slobber trip from her chelicerae for she hungered for the small morsels in front of her.

Finally, a normal monster to fight. the Commodore thought to herself as her assembled companies formed up in the air. Three hundred Griffin Riders, the main strength of her legion on the plains, were a half mile off, while her 2nd company of Light Riders circled near the giant spider.

2nd Company's role, as the fastest company in the Legion, was to harry and harass the giant spider, test it for weaknesses and see what it was capable of doing.

Liz raised her sword in the air, feeling the mana drawn to it like lightning to a rod, and brought it down in a chopping motion. The light company began there descent, forming a vertical wheeling pattern of archers that loosed a constant stream of arrows from powerful composite bows into the creature.

Xel'rath would abandon the form of the cow for now, as the Dawn Riders made their arrival and the spider's attention seemed to focus on the air. During this time Xel'rath would approach one of the legs of the spider, appearing as nothing more than a shadow that zipped along the ground, darker even than the shadow the spider already cast with it's huge size. The speed of the shadow's movement would leave the spider hard pressed to avoid Xel'rath given it's slowness and current preoccupation. 

Xel'rath would continue then should he reach the spider, traveling up the long leg of the beast until the shadow rested on the bottom of the spider's midsection. Here, the shadow would pause, and once again begin gathering more energy. 

As the shadow lacked any physical presence the spider would most likely not be able to feel Xel'rath's movements upon its body.

(Charge 2)

The Harvestman moves her palps and begins to spew sticky webbing from her fangs, turning to spread the spraying goop around. The intent simply to ensnare the many nuisances flying around her! With the proportionate size of the spider, her silk is more dense than that of your everyday arachnid, each strand weighing 1/5th the weight of steel beams of the same size and with exceeding steel in toughness and tensile strength!
<Charge expended>

KERSHPEWWWWWFFWWFWFWFWFWFFWWFWFWWFSFSWFSWFFWFSWWFFFSSAAA[/b]

Still being several hundred meters away, Blackbean immediately banked left, then contorted its body to dive bomb straight down, narrowly avoiding the attack. It was all Jun could do to hang on with one hand, but as she did Resonance ignited into brilliant magic flames, leaving a trail of smoke in her wake.

As they approached the ground, Blackbean would bank right in an attempt to confuse the spider. She did not have a clear shot yet, so she continued to siphon mana into her sword as she flew. (Charge 2) It was at this point that she received the telepathic communication from the Black Tower. When Blackbean was level enough, Jun quickly tapped her Black Tower standard issue necklace and then gripped Blackbean once again.

Xel'rath , Elizabeth Finch , I think we need to reduce its mobility as much as possible so that the kami has a clear shot. Otherwise, it may still do serious damage to the city or even dodge the attack. You guys hear me? We've got to slow it down!

The Harvestman watched the flying beasts retreat for now, web still spewing from her mouth. She began to move forward again, moving further into the plains.

While Xelr'rath's attack would effectively on natural substances, the beast is of fel origin so armored carapace of the Harvestman was resistant to magic and the process was much slower. The small nerve endings inside the armor told the spider that it was being damage over time, after a moment of evaluation, the Harvestman opts to begin shedding afflicted layers of armor. Plates of carapace began falling off to stop the spread of the disease-like attack.

With that threat dealt with, the spider crouches down and leaps high into the sky with great propulsion, catapulting itself a great distance into the plain, while airborne, it see signatures of heat in the direction of the city, as well as seeing the dawn riders retreat that way was that the hive for these insects? The spider also see the various farmlands between here and the city, the Harvestman would head for those. Meanwhile, it gathers power for a different type of attack.

(Charge 1)
(Heading for farmlands thread)

((Note, the spider's armor is only resistant to magic, not immune.))

Unfortunately, there would probably be no escape. There was a brief flash of light from Jun's sword as Blackbean turned to face the creature. As soon as Xel'rath ate away at the creature's carapace, Jun cried out "Fire Art: Flaming Dancer!"

Resonance was suddenly engulfed by a whirling torrent of fire which exploded outward like a large serpent. Indeed, once the light of the initial casting had subsided it would be revealed that flame did have something like a large, head attached to a snake-like body. The coiling, writhing flames were bright yellow and approximately 15 meters in length.


As soon as the giant creature crouched into a leaping position to try to get away, the dragon would leap forward and  "bite" at the weak points in the limbs created by Xel'rath's spell, rapidly increasing the temperature in and around them. The dragon would snake its way from limb to limb, quickly destroying the spider's somatic nervous system and muscle fibers with intense heat. The dragon was lightning quick and would follow the creature even if it successfully leaped, relentlessly biting away. The spell had been charged for several seconds, and would stick around for several seconds itself, just enough time to turn their battle into Isra's largest boiled crab leg buffet. If the spider's legs were sufficient damaged it would likely not get away.

Jun and Blackbean would bank away from the creature and fly out at least a hundred meters before arcing back towards it to see what it would do next.