Deep within the Cursed Land where no sane man dares to tread, there lied a treasure, hidden within a sunken corridor, which was worshipped by a cult of pygmies. A black concave mirror or lense which allows you to see that most beautiful visage within, yet with too long a stare will curse your psyche, wrack you with pain. On a quest, was Yogi sent to locate this relic, retrieve it safely, and bring it to the scholars for study. It wasn't a particularly powerful relic, but it was still an interesting specimen nonetheless. He had traveled far from the guild hall yet again, in search of this relic, this...
'Devil's Toenail, huh?'
Yogi found himself less than enthusiastic on account of the relic's name. It was with heavy heart that he accepted this most honorable of humiliating tasks, and risked his future reputation in the pursuit of knowledge. He couldn't even rightly muster up a fake smile to carry him through the task. He could hear the addendum to his title now, 'Capturer of the Devil's Toenail' 'The Toenail Collector' 'The Nailclipper'. All of them made him sad, but what made it all worse was how much effort he was going to have to put into it. After all, he had to brave this haunted land, fight his way through a pygmy cult just to get a hold of it.
All things considered, he would have liked to establish an easier way to do this. Maybe when he got back he could look into getting a couple of sub-palaces to establish a fast-travel network or something.
Yogi descended into the fissure carefully, summoning and using his Palace as an anchor for some rope he kept tied to the stairwell within. Did the Palace stand out in the Cursed Land? Maybe a little, though its stonework architecture made it look kinda like an abandoned fort. His biggest worry was that he might not be able to summon it within the upcoming tunnels and catacombs. His biggest weakness had always been needing space to work within.
He still had a couple of options, though, so he could feasibly push through this mission without his Palace proper. As he pressed deeper within the tunnels he found himself feeling a chill which ran up his spine. Typically these were the signs of powerful ghosts haunting the grounds, though similar effects could be achieved by two-bit mages within certain schools. With a cult of pygmies roaming the catacombs, there was likely to be magic-users among them. That was the rationale Yogi used to retain his courage, anyways.
Deeper still, he located the catacombs, or perhaps the entire tunnel had been an extension of them the whole time. He had to've been a whole kilometer from the fissure he'd enterred through. The young treasure hunter took a few moments to calm himself down before making progress down the tunnel. If he didn't make any noise, he could slip past the cultists and find the treasure.
Be made full sweeping glances as he passed across intersections within the catacombs, yet the place felt super empty. He didn't even hear any voices. It was like the cult was hiding from him. Yogi would eventually reach a small shrine, by the looks of the architecture, and that signaled to him the halfway mark of his journey. So far very little in the way of challenges. It seemed easy... too easy.
He felt a sudden and sharp pain in the back of his head which was paired with a loud wooden 'thwack'. Yogi's vision went blurry, and then black.
He awoke in a daze, and found himself in a fairly large pit of some sort. He looked around wearily, somewhat thankful for the lighting. "Where... am I? What hit me?" he would ask. He tried to stand up, realizing that he had been bound in rope. 'Great... just what I needed. Competent cultists...' his thoughts raced.
He saw his backpack cast aside, and sighed, pondering how best to escape this situation. This was the first time he'd ever been captured by the enemy, and with no backup, it was his sole responsibility to keep his own life. Suddenly he heard a creaking sound, a steel bar door at the far side of the pit; rusty, by its groan. Yogi took a deep breath, preparing for negotiations with a pretty gnarly headache.
Before him marched a set of very short, chalked-up individuals, clearly coated in some sort of white powder. One wore a strange crown, marking him the leader, probably, while the others proceeded to... imitate ghosts childishly? The supposed head of the cult would speak to him. "What bringest thou to ye catacombs?" he asked. Yogi would force a smile, and attempt to crack a joke, "You couldn't have asked that before sapping me in the back of the head, tying me up, and tossing me into a pit?"
"Answer ye question, knave."
"Alright. I'm here to claim the Toenail, and bring it back to civilized lands for in-depth research."
"Fool. Ye Devil's Toenail is not a relic for ye eyes of thy heretic scholars. You will leave this place or suffer ye wrath."
"My wrath?"
"Nay, ye wrath."
"Y-your wrath?"
"Nay. YE wrath. I have not ye wherewithal for thy comedy, knave."
Yogi, having trouble deciphering this man's strange accent, decided to gloss over the statement and proceed to carry on trying to negotiate. "Listen, I know full well that relic is cursed. I'm not trying to use it for some ritual or anything. We're gonna study it and lock it away once we learn how it functions, maybe even seal away its power if it's dangerous enough. But it's better than being locked behind a wall of ignorance."
"Thou insult my people and their intellect? Bold speech for one who fell victim to our sappers," the cult's head would taunt in return. "Nay," Yogi interjected, stealing the short chalky man's speech quirk, "I'm saying that you are forcefully preventing the acquisition of knowledge. That is ignorance, and as a proud member of Silver Wolf, I won't stand for it."
"Very well, silver knave. I offer thee a choice betwixt two. Ye first option, thou may leave emptyhanded, but secure in physical health, and tell thy guild no such relic exists. Ye second option, we can execute thee where thou sit, and we'll offer ye Devil's Toenail to thy guild in thy stead. A fair pair of deals in either case, yes?"
Yogi would analyze the options. He didn't appear to be in any sort of position to negotiate better terms, since they were reaching the point of violence. Then again, they'd already slipped up without realizing it, so Yogi wasn't lost for a way out just yet. "Why offer me two options? Seems like a pointless gesture since it's like telling me to go home and fail my job, or die where I stand. Plus what's stopping you from killing me anyways?"
The headgear-wearing cultist would grin, "Geas Magic. If thou agree to my terms, I can enforce all aspects of ye selected deal via forced compulsion of thyself and myself. But ye deal will come to fruition either way, there shalt be no other result, thou either live or thou perish."
Geas Magic? That was a powerful sort of ancient curse magic based on contracts. Yogi didn't want to get caught in the spell, and as long as he didn't agree to any terms he would be safe from it. "Thanks for the honesty..." he would say, a little disconcerted. "Now choose, knave. Choose thy destiny,"
"Nope."
"Eh!?"
"Why would I lock one destiny in place when I could easily make one by myself?" Yogi asked. "Perhaps thou needest some... 'inspiration'?" the chief would ask rhetorically, his compatriots ceasing their silly ghost impressions and brandishing swords which appeared from nowhere pointing very close to his face.
"Oh, I'm inspired alright. So inspired I'll make you all a deal of my own design," he would say, grinning. The swords would retract a few inches as the very short, ghost impersonating cultists would waver in the face of Yogi's courage. "I'm gonna get out of these ropes, then I'm gonna blast my way out of this pit, and finally, I'm gonna take that devil's toenail of yours and bring it to the best historical minds Fiore has to offer by hand," he would declare.
The short cultists would take a step back, "I'll take that as your signatures. Now watch this."
Yogi snapped his fingers behind his back, "King's Guard!"
"K-king!?"
A tall plume of smoke would erupt, centered around Yogi's position. As it cleared away, a stonework Palace formed around the prisoner, and Yogi would sigh. Manipulating the objects stored within the palace was becoming a lot easier, especially rope, which he'd been using a pretty great deal lately. The ropes were unenchanted, and easily unfurled and straightened out before falling off of him. Yogi would stand himself up before walking right on out the front door of the Palace.
When he got out, he noticed that his captors had backed themselves as far away as possible. They'd run out the pit cell entirely, and locked him in by himself. The young mage had a somewhat disappointed look on his face. "They sure changed their tune quickly," he would comment in a deadpan manner, "Did a big building scare them that much? I didn't even get to show them the cannon."
"Did he say cannon?"
The young mage would snap his fingers, and a window of his Palace would open, poking the barrel of a small naval cannon outside, before firing an explosive shell right into the bars. The resulting explosion was nearly deafening, and the cell door was blasted clean off its hinges. "I can't believe you idiots locked me in a giant pit of all places," Yogi would insult, taking a jog to leave the cell, scooping up his backpack on the way. The cult's head and the cowardly warrior entourage were laid out and charred.
There was some worry that he might get lost, since he'd been taken away from the proper tunnel to reach the Devil's Toenail, but that was assuaged as he ran and found himself at a familiar intersection. Thankfully he had a pretty good memory, and while his sense of direction may not have been the best, this helped reorient him. Just a straight shot to the Devil's Toenail, and a straight run back to the fissure and he'd be home free.
A minute or so of running later, he finally arrived at the scene of his previous sapping. Yogi would glance about warily, wondering if the cultist who conked him good a while ago was still around. He noticed that the shrine door was shut, which was previously not a thing. He looked at it for a moment, and sighed. "Ambush, right? Not this time."
He rose an arm to an outstretched position towards the door, with his palm out. A window seemed to open in the space next to him, and a familiar cannon barrel poked out. "King's Trove: Cannon," he declared decisively, unleashing yet another explosive shell into yet another unfortunate door. The loud boom rattled the foundation of the catacombs, which indicated that he may have gone a little too far.
He would enter the now wide-open shrine, and see a gaggle of 5 chalked-up little cultists, one was in fact brandishing a large club, all scattered about the room and covered in varying amounts of stone door debris. In the center of this shrine stood a pedestal with a black plate rested atop it, concave and scale-shaped just like Theo had mentioned. He figured his best bet at this point was to stifle his curiosity and leave the hangnail-tier migraines to the scholars back home. He didn't need to see beauty, especially not after this headache of a cult just about gave him a concussion. With the trek home he had? Yeah.
He approached the scale's pedestal with his backpack already open and scooped it directly into the bag without even giving it a cursory glance. "You fool!" shouted one of the cultists in fear, now awaking from his explosion-induced catnap, "The curse will kill us all!"
"The curse!?"
Suddenly, an array of portals would open up throughout the shrine. "Oh you've gotta be kidding me," Yogi would growl, visibly upset by this revelation. He forgot to check for traps, which meant whatever they had in mind for this tail end of the adventure would be its climax. From the portals emerged multiple small devils, brandishing pitchforks and all. Yogi would close his backpack and sling it back over his shoulder. The imps hissed some infernal language in his direction, before their words formed obscure runes in the air made of fire, and launched at him like darts. The pink-maned treasure hunter would slip away from that pedestal, which was summarily riddled with smoldering burn marks, sizzling slightly. The cultists that were awake had already gotten up and abandoned their sleeping comrades by leaving the shrine.
Yogi followed suit.
As he left the shrine, he caught a shadow from the corner of his eye, and ducked, allowing a large, as in as large as two Yogis stacked on top of one another at least, atrophied demonic arm to pass clear over his head. "Holy cow!" he ejected near-involuntarily, as he scrambled away from it. The arm whipped around and slammed into the ground where the young mage had just been a fraction of a second ago.
As Yogi ran, more portals would open up and more imps would pop out to play. He would sprint past them as they jabbed their pitchforks at him, pouncing in his direction, and of course, spat hot lumps of flaming infernal text at him. Every so often a larger portal openned up, and another arm or even a leg would reach out to try and grab onto him or crush him. Despite this, thanks to the physical training he'd done with Mathis, Yogi was capable of clearing most of the sudden living obstacles without much problem. That is, until he made it to the home stretch, whereupon a small army of imps would emerge from portals in front of him, taking up positions like some sort of military force. Yogi couldn't stop because of the similarly numerous variety of identical imps behind him. To make matters worse, four large portals opened up before him, allowing two arms and two legs of exceedingly menacing size to emerge from whatever hellscape the larger beast was trapped in.
Yogi needed to think fast and think big.
Above him was the opening to the cursed land from which he came. Judging by how many devils had accumulated here, they couldn't leave the fissure, or else they would have waited for him at the top. So there was a chance, he could escape. He couldn't risk taking any big hits or else the Devil's Toenail in his backpack would likely break. The pathway was too narrow to put his palace inside of in order to strike, so he had to work with a very limited supply of spells. Yet again he cursed his lack of precision-based spells.
With a snap of his fingers, a puff of smoke would vent in from above, and a length of rope would dangle slightly overhead from the imps. He had placed his palace back where he had originally left it, to use as an anchoring point so that he could climb up.
"Alright, now Cannon!" he declared boldly. From above, another explosion was audible, and the ledge on the opposite side of the fissure would start to cave in. Large amounts of earthen debris would begin to descend onto the imps in front of him. Yogi imagined that his mentor would do something impressive with this strategy like leap between the falling rocks like stairs and climb up that way, but Yogi was nowhere near that level of physical fighter, so he just jumped up and grabbed onto the rope while the imps and limbs were distracted. The palace began to retract the rope to speed along his ascent. Yogi was finally home-free. Or so he thought.
Suddenly, he felt a tight pressure around his body. One of the hands of that giant sealed demon had lashed out and grabbed hold of him at the last second. Yogi felt his body being crushed by the grip, and the demonic limb pulled on him, as if trying to drag him into its dimension to be eaten. The pink-maned mage felt his heartrate skyrocket, his adrenal glands working tripletime to try and get him out of this situation. He needed time to think, so everything slowed down, his pain receptors dulled, and his emotions calmed. How could he escape? What would Mathis do?
The fact was simple, he needed to get the limb to let go. What kind of firepower did he need for that? His cannon should have sufficed, but it still needed time to reload. Without that, he didn't have much in the way of power available in such tight quarters. Was he doomed? It seemed likely. That is, until he realized that the rope was also being gripped by the hand.
As the demon pulled and pulled, the palace would be yanked further and further towards the ledge. The rocks weren't necessarily sturdy on that side either, since the Palace of Babel's cannon fired high explosive shells that causes larger scale damage than its own width tends to hold. Yogi knew what he had to do. He kicked, he screamed, he fought and thrashed to try and slip out, causing the limb to pull harder. Yogi would have been worried about the Devil's Toenail had he not placed it at the very top of his backpack which had only been full of blankets and rations, but because he did, he knew that the demon's grasp was only crushing him and his food supply which was totally a better option.
The demon's hand finally pulled hard enough to force the cliff to give way, accidentally throwing Yogi as the sudden slack cause its arm to swing too quickly. His palace tipped over and descended into the fissure. It was readjusted as it clipped the side of the cliff, and landed foundation-side down on top of the four portals, crushing all of the limbs underneath it along with many imps. The four limbs struggled for a moment to escape, but fizzled into nothingness under the heft of the palace.
Without any further hesitation, Yogi would snap his fingers once more, repositioning his Palace to the top of the fissure and he would jump to grab the rope. With no thrashing and grasping demon limbs to try and take him back down, he was finally hoisted up to safety. Outside of the fissure at last, he felt a wave of calm wash over him. The imps and devil limbs and weird pygmy cult that worshipped toenails was behind him, and there was nothing requiring him to go back in there, hopefully ever again.
Resting on his palace's battlement, he would open his backpack and check on the Toenail. He looked at both sides, back and front, "Good, good. No chips or scratches..."
The young mage would stare just a little too long and catch a glimpse of something, no somebody. Blue hair, red eyes, red horns, red scarf... Wait, was this...? Oh heck no! That was a can of worms that Yogi had neither the time to unpack, nor the will to open.
Yogi immediately stashed the Devil's Toenail away in his backpack, his face flushing red. "This is truly a cursed relic..." he would finally say with clear and grave decisiveness. Nobody could ever know what he'd seen, nobody could ever know that he'd looked. The pink-maned mage would resolve here to take this secret with him to the grave.
With that all said and done, Yogi proceeded to head back to the guild. It was a long venture, especially since he'd been somewhat injured and needed to rest along the way. He managed to find a ley line, thankfully, which dramatically enhanced the quality of his Palace's recuperation ability. His bones and headache were cured overnight, his energy was filled up til he was brimming with life and vigor. About halfway back to the guild hall, he had to hop on a train, which was delayed a handful of times, due to poor weather conditions, but eventually he made it to the foot of the mountain where the guild hall lied. Weary from a long journey thither and back, he would turn in the Devil's Toenail along with the report he'd written while on the train, and turn in for some nice non-alcoholic beverages at the guild's bar. He drank away the events of the hunt, like any treasure hunter might, and accepted his rewards with grace.
WC: 3512
Needed for Exam: 1000
Overage Used for Job: 2500
'Devil's Toenail, huh?'
Yogi found himself less than enthusiastic on account of the relic's name. It was with heavy heart that he accepted this most honorable of humiliating tasks, and risked his future reputation in the pursuit of knowledge. He couldn't even rightly muster up a fake smile to carry him through the task. He could hear the addendum to his title now, 'Capturer of the Devil's Toenail' 'The Toenail Collector' 'The Nailclipper'. All of them made him sad, but what made it all worse was how much effort he was going to have to put into it. After all, he had to brave this haunted land, fight his way through a pygmy cult just to get a hold of it.
All things considered, he would have liked to establish an easier way to do this. Maybe when he got back he could look into getting a couple of sub-palaces to establish a fast-travel network or something.
Yogi descended into the fissure carefully, summoning and using his Palace as an anchor for some rope he kept tied to the stairwell within. Did the Palace stand out in the Cursed Land? Maybe a little, though its stonework architecture made it look kinda like an abandoned fort. His biggest worry was that he might not be able to summon it within the upcoming tunnels and catacombs. His biggest weakness had always been needing space to work within.
He still had a couple of options, though, so he could feasibly push through this mission without his Palace proper. As he pressed deeper within the tunnels he found himself feeling a chill which ran up his spine. Typically these were the signs of powerful ghosts haunting the grounds, though similar effects could be achieved by two-bit mages within certain schools. With a cult of pygmies roaming the catacombs, there was likely to be magic-users among them. That was the rationale Yogi used to retain his courage, anyways.
Deeper still, he located the catacombs, or perhaps the entire tunnel had been an extension of them the whole time. He had to've been a whole kilometer from the fissure he'd enterred through. The young treasure hunter took a few moments to calm himself down before making progress down the tunnel. If he didn't make any noise, he could slip past the cultists and find the treasure.
Be made full sweeping glances as he passed across intersections within the catacombs, yet the place felt super empty. He didn't even hear any voices. It was like the cult was hiding from him. Yogi would eventually reach a small shrine, by the looks of the architecture, and that signaled to him the halfway mark of his journey. So far very little in the way of challenges. It seemed easy... too easy.
He felt a sudden and sharp pain in the back of his head which was paired with a loud wooden 'thwack'. Yogi's vision went blurry, and then black.
He awoke in a daze, and found himself in a fairly large pit of some sort. He looked around wearily, somewhat thankful for the lighting. "Where... am I? What hit me?" he would ask. He tried to stand up, realizing that he had been bound in rope. 'Great... just what I needed. Competent cultists...' his thoughts raced.
He saw his backpack cast aside, and sighed, pondering how best to escape this situation. This was the first time he'd ever been captured by the enemy, and with no backup, it was his sole responsibility to keep his own life. Suddenly he heard a creaking sound, a steel bar door at the far side of the pit; rusty, by its groan. Yogi took a deep breath, preparing for negotiations with a pretty gnarly headache.
Before him marched a set of very short, chalked-up individuals, clearly coated in some sort of white powder. One wore a strange crown, marking him the leader, probably, while the others proceeded to... imitate ghosts childishly? The supposed head of the cult would speak to him. "What bringest thou to ye catacombs?" he asked. Yogi would force a smile, and attempt to crack a joke, "You couldn't have asked that before sapping me in the back of the head, tying me up, and tossing me into a pit?"
"Answer ye question, knave."
"Alright. I'm here to claim the Toenail, and bring it back to civilized lands for in-depth research."
"Fool. Ye Devil's Toenail is not a relic for ye eyes of thy heretic scholars. You will leave this place or suffer ye wrath."
"My wrath?"
"Nay, ye wrath."
"Y-your wrath?"
"Nay. YE wrath. I have not ye wherewithal for thy comedy, knave."
Yogi, having trouble deciphering this man's strange accent, decided to gloss over the statement and proceed to carry on trying to negotiate. "Listen, I know full well that relic is cursed. I'm not trying to use it for some ritual or anything. We're gonna study it and lock it away once we learn how it functions, maybe even seal away its power if it's dangerous enough. But it's better than being locked behind a wall of ignorance."
"Thou insult my people and their intellect? Bold speech for one who fell victim to our sappers," the cult's head would taunt in return. "Nay," Yogi interjected, stealing the short chalky man's speech quirk, "I'm saying that you are forcefully preventing the acquisition of knowledge. That is ignorance, and as a proud member of Silver Wolf, I won't stand for it."
"Very well, silver knave. I offer thee a choice betwixt two. Ye first option, thou may leave emptyhanded, but secure in physical health, and tell thy guild no such relic exists. Ye second option, we can execute thee where thou sit, and we'll offer ye Devil's Toenail to thy guild in thy stead. A fair pair of deals in either case, yes?"
Yogi would analyze the options. He didn't appear to be in any sort of position to negotiate better terms, since they were reaching the point of violence. Then again, they'd already slipped up without realizing it, so Yogi wasn't lost for a way out just yet. "Why offer me two options? Seems like a pointless gesture since it's like telling me to go home and fail my job, or die where I stand. Plus what's stopping you from killing me anyways?"
The headgear-wearing cultist would grin, "Geas Magic. If thou agree to my terms, I can enforce all aspects of ye selected deal via forced compulsion of thyself and myself. But ye deal will come to fruition either way, there shalt be no other result, thou either live or thou perish."
Geas Magic? That was a powerful sort of ancient curse magic based on contracts. Yogi didn't want to get caught in the spell, and as long as he didn't agree to any terms he would be safe from it. "Thanks for the honesty..." he would say, a little disconcerted. "Now choose, knave. Choose thy destiny,"
"Nope."
"Eh!?"
"Why would I lock one destiny in place when I could easily make one by myself?" Yogi asked. "Perhaps thou needest some... 'inspiration'?" the chief would ask rhetorically, his compatriots ceasing their silly ghost impressions and brandishing swords which appeared from nowhere pointing very close to his face.
"Oh, I'm inspired alright. So inspired I'll make you all a deal of my own design," he would say, grinning. The swords would retract a few inches as the very short, ghost impersonating cultists would waver in the face of Yogi's courage. "I'm gonna get out of these ropes, then I'm gonna blast my way out of this pit, and finally, I'm gonna take that devil's toenail of yours and bring it to the best historical minds Fiore has to offer by hand," he would declare.
The short cultists would take a step back, "I'll take that as your signatures. Now watch this."
Yogi snapped his fingers behind his back, "King's Guard!"
"K-king!?"
A tall plume of smoke would erupt, centered around Yogi's position. As it cleared away, a stonework Palace formed around the prisoner, and Yogi would sigh. Manipulating the objects stored within the palace was becoming a lot easier, especially rope, which he'd been using a pretty great deal lately. The ropes were unenchanted, and easily unfurled and straightened out before falling off of him. Yogi would stand himself up before walking right on out the front door of the Palace.
When he got out, he noticed that his captors had backed themselves as far away as possible. They'd run out the pit cell entirely, and locked him in by himself. The young mage had a somewhat disappointed look on his face. "They sure changed their tune quickly," he would comment in a deadpan manner, "Did a big building scare them that much? I didn't even get to show them the cannon."
"Did he say cannon?"
The young mage would snap his fingers, and a window of his Palace would open, poking the barrel of a small naval cannon outside, before firing an explosive shell right into the bars. The resulting explosion was nearly deafening, and the cell door was blasted clean off its hinges. "I can't believe you idiots locked me in a giant pit of all places," Yogi would insult, taking a jog to leave the cell, scooping up his backpack on the way. The cult's head and the cowardly warrior entourage were laid out and charred.
There was some worry that he might get lost, since he'd been taken away from the proper tunnel to reach the Devil's Toenail, but that was assuaged as he ran and found himself at a familiar intersection. Thankfully he had a pretty good memory, and while his sense of direction may not have been the best, this helped reorient him. Just a straight shot to the Devil's Toenail, and a straight run back to the fissure and he'd be home free.
A minute or so of running later, he finally arrived at the scene of his previous sapping. Yogi would glance about warily, wondering if the cultist who conked him good a while ago was still around. He noticed that the shrine door was shut, which was previously not a thing. He looked at it for a moment, and sighed. "Ambush, right? Not this time."
He rose an arm to an outstretched position towards the door, with his palm out. A window seemed to open in the space next to him, and a familiar cannon barrel poked out. "King's Trove: Cannon," he declared decisively, unleashing yet another explosive shell into yet another unfortunate door. The loud boom rattled the foundation of the catacombs, which indicated that he may have gone a little too far.
He would enter the now wide-open shrine, and see a gaggle of 5 chalked-up little cultists, one was in fact brandishing a large club, all scattered about the room and covered in varying amounts of stone door debris. In the center of this shrine stood a pedestal with a black plate rested atop it, concave and scale-shaped just like Theo had mentioned. He figured his best bet at this point was to stifle his curiosity and leave the hangnail-tier migraines to the scholars back home. He didn't need to see beauty, especially not after this headache of a cult just about gave him a concussion. With the trek home he had? Yeah.
He approached the scale's pedestal with his backpack already open and scooped it directly into the bag without even giving it a cursory glance. "You fool!" shouted one of the cultists in fear, now awaking from his explosion-induced catnap, "The curse will kill us all!"
"The curse!?"
Suddenly, an array of portals would open up throughout the shrine. "Oh you've gotta be kidding me," Yogi would growl, visibly upset by this revelation. He forgot to check for traps, which meant whatever they had in mind for this tail end of the adventure would be its climax. From the portals emerged multiple small devils, brandishing pitchforks and all. Yogi would close his backpack and sling it back over his shoulder. The imps hissed some infernal language in his direction, before their words formed obscure runes in the air made of fire, and launched at him like darts. The pink-maned treasure hunter would slip away from that pedestal, which was summarily riddled with smoldering burn marks, sizzling slightly. The cultists that were awake had already gotten up and abandoned their sleeping comrades by leaving the shrine.
Yogi followed suit.
As he left the shrine, he caught a shadow from the corner of his eye, and ducked, allowing a large, as in as large as two Yogis stacked on top of one another at least, atrophied demonic arm to pass clear over his head. "Holy cow!" he ejected near-involuntarily, as he scrambled away from it. The arm whipped around and slammed into the ground where the young mage had just been a fraction of a second ago.
As Yogi ran, more portals would open up and more imps would pop out to play. He would sprint past them as they jabbed their pitchforks at him, pouncing in his direction, and of course, spat hot lumps of flaming infernal text at him. Every so often a larger portal openned up, and another arm or even a leg would reach out to try and grab onto him or crush him. Despite this, thanks to the physical training he'd done with Mathis, Yogi was capable of clearing most of the sudden living obstacles without much problem. That is, until he made it to the home stretch, whereupon a small army of imps would emerge from portals in front of him, taking up positions like some sort of military force. Yogi couldn't stop because of the similarly numerous variety of identical imps behind him. To make matters worse, four large portals opened up before him, allowing two arms and two legs of exceedingly menacing size to emerge from whatever hellscape the larger beast was trapped in.
Yogi needed to think fast and think big.
Above him was the opening to the cursed land from which he came. Judging by how many devils had accumulated here, they couldn't leave the fissure, or else they would have waited for him at the top. So there was a chance, he could escape. He couldn't risk taking any big hits or else the Devil's Toenail in his backpack would likely break. The pathway was too narrow to put his palace inside of in order to strike, so he had to work with a very limited supply of spells. Yet again he cursed his lack of precision-based spells.
With a snap of his fingers, a puff of smoke would vent in from above, and a length of rope would dangle slightly overhead from the imps. He had placed his palace back where he had originally left it, to use as an anchoring point so that he could climb up.
"Alright, now Cannon!" he declared boldly. From above, another explosion was audible, and the ledge on the opposite side of the fissure would start to cave in. Large amounts of earthen debris would begin to descend onto the imps in front of him. Yogi imagined that his mentor would do something impressive with this strategy like leap between the falling rocks like stairs and climb up that way, but Yogi was nowhere near that level of physical fighter, so he just jumped up and grabbed onto the rope while the imps and limbs were distracted. The palace began to retract the rope to speed along his ascent. Yogi was finally home-free. Or so he thought.
Suddenly, he felt a tight pressure around his body. One of the hands of that giant sealed demon had lashed out and grabbed hold of him at the last second. Yogi felt his body being crushed by the grip, and the demonic limb pulled on him, as if trying to drag him into its dimension to be eaten. The pink-maned mage felt his heartrate skyrocket, his adrenal glands working tripletime to try and get him out of this situation. He needed time to think, so everything slowed down, his pain receptors dulled, and his emotions calmed. How could he escape? What would Mathis do?
The fact was simple, he needed to get the limb to let go. What kind of firepower did he need for that? His cannon should have sufficed, but it still needed time to reload. Without that, he didn't have much in the way of power available in such tight quarters. Was he doomed? It seemed likely. That is, until he realized that the rope was also being gripped by the hand.
As the demon pulled and pulled, the palace would be yanked further and further towards the ledge. The rocks weren't necessarily sturdy on that side either, since the Palace of Babel's cannon fired high explosive shells that causes larger scale damage than its own width tends to hold. Yogi knew what he had to do. He kicked, he screamed, he fought and thrashed to try and slip out, causing the limb to pull harder. Yogi would have been worried about the Devil's Toenail had he not placed it at the very top of his backpack which had only been full of blankets and rations, but because he did, he knew that the demon's grasp was only crushing him and his food supply which was totally a better option.
The demon's hand finally pulled hard enough to force the cliff to give way, accidentally throwing Yogi as the sudden slack cause its arm to swing too quickly. His palace tipped over and descended into the fissure. It was readjusted as it clipped the side of the cliff, and landed foundation-side down on top of the four portals, crushing all of the limbs underneath it along with many imps. The four limbs struggled for a moment to escape, but fizzled into nothingness under the heft of the palace.
Without any further hesitation, Yogi would snap his fingers once more, repositioning his Palace to the top of the fissure and he would jump to grab the rope. With no thrashing and grasping demon limbs to try and take him back down, he was finally hoisted up to safety. Outside of the fissure at last, he felt a wave of calm wash over him. The imps and devil limbs and weird pygmy cult that worshipped toenails was behind him, and there was nothing requiring him to go back in there, hopefully ever again.
Resting on his palace's battlement, he would open his backpack and check on the Toenail. He looked at both sides, back and front, "Good, good. No chips or scratches..."
The young mage would stare just a little too long and catch a glimpse of something, no somebody. Blue hair, red eyes, red horns, red scarf... Wait, was this...? Oh heck no! That was a can of worms that Yogi had neither the time to unpack, nor the will to open.
Yogi immediately stashed the Devil's Toenail away in his backpack, his face flushing red. "This is truly a cursed relic..." he would finally say with clear and grave decisiveness. Nobody could ever know what he'd seen, nobody could ever know that he'd looked. The pink-maned mage would resolve here to take this secret with him to the grave.
With that all said and done, Yogi proceeded to head back to the guild. It was a long venture, especially since he'd been somewhat injured and needed to rest along the way. He managed to find a ley line, thankfully, which dramatically enhanced the quality of his Palace's recuperation ability. His bones and headache were cured overnight, his energy was filled up til he was brimming with life and vigor. About halfway back to the guild hall, he had to hop on a train, which was delayed a handful of times, due to poor weather conditions, but eventually he made it to the foot of the mountain where the guild hall lied. Weary from a long journey thither and back, he would turn in the Devil's Toenail along with the report he'd written while on the train, and turn in for some nice non-alcoholic beverages at the guild's bar. He drank away the events of the hunt, like any treasure hunter might, and accepted his rewards with grace.
WC: 3512
Needed for Exam: 1000
Overage Used for Job: 2500
