Chapter 4 - Adventure on the horizon

"This would never happen to San d'Oria." Exclaimed Voldos tired of the stunned violence, wanting to get his chance to exact his revenge on the crazy fanatical bitch. Of course the other 4 just ignored his child like inpatients taking more time to survey the destruction in front of them. A once proud bustling town square had been reduced to rubble and a housing of death and injury.

"Uh Vivli. How long were we out for?" The destruction in front of them looked like something a beastman horde would take 5 hours to do rather than the 10 minutes Bootus thought they took to recover.

"I healed you guys as soon as it was safe to!" Vivli replied in a slight desperate whiny voice.

"How soon was it till it was safe?" A raised eyebrow helped to illiterate Bootus's suspicion.

"Soon as she was gone of course! You saw her abilities! She could easily have done this."

"Yeah in a deserted town maybe, but not with guards and adventurers challenging her!"

"I'm telling you she did this within 10 minutes!" Vivli's voice started to rise as she got frustrated with Bootus's lack of faith in her.

Truth is the super strong warrior whore took longer than 10 minutes to lay waste to Bastok. It took her a good 30 minutes to subdue the guards and few Mithril Musketeers remaining in the city and a further 15 to exact her sadistic pleasures on the people of Bastok. The reason why the adventurers hadn't been cured and on there way to have their butts kicked all over again trying to defend the city is because it took the better part of 25 minutes for Vivli to get her emotions in check and get over the evil she had felt oozing from the Butch Bitch and another 5 until she was sure her friends wouldn't be able to tell of the emotional stress she had been subjected to. If she had known this was happening she might have hurried the process on further.

As the memory of the past hour came back to Vivli the question of why she had been scared so bad she almost had to buy new armour baffled her. Sure she isn't the most courageous member of the 5 wo/men team she thought she'd gotten over her fear of battle a long time ago. However something about this new threat gave off waves of evil like she was wanting to make a point to anyone near her and this evil must have been what scared her so bad. But she couldn't dwell on this now, she needed her mind in the present to try and find a solution to their painful problem.

"Stop arguing you two. That isn't going to help anything." Bootus's and Vivli's bickering had sprung Zinkata out of the trance the destruction had him in. "We need to find the President and hope this juiced up warrior hasn't done anything too rash."

As the group walked towards the metal works building that stands tall and proud in the middle of Bastok more of the carnage could be seen, burnt down buildings, destroyed walls and walk ways, even the fountain hadn't escaped destruction. However the metal works building seemed to be un touched, this gave the group hope that they were in time to save the President.

"I never noticed there were Gargoyles on the metal works building. Fancy." Voldos's seemingly irrelevant spot was at first just another ignored Voldos point, however this one couldn't help but replay again in Bootus and Zinkata's minds.

"Metal works doesn't have any Gargoyles on it!" They both said together confusion in their voices and on their faces.

"Maybe they added while we were away. Probably influenced by Elvaan architecture. Another attempt of you non-Elvaans to try and reach perfection." Spurting Elvaan propaganda was always a good way for Voldos to forget what situation he was in.

"Well unless their moving Gargoyles we might have a problem here." At first Voldos thought Zinkata's time alone had caused mild cabin fever in which caused him to see the previously thought of as Gargoyles move. Unfortunately this wasn't the case, and in either reality Zinkata would have been screwed. As the mysterious beast spread there massive wings a loud screech was let out from all four of them before the swooped down towards the 5 could be heroes.

"Well this isn't good." Voldos's ability to point out the obvious was again demonstrated as many times before

"Stop pointing out the obvious and get ready for battle!" Bootus said while getting into a stance that wasn't the best for fighting, so Bootus not using it to fight but to charge up a chi blast was a good thing. As Bootus cupped his hands together on his left side a blue ball started to form between them. Once the ball was big enough Bootus swiftly moved his cupped hands in front of him, releasing a bright blue beam of energy hurtling towards one of the creatures, now close enough to be identified as Harpies. Luckily for Bootus Harpies weren't schooled in the ways of chi so didn't recognised its destructive potential so didn't try to get out of the way but instead hurtled faster towards it seeing it as a challenge. This lead to its down fall as it was it one of the Harpies full force sending it flying back miles, leaving the other 3 Harpies stunned, but also opened to one of Voldos's arrows piercing another Harpy right threw the right arm, but instead of the Harpy letting out a hurt scream and running away it did the opposite and let out another war cry and sped towards a reloading Voldos. Luckily for Voldos he wasn't facing the enemy on his own this time, and thankfully a lightening bolt sent the Harpy off course into an already trashed building.

"Zinkata you think you can provide cover for me?" Vivli decided it was time to show all of them what she was now capable of.

"What? Why?"

"Just do it!"

With that Zinkata dropped back slightly and putting up a protective barrier around himself and Vivli. A faint glow started to grow stronger behind Zinkata who took a second from watching the charging Harpy to see what it was. At first it seemed like Vivli was just doing another cure spell which didn't need Zinkata's assistance, in fact a cure spell wasn't needed at all unless she was planning on healing the Harpy that was trying to untangle itself from the wrecked building. As Vivli finished Zinkata turned around to expect to have to fight off a Harpy but instead was met with the back of an old bold man in a black coat. It would appear the Harpy wasn't expecting the appearance of the old man and had stopped in her tracks within half a meter of him. However after assessing the new challenger as a frail old man she once more renewed her attack to be met with a massive ball of electricity which sent her flying across the floor slamming into the unusually empty auction house.

On the other side of the fountain Bootus was in a competition of strength against the only Harpy not to have had an ass whooping. As they were joined by the hands trying to find an opening of attack Bootus realised his slight strength advantage, using this and a change of direction Bootus started to spin the Harpy like a hammer in the Vana'diel Olympics. After a couple of circles Bootus let go throwing the Harpy into the side of the metal works building creating a nice indentation of the harpy in the brick wall. With the Harpy stunned Bootus sent a small, yet still powerful, chi blast at the Harpy who recognized it as the same technique that sent her friend into Bastok port. Collecting as much of her awareness as possible the Harpy dived out of the way of the blast letting it create a harmless hole in the side of the metal works building. Seeing this as his best opening of attack Bootus drew his great Katana and prepared to charge the defenceless foe. Or he would have if something hadn't hit him in the side of his head sending him into the fountain with a splash. Looking over to where he used to be Bootus now saw a very angry looking Harpy hovering, obviously wanting her revenge for Bootus's earlier attack. Looking over his shoulder to see how Zinkata was faring he was surprised to see him standing in front of Vivli watching one of the Harpies fighting a random old man in a black coat. The most surprising this was the old man seemed to be pummelling the Harpy with out much trouble. Deciding his battle with now two pissed off Harpies was a bit beyond him, not that he would admit it, he decided to get the help of Zinkata seeing he wasn't as busy as he should have been, them being in a battle and all.

"Instead of standing around doing nothing how about you take on one of these Harpies? The one of the lefts weaker." With this Zinkata realised he was actually supposed to be helping to win this battle instead of watching the battle like it was some sort of paid amusement.

"Oh, yeah sure!"

"For the love of the king! Why wont this thing die!" Exclaimed Voldos as a fifth arrow pierced the Harpies skin. It would seem that lightening bolts weren't anymore effective in bring the she-devil down either. This led to a much pissed off Voldos using one of his special arrows. As Voldos shot his piercing arrow towards the Harpy Bollo sent up a fire ball. The piercing arrow hit it's mark and was sent right threw it's heart. At the same time the fire ball also hit causing the Harpy to fall to the group, defiantly dead this time! However Voldos and Bollo's victory was cut short as a glow surrounded the Harpy, lifting it off the floor and putting the now fully revived Harpy back on its feet.

"Uh guys. We have a problem." Voldos having seen the effects of raise before quickly came to the realisation that somewhere a white mage was going to keep the Harpies alive to fight as long as the adventurers were alive.

"What did I tell you about pointing out the obvious?" Bootus shouted towards Voldos while countering one of the Harpies attacks.

"No! We have a new problem!"

"What?"

"There's a mage keeping the Harpies alive!"

"… Well that'll explain how this one recovered so quickly!"

"So what are we going to do now?" Vivli only having to summon in the battle was free to listen in on the increasingly disturbing conversation.

"The only thing we can do. Fall back!" Zinkata wise in his knowledge of running away, an old thief habit.

With a cry of "God dammit!" Bootus put both of his hands in front of his producing another blue ball. However when he shot it instead of a beam it was just the ball that left his hands, exploding in the Harpies face on contact.

"Re-group at sunshine mountain!" Now free from the Harpies attack for a couple of seconds was given enough time to think about the retreat order.

With Voldos and Bollo far enough away from their Harpy they decided to comply with the retreat order sooner rather than later, only being chased by the Harpy up until the South Gate. With Vivli without a challenger she also made her way to South Gate, recalling her summon at the last possible moment. This left Zinkata and Bootus fighting off 4 Harpies while slowly making their way to the gate. Thanks to a strong protect spell by Zinkata and a few chi blasts from Bootus they also managed to make it out of Bastok and to Sunshine mountain, only suffering a few cuts and bruises.

"So what do we do now?" Vivli asked, being the first one to come to terms with their recent defeat.

"I suppose there's only one thing to do. With this crazed women now having taken over Bastok there's no telling what she's going to do next. We have to go to Jeuno and report this to the Grand Duke!"