Prince Aladdin Quest (Disney Villains *Almost* Victorious)

Are the Witches here? 1 yes, 2 no. Result: 1
After determining that the Witches hadn't gone after the Destiny Stone, Aladdin and his motley crew had set out under Sadira's directions now. They couldn't risk going back to Agrabah to drop Aladdin off in order to keep him out of the fight, something that had Tai Lung grumbling into his fur, even as the landscape whipped past. As they drew closer to their destination though, they began to hear distant thunder. And in the sky, a pulsating, shifting mass of sand; a huge self-contained sandstorm hovered over your destination, with three thin tendrils being drawn down into different areas of the valley you were approaching.

Iago was the first to break the stunned silence. "So. I guess they're here, huh?" Abu nodded slowly, looking at the sandstorm with trepidation. As you watched, one of the sandstorm's funnels suddenly shifted, bulging wider, and then contracted upwards, almost like something being swallowed.

"Sadira, do you have any idea what they're doing?" Leah looked towards the other woman. The other members of the group also turned to look at her. Sadira fumbled under the attention, shaking her head, before something sparked in her eyes.

"I think this is a transport storm. It looks like a huge sandstorm, but the outside is the only thing in motion; keeping it aloft. The inside can be shaped however the witches want, and the captive winds mean that they can carry large amounts of heavy loads quickly and without the witches having to exert themselves too much. Once it's set up it becomes self-sustaining until all the witches that participated in the ritual to call it are either knocked out or..." She pauses, but Tai Lung nods harshly.

"Dead. Yes unfortunately that is an option we may have to seriously consider. Even with my pressure points, for all I know their magic lets them animate their bodies like puppets. And frankly, they're too dangerous to leave alive. Lots of power, lots of cruelty, and they seem the type to hold grudges, wouldn't you say?" He arched a brow at Sadira as he finished speaking in a sardonic tone of voice. The woman grimaced but nodded.

"Hush." Aladdin held up a hand. "We're getting closer, I don't want to give away that we're here. Iago, think you can get a good look at what's going on? Just don't take any unnecessary risks." The parrot looked reluctant, but as Aladdin finished he breathed a sigh of relief.

"Alright kid. Keep your shirt on, I'll be back in a minute." The parrot flew off on shockingly silent wings, making his way up the rock face before being lost to view in the gloom. Sadira kept a wary eye on the hovering sandstorm, while Leah, Tai Lung and Aladdin all looked out for anything that the witches may have put on patrol.

A few minutes later, Iago flew back. The bird was clearly shaken, wide-eyed and trailing a few feathers from stress-molting. "You guys gotta see this. I can't do it justice." Aladdin and Leah exchanged glances, this was honestly one of the first times they'd ever seen the verbose avian at a loss for words. Carefully, the group crept up the hill, Carpet assisting them in order to minimize the noise. When they peeked over the edge and down into the valley, Aladdin's eyes widened in shock.

"By Allah..." The interior of the valley was studded with massive blue crystals, some merely the size of a man, others bigger than some buildings that Aladdin had seen. Thankfully nothing dwarfing the palace in Agrabah, but still big. And contained within the crystals were a variety of shapes; some singular, others in groups. They were indistinct at this distance, the crystal giving off a blue glow that made it hard to make out their contents. The three tendrils of the sandstorm were reaching into the valley, though their terminus points were out of sight. But Aladdin saw a smooth circular hole in one column of crystal, coring it out, and presumably removing the occupant.

Far in the distance, at the far end of the valley, there was a blue light that shone brighter than the crystals. It pulsed slowly, like a slow heartbeat, and as it did so, swathes of energy spread out over the valley. As the energy reached the damaged crystals, the holes closed up a little more each time. Whatever it was, the source of the light was repairing the crystals, likely making it harder for the witches to break out their contents.

Speaking of the witches, there was a horrible grinding sound echoing from further in the valley where the three tendrils of the transport storm ended. Aladdin quickly clambered down, motioning for the others to follow after him. No witches in sight for now, and Sadira was looking around intently, trying to see if they had put up any watch golems or arcane eyes or whatever other magics they could utilize for keeping an eye on things while the three women did their work.

Finally landing on the hard blue crystal that seemed to make up the entirety of the valley, Aladdin gaped as he got closer to one of the ones that was undamaged. Inside, trunk raised in mid-trumpet, was an elephant. But unlike any he'd ever seen or heard of; with small ears and covered in a thick, almost wooly, pelt. It also had tusks that were longer than Aladdin was tall. Moving to another crystal, this time he blinked, before looking over to Tai Lung and indicating the new crystal.

"Long-lost family member?" The leopard moved forward, before his own eyebrows raised. Inside was a massive cat with long saber-like fangs protruding from its jaw. Experimentally, Tai Lung tapped the crystal with one claw, a short ripple of blue energy expanding outwards. For a moment, nothing happened... and then a very small portion of the crystal flowed out of the way. Tai Lung hurriedly took a step back.

"Right, note to self, using chi strikes on these things causes them to break down." Even as he spoke, the "melted" area was beginning to reconstitute, albeit slower than the ones that the witches had plundered.

Leah looked about in amazement. "There must be hundreds of them..." She stared up at a bear that could have quite literally hugged an Ogre to death with little trouble. Even though it had more of a curious sleepy expression on its face, she wasn't fooled. Something that big had to have become that big for a reason.

Sadira was quiet as she looked around. A worried line was starting to form between her brows though. Finally she broke her silence. "How many of these creatures have they taken already? And if they brought them all under their control, and turned them on Agrabah... Oh. Oh, no." She stilled as Iago landed on her shoulder.

"Easy kid, don't start panicking here. We can find some way to fix this before that happens. If nothing else I've seen his Highness over there pull off bigger capers with tighter odds." Abu nodded in agreement with the parrot.

Shaking off his awe, Aladdin's expression firmed. "Right, so we've got a couple of ways to go from here. I'm open to ideas."

[] Iago suggests investigating the blue glow on the horizon, as it's likely the source of the crystals. Maybe they can make some use of it?

[] Tai Lung on the other hand advocates going after the witches directly. Even if the disruption of one of the funnels will alert the witches to the death of one of their number, they'd still be separated and possibly able to be picked off before they could join up together again.

[] Sadira proposes trying to get into the transport sandstorm. With her magic she should be able to get the group in and disrupt the transport from within, negating all of the work the witches had done so far, and allowing them to fall on them from above.

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