Final Fiendasy - A Fiendish Quest

You are rather curious, and you wonder what the hindwalkers are up to. You are worried though that if they try to attack you, you might not hold up so well in a fight. You remember how much of a beating you took from the last encounter. You prefer to avoid getting hit at all, but you can't always do that, so...

In response to your will, you feel a budding sense of power rise up within you. Ethereal energy you've managed to collect from the creatures you've slain wells up and suffuses your being. Your skin thickens and hardens as your fur retreats, leaving you with a significantly tougher exterior. It feels good. It feels great! In fact, you feel better than you've ever felt before.

You feel an overwhelming sense of determination. Nothing can stop you now!

---

You give the hindwalkers plenty of space as they venture into the forest, prowling behind and sticking to the shadows.

What are they up to? They don't seem to--wait, where'd the middle one go?

You sniff the air.

Sneaky. It's like it just disappeared.

You turn and growl, thinking you sense movement, but... no. You can still smell it, but you can't see it or sense it anymore.

This bothers you. And the other two have stopped just ahead.

You feel a prickling sensation along your back as your tendrils alert you to danger. You spin about and--

A wave of heat washes over you, singing your tendrils and burning your skin. You instinctively try to run, but you find yourself covered in a thick goopy substance that clings to every square inch of your body and holds you firmly in place.

You snap and claw at it. It doesn't budge.

You feel movement again, and you turn to see the medium-sized hindwalker standing several paces away from you. How'd it get there?? You immediately snarl and roar and let loose a mighty thunderbolt!

...Which harmlessly dissipates into a harmless spray of sparks without even so much as shocking your target.

Oh no. This is not good. You turn to see the larger and smaller hindwalkers sprinting towards you. They'll be here soon to help. You'd better do something!

You're still stuck in the goop, when the sneaky hindwalker tosses a small cube beside you. To your chagrin, the cube unfolds to reveal a three-legged blastytube.

You stare at it helplessly. It's just outside the range of your claws.

BLAMBLAMBLAM

Grrrrrr!

Despite your newfound fortitude, those shots hit you point blank, and boy do they hurt.

But you know how to handle this!

You rear back and unleash a mighty roar, hurtling the most powerful lightning bolt you can manage at the three-legged blastytube. It strikes true, and the contraption shudders and arcs with electricity.

Yes! Direct hit!

...But it's still moving.

Oh no. Oh no oh no oh no.

Behind you, the largest hindwalker leaps up into the air and comes crashing down, driving its weapon into your mass. You yelp as it slices a deep gouge in your chest. The small hindwalker chants and gathers energy, then blasts you in the face with a massive fireball that causes you to cry out in agony. As the sneaky hindwalker tosses another gadget your way, the large hindwalker raises its weapon to strike again, and the three-legged blastytube swivels to level its barrel at you, you find yourself contemplating your short life.

You swam around in a tube for what felt like ages. Ahh, those were some good times. Carefree times. Simpler times. At least until your tube shrunk and you got shocked for no reason. That sucked. Then one day there were scary noises, and you fell out of your tube, and then got burned by fire, and found some shiny magical rocks, and somehow used the magic of one of the rocks to take on a powerful form. And then you got shot at by some hindwalkers for no reason, and then you took revenge on the hindwalkers, and then communicated with the small hindwalker and got scritches. That was very enjoyable. You miss scritches. You wish you could get scritches again. Then you escaped the burning exploding building with the small hindwalker, got shot at some more, witnessed things you still do not understand to this very day, got assailed by some spiny rollers and took a beating, then retreated into the forest to rest, only to encounter a plantmonster that was definitely not food. You prowled. You hunted. You found food. You killed slimyfins (and took a beating), and then ate some slimyfins, and then got chased off by the Alpha Coeurl. Damn that Alpha Coeurl--always stealing your kills. Then you hunted warkbird. That was hard, and difficult, and frustrating, and it almost got away, but in the end, you managed. You swore that you would catch that warkbird if it was the last thing you did. And you know what? Even though it literally was the last thing you did, you managed to hunt down and eat that warkbird.

Ahh, yes. You haven't lived a very long life, but it's been an eventful life, with many ups and downs. Many enjoyable moments, but way too much fire and blastytubes by your reckoning.

You really, really hate blastytubes, you decide, as you turn once more to the--

BLAMBLAMBLAM

---

"Hey, that was my kill!" Reingart the Dragoon says.

"Not by my count," Elejn the Machinist says smugly.

"Boys! Come on, let's go," Regana, the White Mage says in exasperation. "We don't have time for this."

---

You blink.

You aren't dead?

Wow. You aren't. You find this fact rather surprising. You're pretty sure you died.

You sniff the air and look around, feeling out with your tendrils. As your awareness comes back to you, you realize you are back in your cave.

You don't feel as great as you did earlier, but your body is intact.

---

You have 1 Soul, 0 Empyr, 5 Flux.

What do you do?

Voting ends on Sunday, Feb 13th at 10:00 am pacific time.[/Spoiler]