An attempt to thwart Esme’s Sabotage(Amber)

September 10, 2025

Date: 2025-09-09 16:33

(An attempt to thwart Esme’s Sabotage(Amber):Amber)

[Tue Sep 9 2025]

At Giant‘s Graveyard Field between the bones/span>/spanThe field stretches wide beneath the open sky, its grass growing in uneven
patches between massive skeletal remains that jut from the earth like ancient
monuments. Enormous rib cages, some reaching twenty feet in height, create
natural archways across the landscape, their weathered bone surfaces pocked
and grooved by centuries of exposure. Mammoth tusks, yellowed and cracked,
curve upward from the soil at irregular intervals, while scattered vertebrae
the size of wagon wheels lie half-buried in the loam. The grass grows
thickest where the bones provide shelter from the wind, creating small
meadows of wildflowers and clover in the shadows of colossal skulls. Femurs
as thick as tree trunks rest at odd angles, some standing nearly vertical
where the earth has shifted over millennia. The pathways between these
ossified remains wind naturally, following the contours where rainwater has
carved channels around the denser bone deposits. Here and there, fragments of
creatures less easily identified emerge from the ground – spiral shells
larger than carriage wheels, segmented plates that might have been armor, and
peculiar formations that suggest anatomies unknown to modern science./span>/spanIt is afternoon, about 70F(21C) degrees, and there are clear skies. The mist is heaviest At Autumn and Washington/span>/spanAmber leads the group into the field, looking around as if seeking something. She locks onto one of the shells, slipping her way inside, “Okay. So. Figured this would keep the scent covered for a little bit. We’re looking for a ritual setup somewhere in this field. Nature mancy. Making the animals go nuts. Gonna go after Lykaia, Arachne, and I first. Connie and Sarah should be safe. Ish. We need to find the ritual site first.”

Sarah tentatively lifts a hand, looking toward Amber before

Sarah tentatively lifts a hand, looking toward Amber before she blinks at it, then shakes her head, and just asks, “Uh…what does a ritual site…look like?” she wonders a touch sheepishly, that hand going back to scratch at her hair instead.

Constance scratches at the side of her head, the fabric crinkling. “Well, I’m absolutely horrible at magic stuff,” she sighs. “Could have gotten literally anyone else from the Conclave, they’re all wizards. I’ll be great at killing the animals if they show up, though.”

Arachne inclines her head as she listens to Amber’s briefing, though her gaze remains trained on the sun-bleached tusk of what may have well be a mammoth’s head rising from the loamy soil. She studies it for a time, then the slow spiraling formation other segmented plates and shells form. “It shouldn’t be terribly difficult,” she assumes after a fleeting pause, turning her head to look at Lykaia, Sarah, and Constance. “Should we ascend high to get a good lay of the land? Should help, at least.”

“So it’s just sweeping through.” Lykaia says through the gas filter of her mask. “Anything else? Type of animal species specifically doing this? Rodents? Four leggers? What are we expecting?” She reaches to the back of her neck, pulling something out, sliding it into a pouch and then retrieving her rifle from a long back-pouch as well as a magazine she looks into, flechettes, before loading those up into her rifle.

“Right, uh,” Amber glances sidelong to Constance, “Speaking of, this whole thing is about stopping rabid animal attacks against Killgrove, so… if you aren’t cool with hurting animals, I won’t be upset if you just dip. I don’t think it’s avoidable here. Like, I think that was obvious, but-” She gives a helpless shrug. To Sarah, “Weird symbols. Candles. Weird arrangements of bones or fur or teeth. That kind of thing. Anything that looks weird in a way that isn’t just… giant bones weird, since that’s this whole place.” There is definitely no shortage of things to climb on to get a good view here. To Lykaia, “Everything that was here in Killgrove or nearby. Even docile stuff. Don’t trust a housecat even.”

Constance shrugs, caught along with helping with something she had no idea what she was doing until now. “I actually have problems with killing people, not animals,” she cheerfully replies.

Lykaia starts to chuckle. “I’m a mass murderer. Long too late for second thoughts. Let’s get to it.”

Sarah grimaces wildly, “Aw man…I really hope I don’t have to hurt someone’s kitty…” she complains softly, she puffs out a little breath, stand a bit straighter, and glances around, “I guess I just…look around, right?” she wonders of Amber, and then, eager to please, she rushes off -fast-, to do just that, scurrying up, or, yes, leaping up structures from time to time to peer about. She probably be more careful.

Arachne draws back and takes a running start to launch herself through the air, ascending a few stories high until she reaches the top of a mammoth skull half-buried in the soil, slowly straightening up to scan over the grounds spanning out around the odd formations of spiraling gargantuan bones all about.

“I swear, if those wasps chased me all the way from brazil, I’m gonna be running around with a flamethrower” Lykaia says, narrowing her eyes behind the mask at the buzzing sounds. She glances around. “For fucks sake.” Probably having a flashback.

Constance drily mocks Lykaia, “Oh, so it’s wasps that get you emotional? I’ll keep that in mind,” as she waits for the other two to state what they’ve found.

It’s not in the center of the field. That would be too easy. But as Arachne gets atop the skull, she sees the ritual site through one of the eyes of the skull. Sarah, meanwhile, ends up further out near the edge of the field, atop one of the bones there. And while the field itself is oddly free of bird life, a hawk from a tree across the street spots her. With a screech, it starts making an approach. But there’s still time to run or hide before it gets close.

Amber, by contrast, remains hiding in the shell from the burning sun, on comms to help organize if required.

Lykaia exhales slowly “Negative. Those wasps are just a pain to deal with without specialized equipment. I’m rapid CQC and fast response. Not Hazmat.” She places a hand over her hear. “Status on the sweep for the ritual site? Ran into any hostiles?”

“Ummm…I mostly just see…normal bones?” Sarah reports, by yelling. In her defense she wasn’t exactly trained for this, she peers around atop her perch, squinting this way and that, “Annnd…hey are shells bones?” she wonders, abruptly, puzzling on that before she hears the screech. She blinks up, spies the bird, and briefly, dismisses it. Then she remembers why they’re here, doubletakes, and darts off to try and find a hole to scurry into, “Oooooh big bird, nice big bird, stay over there big bird.” she pleads as she goes.

Arachne winces faintly at a faint buzzing emanating from all around her. She takes a few shuffling steps forward, hopping over the crest of the mammoth’s head before something catches her eye. “I’ve spotted something,” she calls down to the others, pointing toward the direction of the ritual site observed through the eye of the skull. Without hesitation, she shoves off, and heads forward across the tops to try and head there via airway, keeping her eyes peeled.

Constance trudges like a lowly footman through the bones and shells, following Arachne’s leaps as she makes her way through the Giant’s Graveyard. Those that are too big for her to bother going around, she simply shatters with the butt of her gun then walks through the debris of the fossils.

Lykaia makes another exhale and starts moving. She slings the rifle around her upper body, reaches into a pouch and returns what she had taken back into the back of her neck, and then begins to sprint, leap, jump cling and jump again to catch up to Arachne.

Thankfully, Sarah is very quick. Nothing human can probably outrun that bird, but she can at least get some cover on the skull with Arachne. With Lykaia’s implant, the journey is trivial, and Arachne has already braved the worst of it. But Constance eventually reaches a giant rib, tall as a building, that will take a lot more muscle to must through… though a climb up the thing might just be a shortcut to the others.

Constance grimaces, unable to keep up with anyone else with their ability to Jump Good that she lacks. And climbing it would take her all day. So instead of doing either of those things, she clenches her bone gauntlet and conjures a ball of roiling red and black fire and then slams the sphere directly onto the rib’s wall, holding it there and attempting to melt her way through, sweat breaking out on her brow as the infernal flame courses up her arm with the intent to kill her as it tries to kill anything nearby.

Constance melts her way through the bone and steps through the battle-nun shaped, molten hole in the ivory, saving herself some hours of detour to catch up to the others.

Sarah pants softly as she, by sheer luck of the inelegant flee, arrives nearby to Arachne, hunkering down and peeking up to make sure she’s not still under siege by bird. A bird she helpfully brought with her, if she is, oops. She’s sweaty and a bit worn from all rushing about, the speed not quite matched by pure stamina yet. She peeks over to try and see what Arachne is up to when she can, peering at the…ritual site? Oh, so that’s what those look like.

Lykaia settles down by the eye socket. Hands stay off of her rifle but she peers out, keeping an eye out for any incoming rabid animal.

“I think I hear archaeologists weeping en masse somewhere in the distance for you simply just destroying eons of fossilwork,” Arachne calls toward Constance in the wake of seeing her simply brute force her way through things with hellfire, some part of her amused as much as she is horrified to see delicately preserved history singed away. She turns back to her work of surveying the ritual site, leaping down from her vantage point and landing with soft knees – knee health is important – next to Lykaia. “Let’s see what the Sons have cooked up this time,” she muses.

Constance snorts in reply to Arachne. “Well, now I’m part of history. They’ll have to put me in the book if they ever give a shit about whatever giant beast died there.”

Thankfully, the skull also has a few missing teeth that Constance can pass through on the ground level to join the others, allowing everyone to join up fairly easily at this point. Relatively so, anyway. Sans bird, as it quickly loses interest in the non-Court Sarah. From this vantage point, someone can see a few dozen beasts, mostly predators, roaming among the bones. For whatever reason, the approach they took avoided the brunt of them. As Arachne studies, she finds a fairly crude Nature rite. a few fossil shards with carved symbols, melted candles, a small pelt with bone teeth. It’s not warded, as near as can be told, and could be defaced and ruined with minimum effort. But she also notices thin strands of silk running across the eye. With a little more looking, it can be seen all throughout the skull. Even the insects have been weaponized as arachnids have filled it with their webs to assault any who pass through. But they are just bugs. Not giants or monsters of any kind. It won’t take much to disrupt the ritual for good, but it might take a bit more to do it without encountering those skittering things.

Thankfully, the skull also has a few missing teeth that Constance can pass through on the ground level to join the others, allowing everyone to join up fairly easily at this point. Relatively so, anyway. Sans bird, as it quickly loses interest in the non-Court Sarah. From this vantage point, Lykaia can see a few dozen beasts, mostly predators, roaming among the bones. For whatever reason, the approach they took avoided the brunt of them. As Arachne studies, she finds a fairly crude Nature rite. a few fossil shards with carved symbols, melted candles, a small pelt with bone teeth. It’s not warded, as near as can be told, and could be defaced and ruined with minimum effort. But she also notices thin strands of silk running across the eye. With a little more looking, it can be seen all throughout the skull. Even the insects have been weaponized as arachnids have filled it with their webs to assault any who pass through. But they are just bugs. Not giants or monsters of any kind. It won’t take much to disrupt the ritual for good, but it might take a bit more to do it without encountering those skittering things.

Arachne crouches low beside the crude rite, her gray eyes narrowing as she trails a manicured nail over the fossil shards. “Crude, but effective,” she murmurs, glancing back at the others. The candle stubs and pelt are hardly impressive, but the glimmer of web catches her attention, and she tips her chin upward to follow the faint, silken lines stretching through the hollow skull. “Of course it’s spiders. They never fail to turn my kin into weapons,” she bitches to Lykaia and Constance in light humor.

“The rite’s brittle. A singel break would likely collapse it entirely. Would you like to set it all on fire?” she invites to someone, seeming not too bent out of shape about causing more wide spread damages to fossilized bones.

“The rite’s brittle. A singel break would likely collapse it entirely. Would you like to set it all on fire?” she invites to Constance, seeming not too bent out of shape about causing more wide spread damages to fossilized bones.

Lykaia glances back to Arachne bitching and comments: “My usual policy would be to throw a neutralizer at it and ravage it. Just to be sure.”

Constance nods quietly. “It’s what I’m good for,” she mutters. “Might be less expensive to just throw a grenade into it, though,” she comments to Lykaia. “I get a little tired after conjuring hellfire, I’ll need to rest for like ten minutes before I can exert myself so thoroughly again.”

Sarah tentatively holds up her biiiiig sword, offering, “Uuuh…I can…set my sword on fire…? For a tiny bit…?” she glances between the more experienced people, wondering, “Would that…help?” with a slightly sheepish expression, like she’s not sure it would.

“Pimping most assuredly is never easy,” Arachne bestows wisdom upon Sarah, sounding exhausted well beyond her twenty-something years after listening to Constance and Lykaia. She exhales a breath, slowly treading forward into the ritual site to begin carefully dismantling the very threads that holds it all together by attempting to rewrite sigils and wards as she comes across them. “If this doesn’t work, we can just absolutely neutralize and move on. Or blow it up,” she encourages, assuming she’ll still be working by the time Constance and someone have rested up. “I apologize that I didn’t take advantage of this opportunity to teach your friend, Amber,” she calls in apology to Amber about Sarah.

“Pimping most assuredly is never easy,” Arachne bestows wisdom upon Sarah, sounding exhausted well beyond her twenty-something years after listening to Constance and Lykaia. She exhales a breath, slowly treading forward into the ritual site to begin carefully dismantling the very threads that holds it all together by attempting to rewrite sigils and wards as she comes across them. “If this doesn’t work, we can just absolutely neutralize and move on. Or blow it up,” she encourages, assuming she’ll still be working by the time Constance and Lykaia have rested up. “I apologize that I didn’t take advantage of this opportunity to teach your friend, Amber,” she calls in apology to Amber about Sarah.

“I did bring C-4 along, of course.” Lykaia mentions on the later exploding part. “Could do it remote. Enjoy some non-firework explosions.”

“No worries, just getting her comfy getting involved in supernatural stuff at all,” Amber answers back over comms, hiding out in her anti-sun bunker.

Sarah scratches at her hair a little again, “Darn…that’s sort of my coolest trick…” she pouts as Arachne sets to without any flaming sword abilities requested, “I figured it out just last night.” she informs, despite no one asking. Then she studies Arachne’s movements with obvious curiosity, staying -well- clear of any potential encounters with spiders.

And it seems it really was a fragile spell. Nothing immediately visible happens as Arachne dismantles the ritual. But there is a weight sort of lifted from someone, Arachne, and Amber. No longer bearing that subtle feeling of being hunted. It won’t be until they step out again that they can see the area has cleared and animals returned home to their natural habitat. Of course, the natural habitat of spiders is pretty much where they presently are, so… they don’t really move.

And it seems it really was a fragile spell. Nothing immediately visible happens as Arachne dismantles the ritual. But there is a weight sort of lifted from Lykaia, Arachne, and Amber. No longer bearing that subtle feeling of being hunted. Sarah and Constance probably feel nothing at all. It won’t be until they step out again that they can see the area has cleared and animals returned home to their natural habitat. Of course, the natural habitat of spiders is pretty much where they presently are, so… they don’t really move. Amber calls it out first, saying, “Hey, all the animals are fleeing from cars now. Not running into them.” She says this as she peeks out of her shell.