Equestrian Radio Show's Adventure Variety Hour: Explorers of STOMP

Seeing the unicorn was seated, Hector shifted around slightly to get a feel for the weight and make sure Gearick was holding on. He brought hinself down into a classic pounce position. "Hang on to your knickers," he said at the last moment...

With that, he launched himself into the air from the back legs, opening his wings once he was off the ground. A single, powerful flap flung them across the water wall, bypassing the pressure plates and landing neatly beside the rest of the party.

Endurance:

Hector smirked slightly as he glanced back. "This is your captain speaking, thank you for flying Air Hippogriff. We have arrived at our destination. Now..." he said, listening to the proposed plan to get past the trip wires. "I think I can do that if we have to. I wonder though, we also have three magicians here. Can't one of you just... Magic it away? Somehow?"

"This thing is so calamitously powerful we're not even supposed to touch it." Grease says. "Put sure, we can poke it with our minds and see what happens."

"Wait for me!" Stout shots as he begins his transformation into an owl.

"Well as long as we can see the golden horseshoes, I should be able to pick it up with the tongs. Its not like its going to be any different than holding the tongs with your hooves." Gearick said looking down corridor.

Hector flexed his claws without thinking. "I still don't get how you full-bloods use something like that with hooves," he pointed out. "Doesn't matter right now, I guess."

Stout, I'm not sure if I can speak as an Owl, so tell them to mark the enterance we come out of. That way we know which one it is.

"Um...this is new."

[U]"I'll explain later."[/i]

"Stout says to mark the entrance we come out of."

"I could just use my telepathy to hold the tongs and help sabilize it so we dont drop it." Tree says.

The golden horseshoe silently hummed with power. Even those without magical attunement could feel mildly empowered by its presence. Muse quickly stuck it in the satchel. "Well, so much for the easy part. Three more to go."

OOC:

"So these three doors begin with Lava, a magic net, and a spike pit, right? I'd say the lava will be the most straightforward to deal with, pending the answer to a question: What happens if I cut the net with these claws?" Grease asks, wiggling his digits.

"Fair enough. Judging from our current track record, somebody would probably catch the net out of the corner of their eye and then we'd inspect it thoroughly and plan endlessly, before just walking through it. Let's skip to the end of that sequence." Grease replies, walking through the door Muse had indicated earlier.

OOC:

OOC:

Grease strolls through the door and wriggles his way through an opening in the net. As he continues forward, he hears a creaking sound and looks up to see a giant ball of spikes flying right for him! He tries to jump out of the way, but the ball glances across the back of his head with a sound like metal on glass, taking a chip out of one of his spines. Knocked to the floor by the impact, Grease crawls forwards frantically until he notices that he's become surrounded by mist. He cautiously stands up, notes that the spiked balls are completely behind him, and feels the back of his head, grimacing as his claws scratch over the rough point where his spine was shattered. His tongue flicks out, tasting the droplets around him. His eyes narrow and he shouts back to the group "I'm okay! I don't think anyone else should come through here! I'm currently standing in a field of gassified oil, which means there's fire somewhere ahead! If I'm not back in 90 seconds, I'm probably unconscious!"

Grease gets down on all fours and makes his way forward, prowling more than crawling. As he exits the mist, he balances himself, pressing his weight on his hind legs, then continues forward, low to the ground. Fireballs fly over him, and he grins as he's proven right. Waves of heat pass over Grease, but he searches for any fireball release mechanism low enough to ignite him. Eventually, he spots one and leaps forward releasing the tension he had been keeping in his back legs, and he shoots forward with speed, ducking under another low-flying fireball and skidding to stop to avoid a third and a fourth, released in unison so that they couldn't be jumped over. "I guess they did have someone my size in mind when they built this." Grease mutters, continuing past the last few volleys of fireballs more cautiously. He pauses before the pedestal to catch his breath, looks up at a structure about half again as tall as him, and starts rummaging through his gearbox. He produces a pair of heavy welding gloves, a pair of rubber gloves, and a ring clamp*, then puts on both pairs of gloves and tests his ability to work the ring clamp's opening and closing mechanism with fingers roughly the size of sausages. He runs his tongue along the back of his teeth, finds the right tooth, and flicks a small blue-black disk out of his mouth and onto the floor. "Gamma, please." He says, in a surprisingly polite tone.

The disk starts to expanding, unfolding itself repeatedly, then folding back in, forming joints, wheels, and eventually a smooth purple exterior. A very strange object lies on the ground: One end is shaped oddly like a rhinoceros' horn, with two curved points. In the middle was a cockpit, built for a smaller than average creature, and at the other end was a cyclindrical opening reminiscent of of a rocket's flame exhaust apparatus, spiked with several tailfins for stability. Grease climbed up one of these tailfins to reach the top of the pedestal, opens the ring clamp, and scoops up the horseshoe, locking it in place, before hopping down into the cockpit. He settles his head into headrest and sparks arc between his spines and the interface. A purple panel slides over the cockpit, and a pair of eyes open behind the rhinoceros horn.

In the cockpit, Grease stares intently at the picture that shimmers into place in front of him, displaying the corridor he just passed through. He blinks a few times, and with a mental command and a crackle of electricity the complete Rhincerocket rises into the air, hovering stably 3 feet off the ground. Grease smiles, and says aloud "what's the point of fancy technology if you can't show it off?" and the rhinocerocket rises to just under the ceiling of the corridor. "That's better." Grease says, and with another mental command, the Rhinocerocket fires up and shoots forward, leaving a thin trail of shimmer heat in behind it as exhaust. It flies through the oil field faster than it's fire, leaving a wall of flames behind it without a speck of soot, then crashes through the chains that hold up the spike balls, breaking them against the curved surface of rhinoceros horn. Grease laughs, pulling into a steep dive, then levels out to shoot through the door, immediately pulling up again to avoid hitting anyone. He opens the cockpit and climbs back onto one of the tail fins, still holding the Golden Horseshoe. "This is the Rhinocerocket!" he calls down as he releases the ring clam and drops the horseshoe, taking care not to let it fall too close to anyone who might get hit. He drops his gloves down after the horseshoe and adds "I'd probably activate the trapped pedestal if I went into the spike room, so I'm going to see what's in the lava room" as he climbs back into the cockpit. The Rhinocerocket gently floats down to about ground level and rotates until it is facing the proper door, then fires up and shoots forward, bursting through.

OOC:

Grease's eyes snap open as the rhinocerocket's tail fin gets jerked down, and he hurries to stabilize the rocket, which was in danger of responding to the telekinesis with a sharp upward curve into the ceiling. He reopens the cockpit and glares down at Gearick. "First off, never do that again. The back of the Rhinocerocket is very easy to destabilize, because of the multiunidirection propulsion system. Knock on the hull or something, but don't yank at it. Second, unlike most of my inventions, this has a very limited fuel supply. What do you need?"