((And Boss-Locked))
If ZephyrMan had wanted to avoid the weird and unusual, then he probably ought to have avoided this particular path. As it was though, the windy navi hadn't gone much further before stumbling onto a quite peculiar situation indeed.
A long causeway stretched out before him, one long furnace with heat mirage rising off it. To each side, a number of coal pits were spaced at even intervals, but they seemed to be acting as furnace fires, rather than simply coal; each was burning with a slow, hot fire, and any ideas of standing on them were probably not so wise.
These features, however, were the sorts of little side things that one fails to notice when something much more pressing is taking up the field of vision. In this case, that something appears to be a large red volcano, situated at the far end of the furnace. There's really no other way to describe the... whatever it is. Other than, perhaps, grumpy. It easily takes up the entire width of the furnace where it sits, rocky slopes rising high towards a cratered peak that smokes and spits, three or four times the height of a normal navi off the ground. The face of the small mountain was, indeed, a face: two glowing gaps up high made for slanted, grouchy eyes, while closer to the base a large jagged crag yawned, and... chewed?
Perhaps the oddest part of this entire scene was the fact that a cluster of fearful, scurrying metools were running back and forth from the two nearest coal pits, to the hungry mouth of the volcano, their pick-axes replaced with large coal shovels. They seemed to be frantically feeding the angry mountain large shovel-fulls of the flaming coals, which it chewed and devoured, grumbling all the while. More little yellow helmets were standing by the other coal pits, vigorously fanning them with large fans, keeping the fires high.
Upon seeing ZephyrMan, the Volcano paused in its chewing, drew itself up slightly, and bellowed a craggy roar. The metools panicked, running into each other, falling over and most of them dropped their fans and shovels in dismay. At once, they all began to flee the area as fast as their little feet could carry them. The volcano seemed to inhale deeply, now that the fires weren't being fanned, and the action seemed somehow, to draw off and quench the furthest remaining fires, as though they'd been sucked away.
Several of the fleeing metools weren't quite fast enough in getting away, and the next time the Volcano opened its mouth, a blast of roaring fire scorched about a third of the way up the furnace panels, covering the entire width of the space and reducing the few that couldn't get out in time, to ash. Poor things. It roared again, rumbled for a moment, then launched three flaming chunks of burning magma from its crown, only for them to splash down onto the furnace panels randomly, much further out than its initial fiery breath. The burning ring of fire where they landed continued to smoulder for a few moments before finally fading away.
-=Angry Mountain!=-
VolcanicFurnace: 300Hp [Furnace][Eruption Draw: 2/10]
-=Windy Interloper!=-
ZephyrMan.Exe: 130Hp [Furnace]
-=Terrain=-
Coal: 8 Panels [Evenly spaced, on either side of the area][Burning Coals]
Coal: 2 Panels [Furthest two Coal panels from Boss][Hot Embers]
Furnace: Long stretch, 4 panels wide between the coal pits, and 10 long, leading up to the base of the boss. Everywhere that is not Coal, is Furnace.
-=Notes=-
[Burning Coals] These coals are actually a burning fire, and should not be stepped on unless you're a fire-elemental. Any non-fire Elemental will take an immediate 20 fire damage, and be afflicted with Burn(5), with will last until put out, or for 3 turns after the victim leaves the burning coals.
[Hot Embers] Coals were recently burning, but now are not. Safe to stand on for one turn, but a strong wind will re-ignite the embers, returning them to Burning Coals. Non-fire elementals who remain on Hot Embers for two turns or more will take 5 Fire damage each turn they remain there. Stepping off the embers for a whole turn will reset this.
-=Battle 5, Start!=-
