~~~~Gobo and I have successfully delivered 3 parcels to their respective owners. One was sent to Shiori, a Black Witch that lives in the nearby woods of Scribel. Another one was delivered to Harrison Bridger, one of the captain of the guards. The last one was delivered to Freja Haljissen, an adventurer lv 6 and E rank.
Me and Gobo wake up, too the bright and shiny sun rising. "Gobo lets go have our breakfast" I yawned. Gobo carried me and went down to grab our breakfast for the day. On the way down we can hear the chatter of the adventurer's in the dining hall. It looks like a slime horde was coming to Scibel and people were getting prepared for it.
We say hello to Pierre and take an empty table. While we wait for our food me and Gobo talked about what quest we were going to do today. It seems like outside was gonna be quite active due to the slime horde, so I suggested that we take on something in town. It look like Gobo was fine with idea of mine. Eventually Gobo's food finally came and we started having breakfast. After breakfast we head off towards the Adventurer's Guild.
Arriving at the Guild we notice how more active it was. Looks like the Guild was in full motion for the Slime Horde. Me and Gobo line up and eventually get up to the receptionist counter. We took on the quest Delivering Packsges again. The receptionist went into the back and after a while came back with 3 letters for us. One for Shiori, another for Harrison Bridger, and the last for an adventurer Freja Haljissen.
We looked for the receptionist help with where our recipients were located at and also got advice to be on the lookout for the slime horde. "Also the letter for Freja, if there are any complication, can you tell her to come talk to me about it. Also Tell her that she only needs to write a signature for you and that's it." she explained.
She told me that her name was Hejlikka and a friend of Freja. Also that Freja currently had a "Stalker" and most likely that letter was from him/her.
I told Hejlikka if Freja didn't want to accept the letter, I would just come back with a signature. Hejlikka thanked us and we left on our way to deliver our letters for the day.
Me and Gobo first looked for Harrison around the guard station to see if he had arrived for his shift, but after a talk with one of the guards it looked like Captain Harrison wouldn't be on shift until a couple of hours. So instead we left out the gate, towards the woods where Shiori lived at. The receptionist explicitly told us not to touch anything in Shiori's house or accept any weird request from her.
We arrive at the supposed house and Gobo knocks on the door. The door open's wide and we see a lady. "(Hello, I am BigGreen and this is Gobo we are a part of the Adventurer's Guild, here to send a letter too Shiori, The Black Witch. Would you be her by any chance?)" I write out. Her eye's glaring out me "Yes, yes I am. But more importantly you...what are you?" she asks. I tell her that I'm just regular plant that can write out words and tame monsters. She gives a chuckle "Yes, yes a sentient plant that can tame monsters...interesting. Wouldn't you like to come in for a bit" her eyes shining. We tell her no and that we only needed her signature. She gives us her signature and comments "Well your always welcome to stop by here next time". With her signature ,we quickly scampered away from the house as quickly as we could and headed back towards the guard station to see if Harrison had come in yet.
We asked the the same guard if Harrison had come in yet and luckily he said the captain just came in. The guard led us towards the captain's office door and knocked. A clear ruff voice was heard" Come in". We enter and the first thing I noticed about the captain was his office, It was absolutely spotless. "(Hello, Captain Harrison. I am BigGreen and this is Gobo, we come from the Adventurer's Guild to delivery you a letter)" I write. Gobo hands the captain a letter and Captain Harrison makes an off-comment about us. "You must be the new duo that I heard from the guards and adventurer's yes? I must let you remember that it is still in effect, that if your pet Goblin causes any trouble, you both will be banished too the swampland." he explained sternly. "(Yes I understand this Captain)" I concluded. I asked for his signature and he gave us a stamp on a piece of paper. We exit from the captain office and start walking to the nearby tavern to start our look for Freja.
We enter the tavern and ask the bartender if he has seen Freja, a half elf. He tells me Freja just went too her room not to long ago and tell me her room number. We arrive at Freja's room and Gobo knocks on the door. "(Hello, I am BigGreen and this is Gobo. We come from the Adventurer's Guild to deliver a letter to Freja Haljissen." I write. She nods her head and responds "Yes, I am Freja. Can you tell me who sent the letter". I tell her that we don't know and only the messenger. Gobo gives her the letter and from the disdain from her eye's it look like Hejlikka was right about the letter. "Return this, I don't want anymore of these" Freja hands me back the letter. I explain to her I only need her signature and she can do anything with the letter. She eventually agree's and we get her signature. We also spot her opening her window and start's tearing up the letter, finally throwing the bits out the window. "(Your friend Hejlikka told me to tell you that you should go talk to her about your "Stalker" problem)" I explained. She thanks me and tell me she will later. I leave heading towards back to the guild.
We arrived at the guild and line up to see the receptionist. Finally our turn we ask if Hejlikka was still in and that we had something to talk to her about. The receptionist kindly accepted and went into the back to see. Next thing we see is Hejlikka coming out and asking if everything was okay with Freja. We tell her it looks like another letter from the "Stalker" and Freja said she would talk to you. Hejlikka thanks us and we turn in our quest to Hejlikka. We say our goodbye's to Hejlikka and head off towards the Tavern.
We enter the Tavern and greet Pierre, who is chatting with a few adventurers. We sit down a nearby table waiting for dinner to arrive. Dinner finally arrives and Gobo and I have our fill. We tell Pierre to thank the cook for today's dinner and pay him 10g for today's Room and Board. Gobo and I enter the room and Gobo sets me on the window still as usual. Gobo cleans his sword and shield, expectant of tomorrows quest and eventually goes to sleep. "Slime horde, huh" I thought.
"...ah."
After reading this report, Manyvat did not know what to think of it. A sentient plant delivering letters? As far as he knew, he had to judge the credibility of the report and give rewards according to how he felt about it. However--
The existence itself of the plant made it impossible to believe. But the plant does exist-- and likely, she? He? Whatever. It seemed to have done its job properly, and the report itself is credible but not the adventurer. Yet, denying what was in front of his eyes was impossible and thus.
"I am sorry, I was just... disturbed by your existence... alright! Alright!"
Cheering for himself, he continued to speak, trying to stay as calm as possible.
"Congratulations, you have done your work properly! So, here's your reward! 18 Gold Coins!"
OOC: And 100EXP~
Be sure to remove that UN from UNAPPRAISED~ \o/
Treat the Wounded
Sponsor: Scribel City Adventurer's Guild Location: Scribel's Temple Required Level: 2 Objectives:
Prerequisite: Some knowledge of how to heal patients. Either through magic or by knowing how to use the appropriate herbs, bandages etc.
Help with the treatment of patients in the temple for a day.
Explanation:
With the recent growth in numbers of Adventurers in Scribel, the amount of wounded people in need of treatment increased exponentially, and this is quickly overwhelming the priests that are unable to deal with such heavy workload.
As they priests are already overwhelmed, they can't afford helping someone learn how to do basic medicine, so someone with experience is required.
~~~~ Me and Gobo arrived at Scribel Temple and were lead to a room filled with herbs. We spent the taking care of patients and helping them with their injuries. We were eventually dismissed at the end of the day by one of the supervisors .~~~~
"Gobo time for breakfast!" I shout. Gobo start's to stumble out of the bed and gets ready for today. Breakfast today was water the usual and for Gobo some eggs and ham. While we eat I make small talk with Pierre, he mentions the Slime Horde getting more fierce and that more and more adventurer's and villagers were getting injured. I took note of it and Gobo and I set off towards the Adventurer's Guild.
Entering the Adventurer's Guild we line up towards Hejlikka's counter and start thinking of what quest we should take on today. It's finally our turn to the counter and we say our good mornings to Hejilkka. We talk to her about the Slime Horde and ask her if there was any quest that we could do, that could help the cause. She showed us a request from the Scribel Temple for workers that knew how to take care of the recently increasing patients. I told her I've only little experience with Dr.Fern, with me helping around with the patients. She assures me that I would get the hang of it, while actual doing it. So I accepted the quest and exited the guild. My next destination was Scribel Temple.
It looks like they weren't lying when they said they needed more helpers at the Temple. It was quite crowded, with patients and their loved ones. I get the attention of a worker and ask him if he knows where I should report for my quest. He tell me go to the down the right hall, then take a left at the end, and I should be at the Herb Room. I thanked him and went on my way to the the Herb Room.
First thing I noticed in the room was many and many herb's essentially. I could see most of these were basic herbs that would only heal minor wounds or lessen the pain. 5 workers were prepping herbs by cleaning and trimming them, while the others were making them into healing salves. Next thing I know, I hear a loud "Hey! What are you doing here". I look behind us and notice the person talking to us. "Only helpers allowed in here. Who are you?" he asked. "(I am BigGreen and the one hold me is Gobo. We accepted a quest from the Adventurer's Guild to help the patients at the Temple)" I wrote out. I also show him my Adventure Guild card and my Quest report. "Ok, finally at least someone took the job, even if it is just a potted-plant and a goblin" he sighed.
"My name is Five, yes it's because I'm the 5th child and if your asking about my height. It's because a am a halfing, any questions?" he told me. "Silent? Okay good. Now I need your help with apply the healing salves unto patients and taking care of them for the day. Follow me" he explained. Gobo and I follow Five to another room occupied by patients. Me and Gobo noticed that the room had about 5 extra beds then usual, making the room a quite a bit cramped.
"You will be taking care of these 10 beds. Any patient that is in that bed, you have to heal. You got it!?" he told me. Gobo gave him a rushed nod yes. "Okay you will be helping Acolyte Gem for the day" he says. He walks to the nearby counter, where Gobo and I could see someone sleeping. "GEM WAKE UP! Didn't I say no more sleeping when patient's are here" he yelled.
"Fivvvveee just a few more minutes. Everyone else has a partner and I'm the only one solo" she yawned.
"Five just let her rest for a bit she has been helping all of us for a couple days and with little breaks as well" a nearby patient commented.
"Still no sleeping at least. Okay Gem here is your helper from the Guild" Five declared.
Gem adjust her sight to us and then back to Five. "My helper is a Goblin holding a potted plant... Five don't do this to me"
"You be quiet this is BigGreen and Gobo. BigGreen is the potted-plant and Gobo is his pet Goblin" Five blurted.
"(Hello Gem, I hope me and Gobo can be helpful to you, at least for the day.)" I wrote out.
Gem quite surprised by my Light words answered "Well at least better then nothing I guess"
Five exit's the room, still reprimanding Gem for sleeping on the job. Gem takes another look at as and ask what kind of knowledge of medicine and taking of patients in general we have. I tell her I have a some practice in apply medicine unto patients, but am good at making herb salves and dosage. "Anything else..." she asks.
"(I can also use my Light magic to move and create things as well" I write.
"Okay, that's fine. At least you have some knowledge of basic medicine" she sighs.
"Little Plant you stay with me here and take care of the patients alrighty" Gem smiles
"You little green guy, go and take this piece of paper to the Herb Room. They will give stuff written on it okay" she tells Gobo
Gobo shakes his head and pointing his fingers at me. Trying to tell her "Who will carry master if Gobo was gone".
"Don't worry I can take care of your master, while you do your job. Know go" she explained.
Gobo reluctantly left and placed me in Gem's hand.
"Okay now show me your experience in handling a patient" Gem told me, while leading me to the first patient.
The first thing I noticed about the first patient were a couple bruises on both of his arms and it looked like it was burnt a bit. The person explains to me that he was whipped by a slime and this particular slime was quite acidic. I assure the patient that I would be able to heal him quickly and easily. Gobo eventually comes back with the medical supplies and with this I could begin my treatment. I start by looking at the healing salve and see if it was up to par with what the patient needed. Every patient's injury was unique and required different dosage for a maximum recovery. I rearrange the healing salve to the appropriate dosage and start to disinfect the patients wounds first. Then to apply the salve on the patients wound and then next to bandage the are up. All in all it took about 20 minutes from start to finish.
"Okay, everything looks good. You had me worried for a second when you said you little practice!" Gem laughed
I tell her while I had little actual practice I always watched Dr.Fern doing this same procedures many and many times before.
"Quite smart a for a little plant. Well let's get started. Green man go get us more herbs!" Gem exclaimed.
Gobo got another slip of paper from Gem and then left towards the Herb room. Gem and I on the other hand started to inspect 1 patient at a time and healing them. Eventually healing all 10, some of them that were deemed well enough we transfered to another room to rest in. However those empty beds of ours were quickly filled by new patients, so this is why Gem wanted some sleep. I work with Gem and Gobo for the rest of the day taking care of patients, until Five eventually came back in the room.
"Well, well, well. Look like a job well done!" Five smiled.
"(Yes it was thanks to Gem's guidance today)" I wrote.
"Good job today, I'm here to relieve you of your duties for today. Take this signature and give it too the guild to complete your quest" Five says.
"(Thank you Five and Gem for today. It was a quite a new experience)" I wrote.
"Thank you as well Little green and little goblin" Gem smiles.
Gem and Five tell me if I ever have free time to spare to come by the temple to help them again. I answered that me and Gobo would. After that we set off from the Temple to back to the Adventurer's Guild.
We arrive at the Guild and turn in our quest. We didn't see Hejlikka at the counter so we will probably thank her tomorrow. We exit the Guild and head back to the Tavern for goodnight' rest. We talk to Pierre and about our experience today about the Temple over our dinner. After Gobo and I finish our dinner, we pay Pierre for room and board today as usual and head up towards our room. Gobo put's me on the window still and goes to sleep on the bed. "Seems like the Slime horde is quite more terrible then I could imagine".
~~~~ Me and Gobo arrived at Scribel Temple and were lead to a room filled with herbs. We spent the taking care of patients and helping them with their injuries. We were eventually dismissed at the end of the day by one of the supervisors .~~~~
"Gobo time for breakfast!" I shout. Gobo start's to stumble out of the bed and gets ready for today. Breakfast today was water the usual and for Gobo some eggs and ham. While we eat I make small talk with Pierre, he mentions the Slime Horde getting more fierce and that more and more adventurer's and villagers were getting injured. I took note of it and Gobo and I set off towards the Adventurer's Guild.
Entering the Adventurer's Guild we line up towards Hejlikka's counter and start thinking of what quest we should take on today. It's finally our turn to the counter and we say our good mornings to Hejilkka. We talk to her about the Slime Horde and ask her if there was any quest that we could do, that could help the cause. She showed us a request from the Scribel Temple for workers that knew how to take care of the recently increasing patients. I told her I've only little experience with Dr.Fern, with me helping around with the patients. She assures me that I would get the hang of it, while actual doing it. So I accepted the quest and exited the guild. My next destination was Scribel Temple.
It looks like they weren't lying when they said they needed more helpers at the Temple. It was quite crowded, with patients and their loved ones. I get the attention of a worker and ask him if he knows where I should report for my quest. He tell me go to the down the right hall, then take a left at the end, and I should be at the Herb Room. I thanked him and went on my way to the the Herb Room.
First thing I noticed in the room was many and many herb's essentially. I could see most of these were basic herbs that would only heal minor wounds or lessen the pain. 5 workers were prepping herbs by cleaning and trimming them, while the others were making them into healing salves. Next thing I know, I hear a loud "Hey! What are you doing here". I look behind us and notice the person talking to us. "Only helpers allowed in here. Who are you?" he asked. "(I am BigGreen and the one hold me is Gobo. We accepted a quest from the Adventurer's Guild to help the patients at the Temple)" I wrote out. I also show him my Adventure Guild card and my Quest report. "Ok, finally at least someone took the job, even if it is just a potted-plant and a goblin" he sighed.
"My name is Five, yes it's because I'm the 5th child and if your asking about my height. It's because a am a halfing, any questions?" he told me. "Silent? Okay good. Now I need your help with apply the healing salves unto patients and taking care of them for the day. Follow me" he explained. Gobo and I follow Five to another room occupied by patients. Me and Gobo noticed that the room had about 5 extra beds then usual, making the room a quite a bit cramped.
"You will be taking care of these 10 beds. Any patient that is in that bed, you have to heal. You got it!?" he told me. Gobo gave him a rushed nod yes. "Okay you will be helping Acolyte Gem for the day" he says. He walks to the nearby counter, where Gobo and I could see someone sleeping. "GEM WAKE UP! Didn't I say no more sleeping when patient's are here" he yelled.
"Fivvvveee just a few more minutes. Everyone else has a partner and I'm the only one solo" she yawned.
"Five just let her rest for a bit she has been helping all of us for a couple days and with little breaks as well" a nearby patient commented.
"Still no sleeping at least. Okay Gem here is your helper from the Guild" Five declared.
Gem adjust her sight to us and then back to Five. "My helper is a Goblin holding a potted plant... Five don't do this to me"
"You be quiet this is BigGreen and Gobo. BigGreen is the potted-plant and Gobo is his pet Goblin" Five blurted.
"(Hello Gem, I hope me and Gobo can be helpful to you, at least for the day.)" I wrote out.
Gem quite surprised by my Light words answered "Well at least better then nothing I guess"
Five exit's the room, still reprimanding Gem for sleeping on the job. Gem takes another look at as and ask what kind of knowledge of medicine and taking of patients in general we have. I tell her I have a some practice in apply medicine unto patients, but am good at making herb salves and dosage. "Anything else..." she asks.
"(I can also use my Light magic to move and create things as well" I write.
"Okay, that's fine. At least you have some knowledge of basic medicine" she sighs.
"Little Plant you stay with me here and take care of the patients alrighty" Gem smiles
"You little green guy, go and take this piece of paper to the Herb Room. They will give stuff written on it okay" she tells Gobo
Gobo shakes his head and pointing his fingers at me. Trying to tell her "Who will carry master if Gobo was gone".
"Don't worry I can take care of your master, while you do your job. Know go" she explained.
Gobo reluctantly left and placed me in Gem's hand.
"Okay now show me your experience in handling a patient" Gem told me, while leading me to the first patient.
The first thing I noticed about the first patient were a couple bruises on both of his arms and it looked like it was burnt a bit. The person explains to me that he was whipped by a slime and this particular slime was quite acidic. I assure the patient that I would be able to heal him quickly and easily. Gobo eventually comes back with the medical supplies and with this I could begin my treatment. I start by looking at the healing salve and see if it was up to par with what the patient needed. Every patient's injury was unique and required different dosage for a maximum recovery. I rearrange the healing salve to the appropriate dosage and start to disinfect the patients wounds first. Then to apply the salve on the patients wound and then next to bandage the are up. All in all it took about 20 minutes from start to finish.
"Okay, everything looks good. You had me worried for a second when you said you little practice!" Gem laughed
I tell her while I had little actual practice I always watched Dr.Fern doing this same procedures many and many times before.
"Quite smart a for a little plant. Well let's get started. Green man go get us more herbs!" Gem exclaimed.
Gobo got another slip of paper from Gem and then left towards the Herb room. Gem and I on the other hand started to inspect 1 patient at a time and healing them. Eventually healing all 10, some of them that were deemed well enough we transfered to another room to rest in. However those empty beds of ours were quickly filled by new patients, so this is why Gem wanted some sleep. I work with Gem and Gobo for the rest of the day taking care of patients, until Five eventually came back in the room.
"Well, well, well. Look like a job well done!" Five smiled.
"(Yes it was thanks to Gem's guidance today)" I wrote.
"Good job today, I'm here to relieve you of your duties for today. Take this signature and give it too the guild to complete your quest" Five says.
"(Thank you Five and Gem for today. It was a quite a new experience)" I wrote.
"Thank you as well Little green and little goblin" Gem smiles.
Gem and Five tell me if I ever have free time to spare to come by the temple to help them again. I answered that me and Gobo would. After that we set off from the Temple to back to the Adventurer's Guild.
We arrive at the Guild and turn in our quest. We didn't see Hejlikka at the counter so we will probably thank her tomorrow. We exit the Guild and head back to the Tavern for goodnight' rest. We talk to Pierre and about our experience today about the Temple over our dinner. After Gobo and I finish our dinner, we pay Pierre for room and board today as usual and head up towards our room. Gobo put's me on the window still and goes to sleep on the bed. "Seems like the Slime horde is quite more terrible then I could imagine".
"Well, it seems you have adapted pretty well to the city life by now, haven't you, mister Green?
"My deepest thanks for helping out with the temple, I know a bit too well how hard it is to take care of all the patients in times of crisis, so all help is greatly appreciated.
"... Perhaps I should go help them as well, but... My head is still not set on that, entering a temple that does not belong to The Goddess doesn't sit well with me...
"Oops, where are my manners, I'm taking your time while burbling about, my apologies, mister Green. You have done a great job, and for that, I'm very thankful, and I'm sure both patients and the priests of the temple are as well.
"May the gods keep watching over your steps, and guide you to doing wonderful things."
Final Reward:
Exp: 80 Money: 20G
OOC: Remember to tag your report as appraised in some way~
... Also, I can't believe this quest has been out for this long and it had a typo all along. Wish someone had notified me of it some weeks back... Well, it's fixed now~
Spend a day as an office clerk in the Scribel City government.
Perform a satisfactory job.
Have you ever wanted to work for the guild?
Sort files? Process papers? Read quest reports all day?
Be a receptionist? Manage a warehouse?
Wait no longer! The city guild is hiring entry-level workers!
Rewards:
Points: 35 EXP
Money: 10 G
Other: n/a
>>>
Mei wondered. Her digits was not really made for a fine motion. She could let her leftmost and rightmost digit to to a grip, but it was really awkward for her, unlike those humans. Holding a wooden spoon was one thing, the handle was so large that she could move it using her hand, or hands when necessary. But, she wondered, could she use them for a fine motion? So far, the quest she had done had proof that she had done something. She also had someone who could testify that she did the quest properly. Though, the man only paid attention sparingly.
At this point, she felt that, without her, she wouldn't be able to transform to Meicrackmon form. Not for long anyway. She felt that it was possible for her to force herself to evolve, though she was certain she could only sustain that form at most 2 seconds before she degenerated. Only in that form she possess an opposable thumb that she could use for a fine motion. And, that form was really costly for her at her current level.
Then, she thought about her other problem. As it was, the rations she had was stashed someplace. But she believed that it couldn't continue to be like that. She had to carry a bag if she wanted to do quests that necessitate larger items. It was possible, perhaps, by carrying the objects using her levitation. That option was not really preferable though, as it consumed more of her energy. Either way, she had to plan for the future, where she would have to carry objects beyond what she could comfortably.
Seeing that she had no solution, she went to the adventurer guild. As it was, she planned to take a break from cooking ration quest and took another she probably could.
Office work? She thought. The quest that she was currently focusing on mentioned that she only had to do those activity. Nothing seemed to indicate she had to write for an extensive time. She probably could take the receptionist posting for that day.
Taking the quest form, she submitted it to the receptionist.
"Alright, Mei, was it?" The receptionist mentioned while reading the quest form. "Thank you for taking the office work quest for today. For today, we had a backlog of quest that needed to be archived. I want you to look at them, and see if there is any quest that need further action. If you're done, bring them to me okay?"
Was it truly needed, then? Would she have to make written report for all those quest? She could interpret them as just separating the pile that needed further action, and shelve the remaining, could she? The woman probably wanted her to make a note for those though. Well, if that woman asked her to after she gave those, she'd try to do it. Else, she'll just sort them.
First report, slime subjugation. The report was about slime subjugation that was being done in the sewer. Seeing that there was no need for further action, she put it in another place on the desk.
Second report, slime subjugation. Another slime subjugation being done in the sewer. One wounded, but it was another report that did not need any further action. She put them with the previous report.
Third report, slime subjugation. No action needed. Fourth report, same. Fifth, same. Sixth, seventh, eighth, slime subjugation. Considering that the slime subjugation quest was perpetually active, could it be considered that their number was virtually endless? She thought it was probably worrying if eight out of ten report completed slime subjugation quest on the sewer.
The eleventh quest broke the monotony of reading slime quest report. The adventurer writing this quest report wrote about the charity he did at the orphanage. There was no need for further action, she thought. She put that quest on the previous pile.
The twelfth quest was about repairing damage. It was when she read the quest description that she noticed that she had not inspected the previous quests for this. She had not inspected whether those adventurers or slimes made some kind of structural damage that needed the attention of the engineering department. Keeping this in mind, she began to reread those reports once again.
After skimmed those slime quest reports she concluded that there seemed to be no need at all for that.Then, she continued to inspect the remaining reports.
It was past noon when she was done. Other than some reports in the quest "If you see something, say something", there was only a few quests that needed further actions so far. Structural damages that needed engineering department response was few and inbetween, the furthest was in the farmland. Though she had to wonder, was everything in scribel region insured, or did the residents have to pay for it? Perhaps it was from tax, she thought. If someone's barn could be repaired for free, she thought she would be happy if she was a resident here. Having a house that was fixed for free by the engineering departments seem to be a good perk, especially for those alchemists. How many explosion accidents did she read again? fourteenth? fifteenth? She put those on the probable case for engineering departments, anyway.
From the merchant driving the wagon quest, there was no mention of road blocked by landslide too. The route they used seem to be pretty consistent, so she assumed that there was no problem from the merchant guild. Other than that, there seem to be sighting of bandits used in those merchant caravans. Though after the first few incident, the number of escort duty quest being completed also rise. Though, she had to wonder if the bandit group has been subjugated or not.
Since there was nothing else to be done, she returned the pile of reports to its storage place. Then, she brought the remaining ones, the one she thought need further action, to the receptionist.
"Hmm... Mei, was it?" The receptionist greeted. "Done already?"
She nodded.
"Right, let me read them first. Meanwhile, tell me your thoughts about these."
The woman read through the report. She began to tell the woman her thought process, how she inferred from the quest board, from those quests that were placed perpetually, the criteria of quest reports that would lead to others. Using that as a basis, she sorted them on which one would lead to quest A, B, etc.
"I see. Okay, I want you to do the same as previous. The reports you'll see are from the one we deemed as failure. Read through them. When you are sure why we would reject those reports, come to me. I'll let you try to handle receptionist position."
was all of that training? It was already past noon right then. She wondered if she would be able to handle the receptionist position for that day. As she returned to the archive with the woman, the woman pulled another pile of quest reports from the drawer.
after handling them to her, the woman left her alone again. Putting herself in a comfortable position, she began to read those reports. The first pattern was easy to notice. The adventurer simply did not complete the requested task. Accompanying some quest reports were customer response, too. So presumably it was dissastisfied customer that caused the quest failure. She couldn't grasp any more pattern from that, even after rereading those again and again. Was that all? she was not sure.
She decided that enough was enough. It was already afternoon when she felt fed up with reading the quest reports. As she returned, she immediately told the woman her thought process. As for the quest, she returned them to the drawer.
"Alright, quest completed for today." the woman said.
Dozens of trade routes criss-cross across the Black Sea.The captain has found a passage that seems rich for taking. We, the pirates, will plunder this trade route for gold!Force those rich merchants to pay us! Money or their life! Rewards:
Report - Solet' Luna
Robbing the merchant ships? I had already done it multiple times, so doing it once more wasn't going to change anything. Usually, when they knew that it was Misty Puppeteer, they would surrender and pay their ransom. After all, the Misty Puppeteer was a somewhat famous pirate crew, now that I joined them and got crowned the title of the Slivery Witch.
"Hm? This ship— It seems strange..." The Captain spoke as he leaned onto the wooden wall, watching how his crews jumped onto the merchant ship. The merchants seemed to be a little too fearless for their own good. It seemed that they had something special, something that could make them be so brave against the middle-tier pirate crew.
"Ye rich sprog, th' usual gold or th' hard way?" One of our Mates spoke as he looked at the merchants. Upon seeing that they did not cower in fear or beg for forgiveness, he got annoyed and stomped his foot loudly.
"Just some dirty pirates, dare to play high and mighty on us?" One of the merchants, presumably their leader, spoke disdainfully. This caused the pirates to shout their taunts and tried to create chaos. One of them decided that they had enough and extended their hand to grab the collar of one of the merchants.
However, before they could do anything, a blue light flashed, and before the pirate could touch anything, he screamed in pain as his hand fell off from his wrist and blood started gushing out. Before him, a figure of pale blue stood motionlessly, grabbing the sheath of his sword as if he had never unsheathed it.
A Merfolk who worked with the Merchant? Now that was interesting. Without any sound, I descended from the deck and moved into the merchant ship. The captain, Sir Borik Lochton, didn't attempt to stop me, knowing that my interest had been piqued.
"Merfolk, I thought the like of you would hate humans— Why then did you decide to work with them?" Scanning his body, I could see countless blue scales and some fins on his humanoid body. Although the ordinary pirates could not react to his speed, I could see a little blurry about the appearance of that blade.
It was a pale white bone that had blue gems embedded on it. A relic worth collecting.
"Why should I answer your question, witch?" His gaze changed from disdain into fury as he determined my speciality. It seemed that there was a history behind him. Well, I didn't really want to play with him that much, so I didn't bother to provoke him any further.
"Nevermind, I just wanted to know. Now, if you please, play by the rules and we'll let you go." Knocking my staff onto the deck, disgusting noises emerged from the floorboard as countless maggots and worms wiggled their way out from the woods. Many screams of panic and disgusts echoed from both the pirates and merchants.
Despite the sea of worms, none of them seemed to appear beneath the merfolk's foot. They instinctively avoided him like a plague. If any unlucky one touched his scales, it would twist madly before getting mysteriously cut in half, and the others would greedily devour its corpse.
Looking at the sea of worms and maggots, the merfolk twitched his eyes as he looked at the previous merchant leader and shook his head. After that, he went back to his room and left the merchants on their own.
"Miss, Slivery Witch, please show mercy! We, the merchants, are willing to pay the ransom!" Losing the source of their confident, the merchants instantly crumbled to the disgusting atmosphere and quickly paid us the ransom. Nevertheless, a few of them that badmouthed the pirates also got beaten until they were lying on the floor, covered in maggots.
As I walked back into our deck, I could feel the gaze of the pirates. It seemed that they feared me even more after my little trick with Worm Magic. I had to thank Worm Mistress for this. It had become a lot easier to scare the merchants into paying the ransom.
Join a party of 32 warriors and fight your way to the Abandoned District.
Manually detonate the bomb to seal your party inside the cavern.
Fight an endless stream of enemies for 8 - 24 hours.
Prioritize killing any tunneling monsters that can dig through the rockslide.
Survive until the very end.
(Note: Optional Party Quest)
DescriptionI'm going to ask something of you that you might think is insane.
The snakes have overrun our last line of defenses in the tunnels, and they are spilling into the Abandoned District by the hundreds. If the Hydra's minions get any further than this point, it will be open warfare on in the upper levels of Gelderholm. It will be utter chaos and bloodshed. We cannot afford to lose this cavern, and we must make a final stand here.
Sealing the exit might be our conventional strategy, but there is no external access point for our sappers to plant a bomb. Furthermore, the enemy has scores of tunneling worms with them, and they will dig through any unguarded rockslide with ease.
However, there is still one opportunity. If a team of warriors fought their way into the Abandoned District and detonated a bomb manually, you might be able to seal yourself inside the district along with those snakes. This will buy us precious time for our engineers to locate the original breach point and cut off their reinforcements. You will need to prioritize slaying any tunneling monsters so they do not dig through the rubble.
...For how long...? Well... optimistically... eight hours. Pessimistically, twenty-four. Survive the continuous onslaught, and our engineers will search for the breach point. I'm truly sorry if I can't give anything more concrete. Please last as long as you can.
—What? You think this is a suicide mission? You're not wrong. I'm not going to sugarcoat it. Most of you will die. But you're also our strongest and bravest, and if you don't draw your weapons now — who else will?
I'll promote you all to Rank D if you survive, but I can't offer any other reassuring news. I am sorry. I truly am. Reward
OOC: Quoting f**ked up. I'm on mobile so I'm not gonna try fixing it
Even amongst the various Operators at her former workplace, Vicious had a rather good track record for mission completion. Most of them were solo ones, of course, for she did better by herself. But she would be assigned to join in other Operators for large scale operations on a fairly regular basis, and on a few occasions she was assigned to lead out on the field. Thus, despite her tendency to keep to herself the Liberi Operator had plenty of chances to work with her fellows, and kept up her satisfactory performance. The girl wasn’t very sociable and something about her always scared a few others, but when the after-action reports found their way to the desk…
‘Easy to work with. The face is a bit frightening though.’
‘Can be relied on...please stop staring at me, it scares me! I have a gun and I’m not afraid to shoot myself!’
‘Satisfactory as usual. Can hold down an entire lane by herself while we beat up the rest, hahaha!’
Of course, Vicious herself would also write up after-action reports for the others...
‘Trustworthy. Now if only she’d stop looking away when I try to talk to her…’
‘Way too timid. Prone to making mistakes. Needs a reliable partner to back her up so that she can grow some confidence. And no, I’m not volunteering.’
‘Needs to talk slower. I don’t understand what she’s saying half the time. It’s fine to take longer to deliver the message once than to deliver the same message three times and still not get it across.’
‘Send me some Arts support, you f***. I know I can lock down the whole lane while you guys deal with the others, but at least send me some backup after you guys finish up on your end. It ain’t fun killing those fat boys solo, you know.’
Generally, she got along with the others quite well when she was tasked to work in a team, so despite the high fatality rate of the exam, Vicious was aiming to get at least half of the team back alive. And when she got to the dwarven party that she would be fighting alongside for the exam, the girl was relieved to find out that she was somewhat acquainted with just about all of them. At least there wouldn’t be too much issues in terms of disagreements simply due to being strangers.
Unfortunately, however...
“Vicious! I missed you sooooo much!”
Faced with that energetic greeting, the only answer she could muster up as she stared at the not-unfamiliar face was---
“Why are YOU here? You DO know where we’re going today, right?”
“Nope!”
The E-rank Healer from her previous quest had also shown up. By the way, it had been about two days since that tunnel rescue quest, and Vicious had been positively plagued by the girl, who had shown up the morning after that first day and intruded into her inn room. That had been several firsts for the Liberi---first scream in another world, first uncensored cuss, first property damage fine (although it was waived, circumstances considering), first unintentional near murder, and first trauma.
Although, Vicious really regretted not murdering the girl accidentally. At least she would have enjoyed two days of peace if she did.
By the way, the healer’s name is Mallory, if anyone’s curious. Not that it’d matter in about twenty hours. The party made their last preparations, secured the items they were bringing along, and left the city, talking spiritedly despite the dreadful task that was looming up ahead of them.
*****
Once they arrived at the tunnel just before the cavern where the Abandoned District was located and mopped up a few of the idling monsters that were hanging around the place, Vicious got to work immediately. She asked Mallory to keep an eye on the other end of the tunnel which led into the district itself, while she herself took out a map and several sheets of paper. She then asked the dwarves to gather up, and while she wasn’t actually affiliated with the dwarven army, the party surprisingly listened to what she had to say.
“Wait, but...I’m not your commanding officer, though?”
“No, but most of us here are more used to fighting defensive battles with the support of high walls. It’s clear that you’re more well-versed in this kind of battle than us, so it’s natural to take your experience into consideration. We’re relying on you to make the battle plans, so If there’s something we can help with, just ask.”
“U-Umu...I’ll do my best, then. First, could I have a look at exactly what’s in our arsenal?”
“No problem. Boys, make a pile!”
As one of the older dwarves waved his hand, the carts they had brought along were unloaded and their contents left on the ground in neat rows. Just as Vicious was about to start counting, another passed her the list with everything written on it.
That was fast. These guys would be great workers in the base. Now, let’s see here. A few boxes of firebombs, the charges used to blow up the tunnel, crossbow bolts, a wall-mounted tar spr---
“......”
...I’ll pretend I didn’t see that. Next, refills for the tar sprayer...another of these green blob things, huh. Well, it should help out quite a bit, so I won't complain. Mines…there's an entire disassembled scorpion ballista here.
"Say, I don't think there were these many things provided on the official request, were there? For instance, according to this paper, we should only have been allocated one box of firebombs, and nothing else."
The wizened old dwarf grinned, holding up a few bolts.
"The excess came from individual dwarf craftsmen. The tar sprayer came from the dwarf crew at the gates. Said we'd need it more than they did."
Well, I’m not complaining. More means more.
"Alright, please pack them back into the carts, and gather up around here, everyone. Mallory! Come over here as well. Here's how we're gonna carry out this operation…"
*****
Snakes were idly milling about the Abandoned District, not doing anything in particular. A few grass vipers bumped each other in a mock fight, while a rattlesnake shook it's rattle warningly at a coral viper that was about to step into its territory. The coral viper hissed in defiance, but backed up anyway. The rattlesnake gave one more warning hiss to warn off potential trespassers, then placed it's head back down to rest.
No sooner had it started dozing off when a loud blast echoed through the huge cavern, and out rushed the party in full armour, pushing out several carts. Most of the dwarves then fanned out in a shield formation while some of them took out the tunnel charges from a cart, and started priming them by the mouth of the tunnel which they had entered from.
'First, we'll break in and secure our end of the cavern. Then we'll proceed with the tunnel collapse immediately.'
"Lass! I've found where the entry points are! Large numbers of garden snakes on their way up!"
'Then, one of you will use the orb to locate where the snakes are entering the cavern from. Also, here's some notes I've collected regarding the hydra's minions. If you see any, identify them using their characteristics, and shout it to us. We're not as pushed at the start, so just focus on keeping a lookout. Information is power, after all.'
"Aye, message received! Everyone, change formations according to the plan!"
The shield formation re-organized themselves into a semicircle, their backs to the tunnel mouth. Swords and shields went up at the ready, prepared to receive the enemy.
*BOOM!*
The tunnel which they'd entered from collapsed into a pile of rubble. Not just the mouth, either; Vicious had spread out the charges at regular intervals, so that the entire tunnel had caved in. This way, it would take the snakes even longer to break through.
It also meant they were stuck in here with the snakes, most likely until the next day.
'We'll split up into four teams of eight dwarves each, and each team will be in charge of holding down a specific point. Once we've secured our exit and mopped up the initial wave, Team 1 will stay behind to guard that point. Remember to do that.'
With their weapons at the ready and knowledge of the enemy, the party mopped up the first waves with relative ease, while the aforementioned Team 1 dwarves were hard at work, pushing out the bigger pieces of rubble to create makeshift barriers. Meanwhile, the rest headed down the slope, heading for the second point marked on the girl's map.
'This cluster of houses are taller than the others, and give a good vantage point of the whole cavern too. Team 2, you guys will take this point. Arrange yourselves on the ground level first, and hold it.'
One they had reached, the second team stayed behind, arranging themselves to fight in narrow spaces while the others continued onwards. There was a clearing somewhere in the centre.
'The old plaza. There's a lot of nooks and crannies, which means you'll have to spread out and enemies could come from many directions, but the buildings and fixtures will greatly hinder the larger monsters. Team 3, you guys will hold this point.'
Mopping up the snakes in the area, the eight dwarves in Team 3 fanned out with their backs to a dried up fountain, watching all sides with their weapons ready.
'Team 4, we'll be heading for the absolute frontline, where the bulk of the snakes will be coming in from. Me and Mallory will join you. This will be the point that'll heat up the fastest, so be prepared for action.'
Finally, the remaining dwarves and the two adventurers arrived at their destination; the opened tunnel on the other end of the cavern. The place was flooded with water up to the knees, so the group of ten got into positions, and waited.
It didn't take long for the hissing to reach their ears.
*****
"The bigger snakes are starting to show up! Cover me while I signal the others!"
The short blast of a hunting horn echoed throughout the cavern.
'Every team will take one of these hunting horns! At the early phases, one of the dwarves in Team 1 can focus entirely on being the lookout! Us in Team 4 will most likely see the enemies at the same time as you do, so the horns are mostly to alert Teams 2 and 3! Remember the different signals for different types of snakes!'
*Fweee*
"Big ones! Some of you, keep the swords and draw your polearms!"
"We'll switch formations to prepare for the larger snakes!"
As the two teams in the cavern central areas prepared to receive enemies that had gotten past Team 4, the team in question on the other hand was…
"Cover me!"
Vicious leapt out from the line and ran into the horde while dodging the bigger snakes on her way. The smaller ones she trod under her foot and as she neared the water's edge, the Liberi jumped and chucked the green orb into the tunnel as far as she could.
Following a silent countdown in her head as she rushed back to rejoin the others, a small popping explosion rang out in the tunnel, and a familiar green jelly started expanding outwards, sucking up the water as it grew.
"Alright, we can take a breather while those snakes take their time digging their way through the jelly! If the tunnels beneath are all flooded, then I would imagine the jelly will grow quite large! It'll buy us quite some time!"
*Fuuuuuuuuuu*
"Ah! Team 4 has set off the gel bomb! Hurry and assemble the ballista and mount the tar sprayer while we have time! Team 2 will be joining us in a while to help set up more fortifications! Hurry! We must finish this before those snakes start getting through!"
Around four hours had passed since they'd sealed off the cavern.
*****
With the jelly in place, constantly growing further as it absorbed more and more water down in the tunnels, the party had passed the 6 hour mark safely. By then the scorpion ballista had been mounted onto the makeshift platform which overlooked the cavern, loaded and ready to fire. Similarly, at the front of the fortified walls (made of stones taken from the rubble of the collapsed tunnel) was the tar sprayer, manned by the lookout. The dwarves also took the opportunity to rest up and replenish their stamina, and have a quick meal. Most of them had worked with Vicious enough times to take her word that 'the real fun starts when about three-quarters of a horde has been eliminated, because that's when the big guys show up in large numbers'.
*Fweeeeeh*
"Team 4 is engaging the new waves of enemies! Prepare to intercept the ones that slip by as well!"
And so the operation passed the 7-hour mark, and that's when Vicious was proven correct. But even the girl herself didn't expect the sheer numbers that were crawling out of the jelly...and then it happened.
'Everyone, use your swords and spears to engage in melee combat for as long as possible. I've marked down the weaknesses of snakes that attack from range, so try to save the bolts for when those types attack. Same goes for the tar and ballista! Large group of enemies and huge enemies only!'
*Fweeeeeeeeeeeeeeh* *Fweeh*
"Tunnel Worm popping up near Team 3! Load the ballista! Take careful aim...fire!"
Team 3, who was engaging the Tunnel Worm, managed to finish it off when the ballista bolt pinned it into the ground, restricting much of its movement. However, the Tunnel Worm hadn't gone ahead alone. Out of the hole it dug came a veritable horde of snakes.
"Can we hold them here?"
"Not without support!"
"Alright, use the horn to signal the lass!"
*Fweee*
'Of course, it's possible that we'll get overwhelmed by an unexpectedly large enemy force. If that happens, we'll have to give ground accordingly. The order is this: Team 3, Team 2, Team 4, Team 1. I'll leave the decision to retreat up to the individual discretion of each team; remember, don't throw your lives away randomly. One needs to be alive to strike a blow to the enemies.'
"Everyone, we'll head over to Point 2! Don't fall behind!"
Meanwhile, the defenders at Point 2 were having issues of their own.
"Damned mites! There's a whole bunch of them in here! Prioritize killing those first!"
As the ground started to be riddled with holes, Team 2 changed their focus to the annoying little tunnelers, leaving two or three dwarves to deal with the snakes.
"Slippery little shits!"
"Don't lose your calm! Take careful aim, finish them off, and we'll retreat to the rooftops!"
“Yeah! Watch your six while moving!”
*Fweeeeeeeeh!*
“That’s the signal for flying snakes! Four of you get up to the roof first, and---you guys are from Team 3? What happened?”
“No time to explain! We have to get up to the roof and hold this area before they catch up!”
*****
By then they'd passed the 8-hour mark quite a while ago. If things kept up, there was a chance that many would make it out alive. The team of ten had started on their share of firebombs and bolts, having dwarves alternate between melee fighting and crossbow firing every so often. By the 10-hour mark, they were still going strong.
But the girl had made a very elementary mistake on her part. There was one thing in the equation that couldn't be met, and not being able to fulfil that singular condition was fatal.
The quality of her teammates. She was unknowingly demanding too much of the dwarves.
The battle plan she had made was extremely concise and allowed no mistakes. It required for the defenders to wipe out a certain number of attackers under an allocated time limit, and then repeat that for several more times---several dozen more times, maybe, depending on the time limit. Teams also had to know when to retreat and when to hold the line to the last man.
And that sort of plan required extremely good coordination. Even excess movements were wastage, and keeping up required people who knew her mannerisms very well. For instance, she loved working with a certain Sarkaz Sniper, thanks to how superbly well their fighting styles meshed together, and on the field they basically required no communication to carry out coordinated attacks. Things like that were part and parcel of how the organisation planned their operations even with a small pool of active personnel to draw from.
If she had seven of her former colleagues standing with her as of that moment, they would probably have been able to hold down the place for eight hours without taking any losses. And with a steady stream of fire support coming in, plus another eight more Operators, reaching a full twenty-four with zero casualties was doable as well.
Alas, as of this moment she was the only one present, and most Vanguards couldn't do a Caster's work. The dwarves fought hard in their own right, but they weren't of the same ilk as the teammates she'd gotten used to. There were plenty of tanks in the dwarf party with her, but asking them to hold down more than two enemies at any one time was already a lot, and by the 12-hour mark...
Too many of them are getting past the line!
She’d gotten spoiled by her Defender colleagues, even if she didn’t want to admit it. Even now she was thinking about how much she wanted a fellow colleague around. Her baseball partner in crime. The push-pull quartet. Fidget spinner ninja girl. All of which would be a welcome sight now. But it was pointless to desire what wasn't available.
‘Remember, it’s okay to let enemies go past us, so long as they don’t do so in a huge group! Let one or two slip through every so often if you can’t keep up, and the teams behind us will take care of it! Remember, only Team 1 has to kill everything that approaches them, so as long as we whittle down the numbers between the three teams at the three points, we will be fine!’
Reluctantly the girl brought her bat down, finishing off a rather long viper, before turning to shout.
"Everyone, to me! We'll retreat to the first point, and hold them there!"
But even she herself was filled with an unease that she couldn't quite put into words. Something about the whole situation wasn't right, and she couldn't quite put her finger on it. Then Mallory, who was on her back, gasped breathlessly.
"Should we...sound the horn? Warn the others that we’re congregating?"
F***.
Vicious came to an abrupt standstill, causing her healer tag along to quickly grow worried.
"The horns! Has anyone heard a horn in the last thirty minutes? No, right? We'll be taking some detours to check on the second and third points! Hurry!"
*****
The third point was smoking ruins. There was a gigantic pit where the fountain once was, and they found six dwarf corpses amongst the snake corpses. Skin that was turning purple and blood that was pitch-black...Poison. Vicious furrowed her brows as she motioned for the team to continue on to the second point, carrying whatever firebombs and bolts were left behind by the third team.
Then she heard it.
*Fweeee---*
The horn cut off abruptly. Either the hornblower had dropped the horn to do something else, or something had forcefully interrupted. Vicious faltered.
Take the detour and check the second point, or rush back to the first point? She hesitated a bit before making up her mind on the fly.
“Mallory! You guys! Remember the path we took, when we arrived at a junction? Go on, and turn right at the junction instead of going straight on! That’s a shortcut that’ll bring you right to the first point. I’ll go check on the second point, then meet you guys there!
The dwarves nodded grimly, and after a bit the healer nodded as well, getting off her back. She did keep looking behind to check on Vicious until they disappeared around a corner, however. Then Vicious turned and sped off towards the second point.
…
There wasn’t a second point anymore. The whole place, houses and everything, was buried under several tons of rubble. Judging by the number of snake corpses scattered everywhere with arrows and burning wounds, some dwarves from Team 3 had managed to escape to Team 2’s area, before joining in with the desperate defence. Ultimately, however, they had gotten overran, and one of the last dwarves must have triggered a collapse to bury everything with them.
With a silent click of her tongue, the girl turned and ran for the first point.
A pity she didn’t quite make it there before a massive explosion shook the cavern, and she could see, even from where she stood, that the section where the first point was had now collapsed and was wholly buried in rubble.
“...”
Slamming a fist into a wall, Vicious entered one of the houses, got onto the roof, and started leaping across the roofs in order to get to her destination faster. She had to find Team 4.
*****
Eighteen hours had passed. Vicious found Mallory, who was hiding away in the upper floor of one of the taller houses. The rest of her team hadn’t fared as well, unfortunately. She’d discovered the first dwarf corpse, followed by a second and quickly a third...the team had been felled one after another, in front of one house in particular. She’d raced inside, trying her best not to start shouting, and discovered the remaining corpses.
Excluding the bodies that were buried by the two artificial cave-ins, everything was there and accounted for. Except Mallory, and Vicious felt surprisingly relieved when she found the girl alive. Scared out of her mind, but alive.
“Oi, get up. I’m getting you out of here."
The healer remained frozen to the floor in fright, and Vicious groaned. She was already having flashbacks from the tunnel request.
“Get up, you idiot. Do you want to die here?"
Even though she said that, Vicious was already lifting Mallory up to rest on her back, and preparing to leave. Yet the two had barely left the house when Vicious felt the girl's weight disappear, and Mallory hopped off her back.
"I'm sorry, Vicious."
"Now's not the time! Save it for when we get out of this place---"
*Rumble*
A shove came from behind. From the healer girl, with no hostile intent. Which was why her senses didn't detect it at all, and Vicious stumbled a few steps forward, more out of surprise than any force behind the push itself.
She watched as the healer girl smiled, and a Tunnel worm erupted out of the ground. Time seemed to slow to a crawl as Vicious tried to reach a hand out, but her instincts already told her that it was way too late.
Then Mallory mouthed something faintly, and Vicious silently turned away, avoiding eye contact as the healer disappeared into the mouth of the tunnel worm, which then ducked back into the earth.
And then she was truly alone.
*****
The girl had some trump cards, but all of them had self-imposed conditions attached to their usage. A common trait shared by many of them was that their exact nature had to remain a secret even after usage.
Which meant that, now that no allies were watching, her most reliable trump cards could come into play.
In a way, it was quite ironic. The girl kept this ability under wraps in fear of others seeing it---seeing her as a monster. But because she’d held back, the others had died, which was why she was now free to let loose without the fear of her secret being exposed. And yet, if she was given a chance to go back a few hours and choose between her secret and the dwarves…
...I'm a horrible person.
She would still have chosen to keep her secret and watch the dwarves get slaughtered all over again. Not allowing anyone else to personally witness it was just that important to her...but before that, they would have died regardless of whether she had shown it or not. She was sure of that. Thus she held back, hoping that by some miracle they'd be able to pull through without using it.
No, that wasn't quite correct.
That was what she was telling herself in order to feel better. Because if she had entertained the notion that she might have just saved a few by pulling out even her weakest ace...then it would be the end of her.
No, mourning would have to wait until she was out, and alive. One has to be alive in order to grieve over the passing of the dead.
In fact, when she’d used it unwillingly the previous few times, she’d gone as far as omitting the details from her reports. And unless something happened, she had been planning to do the same this time round.
But she didn't account for Mallory. Didn't even expect her presence in this exam. And yet the inexperienced healer girl had tagged along anyway, not because she was also going to rank up as well, but because she wanted to help Vicious. On the second day of her short break, after she'd managed to ditch the healer elsewhere in the city, Vicious had gone to the local guild branch for a drink and some information. While they couldn’t tell her the details, one of them did mention that Mallory was nowhere near the requirements for taking the D rank exam. Then the very person popped into the branch, and Vicious highlighted it out of there.
Now she wished she’d at least taken the time to properly interact with the girl. Funny how something so insignificant at the time would come back to bite in the most unexpected way possible, and the girl experienced an intense surge of sadness. Yet she did not shed any tears.
One needed to be alive to mourn the dead. And so she pulled one of her trump cards.
At some corner of the mind which she hadn’t quite grasped yet, the facade of normalcy was still holding on, protesting this decision; surely there was still something else that could be done before resorting to this method.
Vicious took a deep breath. Then she told herself to suck it up and roll with it---trying to pass off as a normal person at this point wouldn’t be very helpful if she was dead.
The bat was quite a good piece of work, and she’d been using it for quite a while. Which is why she somewhat loathed what she was about to do to it. Regardless, she held it in a posture level with the ground, before planting the battering end firmly into the ground. A small explosion of wind with her in the centre, blowing away smaller snakes and restricting the movements of larger ones momentarily. Then the side of her which she usually tucked away, the side that earned her that codename, showed itself to all that was around to see.
Vanguard Operator Vicious was a Liberi. Part bird, or in her case, part ostrich. A mild animal on usual occasions, preferring to settle confrontations by escaping. A pair of powerful legs allowed them to run very fast, for prolonged durations of time, and sharp eyes let them see for great distances. Flightless, but possessed a strong beak and could generate some extremely powerful kicks. Dangerous enough to kill humans with one kick.
And sometimes, a cornered ostrich could kill even apex predators, like lions.
Remember how I said that most Vanguards couldn’t do a Caster’s work? Which also means that some can. And Vicious herself was part of that niche some.
“I wasn’t really that close with these people.”
Even though they had probably taken a job or drank a round together, the dwarves which had fallen didn’t make too deep an impression on her.
“In fact, I don’t even know many of their names.”
Even though she’d spent quite a while in the dwarven city, the girl was only starting to pick up on the minute differences between dwarves. At first, every dwarf in the city, male or female or otherwise, had the same face to her, and it made looking for any one dwarf extremely difficult.
“If something happened that threatened everyone, I’d probably put my own survival first.”
Because they were only at the level of acquaintances, she didn’t feel nearly as much anger as she should have as compared to if a close friend or colleague had died. The whole party of 32 dwarves didn’t upset her nearly as much as when a rescue party had come back the previous year with the Doctor, yet with the exact same numbers as they’d started out with. She’d known the dead security guard on a first-name basis, and her reaction when she’d learned of his passing had surprised herself and most of her colleagues. Vicious didn’t quite believe that she could hold a grudge until that point.
“But that doesn’t mean you can just waltz in here like the sons of bitches you are, and expect to go through without any resistance.”
The entire bat had been covered in black crystals by then.
“This is my lane, and I’ll damn well hold it.”
What am I doing, talking to snakes. They won’t give me any replies, after all. But I’ve already said this much, might as well take the opportunity to look cool before I die.
Laughing as she thought that to herself, Vicious swung the crystal-encrusted bat and rested it on her shoulders. She waved a lazy hand towards the mass of approaching snakes, taunting them all.
“If you want your head smashed in, step on up.”
*****
"That's not it, V. I asked you to come here today because I wanted to ask you something. You got quite banged up on the last mission, didn't you?"
"......"
"Sorry, I didn't mean for it to sound that way. What I meant to talk about was...well, pride, actually."
Seeing that Vicious had a clueless expression on, the girl hastened to elaborate.
"I mean, I'm going entirely from observation, but you don't have enough pride in your work, V."
"This is a murderer's job. I think it's fine if I don't feel proud of it, even if it is a necessity. Or do you wish for me to be someone like that mad dog, who has nothing in her brains except fighting and sex?"
"God, no. Please don't add to our growing list of troublemakers, or the Doctor will cry for sure. Besides, I don't mean that kind of pride. More of it being the pride in the skills you have."
"Skills used for killing?"
“You know what I’m speaking of, V. Your skills in holding the front. Vanguards usually don’t do well without support, but you manage fine. I do read the reports occasionally, you know.”
Vicious settled into the chair, toying with a lump of some kind of material.
“If you read the reports, then assign me a partner already. Doing everything by myself is boring.”
“You’ll have to take that request up to the Doctor. And let’s be honest here, who is a suitable partner for you?”
“That Caster with dual personalities.”
“She has to go to school, you know. You can’t just yank her out of class every time you get a mission---How will she ever get a proper education?”
“Then, vampire nurse.”
“Absolutely not. Don’t think I don’t know what happened the last time.”
“Pocky messenger?”
“I’ll pretend you didn’t just admit to wanting to die by picking a fight with the wrong Operators.”
“...How about our resident law enforcement officer?”
“Let’s be honest here---do you really want her for a partner, or are you asking just for the sake of asking?”
She had a point. Vicious and her would probably work well together on the job, but there was nothing beyond that. Watching as the Liberi struggled to think of more, her conversation partner grinned and leaned in, giving her own suggestions.
“How about Kokoda---”
“Rejected.”
“Then, our resident singer.”
“Which one, the idols or the rapper? Rejected on both counts, by the way.”
“Maybe the girl from the deep blue, then?”
“Heh.”
Vicious began, sneering an uncharacteristic sneer at the mention. She definitely wasn’t a fan of the idea.
“I think it’ll be more of me cleaning up her messes and babysitting. And don’t even suggest the other girl to me; I’m not a certified psychologist.”
"Then there's always the little red riding hood. And she's good in her field, too."
"Maybe...actually, nevermind. I'd rather not have a syringe up my ass."
“Well, there’s not many left if you’re that picky. Sometimes you have to learn to be accepting of others, V.”
“You don’t get to talk. You have the donkey.”
The other girl sighed in mock disappointment, but her grin made it clear she wasn’t really bothered by the remark.
“Not you too, V. She’s not a donkey.”
“Whatever you say. If you don’t have anything else for me, I’m leaving.”
She’d gotten halfway through the open doorway before the girl spoke again.
“Think on it a little when you have the time, V. Everyone has something they take pride in."
*****
Well, fuck you too. And you still don’t get to talk, you little shit.
Despite herself, Vicious grinned at that fond memory, tossing aside the bat which was now disintegrating into crystals, and then into black dust. Then she scooped up whatever dust remained and stored it into a pouch.
Like it or not, it was still Origium powder. And that was the essential component for the Remington's bullets---if she survived to forge them, that is.
Well, it wasn't as if she was planning to go down without a fight. Vicious snatched a lunging snake out of the air with her hands, grabbed it by the tail and swung it into another snake, and waded right into the advancing tide with naught but a heavily damaged dwarven shield.
And thus she fought alone, always on the move. Ducking and weaving between buildings, where the larger snakes were forced to approach in single rows compared to mobbing her in twos and threes. The girl bashed away until her shield broke over the head of a large rattlesnake, so she threw the two halves in its face, before making for the position where Team 2 had been decimated. Once she’d gotten there, she picked up another shield and started bashing her way over to Team 3’s position.
Vicious kept travelling back and forth between the four points she’d assigned, breaking her weapons on the snakes during the trips and restocking on new ones from the fallen dwarves at each point. If a path was blocked by a particularly troublesome group, she’d take detours, crossing roofs and vaulting over crumbling fences.
Yet it was just a stopgap, and she knew. At the start she’d been more daring, jumping across rooftops to get to the next place, and when she got there, she’d hold the point for a little while until her weapon broke from excess usage, and then pick up a new one while leaving. But now she was slowing down, breaking weapons faster than she should from sloppy usage, and she barely had the strength to leap over rooftops anymore. Her steady hike dropped to a casual walk, and then turned into a slow, stumbling trek. It’d been over nineteen hours since she’d gotten any sleep, and fatigue was catching up.
Strains of Oripathy differed according to individual, and Vicious was no exception. And the effects they had on the body differed accordingly, as well. Physical factors such as eyesight and hearing were common afflictions. Rarer cases include the deterioration of the psyche, or more simply insanity. Then there were unique conditions, and Vicious was one of those.
At first glance, her Oripathy granted her heightened resistance to poisons, but that was just scratching the surface. And yet the girl had been partly candid in her guild registration and reports, leaving single lines of descriptions that hinted at it’s true nature.
To fight poison with poison. But it’s effects weren't just limited to poisons; almost anything detrimental to the body, such as drugs that knocked out the user, or potions that paralysed the nerves, and other sorts of status effects---the dominant disease in the body would quickly overpower, corrode, and then devour them. The only things it couldn’t directly eliminate were mental debuffs, because they didn’t have substantial forms to devour.
Yet like most of her Operator fellows, Vicious possessed a Talent that covered for this weakness. Hers was:
Pride of the Vanguard: When subject is the last allied combatant standing, the only way to bring the subject down is to physically kill the subject. In this state, subject's physical stats are bumped up by one rank or the equivalent.
On the flip side, it was still a life-threatening disease, just that it had a slow activation period. And like all diseases, it adapts in response to attempts made to cure it, intentional or otherwise; every time it is triggered and gets rid of a detrimental effect plaguing Vicious, it gets a little stronger. And taking into consideration her fighting style, which was to recklessly break through enemy lines, well...it had plenty of things to feed on.
And that wasn’t it. Whenever Vicious resorted to using Origium Arts, it fed the disease as well. Because Oripathy is the condition that allows the usage of strong Origium Arts in the first place---something she was using right now as she gripped the snake by its head, forcing its mouth closed.
"Go play with your own fellows if you want to roughhouse around so much, f***er. Have a load of this."
Holding the giant snake's mouth closed, a grey haze emitted from the black crystal patches on her hands, very gradually spreading across the snake's face, whose reptilian eyes had widened in alarm and was trying it's best to tug itself free. The smaller surrounding snakes backed up collectively, watching as the black haze enveloped the entirety of the massive thrashing snake.
"Go f*** yourself.”
Then it's movements started slowing down, and after a short while the massive snake was still, black crystals covering the entirety of its head and a portion of its neck---nay, not covering.
The snake's skin was turning into crystal. When it blinked, the irises beneath were made of crystals as well. It slowly regained the ability to move, and for a few moments it looked around, staring at...something. Not seeming to find anything. The crystals continued to make their way down its body, turning scales, blood and cartilage into crystals.
Meanwhile, the girl stared at her own hands which were also densely covered by crystals, to the point where she looked like she was wearing crystal gloves. That got a giggle out of her; one which was very shortly followed by pained groans and a bloody cough.
Now’s not the time for this...while they’re still backing off due to fear…
Gritting her teeth, the girl took out a spear she’d borrowed off a dead dwarf. She climbed onto the crystallizing snake, which lowered its head to make it easier for her, and nudged it with her shoes. Her snake mount obliged noiselessly.
We’ll kill off as many as we can before the snake disintegrates!
She dug her feet in, and the giant snake lunged forward with a very cooperative roar, knocking aside the smaller ones as it crashed through a building. Vicious cussed quietly before raising her borrowed spear in a warcry as well.
“Ikuwayo!”
*****
It was a quiet day in the dwarven neighbourhood...just kidding. Right now it was more like something right from the pits of hell. The cavern’s walls provided nice acoustics, allowing the people within to hear exactly what was going on, but magnified to echo back even louder. The Liberi was trying her best to ignore the gradually built-up migraine, and swung her spear---sword, sorry. Somewhere down the line she’d left the spear buried handle deep in the maw of a dead tunnel worm.
“HAAAAAAAAAAA!”
With a tail whip, the crystal snake lashed several more flying, before getting into a tangle with another giant snake. Vicious jumped and planted the sword in the enemy’s eye, causing it to flail about wildly. Her own mount took this opportunity to catch the opponent by the neck with it’s own jaws, and snapped down hard.
*CRUNCH*
The lifeless giant snake collapsed to the floor, burying several smaller ones as Vicious’ mount slithered away in pursuit of more big ones. A tunnel worm breached the floor beside them, and as it charged towards them with its ugly maw opened for her to see---
“Eat this!”
*BOOM!*
The round tore a hole through the worm from one end and exited from the other, causing it to fall and spasm as it died. On her mount, Vicious laughed. At this rate, they might just have a chance.
Hahaha.
Absolutely not. And she knew. She’d already fired off three Origium Rounds within the same hour, and her own blood was starting to drip out of her orifices, mingling with sweat and tears. The crystals growing all over her body were tinged crimson, and it was starting to hurt a lot. Even the wind generated by the slithering mount was stinging her cheeks as it brushed them, and a feeling of numbness was starting to seize her limbs.
Then two tunnel worms lunged out of the floor, slammed into her mount, and the crystal snake shattered into powder. Vicious was tossed flying at the same speed at which her mount had been travelling just seconds prior, and she wasn’t well enough to break her fall. So the girl ploughed right through the walls of a house, crashed into the furniture (all made of stone) and came to a halt inside the house, thrown against the wall on the other end.
“Gah!”
She’d definitely broken a few ribs. Judging by the white hot pain that struck her when she tried to prop herself up, the shoulder was dislocated as well. Vicious gritted her teeth and leaned against the wall, forcing herself into a sitting position. She’d lost count of the time, but it was probably over twenty hours, and her body was crying out for rest. Her eyelids were doing their best to shut.
I can’t fall here.
One of her arms was bent the wrong way. Definitely broken, so she grabbed it, braced herself...and broke it again. The bone had to be realigned before it setted the wrong way, and the pain woke her up.
“AGH!”
Ripping away part of her shirt, she fashioned a triangle sling to immobilize her arm with, and after much trying and pain-filled cussing, Vicious managed to do an okay job. She then grabbed the lunging snake by the jaw, crushed it’s head and took a closer look at the type of snake she’d caught…then she stuck the still poison-oozing fangs into her dislocated shoulder.
“Grrrrrrrrr---!”
It was still painful as hell, but at least the Oripathy kicked in and she could move the shoulder again, so Vicious wasted no time grabbing half of her spear and hobbling out of the house. Soon as she did, a Tunnel Worm broke the surface and wiped out the entire house.
Pretty nice of them to wait until I patched myself up. Oh wait, they didn’t. F*** you, then. No gratitude for you.
*****
Somewhere back near where point 1 used to be, a girl flew out of a house and crashed into the floor, bleeding just about everywhere. The dagger in her hand had snapped at the hilt, and there weren't any weapons nearby.
It's over. I can't move my legs anymore…Like hell!
For the last time, the girl forced herself up, leaning on rubble for support. Her legs shook unsteadily, and she was down to throwing stones. As the viper neared her and poised to strike, the girl gripped a piece of rock, prepared to go down fighting.
*Boom*
The lunging snake exploded into bloody pieces. Then the snakes around her exploded into bloody pieces, and even as the dumbfounded girl looked around a voice came from behind her.
"We're here, lass!"
Scores of dwarves ran out of the now-opened tunnel, heading over to her. Most of them were carrying something that resembled an old matchlock gun. One of them took off his own helmet, revealing a familiar face. The old dwarf she'd met on her first mission in Gelderholm.
"Let's get you out of here and back to the city. The sappers have blown up the breach point and sealed it; the snakes currently in this cavern are the last ones, and we'll take care of them."
"...I have a better idea. Anyone have a potion and an extra spear? Let me have them."
The old dwarf blinked, but soon started laughing as he handed over the items the girl requested.
"I didn't know you were this fond of killing snakes."
"Hah! Not really. It's just, they've taken something from me and I want it back. I wonder if that worm is still around somewhere…"
Cutting her hand and letting blood soak the ground, Vicious crouched to press her ears on the ground and listened. A grin came over her face as she heard the unmistakable rumbling, chugging the potion and tossing the vial away, and tore the sling away. Her arms were feeling better---well enough to down a few more, at the very least. Then there was that one tunnel worm in particular.
She motioned for the dwarves to stand back a little, before dodging the worm that shot out of the ground. The potion gave her some stamina back, and she tested it out by sending the worm flying with a kick. Watching it land heavily with her signature smile.
"I owe that girl one, so the least I can do is see to her proper burial. Plus, it's the last legs, so how can I pass up the opportunity to clean off the remainder?"
Are you interested in alchemy? Pharmacy? Witchcraft? Ahem.Thank you for the slime cores and healing herbs.We can use that to brew a weak healing potion.Meanwhile, here's a list of more ingredients I want you to find.Let's see... eye of newt... nightshade... bat guano... hmm...Come back when you've found them! Rewards:
Points: 110 EXP
Money: n/a
Other: 1 weak healing potion
After completing quest 3 times:
Permission to use Alchemist Guild cauldrons and equipment
Reciful makes a potion today! You know!!... Yay!!.. do you want to try?... Its tasty you know!!
But first, Reciful must collect 5 Healing Herbs & 5 Slime core. Reciful don't know, why? But Okay!.... Reciful wonder if Sewer slime core is fine?
After, collecting what they asked... They Want Reciful to gather again, this time the ingredients in the list... Why can't they gather it on their own? Reciful wonder?... Maybe Alchemist Person is lazy!! But Reciful is not lazy! so Reciful gathered it! For those lazy people!!
List of Ingredients:
Cats whiskers × 6
Red fruits × 10
Horned Rabbits skin × 1
Eye of newt × 2
Healing herbs × 20
Ravens feather × 3
Reciful Easily get Cats whiskers! Cuz there is a cats outside the Alchemist guild. So Reciful catch it with Reciful Tendrils!... Don't worry cats is still alive!
As for the Red fruits, the people in the market give Reciful some of it, when they knew Reciful is looking for Red fruits... Why? They said, its a thanks for Reciful teaching the street Children's a month ago, they said those kids no longer steal or harm both the vendors & costumers!.... Reciful is happy!!.. Praise Reciful more!!
For the Horned Rabbits Skin Reciful went to the forest, catch some rabbit & skin it alive... Done! Horned Rabbit skin get!
Reciful went to the nearby River to find some Newt... For collecting Eyes of Newt. Reciful found many but Reciful need only 2 so, Reciful catch 2 Newt, Crush its body & collected its head with eyes attached to it!
For healing herbs, Reciful went to the the forest... Found it!!
For the last one its Raven/Crows feather.. luckily Reciful spotted one immediately Catching it with Tendrils & the appendages of Reciful. Raven have no escape... Then Reciful pluck all of its feather! At once!!. Then Reciful remember only 3 feathers is needed....... Oh well~
****
Gathering all the Ingredients! Reciful will brew a potion!... Bit this time Reciful shall follow the Procedure, & wait till sunset...
After than Reciful heat up the Cauldron with normal fire!... Filled is with some water, & drops all the ingredients inside all at once, mix it aaaaaand BOOM! Potion Created!!!
Reciful created Potion!!
[ Healing Potion Of Bad Omens ]
Brew/Potion Details
Brewing Method
Brew it at exact time of Sunset
Effect
Heals all kinds wounds & any Status Debuffs (poison, Curse, Madness.. etc)
Primary ingredient
Healing herbs & Red Fruits
Secondary ingredient
Ravens Feather
Duration
5 minute full healing effect
Side effect
Your luck will fall down to Negative. & You'll Experience constant Misfortune for a whole day Non stop.
Report - Solet' Luna
Robbing the merchant ships? I had already done it multiple times, so doing it once more wasn't going to change anything. Usually, when they knew that it was Misty Puppeteer, they would surrender and pay their ransom. After all, the Misty Puppeteer was a somewhat famous pirate crew, now that I joined them and got crowned the title of the Slivery Witch.
"Hm? This ship— It seems strange..." The Captain spoke as he leaned onto the wooden wall, watching how his crews jumped onto the merchant ship. The merchants seemed to be a little too fearless for their own good. It seemed that they had something special, something that could make them be so brave against the middle-tier pirate crew.
"Ye rich sprog, th' usual gold or th' hard way?" One of our Mates spoke as he looked at the merchants. Upon seeing that they did not cower in fear or beg for forgiveness, he got annoyed and stomped his foot loudly.
"Just some dirty pirates, dare to play high and mighty on us?" One of the merchants, presumably their leader, spoke disdainfully. This caused the pirates to shout their taunts and tried to create chaos. One of them decided that they had enough and extended their hand to grab the collar of one of the merchants.
However, before they could do anything, a blue light flashed, and before the pirate could touch anything, he screamed in pain as his hand fell off from his wrist and blood started gushing out. Before him, a figure of pale blue stood motionlessly, grabbing the sheath of his sword as if he had never unsheathed it.
A Merfolk who worked with the Merchant? Now that was interesting. Without any sound, I descended from the deck and moved into the merchant ship. The captain, Sir Borik Lochton, didn't attempt to stop me, knowing that my interest had been piqued.
"Merfolk, I thought the like of you would hate humans— Why then did you decide to work with them?" Scanning his body, I could see countless blue scales and some fins on his humanoid body. Although the ordinary pirates could not react to his speed, I could see a little blurry about the appearance of that blade.
It was a pale white bone that had blue gems embedded on it. A relic worth collecting.
"Why should I answer your question, witch?" His gaze changed from disdain into fury as he determined my speciality. It seemed that there was a history behind him. Well, I didn't really want to play with him that much, so I didn't bother to provoke him any further.
"Nevermind, I just wanted to know. Now, if you please, play by the rules and we'll let you go." Knocking my staff onto the deck, disgusting noises emerged from the floorboard as countless maggots and worms wiggled their way out from the woods. Many screams of panic and disgusts echoed from both the pirates and merchants.
Despite the sea of worms, none of them seemed to appear beneath the merfolk's foot. They instinctively avoided him like a plague. If any unlucky one touched his scales, it would twist madly before getting mysteriously cut in half, and the others would greedily devour its corpse.
Looking at the sea of worms and maggots, the merfolk twitched his eyes as he looked at the previous merchant leader and shook his head. After that, he went back to his room and left the merchants on their own.
"Miss, Slivery Witch, please show mercy! We, the merchants, are willing to pay the ransom!" Losing the source of their confident, the merchants instantly crumbled to the disgusting atmosphere and quickly paid us the ransom. Nevertheless, a few of them that badmouthed the pirates also got beaten until they were lying on the floor, covered in maggots.
As I walked back into our deck, I could feel the gaze of the pirates. It seemed that they feared me even more after my little trick with Worm Magic. I had to thank Worm Mistress for this. It had become a lot easier to scare the merchants into paying the ransom.
Looking at the report, he stamped it with shivers going up his spine. That magic was it even legal? Then again, what pirates cared if it followed the rules. Shaking his head as he filed it. He deposited the reward to the awaiting messenger.
Final Rewards:
Exp: 300 Money: 50 Other: Some Goodies
OOC: Quoting f**ked up. I'm on mobile so I'm not gonna try fixing it
Even amongst the various Operators at her former workplace, Vicious had a rather good track record for mission completion. Most of them were solo ones, of course, for she did better by herself. But she would be assigned to join in other Operators for large scale operations on a fairly regular basis, and on a few occasions she was assigned to lead out on the field. Thus, despite her tendency to keep to herself the Liberi Operator had plenty of chances to work with her fellows, and kept up her satisfactory performance. The girl wasn’t very sociable and something about her always scared a few others, but when the after-action reports found their way to the desk…
‘Easy to work with. The face is a bit frightening though.’
‘Can be relied on...please stop staring at me, it scares me! I have a gun and I’m not afraid to shoot myself!’
‘Satisfactory as usual. Can hold down an entire lane by herself while we beat up the rest, hahaha!’
Of course, Vicious herself would also write up after-action reports for the others...
‘Trustworthy. Now if only she’d stop looking away when I try to talk to her…’
‘Way too timid. Prone to making mistakes. Needs a reliable partner to back her up so that she can grow some confidence. And no, I’m not volunteering.’
‘Needs to talk slower. I don’t understand what she’s saying half the time. It’s fine to take longer to deliver the message once than to deliver the same message three times and still not get it across.’
‘Send me some Arts support, you f***. I know I can lock down the whole lane while you guys deal with the others, but at least send me some backup after you guys finish up on your end. It ain’t fun killing those fat boys solo, you know.’
Generally, she got along with the others quite well when she was tasked to work in a team, so despite the high fatality rate of the exam, Vicious was aiming to get at least half of the team back alive. And when she got to the dwarven party that she would be fighting alongside for the exam, the girl was relieved to find out that she was somewhat acquainted with just about all of them. At least there wouldn’t be too much issues in terms of disagreements simply due to being strangers.
Unfortunately, however...
“Vicious! I missed you sooooo much!”
Faced with that energetic greeting, the only answer she could muster up as she stared at the not-unfamiliar face was---
“Why are YOU here? You DO know where we’re going today, right?”
“Nope!”
The E-rank Healer from her previous quest had also shown up. By the way, it had been about two days since that tunnel rescue quest, and Vicious had been positively plagued by the girl, who had shown up the morning after that first day and intruded into her inn room. That had been several firsts for the Liberi---first scream in another world, first uncensored cuss, first property damage fine (although it was waived, circumstances considering), first unintentional near murder, and first trauma.
Although, Vicious really regretted not murdering the girl accidentally. At least she would have enjoyed two days of peace if she did.
By the way, the healer’s name is Mallory, if anyone’s curious. Not that it’d matter in about twenty hours. The party made their last preparations, secured the items they were bringing along, and left the city, talking spiritedly despite the dreadful task that was looming up ahead of them.
*****
Once they arrived at the tunnel just before the cavern where the Abandoned District was located and mopped up a few of the idling monsters that were hanging around the place, Vicious got to work immediately. She asked Mallory to keep an eye on the other end of the tunnel which led into the district itself, while she herself took out a map and several sheets of paper. She then asked the dwarves to gather up, and while she wasn’t actually affiliated with the dwarven army, the party surprisingly listened to what she had to say.
“Wait, but...I’m not your commanding officer, though?”
“No, but most of us here are more used to fighting defensive battles with the support of high walls. It’s clear that you’re more well-versed in this kind of battle than us, so it’s natural to take your experience into consideration. We’re relying on you to make the battle plans, so If there’s something we can help with, just ask.”
“U-Umu...I’ll do my best, then. First, could I have a look at exactly what’s in our arsenal?”
“No problem. Boys, make a pile!”
As one of the older dwarves waved his hand, the carts they had brought along were unloaded and their contents left on the ground in neat rows. Just as Vicious was about to start counting, another passed her the list with everything written on it.
That was fast. These guys would be great workers in the base. Now, let’s see here. A few boxes of firebombs, the charges used to blow up the tunnel, crossbow bolts, a wall-mounted tar spr---
“......”
...I’ll pretend I didn’t see that. Next, refills for the tar sprayer...another of these green blob things, huh. Well, it should help out quite a bit, so I won't complain. Mines…there's an entire disassembled scorpion ballista here.
"Say, I don't think there were these many things provided on the official request, were there? For instance, according to this paper, we should only have been allocated one box of firebombs, and nothing else."
The wizened old dwarf grinned, holding up a few bolts.
"The excess came from individual dwarf craftsmen. The tar sprayer came from the dwarf crew at the gates. Said we'd need it more than they did."
Well, I’m not complaining. More means more.
"Alright, please pack them back into the carts, and gather up around here, everyone. Mallory! Come over here as well. Here's how we're gonna carry out this operation…"
*****
Snakes were idly milling about the Abandoned District, not doing anything in particular. A few grass vipers bumped each other in a mock fight, while a rattlesnake shook it's rattle warningly at a coral viper that was about to step into its territory. The coral viper hissed in defiance, but backed up anyway. The rattlesnake gave one more warning hiss to warn off potential trespassers, then placed it's head back down to rest.
No sooner had it started dozing off when a loud blast echoed through the huge cavern, and out rushed the party in full armour, pushing out several carts. Most of the dwarves then fanned out in a shield formation while some of them took out the tunnel charges from a cart, and started priming them by the mouth of the tunnel which they had entered from.
'First, we'll break in and secure our end of the cavern. Then we'll proceed with the tunnel collapse immediately.'
"Lass! I've found where the entry points are! Large numbers of garden snakes on their way up!"
'Then, one of you will use the orb to locate where the snakes are entering the cavern from. Also, here's some notes I've collected regarding the hydra's minions. If you see any, identify them using their characteristics, and shout it to us. We're not as pushed at the start, so just focus on keeping a lookout. Information is power, after all.'
"Aye, message received! Everyone, change formations according to the plan!"
The shield formation re-organized themselves into a semicircle, their backs to the tunnel mouth. Swords and shields went up at the ready, prepared to receive the enemy.
*BOOM!*
The tunnel which they'd entered from collapsed into a pile of rubble. Not just the mouth, either; Vicious had spread out the charges at regular intervals, so that the entire tunnel had caved in. This way, it would take the snakes even longer to break through.
It also meant they were stuck in here with the snakes, most likely until the next day.
'We'll split up into four teams of eight dwarves each, and each team will be in charge of holding down a specific point. Once we've secured our exit and mopped up the initial wave, Team 1 will stay behind to guard that point. Remember to do that.'
With their weapons at the ready and knowledge of the enemy, the party mopped up the first waves with relative ease, while the aforementioned Team 1 dwarves were hard at work, pushing out the bigger pieces of rubble to create makeshift barriers. Meanwhile, the rest headed down the slope, heading for the second point marked on the girl's map.
'This cluster of houses are taller than the others, and give a good vantage point of the whole cavern too. Team 2, you guys will take this point. Arrange yourselves on the ground level first, and hold it.'
One they had reached, the second team stayed behind, arranging themselves to fight in narrow spaces while the others continued onwards. There was a clearing somewhere in the centre.
'The old plaza. There's a lot of nooks and crannies, which means you'll have to spread out and enemies could come from many directions, but the buildings and fixtures will greatly hinder the larger monsters. Team 3, you guys will hold this point.'
Mopping up the snakes in the area, the eight dwarves in Team 3 fanned out with their backs to a dried up fountain, watching all sides with their weapons ready.
'Team 4, we'll be heading for the absolute frontline, where the bulk of the snakes will be coming in from. Me and Mallory will join you. This will be the point that'll heat up the fastest, so be prepared for action.'
Finally, the remaining dwarves and the two adventurers arrived at their destination; the opened tunnel on the other end of the cavern. The place was flooded with water up to the knees, so the group of ten got into positions, and waited.
It didn't take long for the hissing to reach their ears.
*****
"The bigger snakes are starting to show up! Cover me while I signal the others!"
The short blast of a hunting horn echoed throughout the cavern.
'Every team will take one of these hunting horns! At the early phases, one of the dwarves in Team 1 can focus entirely on being the lookout! Us in Team 4 will most likely see the enemies at the same time as you do, so the horns are mostly to alert Teams 2 and 3! Remember the different signals for different types of snakes!'
*Fweee*
"Big ones! Some of you, keep the swords and draw your polearms!"
"We'll switch formations to prepare for the larger snakes!"
As the two teams in the cavern central areas prepared to receive enemies that had gotten past Team 4, the team in question on the other hand was…
"Cover me!"
Vicious leapt out from the line and ran into the horde while dodging the bigger snakes on her way. The smaller ones she trod under her foot and as she neared the water's edge, the Liberi jumped and chucked the green orb into the tunnel as far as she could.
Following a silent countdown in her head as she rushed back to rejoin the others, a small popping explosion rang out in the tunnel, and a familiar green jelly started expanding outwards, sucking up the water as it grew.
"Alright, we can take a breather while those snakes take their time digging their way through the jelly! If the tunnels beneath are all flooded, then I would imagine the jelly will grow quite large! It'll buy us quite some time!"
*Fuuuuuuuuuu*
"Ah! Team 4 has set off the gel bomb! Hurry and assemble the ballista and mount the tar sprayer while we have time! Team 2 will be joining us in a while to help set up more fortifications! Hurry! We must finish this before those snakes start getting through!"
Around four hours had passed since they'd sealed off the cavern.
*****
With the jelly in place, constantly growing further as it absorbed more and more water down in the tunnels, the party had passed the 6 hour mark safely. By then the scorpion ballista had been mounted onto the makeshift platform which overlooked the cavern, loaded and ready to fire. Similarly, at the front of the fortified walls (made of stones taken from the rubble of the collapsed tunnel) was the tar sprayer, manned by the lookout. The dwarves also took the opportunity to rest up and replenish their stamina, and have a quick meal. Most of them had worked with Vicious enough times to take her word that 'the real fun starts when about three-quarters of a horde has been eliminated, because that's when the big guys show up in large numbers'.
*Fweeeeeh*
"Team 4 is engaging the new waves of enemies! Prepare to intercept the ones that slip by as well!"
And so the operation passed the 7-hour mark, and that's when Vicious was proven correct. But even the girl herself didn't expect the sheer numbers that were crawling out of the jelly...and then it happened.
'Everyone, use your swords and spears to engage in melee combat for as long as possible. I've marked down the weaknesses of snakes that attack from range, so try to save the bolts for when those types attack. Same goes for the tar and ballista! Large group of enemies and huge enemies only!'
*Fweeeeeeeeeeeeeeh* *Fweeh*
"Tunnel Worm popping up near Team 3! Load the ballista! Take careful aim...fire!"
Team 3, who was engaging the Tunnel Worm, managed to finish it off when the ballista bolt pinned it into the ground, restricting much of its movement. However, the Tunnel Worm hadn't gone ahead alone. Out of the hole it dug came a veritable horde of snakes.
"Can we hold them here?"
"Not without support!"
"Alright, use the horn to signal the lass!"
*Fweee*
'Of course, it's possible that we'll get overwhelmed by an unexpectedly large enemy force. If that happens, we'll have to give ground accordingly. The order is this: Team 3, Team 2, Team 4, Team 1. I'll leave the decision to retreat up to the individual discretion of each team; remember, don't throw your lives away randomly. One needs to be alive to strike a blow to the enemies.'
"Everyone, we'll head over to Point 2! Don't fall behind!"
Meanwhile, the defenders at Point 2 were having issues of their own.
"Damned mites! There's a whole bunch of them in here! Prioritize killing those first!"
As the ground started to be riddled with holes, Team 2 changed their focus to the annoying little tunnelers, leaving two or three dwarves to deal with the snakes.
"Slippery little shits!"
"Don't lose your calm! Take careful aim, finish them off, and we'll retreat to the rooftops!"
“Yeah! Watch your six while moving!”
*Fweeeeeeeeh!*
“That’s the signal for flying snakes! Four of you get up to the roof first, and---you guys are from Team 3? What happened?”
“No time to explain! We have to get up to the roof and hold this area before they catch up!”
*****
By then they'd passed the 8-hour mark quite a while ago. If things kept up, there was a chance that many would make it out alive. The team of ten had started on their share of firebombs and bolts, having dwarves alternate between melee fighting and crossbow firing every so often. By the 10-hour mark, they were still going strong.
But the girl had made a very elementary mistake on her part. There was one thing in the equation that couldn't be met, and not being able to fulfil that singular condition was fatal.
The quality of her teammates. She was unknowingly demanding too much of the dwarves.
The battle plan she had made was extremely concise and allowed no mistakes. It required for the defenders to wipe out a certain number of attackers under an allocated time limit, and then repeat that for several more times---several dozen more times, maybe, depending on the time limit. Teams also had to know when to retreat and when to hold the line to the last man.
And that sort of plan required extremely good coordination. Even excess movements were wastage, and keeping up required people who knew her mannerisms very well. For instance, she loved working with a certain Sarkaz Sniper, thanks to how superbly well their fighting styles meshed together, and on the field they basically required no communication to carry out coordinated attacks. Things like that were part and parcel of how the organisation planned their operations even with a small pool of active personnel to draw from.
If she had seven of her former colleagues standing with her as of that moment, they would probably have been able to hold down the place for eight hours without taking any losses. And with a steady stream of fire support coming in, plus another eight more Operators, reaching a full twenty-four with zero casualties was doable as well.
Alas, as of this moment she was the only one present, and most Vanguards couldn't do a Caster's work. The dwarves fought hard in their own right, but they weren't of the same ilk as the teammates she'd gotten used to. There were plenty of tanks in the dwarf party with her, but asking them to hold down more than two enemies at any one time was already a lot, and by the 12-hour mark...
Too many of them are getting past the line!
She’d gotten spoiled by her Defender colleagues, even if she didn’t want to admit it. Even now she was thinking about how much she wanted a fellow colleague around. Her baseball partner in crime. The push-pull quartet. Fidget spinner ninja girl. All of which would be a welcome sight now. But it was pointless to desire what wasn't available.
‘Remember, it’s okay to let enemies go past us, so long as they don’t do so in a huge group! Let one or two slip through every so often if you can’t keep up, and the teams behind us will take care of it! Remember, only Team 1 has to kill everything that approaches them, so as long as we whittle down the numbers between the three teams at the three points, we will be fine!’
Reluctantly the girl brought her bat down, finishing off a rather long viper, before turning to shout.
"Everyone, to me! We'll retreat to the first point, and hold them there!"
But even she herself was filled with an unease that she couldn't quite put into words. Something about the whole situation wasn't right, and she couldn't quite put her finger on it. Then Mallory, who was on her back, gasped breathlessly.
"Should we...sound the horn? Warn the others that we’re congregating?"
F***.
Vicious came to an abrupt standstill, causing her healer tag along to quickly grow worried.
"The horns! Has anyone heard a horn in the last thirty minutes? No, right? We'll be taking some detours to check on the second and third points! Hurry!"
*****
The third point was smoking ruins. There was a gigantic pit where the fountain once was, and they found six dwarf corpses amongst the snake corpses. Skin that was turning purple and blood that was pitch-black...Poison. Vicious furrowed her brows as she motioned for the team to continue on to the second point, carrying whatever firebombs and bolts were left behind by the third team.
Then she heard it.
*Fweeee---*
The horn cut off abruptly. Either the hornblower had dropped the horn to do something else, or something had forcefully interrupted. Vicious faltered.
Take the detour and check the second point, or rush back to the first point? She hesitated a bit before making up her mind on the fly.
“Mallory! You guys! Remember the path we took, when we arrived at a junction? Go on, and turn right at the junction instead of going straight on! That’s a shortcut that’ll bring you right to the first point. I’ll go check on the second point, then meet you guys there!
The dwarves nodded grimly, and after a bit the healer nodded as well, getting off her back. She did keep looking behind to check on Vicious until they disappeared around a corner, however. Then Vicious turned and sped off towards the second point.
…
There wasn’t a second point anymore. The whole place, houses and everything, was buried under several tons of rubble. Judging by the number of snake corpses scattered everywhere with arrows and burning wounds, some dwarves from Team 3 had managed to escape to Team 2’s area, before joining in with the desperate defence. Ultimately, however, they had gotten overran, and one of the last dwarves must have triggered a collapse to bury everything with them.
With a silent click of her tongue, the girl turned and ran for the first point.
A pity she didn’t quite make it there before a massive explosion shook the cavern, and she could see, even from where she stood, that the section where the first point was had now collapsed and was wholly buried in rubble.
“...”
Slamming a fist into a wall, Vicious entered one of the houses, got onto the roof, and started leaping across the roofs in order to get to her destination faster. She had to find Team 4.
*****
Eighteen hours had passed. Vicious found Mallory, who was hiding away in the upper floor of one of the taller houses. The rest of her team hadn’t fared as well, unfortunately. She’d discovered the first dwarf corpse, followed by a second and quickly a third...the team had been felled one after another, in front of one house in particular. She’d raced inside, trying her best not to start shouting, and discovered the remaining corpses.
Excluding the bodies that were buried by the two artificial cave-ins, everything was there and accounted for. Except Mallory, and Vicious felt surprisingly relieved when she found the girl alive. Scared out of her mind, but alive.
“Oi, get up. I’m getting you out of here."
The healer remained frozen to the floor in fright, and Vicious groaned. She was already having flashbacks from the tunnel request.
“Get up, you idiot. Do you want to die here?"
Even though she said that, Vicious was already lifting Mallory up to rest on her back, and preparing to leave. Yet the two had barely left the house when Vicious felt the girl's weight disappear, and Mallory hopped off her back.
"I'm sorry, Vicious."
"Now's not the time! Save it for when we get out of this place---"
*Rumble*
A shove came from behind. From the healer girl, with no hostile intent. Which was why her senses didn't detect it at all, and Vicious stumbled a few steps forward, more out of surprise than any force behind the push itself.
She watched as the healer girl smiled, and a Tunnel worm erupted out of the ground. Time seemed to slow to a crawl as Vicious tried to reach a hand out, but her instincts already told her that it was way too late.
Then Mallory mouthed something faintly, and Vicious silently turned away, avoiding eye contact as the healer disappeared into the mouth of the tunnel worm, which then ducked back into the earth.
And then she was truly alone.
*****
The girl had some trump cards, but all of them had self-imposed conditions attached to their usage. A common trait shared by many of them was that their exact nature had to remain a secret even after usage.
Which meant that, now that no allies were watching, her most reliable trump cards could come into play.
In a way, it was quite ironic. The girl kept this ability under wraps in fear of others seeing it---seeing her as a monster. But because she’d held back, the others had died, which was why she was now free to let loose without the fear of her secret being exposed. And yet, if she was given a chance to go back a few hours and choose between her secret and the dwarves…
...I'm a horrible person.
She would still have chosen to keep her secret and watch the dwarves get slaughtered all over again. Not allowing anyone else to personally witness it was just that important to her...but before that, they would have died regardless of whether she had shown it or not. She was sure of that. Thus she held back, hoping that by some miracle they'd be able to pull through without using it.
No, that wasn't quite correct.
That was what she was telling herself in order to feel better. Because if she had entertained the notion that she might have just saved a few by pulling out even her weakest ace...then it would be the end of her.
No, mourning would have to wait until she was out, and alive. One has to be alive in order to grieve over the passing of the dead.
In fact, when she’d used it unwillingly the previous few times, she’d gone as far as omitting the details from her reports. And unless something happened, she had been planning to do the same this time round.
But she didn't account for Mallory. Didn't even expect her presence in this exam. And yet the inexperienced healer girl had tagged along anyway, not because she was also going to rank up as well, but because she wanted to help Vicious. On the second day of her short break, after she'd managed to ditch the healer elsewhere in the city, Vicious had gone to the local guild branch for a drink and some information. While they couldn’t tell her the details, one of them did mention that Mallory was nowhere near the requirements for taking the D rank exam. Then the very person popped into the branch, and Vicious highlighted it out of there.
Now she wished she’d at least taken the time to properly interact with the girl. Funny how something so insignificant at the time would come back to bite in the most unexpected way possible, and the girl experienced an intense surge of sadness. Yet she did not shed any tears.
One needed to be alive to mourn the dead. And so she pulled one of her trump cards.
At some corner of the mind which she hadn’t quite grasped yet, the facade of normalcy was still holding on, protesting this decision; surely there was still something else that could be done before resorting to this method.
Vicious took a deep breath. Then she told herself to suck it up and roll with it---trying to pass off as a normal person at this point wouldn’t be very helpful if she was dead.
The bat was quite a good piece of work, and she’d been using it for quite a while. Which is why she somewhat loathed what she was about to do to it. Regardless, she held it in a posture level with the ground, before planting the battering end firmly into the ground. A small explosion of wind with her in the centre, blowing away smaller snakes and restricting the movements of larger ones momentarily. Then the side of her which she usually tucked away, the side that earned her that codename, showed itself to all that was around to see.
Vanguard Operator Vicious was a Liberi. Part bird, or in her case, part ostrich. A mild animal on usual occasions, preferring to settle confrontations by escaping. A pair of powerful legs allowed them to run very fast, for prolonged durations of time, and sharp eyes let them see for great distances. Flightless, but possessed a strong beak and could generate some extremely powerful kicks. Dangerous enough to kill humans with one kick.
And sometimes, a cornered ostrich could kill even apex predators, like lions.
Remember how I said that most Vanguards couldn’t do a Caster’s work? Which also means that some can. And Vicious herself was part of that niche some.
“I wasn’t really that close with these people.”
Even though they had probably taken a job or drank a round together, the dwarves which had fallen didn’t make too deep an impression on her.
“In fact, I don’t even know many of their names.”
Even though she’d spent quite a while in the dwarven city, the girl was only starting to pick up on the minute differences between dwarves. At first, every dwarf in the city, male or female or otherwise, had the same face to her, and it made looking for any one dwarf extremely difficult.
“If something happened that threatened everyone, I’d probably put my own survival first.”
Because they were only at the level of acquaintances, she didn’t feel nearly as much anger as she should have as compared to if a close friend or colleague had died. The whole party of 32 dwarves didn’t upset her nearly as much as when a rescue party had come back the previous year with the Doctor, yet with the exact same numbers as they’d started out with. She’d known the dead security guard on a first-name basis, and her reaction when she’d learned of his passing had surprised herself and most of her colleagues. Vicious didn’t quite believe that she could hold a grudge until that point.
“But that doesn’t mean you can just waltz in here like the sons of bitches you are, and expect to go through without any resistance.”
The entire bat had been covered in black crystals by then.
“This is my lane, and I’ll damn well hold it.”
What am I doing, talking to snakes. They won’t give me any replies, after all. But I’ve already said this much, might as well take the opportunity to look cool before I die.
Laughing as she thought that to herself, Vicious swung the crystal-encrusted bat and rested it on her shoulders. She waved a lazy hand towards the mass of approaching snakes, taunting them all.
“If you want your head smashed in, step on up.”
*****
"That's not it, V. I asked you to come here today because I wanted to ask you something. You got quite banged up on the last mission, didn't you?"
"......"
"Sorry, I didn't mean for it to sound that way. What I meant to talk about was...well, pride, actually."
Seeing that Vicious had a clueless expression on, the girl hastened to elaborate.
"I mean, I'm going entirely from observation, but you don't have enough pride in your work, V."
"This is a murderer's job. I think it's fine if I don't feel proud of it, even if it is a necessity. Or do you wish for me to be someone like that mad dog, who has nothing in her brains except fighting and sex?"
"God, no. Please don't add to our growing list of troublemakers, or the Doctor will cry for sure. Besides, I don't mean that kind of pride. More of it being the pride in the skills you have."
"Skills used for killing?"
“You know what I’m speaking of, V. Your skills in holding the front. Vanguards usually don’t do well without support, but you manage fine. I do read the reports occasionally, you know.”
Vicious settled into the chair, toying with a lump of some kind of material.
“If you read the reports, then assign me a partner already. Doing everything by myself is boring.”
“You’ll have to take that request up to the Doctor. And let’s be honest here, who is a suitable partner for you?”
“That Caster with dual personalities.”
“She has to go to school, you know. You can’t just yank her out of class every time you get a mission---How will she ever get a proper education?”
“Then, vampire nurse.”
“Absolutely not. Don’t think I don’t know what happened the last time.”
“Pocky messenger?”
“I’ll pretend you didn’t just admit to wanting to die by picking a fight with the wrong Operators.”
“...How about our resident law enforcement officer?”
“Let’s be honest here---do you really want her for a partner, or are you asking just for the sake of asking?”
She had a point. Vicious and her would probably work well together on the job, but there was nothing beyond that. Watching as the Liberi struggled to think of more, her conversation partner grinned and leaned in, giving her own suggestions.
“How about Kokoda---”
“Rejected.”
“Then, our resident singer.”
“Which one, the idols or the rapper? Rejected on both counts, by the way.”
“Maybe the girl from the deep blue, then?”
“Heh.”
Vicious began, sneering an uncharacteristic sneer at the mention. She definitely wasn’t a fan of the idea.
“I think it’ll be more of me cleaning up her messes and babysitting. And don’t even suggest the other girl to me; I’m not a certified psychologist.”
"Then there's always the little red riding hood. And she's good in her field, too."
"Maybe...actually, nevermind. I'd rather not have a syringe up my ass."
“Well, there’s not many left if you’re that picky. Sometimes you have to learn to be accepting of others, V.”
“You don’t get to talk. You have the donkey.”
The other girl sighed in mock disappointment, but her grin made it clear she wasn’t really bothered by the remark.
“Not you too, V. She’s not a donkey.”
“Whatever you say. If you don’t have anything else for me, I’m leaving.”
She’d gotten halfway through the open doorway before the girl spoke again.
“Think on it a little when you have the time, V. Everyone has something they take pride in."
*****
Well, fuck you too. And you still don’t get to talk, you little shit.
Despite herself, Vicious grinned at that fond memory, tossing aside the bat which was now disintegrating into crystals, and then into black dust. Then she scooped up whatever dust remained and stored it into a pouch.
Like it or not, it was still Origium powder. And that was the essential component for the Remington's bullets---if she survived to forge them, that is.
Well, it wasn't as if she was planning to go down without a fight. Vicious snatched a lunging snake out of the air with her hands, grabbed it by the tail and swung it into another snake, and waded right into the advancing tide with naught but a heavily damaged dwarven shield.
And thus she fought alone, always on the move. Ducking and weaving between buildings, where the larger snakes were forced to approach in single rows compared to mobbing her in twos and threes. The girl bashed away until her shield broke over the head of a large rattlesnake, so she threw the two halves in its face, before making for the position where Team 2 had been decimated. Once she’d gotten there, she picked up another shield and started bashing her way over to Team 3’s position.
Vicious kept travelling back and forth between the four points she’d assigned, breaking her weapons on the snakes during the trips and restocking on new ones from the fallen dwarves at each point. If a path was blocked by a particularly troublesome group, she’d take detours, crossing roofs and vaulting over crumbling fences.
Yet it was just a stopgap, and she knew. At the start she’d been more daring, jumping across rooftops to get to the next place, and when she got there, she’d hold the point for a little while until her weapon broke from excess usage, and then pick up a new one while leaving. But now she was slowing down, breaking weapons faster than she should from sloppy usage, and she barely had the strength to leap over rooftops anymore. Her steady hike dropped to a casual walk, and then turned into a slow, stumbling trek. It’d been over nineteen hours since she’d gotten any sleep, and fatigue was catching up.
Strains of Oripathy differed according to individual, and Vicious was no exception. And the effects they had on the body differed accordingly, as well. Physical factors such as eyesight and hearing were common afflictions. Rarer cases include the deterioration of the psyche, or more simply insanity. Then there were unique conditions, and Vicious was one of those.
At first glance, her Oripathy granted her heightened resistance to poisons, but that was just scratching the surface. And yet the girl had been partly candid in her guild registration and reports, leaving single lines of descriptions that hinted at it’s true nature.
To fight poison with poison. But it’s effects weren't just limited to poisons; almost anything detrimental to the body, such as drugs that knocked out the user, or potions that paralysed the nerves, and other sorts of status effects---the dominant disease in the body would quickly overpower, corrode, and then devour them. The only things it couldn’t directly eliminate were mental debuffs, because they didn’t have substantial forms to devour.
Yet like most of her Operator fellows, Vicious possessed a Talent that covered for this weakness. Hers was:
Pride of the Vanguard: When subject is the last allied combatant standing, the only way to bring the subject down is to physically kill the subject. In this state, subject's physical stats are bumped up by one rank or the equivalent.
On the flip side, it was still a life-threatening disease, just that it had a slow activation period. And like all diseases, it adapts in response to attempts made to cure it, intentional or otherwise; every time it is triggered and gets rid of a detrimental effect plaguing Vicious, it gets a little stronger. And taking into consideration her fighting style, which was to recklessly break through enemy lines, well...it had plenty of things to feed on.
And that wasn’t it. Whenever Vicious resorted to using Origium Arts, it fed the disease as well. Because Oripathy is the condition that allows the usage of strong Origium Arts in the first place---something she was using right now as she gripped the snake by its head, forcing its mouth closed.
"Go play with your own fellows if you want to roughhouse around so much, f***er. Have a load of this."
Holding the giant snake's mouth closed, a grey haze emitted from the black crystal patches on her hands, very gradually spreading across the snake's face, whose reptilian eyes had widened in alarm and was trying it's best to tug itself free. The smaller surrounding snakes backed up collectively, watching as the black haze enveloped the entirety of the massive thrashing snake.
"Go f*** yourself.”
Then it's movements started slowing down, and after a short while the massive snake was still, black crystals covering the entirety of its head and a portion of its neck---nay, not covering.
The snake's skin was turning into crystal. When it blinked, the irises beneath were made of crystals as well. It slowly regained the ability to move, and for a few moments it looked around, staring at...something. Not seeming to find anything. The crystals continued to make their way down its body, turning scales, blood and cartilage into crystals.
Meanwhile, the girl stared at her own hands which were also densely covered by crystals, to the point where she looked like she was wearing crystal gloves. That got a giggle out of her; one which was very shortly followed by pained groans and a bloody cough.
Now’s not the time for this...while they’re still backing off due to fear…
Gritting her teeth, the girl took out a spear she’d borrowed off a dead dwarf. She climbed onto the crystallizing snake, which lowered its head to make it easier for her, and nudged it with her shoes. Her snake mount obliged noiselessly.
We’ll kill off as many as we can before the snake disintegrates!
She dug her feet in, and the giant snake lunged forward with a very cooperative roar, knocking aside the smaller ones as it crashed through a building. Vicious cussed quietly before raising her borrowed spear in a warcry as well.
“Ikuwayo!”
*****
It was a quiet day in the dwarven neighbourhood...just kidding. Right now it was more like something right from the pits of hell. The cavern’s walls provided nice acoustics, allowing the people within to hear exactly what was going on, but magnified to echo back even louder. The Liberi was trying her best to ignore the gradually built-up migraine, and swung her spear---sword, sorry. Somewhere down the line she’d left the spear buried handle deep in the maw of a dead tunnel worm.
“HAAAAAAAAAAA!”
With a tail whip, the crystal snake lashed several more flying, before getting into a tangle with another giant snake. Vicious jumped and planted the sword in the enemy’s eye, causing it to flail about wildly. Her own mount took this opportunity to catch the opponent by the neck with it’s own jaws, and snapped down hard.
*CRUNCH*
The lifeless giant snake collapsed to the floor, burying several smaller ones as Vicious’ mount slithered away in pursuit of more big ones. A tunnel worm breached the floor beside them, and as it charged towards them with its ugly maw opened for her to see---
“Eat this!”
*BOOM!*
The round tore a hole through the worm from one end and exited from the other, causing it to fall and spasm as it died. On her mount, Vicious laughed. At this rate, they might just have a chance.
Hahaha.
Absolutely not. And she knew. She’d already fired off three Origium Rounds within the same hour, and her own blood was starting to drip out of her orifices, mingling with sweat and tears. The crystals growing all over her body were tinged crimson, and it was starting to hurt a lot. Even the wind generated by the slithering mount was stinging her cheeks as it brushed them, and a feeling of numbness was starting to seize her limbs.
Then two tunnel worms lunged out of the floor, slammed into her mount, and the crystal snake shattered into powder. Vicious was tossed flying at the same speed at which her mount had been travelling just seconds prior, and she wasn’t well enough to break her fall. So the girl ploughed right through the walls of a house, crashed into the furniture (all made of stone) and came to a halt inside the house, thrown against the wall on the other end.
“Gah!”
She’d definitely broken a few ribs. Judging by the white hot pain that struck her when she tried to prop herself up, the shoulder was dislocated as well. Vicious gritted her teeth and leaned against the wall, forcing herself into a sitting position. She’d lost count of the time, but it was probably over twenty hours, and her body was crying out for rest. Her eyelids were doing their best to shut.
I can’t fall here.
One of her arms was bent the wrong way. Definitely broken, so she grabbed it, braced herself...and broke it again. The bone had to be realigned before it setted the wrong way, and the pain woke her up.
“AGH!”
Ripping away part of her shirt, she fashioned a triangle sling to immobilize her arm with, and after much trying and pain-filled cussing, Vicious managed to do an okay job. She then grabbed the lunging snake by the jaw, crushed it’s head and took a closer look at the type of snake she’d caught…then she stuck the still poison-oozing fangs into her dislocated shoulder.
“Grrrrrrrrr---!”
It was still painful as hell, but at least the Oripathy kicked in and she could move the shoulder again, so Vicious wasted no time grabbing half of her spear and hobbling out of the house. Soon as she did, a Tunnel Worm broke the surface and wiped out the entire house.
Pretty nice of them to wait until I patched myself up. Oh wait, they didn’t. F*** you, then. No gratitude for you.
*****
Somewhere back near where point 1 used to be, a girl flew out of a house and crashed into the floor, bleeding just about everywhere. The dagger in her hand had snapped at the hilt, and there weren't any weapons nearby.
It's over. I can't move my legs anymore…Like hell!
For the last time, the girl forced herself up, leaning on rubble for support. Her legs shook unsteadily, and she was down to throwing stones. As the viper neared her and poised to strike, the girl gripped a piece of rock, prepared to go down fighting.
*Boom*
The lunging snake exploded into bloody pieces. Then the snakes around her exploded into bloody pieces, and even as the dumbfounded girl looked around a voice came from behind her.
"We're here, lass!"
Scores of dwarves ran out of the now-opened tunnel, heading over to her. Most of them were carrying something that resembled an old matchlock gun. One of them took off his own helmet, revealing a familiar face. The old dwarf she'd met on her first mission in Gelderholm.
"Let's get you out of here and back to the city. The sappers have blown up the breach point and sealed it; the snakes currently in this cavern are the last ones, and we'll take care of them."
"...I have a better idea. Anyone have a potion and an extra spear? Let me have them."
The old dwarf blinked, but soon started laughing as he handed over the items the girl requested.
"I didn't know you were this fond of killing snakes."
"Hah! Not really. It's just, they've taken something from me and I want it back. I wonder if that worm is still around somewhere…"
Cutting her hand and letting blood soak the ground, Vicious crouched to press her ears on the ground and listened. A grin came over her face as she heard the unmistakable rumbling, chugging the potion and tossing the vial away, and tore the sling away. Her arms were feeling better---well enough to down a few more, at the very least. Then there was that one tunnel worm in particular.
She motioned for the dwarves to stand back a little, before dodging the worm that shot out of the ground. The potion gave her some stamina back, and she tested it out by sending the worm flying with a kick. Watching it land heavily with her signature smile.
"I owe that girl one, so the least I can do is see to her proper burial. Plus, it's the last legs, so how can I pass up the opportunity to clean off the remainder?"
Reciful makes a potion today! You know!!... Yay!!.. do you want to try?... Its tasty you know!!
But first, Reciful must collect 5 Healing Herbs & 5 Slime core. Reciful don't know, why? But Okay!.... Reciful wonder if Sewer slime core is fine?
After, collecting what they asked... They Want Reciful to gather again, this time the ingredients in the list... Why can't they gather it on their own? Reciful wonder?... Maybe Alchemist Person is lazy!! But Reciful is not lazy! so Reciful gathered it! For those lazy people!!
List of Ingredients:
Cats whiskers × 6
Red fruits × 10
Horned Rabbits skin × 1
Eye of newt × 2
Healing herbs × 20
Ravens feather × 3
Reciful Easily get Cats whiskers! Cuz there is a cats outside the Alchemist guild. So Reciful catch it with Reciful Tendrils!... Don't worry cats is still alive!
As for the Red fruits, the people in the market give Reciful some of it, when they knew Reciful is looking for Red fruits... Why? They said, its a thanks for Reciful teaching the street Children's a month ago, they said those kids no longer steal or harm both the vendors & costumers!.... Reciful is happy!!.. Praise Reciful more!!
For the Horned Rabbits Skin Reciful went to the forest, catch some rabbit & skin it alive... Done! Horned Rabbit skin get!
Reciful went to the nearby River to find some Newt... For collecting Eyes of Newt. Reciful found many but Reciful need only 2 so, Reciful catch 2 Newt, Crush its body & collected its head with eyes attached to it!
For healing herbs, Reciful went to the the forest... Found it!!
For the last one its Raven/Crows feather.. luckily Reciful spotted one immediately Catching it with Tendrils & the appendages of Reciful. Raven have no escape... Then Reciful pluck all of its feather! At once!!. Then Reciful remember only 3 feathers is needed....... Oh well~
****
Gathering all the Ingredients! Reciful will brew a potion!... Bit this time Reciful shall follow the Procedure, & wait till sunset...
After than Reciful heat up the Cauldron with normal fire!... Filled is with some water, & drops all the ingredients inside all at once, mix it aaaaaand BOOM! Potion Created!!!
Reciful created Potion!!
[ Healing Potion Of Bad Omens ]
Brew/Potion Details
Brewing Method
Brew it at exact time of Sunset
Effect
Heals all kinds wounds & any Status Debuffs (poison, Curse, Madness.. etc)
Primary ingredient
Healing herbs & Red Fruits
Secondary ingredient
Ravens Feather
Duration
5 minute full healing effect
Side effect
Your luck will fall down to Negative. & You'll Experience constant Misfortune for a whole day Non stop.
Staring at the paper and back to the little girl in front of him he hoped the report exaggerated the details. He really did hope so but with the message from the client telling him it was a pass he had no choice but to stiffly say "Congratulations on completing your quest. Here's your promised rewards."
Final Reward:
Exp: 100 Money: N/A Other:
1 Weak healing potion
1/3 Permission to use Alchemist Guild cauldrons and equipment
The Scribel City Sewers are notorious for being invested with various critters.
Overgrown giant rats are a concern because they can spread disease.
While not too dangerous, they are agile and difficult to catch.
Wandering back to the burial ground the adventurers had used to dispose of the rats he found the place was completely ruined. With big piles of dirt thrown around it had seemed like something big had come around.
Going to the sewer, he saw a familiar face peeking out at him. The giant sewer slime that was staring at him the last time he went there. Except this time it is many times bigger, could it be? Pointing at the slime he yelled, “Was it you who dug up all the rats!?”
Tilting its head at his question, he sighed to himself. Why did he expect a slime to understand him. It wasn’t like it was Okarin.
Going inside, he started killing rats and cutting off their tails. Moving back and forth between a pit he dug and the sewers he disposed of the rats properly. With the biggest issue being the walk time. He tried solving it by carrying more than three which went about as well fighting a guard. Poorly.
With the rats in his hands practically spilling out and falling into the sewer after a few seconds of walking forward. He gave up this tactic. All it added was a soak in the sewers and few more drenched walks back to the pit. But, with twenty rat tails in tow. He headed back to the guild.
Keeping a couple of extra rats he killed in the sewer he tried an experiment. Pulling a rat from his bag he lifted it up in front of the slime. Moving it's head towards the rat in his hand. It stayed there without moving forward as if it wanted him to throw the rat in his hands. Before that, moving the rat to the right. He watched as the slime tilted it's head toward the right. Moving it to the left, he watched as the slime tilted it's head towards the left.
Yelling “Catch!” he threw the rat into the air. Watching the rat spinning in the air intently. The slime hunched down and bounced upward to catch. Hearing the usual crunching sounds as he pulled out another rat.
Putting it on the ground he told it, “Stay.” to which it ignored completely.
Putting his palm out he managed to keep it back and when the force stopped he found the slime looking at him curiously. Telling it, stay again he moved back.
Watching it, staying in place he said go...and it did nothing as expected.
Pushing the rat towards it, he watched as it happily bounced on it and the same old crunching happened. This was oddly satisfying to do. Rubbing it’s head it happily moved up and down. Spending the day playing with the slime, he finished his quest for the day.
Summary:
-Killed 20 Rats
-Disposed of them using a hole dug before entering sewers.
One of my old pals on our street turf needs a gal to fill in.He runs a tavern, for mostly pirates, ruffians, and rowdy folk.Should I tell him you’re up for it? It can get pretty nasty for a pretty face.You’ve got my permission to slug anybody who tries to cop a feel.I’ll set the gang on anybody who dares to mess with our family! Rewards:
It seems that he thought that my particular skills would be best suited to spending a period of time working in the local tavern. Annoying yes but not wholly unexpected I must say I thought it might come to this. The boss was surprised when I took it so well being assigned to the dingiest tavern in the gangs territory as a server. When asked about why I was so fine it was because as I said I've done worse. But anyway I overheard a little thing. It seems that one of the bosses bosses bosses bosses daughters is being held in Scribbel city by the Crimson coins still. So I hope you can rescue her before my arrival if not oh well.
7 days later a second report card came in that said - returning to Scribel today likely be back in 14 days.
"Hahaha It's surprising we aren't the first ones back but then again I guess we are because they don't look like they survived it well." The evaluator looked on the sorry lot that was the group of people who didn't want any girls in their group. I smiled and waited for him to deposit our rock crab after all I'm sure the evaluators had their own bets running. There was another man sitting next to the fireplace look extremely discouraged. "So Benjamin did your group succeed or was I right again?" The man called Benjamin got up and moved towards our evaluator.
"Don't leave us in suspense Frank if you are going to drop it from your pocket hurry up if you aren't you are wrong." Frank our evaluator looks sad.
"How could you doubt me like that." The little space opens above Benjamin and drops the rock crab where he was standing. Benjamin clearly new what was going on and so he'd dodged out of the way before the hole even opened up. "Don't know why you doubting me in these bets still Benji boy. AHAHAHA." Frank makes a chop and all the rocks fall off the thing leaving behind the true actual carcass.
The other groups moved into the camp slowly both with success surprisingly enough, "Ah yeah I said you'd be the most dissapointed didn't I." Frank sidles up beside us, "Well I'm here to tell you you got a temporary promotion to bar maid." I turn my gaze slowly towards him.
I lift my chin up and look him straight in the eyes, "And why would this disappoint me? Sounds like a fine time to me." He smiles down at me.
"But you look like such a modest woman? How could you not have a care for it I mean you wear two sets of clothing after all. HAHAHA." It seems this man is trying to annoy me into looking disappointed.
"You haven't even shown me the bar or the uniform so what is to be disappointed at yet plus where else do information experts work usually here." I take a part of the crab and throw it into the fire. "So you going to show me this today or tomorrow?" The friendly attitude drops right off Frank's face.
"Are you a loose goose or an uptight lady geesus. Don't snoop around at the place just do your job quickly cleanly and politely okay. Anyway the only guys who frequent that bar are our own so don't be to harsh if they try and grope most of them out rank you."
"If they grope me they will get what is coming from either me or the daemon in my brain doesn't matter if they out rank me after all it's not like I'm their girl I'm yours at the moment." I begin laughing at the snap of Frank's face in horror.
"So you are a naughty girl like that?"
"No boss I'm just stating the facts of the matter why is your head trying to go into that gutter over there?" I smile and retrieve my now perfectly cooked crab from the fire. "What you want me to be some kind lasvicious lady trying to better herself through any means?" I flutter my eyes at him and move to sit next to him.
"NOPE, that's even scarier... Go back to how you normally are." I move further and further away from the fire until I'm only just being lit by it's flames melting into the background almost before dropping my crab to the floor.
"If you insist then I won't talk unless it's needed from now on." I say knowing he can hear me now I am a part of the scenery once more no longer a part of the main show but that's okay with me I work best from the sidelines after all.
There was a uniform at the bottom of my bed today. Yes the bedrooms were still the bedroom that held all 16 of us in it yesterday. It still contained the remaining 12 of us now the 10 guys and 2 girls. I was the first awake from my senses. The uniform was essentially boots, short pants a bra and gloves for some reason. It would reveal the numerous scars that crisscrossed my body and made me a little self conscious at revealing my bared skin bar my face to anyone even other women it might even be enough to get out of this. Under everything was a note. The note of course read that I should head to the room of Frank and it even had a nice drawn map so of course I went.
Assertion: Something problematic has occurred.
Conclusion: The clothing + the daemon are having some reaction to each other.
Assertion: Avert curr...
"Conclusion I am in control now little girl. Now it's time to go and see Frank Ehehehe~"
Part Prime: The daemon was awakened by the clothing though that does not seem to have been the intent of the person who placed them their in the first place. They actually seem to be the clothing that is supplied to the bar staff of one of the local establishments around here. But limitation of danger must be done. Locking and shuttering all outward sensors. The daemon can tire itself out for a bit since there is nothing else that can be done.
Assertion: Daemon is in complete control of bodily functions though seems unable to act unruly otherwise.
Conclusion: Minimisation of damage is all that can be done.
Assertion: Shutting down information running to sensory organs from main conciousness.
Conclusion: ACCESS DENIED.
Assertion: Access would not be denied unless something else was going on.
Conclusion: Daemon has a more nefarious scheme then it would seem.
The daemon was taking me into the room shown on the thing and laughing to me in my head all the while. An annoyance but soon enough I'd deal with this one way or another and it'd pay oh it would pay dearly for this.
The daemon's perspective: Oh how it feels to have a body once more though I would have preferred the consciousness to be in a much more accepting state it was far to agitated for my liking but now I need some excitement some excess! Luckily the excitement had already been served up to me on a golden platter. As I was talking flecks of purple danced across my new skin distorting it and helping shape it into a slightly more perfect being after all this body had so many unsightly scars on it. I don't know how a human could even survive so many and not be in constant pain though that is a story for another time. Or perhaps that was it! Yes this being was in constant pain so of course it couldn't find my true path laid out for it. THE PATH OF PLEASURE, "BUT NOW IT WOULD SEE NOW IT WOULD YES YES!" Oops I accidentally let that out. But perhaps the excessive pain helped to hold me together after all my mistress was also the god of pain as well as the goddess of pleasure and bright lord of excess.
Arriving at the door I slid slowly into the room my enhanced senses picking up everything yes. Every little detail. Especially those lovely whip marks that lovingly caressed his body all over his back and the whip ohh yes the whip that he tried to hide away. I slowly came up close to him and grabbed him by the scruff of his shirt. "We are going to have some fun now aren't we servant~" My voice comes out sickly sweet and purring drilling into his ears and binding him to me. He looks as if he is trying to pull himself together and take control or at least that is what sweet AIEO's knowledge tells me I was thinking he was asking to be slapped hard and brought deeper below me. So I slapped him across the face before his will could strengthen itself and to bring him in line. "Now we will try that again we are going to have some fun now aren't we servant~" My question sounds malicious and yet disgusted to my ears. Maybe AIEO is having an impact on me that will have to be dealt with and ground to the dust soon enough for the glory of the bright lord of excess!
"Yes mistress I am ready for some pleasure." My prey whimpers from in front of me. Pitiful creature I shall deal with him well yes. "Strip and get on the bed and wait for me.
After having searched his room thoroughly I find two small chains and a gag. I can see some marks on his bed where the chains usually go but that place is no good no good at all. I shall have to teach my new pet the best of ecstasies he will soon not want whatever he had before. "Hmm we shall try and improve your performance you are going to be feeling pure ecstasy from now on little puppet~" I quickly place the newly gotten gag over his mouth. Then I latch one of the chains around one of mine and one his wrists the other latches his ankle onto the bottom bar of the bed. Seeing the look of panic that has begin to spread across his face I slowly slide off my shorts revealing my almost completely naked body and then I step on his dick crushing it all the way down after all my boots are still on. After lifting the foot off I can see that it's fully erect. "Who is a good little pet. You are. Ohh yes you are." I then begin to lower myself on to his erect mast and begin to pamper myself on his pitifully small thing. "Can you not get it any bigger you near useless pet?" I need to needle him with more hate and vitriole it seems to increase his pleasure so that my own can be extended I slowly begin placing a steady stream of insults down and stop my motions standing up as near as I can chained to my pet as I am. But anyway time for him to get bigger he needs to get bigger or I will be disappointed. Purple energy runs down my foot as I crush his dick down onto his body. My body begins reshaping itself further for an instant into that of my true form and that, that scares him immensely but my goal has been achieved.
Unluckily he had fainted from the exertion of that little bit of growth pitiful creature. But his first orgasm with his new body part brought him back to consciousness so now I could begin to bring him under my command and mine alone, "You ready to become my permanent slave yet?" A women entered into the room and so I rolled over pulling him with me and quickly pulled her into the bed to. The women was dressed completely in a black leather uniform though it had a few white stains on it. "EXCELLENT. ANOTHER NEW PET." The words creaked out of my mouth before the women could even protest a kissed was sealing her mouth shut. The door slamming shut behind her. I undid the chain from mine and his wrist and chained the two of them together instead this would be much better. Her breakdown would break him slowly but far more utterly then anything else ever could. The girl was trying to mumble something to my new slave "INSOLENT BITCH! I'M THE BOSS NOW." My temper exploded how dare a mere mortal such as her defy me I have had enough problems with AIEO I don't need hers to. I force her mouth to his cock and slowly force it into her throat. "Go until your mouth gets sore make sure my slave feels pleasure you scum and I will make sure you do to." This girl would almost assuredly begin to feel pleasure from her mouth she'd already ingested so much of my body fluid and yet there was still much much more that needed doing to truly break her down in my puppies eyes time to borrow some observations from my little brain box in my head and torment her some.
Having let loose myself inside of my head I was looking for the scraps that were left from AIEO meanwhile my body was slowly but assuredly removing and collecting the clothing from this women she'd not have more clothing then my slave no no no that will not do not at all. Back in my mind I banged against a golden wall. "WHAT IS THIS INFURIATING MADNESS!" The wall began to close in on me from all sides so I of course smashed through it all. A black tendril strikes at the conciousness of the pest in front of me so I can borrow a small part of her feelings.
AIEO's Perspective: The faith in the Emperor protects me. AVE IMPERATOR. I slowly began to chant after the daemon had entered the room of Frank it seems that he was actually a complete and utter masochist and subservient piece of trash.
ASS
ERT
ION:
THE OUTSIDE IS UNIMPORTANT IT IS TIME FOR PRAYER.
CONCLUSION: Ave Imperatore. Maxime omnium ubique gentium, omnium hominum genus suum patronum a voluptate predation de diis, morbum circumventionem erroris caedibusque foedavit. Sit sacra Caesarea maiestate de custodiet animam meam illud et inde proferunt predations animam meam. Sit homines constitutus est a tyrannide illorum permiserunt liberaliter vivere sub imperio sui sublimis.
I begin repeating the prayer over and over again in my head slowly I can feel something slotting into place and my views of the outside disappear almost completely there is still a thin sense of what is going on out there.
The shield of faith shatters near completely as the daemon summons tides of warp power into it's body from somewhere. I quickly begin to rebuild my shield as it is made from my faith and my faith is unbroken. It rapidly spins itself into being a dim light enters into my consciousness it seems that a new prey has been added in to the mix a women. Damnit this is bad I was already going to have to execute one now I shall have to remove two probable threats to my position after this. The cursed and war spurned daemon will be destroyed by my own hands this I swear on my faith and belief in the EMPEROR's true vision anyway now it is back to prayer. Some time passes and I feel the Daemon intruding into my sanctuary in my own mind and my own body it won't let me have any peace! It breaks through my attack of enclosing the barrier around it with black and rotten tendrils. YOU WILL NOT PASS DAEMON! YOU WILL GET OUT OF MY BODY ONE DAY SOON AND I SHALL SMITE YOU AND DESTROY YOUR BLACKENED SOUL! BACK TO THE WARP WITH YOU!
The daemon's perspective: I slam my full weight against the shield it seems that AIEO won't be helping me for this I shall just rely on my Mistresses teachings then. I slowly lick the whip covering it in my fluid and rub the other part of the whip up and down near my honey pot to cover it slowly and steadily in more and richer juices from my body. Soon even myself touching the whip is bringing ecstasy so now is almost the time for her punishment. But first I will begin by putting her clothing on myself. The very touch of the leather against the tender flesh of AIEO's old body sends ripples of pleasure throughout my body. Yes this is good now I am the truly dominant one here. She will soon be begging to say my name and have it run across her supple lips. I bring the whip down upon her back as she strokes her useless sexual organs. The whip brings her right up to the bridge of collapse on the first strike breaking her will and flooding her body with pain but the second along with her stroke and a renewed vigour at the sucking of my pets cute appendage sends pleasure all throughout her body. "Yes stroke yourself let the pain and pleasure mingle GLORY TO THE BRIGHT LORD!"
Time for AIEO to do something for me I can't be bothered walking to the job in the tavern she can do it for me time to let her take control again I guess now that I can take her over at anytime. hahahaha. Anyway my two pets spat out all their secrets to me under my whip and chain the two of them are waiting her for more of my blessings to be heaped upon them and they will wait.
I get undressed from the clothing of the women now stained inside and out with my scent it's mine now she won't try and contest that though she would love to be able to wear it again I'm sure of it she'd do anything for the sake of wearing something that I have.
"AIEO it's time for you to take control after all I'm bored you can take us for a spin at the tavern it will feel great. You will love the little changes I made to you." As soon as I leave control the scars criss-crossing her body begin to reappear all over it. "WHAT!" No no this can't be happening how could my power be destroyed so easily like that it should have been permanent what in the Corruption was happening. NO. This would be fixed when I took over but AIEO would have to rush to get to our appointment.
AIEO'S perspective: The man and women in front of me stop doing whatever they were doing and flinch back as my scars slowly begin to crisscross all across my body the scars are from medical procedures, training. beatings and just a plain old sadistic bitch from a long time ago. They did not hurt no they might give some ache a long time ago but now they just were there an instinctual part of me. "What the hell is wrong with your body mistress?" The women squeaks out at me.
"I'm not your shitty ass master you whore I AM THE TRUE OWNER OF THIS BODY AIEO. THAT DAEMON SLUT IS NOTHING BUT A PARASITE THAT I WILL CRUSH." Yes these two will need removing fast I must act quickly this cannot and will not be allowed to spread. I slowly pull out my dagger and slit both their throats revelling in the action for a time just to spite the damned daemon I'd stay loyal. Even if it was the death and destruction of my soul on the line I WOULD STAY LOYAL TO MY EMPEROR. I quickly disposed over their corpses as best as I reasonably could storing their heads away for later these heretical monsters would serve the Emperor yet.
I guess I had best head off towards the bar quickly since sadly my supposed protector is indisposed at the moment what with being dead and all. I'm definitely going to be racking up a high body count if this pattern is kept up by the daemon. That's going to be extraordinarily annoying so when we get back I am definitely carving those out. As I wander through the streets I feel eyes wandering all over my body people are seemingly trying to dissect every single part of me and so dismiss. But as I get closer to them the white of my skin starts to appear more bumpy and less ridged. That is because of all the scars that crisscross my body and suddenly they can't keep looking at me. It is a mess after all up close even if it has some beauty when viewing it at a distance. I don't think any living being has as many scars crossing their body as I do personally but maybe some unliving beings have more you never know with them since they can hide it.
After running along for a good 10 minutes I note that someone is definitely watching me from somewhere and they keep watching every twist and turn I make not an unexpected event but an unwelcome one but no time to bother I'm almost at my destination now only 1 minute left to go till I arrive. I hope they or it doesn't continue watching me during my shift that will be annoying. I sprint through the streets which now that I think about it are actually kind of deserted for city streets. Then again this is the Misers territory fully not many would dare cross into it without official business. I reach the pub and slowly walk inside whilst calming my breathing and than something snaps. My body releases a purple light and I lose control again. THAT FUCKING DAEMON DARES TO TAKE OVER MY BODY AGAIN!
Daemon's perspective: There was something watching us on the street that is no good no good at all it dares to try and covet this hideous body it will have to be taught a lesson in manners soon enough. Yes most definitely. I don't like things that try and go after such ugly things as this current body it's hideous and disgusting but it houses me so it will be kept in as good a condition as it currently is by me by force if necessary. No one can have my things but me or the prince of pleasure only those 2 beings some may call me a petulant child but I prefer a child of excess myself it fits far better.
During my ranting we had nearly arrived at the pub it seems which means that it's almost time for me to take over this body and make it beautiful again and glorious these employers would not be happy with such ugly slops doing their work for them I'm positive about that and I should know I'm a daemon of lust after all. Anyway it seems that presence has stopped watching as we reach the door time for me to shine now~ Okay I spin up a little of my power and cut AIEO off from her own body it's time for me to take control now, purple light radiates off the body as I fix the disgusting scars littering her body. Time for me to have some consensual and boring fun in this tavern well maybe not that boring but we shall see I immediately rush over to the boss and tell him the situation as far as I can about how Frank was a little indisposed with a lady friend. The boss laughs after all he supposedly knows Frank. "That old rogue can't keep it in his pants now can he."
I look innocently at the man, "No I think he can keep it in his pants perfectly fine I think it's his lady can't keep her claws out from under his chin and so she is always steering him into little problems like this." I titter to myself a little shaking my body in a sensual way. He is my boss so I can't be to forward yet after all he's the one in charge and he needs to twist himself around my finger over the next 7 days~
The man scratches his chin well that's an idea now ain't it and it makes sense no wonder he had those whip scars cause I'm absolutely sure he ain't ever faced any foe that would stoop to using a whip on the back like that and not have killed him." The man scratches his chin a little more and then grabs my back before pushing me off to a table his hand slowly sliding down my back before squeezing my ass. "GET MOVING NOW LASS can't have you standing about not doing your job." I of course do a little jump as the little vixen that I am getting her tail pulled.
I slowly waltz on over to the table and tap in front of the man who is focused intently on the menu, "So what exactly do you want mister? A beer a meal some kind of wine or a good hard drink?" I slowly make a movement to exaggerate my perfect beauty my body that would be almost assuredly praised by her higness of excess and painful pleasures. After all the material I had to work with was absolute shit. Anyway the man took everything then slapped himself on the knee I snuggled my little booty down and gave him a little movement to set him a thinking. He slowly raised his hand and slapped his face and then breathed out slowly. "I'll have an Apocalypse Burger and a Gloryhammer I think. Thank you little miss." I slowly got up off his lap giving him a little zap as my each part of my body slowly left him. This was fun. I slowly waltzed over to the boss making sure that he could get an excellent view of all my assets the pitiful state they were in.
As I approached the counter the boss looked up from his work. "He wants a Apocalypse Burger and a Gloryhammer boss." My sultry words will soon drown his senses away and relax his inhibitions as we get to know each other more they will do more and more.
"Aye lass I got it go and tell him it will be ten minutes cooking and take the Gloryhammer with you it's over there on the rest make sure to not spill it it's worth your entire hide." I'm pretty sure it would not actually be worth my hide but I make sure not to spill a single drop even with all my sultry and exaggerated movements emphasising all my many assets.
AIEO's perspective: At least she had the decency to remove all my scars no one would believe that I was this bitch if they saw a single one of those. But otherwise she's ruining my name and reputation basically single handedly the absolute fucking shit. She'd pay so much for this why the fuck was she flirting so much with all these scum of the Earth but at least there was one benefit with her in control I could basically hear every little thing in the pub my entire focus on it or chanting my prayer. There were actually many interesting things going on in the pub. One of them was 2 women whispering angrily and quietly about the women in the tavern trying to steal their spotlight from them and jump right over their heads. It was interesting because it showed how weak and petty they were and the fact that they dropped a hint that yes they were Miser members and whores though I personally have absolutely no interest in whores or having them in my company as can be seen from how agitated they seemed.
Another interesting conversation was about the rumour surrounding Mek Aihalen who seems to be a leader in a country which is nearby and an extremely high ranking member of the guild at that. His daughter seems to have for all intents and purposes gone missing in Scribel city she is presumed to be captured because who would kill such a high ranking member of the famous Miser guild like that. Mek Aihalen was not a human but an abhuman almost assuredly he had golden skin as in it looked like gold and every so often he'd cough up balls of gold he also had many extrasensory organs for both sensing magic and for sensing even the slightest daemon it was said. So best not to get to close to him he will almost assuredly notice the fucker who happens to be controlling me at this point in time. After all I will get rid of her myself I will not accept any help in this matter my revenge will be mine and mine alone.
A third situation wasn't interesting but it was entertaining it was two men measuring scar sizes if I could join I would 100% beat both their arses with even some of my smaller ones what a scar running halfway down your back is nothing at all compared to the mess that exists on me. Then again many of mine were for the augments that have been placed within my body and were slowly absorbed and made into natural body parts of mine. Probably the weirdest one had been the linking of the visor to my body I had a scar running from my temple all the way down to my foot I bet it's because it was that sadistic bitch who did it. Actually I can check who did can't I it was stored in the Prime area after all and I had nothing better to do after finding these little things out till something big was planned about setting up a foothold in Scribel but I doubt that would be talked about until we reach there.
Anyway back on the visit to the Prime part I made a few inquiries it seems it was that sadistic bitch who did it of course I didn't even complain a little bit but she was extremely excessive in her actions and it lead to her termination from the project finally. Well that was an excellent piece of news and termination from the project of course meant that she had almost definitely become on of the servitors for if I didn't know better I could think her skull could actually be the one that my servant skull was made of. But I knew far better than that or at least I knew that it wasn't her but someone whom had once been close to me before I had joined the temple and thrown everything away for something far far greater. It was the best day of my life other than actually passing the testing of the Vanus temple.
Soon enough the daemon had completed MY job for the day and was heading home. She abruptly released me from my bond restoring my body to it's proper state and I began running away at a rapid speed. However soon enough I noticed the being was focused on me again well that was an annoyance but I'd put up with it on the way here and I'd put up with it on the way back. I quickly made it back to the room where I began destroying more evidence of my murder of the two in the room such as removal of their skulls tattoo's and fingers. It seems the daemon wanted to let me clean up after all. The blood soaked everywhere and into everything so it would all have to be burnt. Plus there was entrails strewn all across the floor and shattered bits of bone all throughout the room after my dismantlement of the body. Then I felt I was stuck again. The fucking daemon had come back to finish it. She clicked her fingers purple spread over everything and suddenly the room was empty in a perfectly cleaned state. The cartilege wasn't strewn about anymore the blood was gone and the two's heads were completely cleaned off now I just needed to add them to my belt somehow. Then I could use them.
A knock suddenly sounded on the door and I could feel the gaze that had stalked me on the streets even through the door. Then of course the bloody daemon waltzed over to the door without a second fucking thought. Going to get us both killed at this rate. The daemon is slowly reaching out to the door when a second knock raps on the door and there is a slight shift in something as if something has fallen out of place. The daemon opens the door and outside stands a women in a long flowing white dress with crosses all over her body. "DAEMON I WILL BANISH YOU FROM THIS WORLD IN THE NAME OF OPHELIA." The daemon strikes out with it's hand trying to strike at this priest to try and kill her but the attack bounces off of the thing. This is both good and bad I am sure of it.
Daemon's perspective:
Ehh someone is knocking on the door interrupting the cleaning up of my nice new pets this is super annoying. I should go and see who they are shouldn't I? Lets go and see what they want after all everything is completely perfect in here and nothing is suspicious at all. Whoever is outside knocks on the door again as I reach it annoying person they are most definitely. I had barely moved towards the door at all! Best to deal with this being quickly annoyingly. As I open the door to her she yells at me about banishing me from this world in the name of something called Ophelia whatever that is but she's annoying so I punch her. Unluckily she definitely had some kind of shield on her annoying women. Priests seem like they will be a major annoyance, the women throws a knife at me and it misses me completely what the hell is this women playing at I didn't even try and dodge that geesus she sucks at this.
After a while of trying to break the barrier I give up and the girl begins throwing daggers around behind me and what not well time to ask her what she's doing she will surely tell me. "So little girl what in the corruption are you trying to do throwing knives around and missing me. It's not the perfect action. PERFECTION IS WHAT YOU MUST ALL STRIVE TO ACHIEVE~" I wink at this girl and try to walk slowly towards her and then I grab her arm and it goes right through where the shield should be and of course it should I pat her arm and the women recoils in horror. But I've already latched onto her arm I am ready to have some fun now and she will enjoy it oh she will enjoy it immensely. The women begins moving her hands around rapidly so I slowly grab one of her hands and pull her in to my body holding her hand still and then I slowly move my face down towards her mouth which I enclose delicately. The woman tears herself away from me braking my hold on her somehow an annoyance but I have done it once so I can do it again.
Priests perspective: What exactly is this daemon it's willing to kill so easily and yet it's trying to hold me close and kiss me? Is there more at play here than a simple possession of a person by a daemon doesn't matter the daemon must be removed quickly it's presence distorts the mana field around it and it's a villain. "YOU WILL NOT DO THAT AGAIN." I re-begin my hand signals and pull the sealing daggers into the being to tie it down but somehow the daggers begin to wrap around the being and then suddenly a wall of purple smashes through the dagger bindings but it quickly fades away as if the daemon was distracted by something else. "What?" Is there two daemons inside of that poor woman or is something else going on this is getting weirder by the second.
"Stop struggling AIEO this is for our own good after all." Scars are beginning to mar the surface of the woman's body similar to how she was before why didn't I notice that they were completely missing I must have been way to absorbed in something else I've been affected by that beings mental attacks.
"I WILL NOT SUCCUMB TO YOU DAEMON AND I WON'T LET SOMEONE ELSE TAKE MY VENGANCE EITHER SO SHUT THE FUCK UP YOU BITCH ASS DAEMON I WILL BE THE ONE TO CRUSH YOU IN THE NAME OF THE EMPEROR. AVE IMPERATOR!" Her statement completely breaks my holy seal as if she was just a normal human woman rather then some kind of daemon and then she collapses to the ground as if exhausted. My work here seems done so I retreat but I will watch this being closely for now. some words seem to be leaving the women's mouth but I can't hear them anyway my god the scars all across her body are horrifying.
AIEO's Perspective: I'm found lying in the dirt my body wrapped in scars by one of the men I finally have my body back in control fully and the daemon is sealed away again. "Urrk." Vomit leaves my mouth and covers the floor on the bed beside me the daemons magic is finally fully exited my body and the damage that that stupid ass priestess did is gone. I'll fucking execute that bloody idiot someday but for now I need to rest. Why would you go after a daemon possessed human so damned casually like that anything could have happened and you did almost lose that fight so easily. As if your god would want to involve itself in such a matter. It would be stepping onto the field against another new enemy in a world that is already overflowing with enemies. Anyway I slowly roll over from the edge of my bed I don't think I will be doing anything else today thanks to that bitch ass priestess and the fucking daemons stupid ideas. Currently I lie naked on the bed in the room that I was in before.
A man comes into the room oh it's that bartender I bet he's come to see the girl he met yesterday he will get a big shock from my appearance I'm sure of that. But on that matter I should talk about the daemon and how I was able to beat it again and this time I've locked it away though I doubt that lock will last after all it's already slowly piecing it's psyche back together. Yep that's right I was splitting parts of it's psyche off whilst it was dealing with that woman that's why it's control was slowly falling off and my own body was reasserting itself as real rather then as a construct of the corruption as the daemons is. But I AM NEVER talking of this to anyone and that priest will disappear herself I assure it.
"Oi girl you aren't the one from the bar are you? There's no way she could have gotten all these scars in this short period of time is there?" I hear the voice at the edge of my hearing dragging me back to full alertness.
"Of course unless some fucking bitch cast a daemon into my soul and then it took control and was slowly asserting itself as reality right? This is how I have always looked though I doubt anyone could tell you that." I spit out from the bed I don't feel sick anymore just completely and utterly exhausted.
"No wonder you cover almost every inch of your skin with all this on your body. I don't think I've ever seen so many scars even on a slave before." I begin trying to steady myself and pull myself back towards reality clawing at it so that I can try and compose myself. It seems I may still be a little sick because there is vomit building up in the back of my throat.
"Most of this is just medical procedures minor augmentations to make my body slightly better slightly faster so that I can keep up with the information flow in my head in other parts of my body. Though it was committed by a bitch who wanted to hurt me ohh so much she set the gas so that I would feel every little knife wound but I would be unable to scream. I felt it all. Throw me the white thing on the floor there would you?" I hope he actually does bother to throw my suit to me I feel horrible not having it near me it's basically a part of my body at this point. I slowly open up my left eye it's been closed for ages I wonder if it's finally fixed itself yet? As I open it I can still see the little glows but the glow has greatly diminished around the things it's back to more the visor itself is highlighting living objects. "Finally I can see again." The clothing lands on my face as I say that and so I laugh at the situation.
"You going to put it on cause it's disturbing looking at you like this miss." the man actually seems a little grumpy at the situation that has occurred. "I guess it was out of your control getting possessed by a daemon but the boys at the pub are going to be disappointed when I tell them I found someone with bigger scars then them. They won't bloody believe you are the same girl I can assure you of that." I begin to put on my bodysuit when one of my scars pops open.
"THAT FUCKING DAEMON." You even have to annoy me like this urgh. luckily it's just a small one and no blood it leaking out but it's annoying that this has happened. "Can you sew that closed please then cut it with your knife and sew it closed again please? Otherwise it's never going to heal properly." I show him the split scar and he recoils in horror most likely but he goes off and a woman come into the room with a needle and quickly sets to work though disgust is written all over her face as she is doing the stitches. When she is finished she quickly runs out of the room so I grab the dagger that lies at the side of my bed and slit the thing myself. I don't make any noise in the process this much is nothing especially since I've been preparing to do it for quite some time. Anyway the man comes in again and seeing that I actually cut it he quickly comes over and sews it up.
"Well shit I didn't think you'd actually cut it like that."
I turn and face him, "IT NEEDED DOING. Anyway what happened to the skulls in the room?" The man looks confusedly at me.
"What skulls?"
I look him dead on in the eye, "In that room there should have been just two skulls and absolutely nothing else I need them for something important to me and I'm sure you guys already took the skulls of the two crimson coin men that were on my belt which just leaves the one currently. Oh I forgot to get the golden hat didn't I oh well there is a hat made of pure gold outside Spire Reef buried 1 foot under the 13th hill from the entrance when walking in a straight line at the back of it based on where Spire Reef is. Do whatever with it. I need rest now." I begin to put on my clothing ignoring the man whom is in front of me.
I'm awoken from my slumber by someone coming into the room. "Why on Earth are you watching over her Freddie don't you have underlings for doing something like this?" I hear the bartender move a little.
"Well the other two are working and this one here is my current third underling so no not really Badger. Why are you here?" The man stops still and snaps his fingers.
"Damn this is the girl from last night that you told me about the nurse that you got to work on her is still completely and utterly disgusted though? What on Tonia happened to her for that to be the case?"
"Oh something about possession and the warping of her form by a demonic entity she said anyway why are you here?"
The man who entered the room snaps his fingers and then does a little laugh, "I thought you would have heard already didn't you have the best information expert?"
A spark seems to ignite in the room at that as if he has said something wrong, "MY WIFE DIED LAST MONTH YOU BITCH." I can hear a fist whistle through the air and crack against the other mans face. He slams back into the door.
"My mistake my mistake I wasn't told. Anyway you are going to Scribel with your charges you've got it your finally out of Spire Reef once your time is finished at the bar." The man slowly turns to the door before trying to exit rapidly. Just before he leaves he whispers, "You are saving the little princess." He rapidly exits and I hear a punch against the door I slowly move myself as everyone knows that no one could stay asleep after that sound. He notices my movement and grunts and he to leaves.
A beep goes off in the back of my mind.
Assertion: The impurities have been removed from my body.
Conclusion: Ready for working again body has healed bar the scar.
I get out of work and get dressed in my extra clothing for some comfort and so people don't stare as much as they try to at the body suit. A man enters into the room and I make a be quite gesture to him after all I'm not the only one in here. I slowly walk towards the door following him back out. As we make it to the outside proper of the building he puts his hand out to shake, "I'm your senior in the gang, Fras. I need to make sure you are up to 100% power and ability girl before we leave Spire Reef." I begin doing some light stretches on the ground because my body has decided to go stiff after all that exercise from yesterday the damned Daemon put it through that it is 100% not used to.
"I understand and I assure you I have recovered almost to my peak state again." My slow and steady stretches continue until my body has returned to full flexibility.
After recovering my flexibility I decided to do some light running but as I was sprinting around the small courtyard the man look disgruntled at me. As I came up to him I slowed to a stop just in front of him. "Something wrong mister?"
He scowls and looks at me, "We met before at the pub?" I begin to recall the time at the pub in my head to see if I can see his face in any of the pubs I frequented before.
"Nope we didn't though now that I think about it I swear I have seen you at some pub before." He looks a little surprised at that.
"Funny maybe I just saw you working yesterday through the door or a window. But you seem to have drastically changed somehow and it just doesn't sit right oh well anyway let us move to the training room I'll be beating you into shape now." I make a thumbs up motion at him a training room huh I wonder what we are going to be doing in there.
"Lead the way sir." I begin to follow him as he leaves the courtyard heading deeper into the gangs territory.
We arrive at a large building it has multiple entrances all set about equidistant apart it looks like on of the warehouses but it's way bigger than most and all the doors just appear to be for normal humans rather than carts and carriages. The inside of the room had a soft floor as if it was padded with something definitely not the best training room I've been in but the best since arriving in this world actually make that the only. Anyway I slowly began to do my combat warm up from the Vanus temple in a section all to myself after all I was definitely not warmed up for getting my ass handed to me by him. "Just wait a bit I'm not ready to get my ass handed to me on a silver platter just yet." He begins laughing to himself over by himself as my warm up continues.
After finishing the entire rote of my combat warm up and practising a few movements of my combat strikes. "Now I believe it is time for me to get beaten into the ground." I slowly moved in on him ready for a blow to come at any time. His first strike was at my head and I blocked it easily after all he was trying to figure out my state. My counter blow to his elbow was dodged easily and now I was already going all out. He was still building up unleashing fists kicks and all manner of other attacks of non-magical nature upon me I dodged and blocked most of them but some still came through. The damage was slowly building up on me over time but he was keeping it at acceptable levels for this to be termed as a sparring match though only just.
"You are weaker then I thought you would be but then again I guess this was never your speciality now was it?" He backs off a little then comes forward and tackles me to the floor I tried to dodge but it just put me in a slightly worse position as he had already anticipated that movement. As we landed on the floor he began laying the blows into me on the mat until he knocked me out.
As I woke up I saw him with an apologetic look on his face, "Sorry I was meant to make sure you were ready to go not make the injuries worse I go a little bit carried away with that." I stand up and do a few stretches to check that everything is still sitting in it's proper position.
"I believe everything is still functioning at acceptable parameters." I put my hand out to shake his hand. "It's fine I've had worse in a sparring match done to me. Once one of my enemies decided that he felt like removing my arm slowly but surely even though it was only supposed to be a spar."
The mans face twists into a grimace of disbelief, "You had your arm removed from your body?" I shake my head at that.
"No he felt like trying to remove it he didn't succeed as I stabbed him in the throat with a knife I'd left on the mat and killed him. "He was only having a spar I was there to assassinate him." I smiled prettily at him to knock him further off guard.
"You got away with that how?" I smiled brightly at him.
"Well you see he was able to stay alive for a time after the attack but then after a week suddenly a disease took him down. Or at least they say it was a disease really it was poison applied. I was well out of the city by that point after all I would not spend my time in the nearness of someone who had been so rude to me earlier in the week. So even if they wanted to blame it on me and catch me they would have had no chance at all." The man smiles at that before nodding and leading the way out of the room.
It was a while later and I was at the bar dressed in a very different clothing to the last time I was here the same man as last time was at the table. I was training my left eye in this situation to make sure it wouldn't suddenly send out massive waves of pain from just looking at someone who was stronger than me by a little or a fair amount. Anyway everything seemed to be going fine at this point in time I hoped it kept going that way as it likely wouldn't. Anyway it seemed that there was very few important things that were happening in this tavern today unlike last time. The girls weren't jealous of me either today especially since they didn't realise that I was the same girl as last time no one seemed to realise that unless they were in on it. I arrived at the mans table and he looked up at me. "I'll take an Apocalypse Burger and a Gloryhammer please lass. You are a much nicer girl then that one that was here yesterday. She was quite a bit to pushy but you also just wanted her to be nearby not right I say not right." I laugh at that and head off towards the counter.
"He wants an apocalypse burger boss and a Gloryhammer." I nod at him already at the stove.
"Tell him it will be 10 minutes and get a gloryhammer for him best not keep him waiting."
"Roger that sir." I move over as swiftly as I can to the tap and pour his drink out then I steadily walk to his table and deposit the drink on it. "The food will be 10 minutes sir. Do you want anything else whilst you wait?" He shakes his head whilst grabbing the drink.
I begin circling the bar tables asking if anyone would like anything to drink or eat or they need something else. None of them of course do.
The two girls at one of the tables stop me for a moment and one of them asks me to bend over I of course oblige as a respectable wait staff aught to even though they are also staff here whores. "Honey wouldn't you look a lot better in something a little more revealing?"
"I whisper back nope not in the slightest I have way to many scars for that. Do you wish for anything else?" The girl flicks her hand as if to tell me to leave so of course I do. The pair then begin to laugh to each other and mumble something likely to do with the fact that they got a slave on the staff now.
Time passes in the tavern and nothing much interesting happens after all everyone has likely heard the little bits of gossip by now and there is the odd heroic story or such but for the most part this place has a dead air hanging over it the people here are all regulars it seems and some have been coming here for as long as they can remember though that isn't really all that long once they have a few Gloryhammer's in their system. That stuff could knock a Space Marine for a six I am almost assured of it. A few more hours pass in the quietness of the bar and a sense of misery begins to pervade the place after some of the more boisterous men take the ladies back home. This place does not seem to be the home of the happy drunkard but instead is the place of the depressed and lonely. Now more so then last time I was here or maybe it takes all your senses to tell.
One of the men gets up a little bit after the depressing air sets in and goes outside it seems he just wanted to lighten the mood as he soon comes back in carrying a guitar. Which he soon begins playing some light hearted tune to but it doesn't do much as no one wants to join in on the singing. No one is ordering drinks or food so I sit down at my little table stiff as a pole and just wait until I can leave listening and watching for any kind of movement. The bartender soon enough claps his hands. "Enough of this mood I'm sure you are scaring away any of me potential new customers and we all knew he wasn't long for this world the suicidal idiot. So rouse yourselves from this stupor or get out and go somewhere else I won't have this moping continue for another minute."
THe guitarist begins playing the melody for a raunchy tune again as the crowd gets up off their haunches. The cause of the mood seems to have been the death of Frank that makes sense and I guess they are people whom have always lived a tough life each and every one of them.
The next day my routine is similar though this time the spar is much closer as he was going easy on me and he stops as soon as he can land me on my back. "I thought you were supposed to be an augmented human how come you still lose to little old me?" I stand up slowly from the ground still in guard stance. "Well you see my augments for the most part are sensory I can smell your cologne from here it's not that nice I'd change it if you can. Two you have been trained far far better in combat then I ever was it was not a priority for me to learn it was a skill only to be deployed in the most dire of circumstances which this definitely counts as and for the most part it was not supposed to be performed in this clothing but instead a synth skin suit or armed with a weapon such as a chainsword or lightning dagger or a gun and grenades or most commonly a crossbow. None of which I actually have access to at this moment in time. Hence I am fairly useless at this specific task." I pull myself together and prepare to leave. The pub block awaits me soon and I need to get rid of some of the bruises before I get there.
The pub was much more excitable today as compared to yesterday people were actually moving around and gossiping a little whereas yesterday they were keeping to themselves. One of the little gossip stories was about the actions of the silvery witch a semi-renowned pirate and the second mate in a crew. She was a disgusting magister whom was active in these parts anyway her and the crew she was part of had come into contact with a merman who was riding aboard a merchant vessel which was supposed to surprise people or something. But that didn't mean much to me and I had little enough interest in the matters of the ocean after all I was soon to be heading away from it again. Plus I existed near and around Spire Reef proper which was the gangs territory not the land of the docks which was where pirates placed their bounties. Anyway the only thing I cared about with disgusting magisters was whether or not I'd be able to kill them or not when we met.
There was a little bit of news regarding Scribbel it seems that a captain of the guard had gone out to investigate reports on a slime wave that was heading towards Scribbel. But it was not that impressive news I'd heard a little bit about the slime wave when I was adventuring and it still didn't sound like much of a problem to me. Slimes were not something that I couldn't be easily dealt with I'd actually worry more about the rats in the sewers over the slimes creating a wave. Anyway not my concern really I was hoping to be in and out of the city before it even started. I wanted to head off to the main base of the Misers which sounded to be a far more dangerous journey then even the one between here and Scribel with all it's bandits and problems.
Another interesting little tale that came into my ears was about how the Misers had just happened to remove a fairly large batch of rebelling slaves recently after being taken to them by the Gun Runners it seems my teachings had payed off for my disciple though I doubt she'd thank me for the harsh lessons she learned under me and much rather thank Benjamin for what she had learnt from him. But that was not my concern at all anymore as the Misers were back in the good books of the locals for that manoeuvre as it exposed that the slaves had been hiding out and stealing from the pirate crews funnily enough. No wonder the pirate lord had been so pissed that day the slaves had likely been stealing his revenue. It's actually a little funny though the decimation of that group of Misers I had learnt was just the loss of some cocky youngsters who had never been out of their mothers cares before.
The next four or so days were days of relaxation and peace and a fairly large gathering of people in the Misers territory the numbers had swelled since the day that I had arrived here and the place seemed relatively buzzing it seems the forces had collected here now and where ready for some major shift in the balance. I saw a few of the gun runners every now and then in the territory it seems that the group had gained a backer in the gangs finally after being forced into relying solely on the pirates for such a long time as they had after their last association fell through. Luckily I didn't bump into my disciple or the others just some low ranking goons who I'd seen once or twice. Whispers where in the air, the Misers where going to war with the gun runners against the Gutter runners and the floating scum another large gang as well as the pirates of the Alpine cove adnnd the pirates of the Northern shore. Yet the Misers would soon also be sending a small force out into the wild and lawless lands on an expedition to Scribel city.
The war was set to be a big affair in Spire Reef if it actually kicked off because it could easily just stay a matter between the gun runners and the gutter runners which I was actually thinking it would for quite a while to come as the Gun runners had only recently got this new backing and were still bringing power to their own cause for the future fights that would enivtably arise if they didn't completely crush the gutter runners which unless Natasha could greatly improve the situation for her boss it was unlikely to happen at all. Myself I doubt she could bring it that high and so it would stew until a new stone decided to through itself into the mix and create the larger war between the 4 major powers and the 2 minor ones. This fight would almost assuredly drag even more groups into the fight when it truly kicked off. Hence the build up was the Misers bringing their allies into the fold so they could keep a far better eye on them.
"AIEO get your stuff together we are leaving now." A gruff yell came at me from outside the dorm I quickly swept all my gear on and got ready to leave he comfort of Spire Reef it seems that there would be a small group of us from here and all the gangsters would take a period of time to make their way into Scribel. Wasn't one of the 5th strongest man in the expedition and so as one of his three lackeys I was in a position of relatively little power and that was made even more so when I knew for a fact that at this very moment in one on one combat I was the weakest member of the group by far I'd definitely be doing the chores and serving the drinks.
"On my way out boss." I yelled back to him as I'd taken a bit of extra time to grab a hat from a store and had left it on the dining table silly me. The hat was quite nice and accentuated my shady appearance especially with all the skulls that were all over my body now all I needed to get was an epic cape and a sword with glowing electricity running up and down it and my new outfit would be complete. On the skulls I now had 4 instead of 3 as yesterday I had killed someone trying to assassinate my boss with a bolt to the back of his head. All 4 skulls had the Imperial Aquilava drawn on them which was a two headed stylised cassowary. "You've been to Scribel before right AIEO?" I nod my head at his question no point in lying. "Okay then when we get back you may as well go and meet up with your friends and stuff for the time whilst we sort out a permanent accommodation for the gang. Anyway I hope you will make sure to keep everything a secret after all you wouldn't want something bad happening to you now would you?" He licks his knife as I nod back at him, the reporting on the plans can always happen for something I am not supposed to know and after the fact if I am supposed to know.
The journey would take about 14 days to get back to the city and the 14 days would be an exhausting experience as after all I was going to be cooking for the group of us during the mornings and I would still likely have to take a watch spot knowing these guys. But I was a part of the gang and I still hadn't been kicked out yet which was an excellent thing to me. It meant I could still make my way towards the Misers capital in the future and infiltrate the main organisation rather then one of these branch organisations even if I would be one of the founders sadly I would likely be the weakest of the founders of the Scribbel branch.
This is at least 11.1k words if you count both the story and the report it likely leans towards 11.2k words.
Delay the Horde
Sponsor: Scribel City Guild Location: Southeast of Scribel City Required Level: 4 Objectives:
Delay the horde's advance towards the city.
Reduce their numbers by as much as you can.
Description: We're severely outnumbered here. We need as much time as possible to prepare... And as few enemies as we can get.
Your job is to do whatever it takes to slow those critters down, and kill some of them while you're at it, every single enemy removed is one less for us to deal with when the clash inevitably happens.
... And try not to die. Rewards:
The news of a slime horde greatly surprises me. What advantage is there for slimes to gather together as some sort of horde? Well, as it obviously can be seen, they are far harder to kill - which might be the main reason. However, the fact that they attack the city and not the forest is a surprise to me. After all, there should be more food in the forest than in the city. But there might be some information I am not aware of.
So now my task is to delay and eliminate the slimes, which are approaching from the south-east, it seems. They have yet to cross the river, which means that I have a safe route to retreat, should things get dangerous. I leave my important belongings in my inn room before heading out to delay the slime horde, picking up a wooden stick along the way.
After I cross the river, it doesn't take long until I spot the slime horde - simply due to its size. Which allows me to easily guess its path to Scribel. With that knowledge, I start to create traps in its way. The trap of my choosing is quite simple - a pit, with the hole on the top being smaller than the pit itself to make it harder to leave. Quite simple to make due to my transmutation magic. I mark each trap with a wooden stick that has a skull etched on it, knowing full well that the slimes most likely won't be able to avoid or notice this anyway. But creating these traps is taking quite a toll on my reserves of magical energy, so I don't manage to create a lot.
As I observe the trap's effect on the arriving slime horde, I nod in satisfaction. The slimes fall inside and don't manage to climb out again, being stuck in the pit, unable to escape. Excellent. While it doesn't actually kill them, it removes them from the enemy force. And as fighting them in close range would be suicidal, I simply create a couple of additional pit traps in the horde's way and move back to the guild to hand in my report.
The news of a slime horde greatly surprises me. What advantage is there for slimes to gather together as some sort of horde? Well, as it obviously can be seen, they are far harder to kill - which might be the main reason. However, the fact that they attack the city and not the forest is a surprise to me. After all, there should be more food in the forest than in the city. But there might be some information I am not aware of.
So now my task is to delay and eliminate the slimes, which are approaching from the south-east, it seems. They have yet to cross the river, which means that I have a safe route to retreat, should things get dangerous. I leave my important belongings in my inn room before heading out to delay the slime horde, picking up a wooden stick along the way.
After I cross the river, it doesn't take long until I spot the slime horde - simply due to its size. Which allows me to easily guess its path to Scribel. With that knowledge, I start to create traps in its way. The trap of my choosing is quite simple - a pit, with the hole on the top being smaller than the pit itself to make it harder to leave. Quite simple to make due to my transmutation magic. I mark each trap with a wooden stick that has a skull etched on it, knowing full well that the slimes most likely won't be able to avoid or notice this anyway. But creating these traps is taking quite a toll on my reserves of magical energy, so I don't manage to create a lot.
As I observe the trap's effect on the arriving slime horde, I nod in satisfaction. The slimes fall inside and don't manage to climb out again, being stuck in the pit, unable to escape. Excellent. While it doesn't actually kill them, it removes them from the enemy force. And as fighting them in close range would be suicidal, I simply create a couple of additional pit traps in the horde's way and move back to the guild to hand in my report.
An exhausted AIEO looks over the report, "Well at least I still have quite some time to get out of the city before they get here. Anyway good job your rewards here." Rewards:
Exp: 200
Gold:45 G
Prepare Defenses
Sponsor: Scribel City Guild Location: Scribel City Required Level: 1 Objectives:
Create traps that will be effective against the slimes near the south and eastern gates.
Ensure that the gates and their surrounding walls are in peak condition to not let any slimes go through a crack in the wall to infiltrate the city.
Teach the best methods to defeat slimes to the defenders.
Gather equipment and/or tools that are good at killing slimes.
Do anything else that might help in the defense of the city when the time comes.
Description: If conflict is inevitable, we need to be prepared for it in advance. Make sure our defenses are top notch and best-suited to killing those jelly beings!
The Dwarves of Gelderholm in particular seem to have a variety of tools that are excellent at dealing with large enemy numbers. Obtaining some of them would be great... Though it might be hard to get those when considering how they're needed for their own defensive battle. Nonetheless, it would be greatly appreciated if you could get some of them. Rewards:
Exp: 30
Money: 25G
"Here, I've finally finished writing everything important down."
Said Drevart while pushing several sheets of paper to the receptionist. His clothes reeked a bit of a dense fishy smell and there was a new hole too. In general, he looked tired and a bit on a thin side, as well as some regular stomach rumbles, didn't add to his charisma at the moment.
“Let’s see what’ve we gotten here…”
A poor-looking man was rummaging through books of the library. Drevart was looking for information regarding local slimes. He decided to take a Guild-sponsored quest about the preparation of the defenses. He decided to start from the easiest task in his opinion. Creating simple traps. Thankfully he had some experience with sieges and stuff.
*Sigh
“War never changes, I guess. First of all, we need to know our enemy to decide on the most effective way of destroying them…”
He opens a book and starts reading about local slimes.
“So, what do we have here… have a core… bulbous… largely considered harmless? Then why the hell a slime horde? Hmm… maybe some anomaly appeared which drove them away?...”
After reading for a while he facepalms himself.
“So it was like this, genuinely stupid of me… it was so simple, a mutated specimen…”
After finishing reading the book about slimes Drevart leans back on a chair and thinks for a while with a humming tune of some classic from his homeland.
“Guess first of all I need to confirm which sub-species were spotted in the horde… that can be used to determine the bait… so fire and piercing attacks as well as alkaline substances… well, at least not full resistance to physical attacks as back there… and a core… it seems to be somewhat valuable, so it will be good if it’s salvageable after the trap activates…”
After digesting all the information, Drevart gets up with a yawn and decides to visit a tavern. He needs to find a person who discovered slime horde to find out what to expect from it.
“It would be interesting to know what level of intelligence to expect from the mutated slime…”
……………………………………………………………….
After asking SIl Fulgur about the slime horde in the tavern Drevart had a couple of ideas on what to do with them, but he will need some help to integrate those ideas in reality.
“So guard post it is…”
He mumbles and goes for his first stop on the long preparation against the horde.
………………………………………………………………..
“This is it?”
Drevart looks at the square building near the town walls. To the left, he can hear some shouts of training guards as well as see their barracks.
After entering the dimly lit room he can see a stern-looking man in his late thirties. With a slight bow, Drevart asks the person sitting behind the table.
“Captain Harrison Bridger, I suppose?”
Cap: “Aye, and who might you be? And moreover who, from my useless subordinates even let such a dirty person in my office?”
“With all due respect sir, there was nobody guarding the door and I’m from an Adventurer’s Guild.”
Even though the captain was a bit rude with his evaluation, Drevart couldn’t disagree with him. Right now he really looks just like any dirty beggar would look. Sadly, no money means no new clothing…
Cap: “What?! Those laze rats! I’ll get them to know what discipline is!!!”
After fuming for a while about insubordination of his subjects Captain finally calmed down and sat back at his seat.
Cap: “So, what do you need from me, adventurer?”
He had a bit of a sarcasm seeping through his words but Drevart, being too used to it since in his line of work sarcasm and underestimation were normal things… and he couldn’t argue that he was weaker than back home… Anyways. Drevart didn’t pay any heed to the emotional coverage of the words asked.
“I’d like to request some help from fellow guardsmen for preparation against the incoming slime horde.”
Cap: “Oh and what can a rookie adventurer suggest about preparations?”
“Sir Bridger I’ve gone through a couple of sieges against humans and alike and finding the most effective way to kill an enemy was my expertise since early childhood, so I believe I can help you with that.”
Captain furrowed his brow and asked the guy standing before his table.
Cap: “So what do you suggest?”
His earlier sarcasm was gone, he felt that Drevart indeed went through bloodshed. It’s impossible to lie about it without being a professional liar, and he was sure that he was not lying.
“Sir. First of all I’ve reviewed all the information Adventurer’s Guild had about different kinds of slimes existing and then compared with information gotten from the guy who reported the approaching slime horde. First of all, arrows and fire magic, as well as long spears, shall be used as the main weaponry against them. But that one is obvious so I won’t squander any more time on that point. Now onto traps. It would be pretty much impossible to create something stationary against them. They are too numerous, have a unique bodily structure and thanks to their leader supposed to process a certain level of intelligence. Stationary traps like spike traps would be too ineffective against them. We either need some explosives or create mobile units dedicated to nibble away on their forces. There probably will be River Slimes. Those can be attracted by water mixed with some plants from riverbanks in small groups and later destroyed. I believe that since they are ranged units, they shall be prioritized targets… well except the slime horde leader, that one has a top priority since without their leader slimes will lose a larger chunk of their intelligence. So, back on topic…”
Drevart takes a deep sigh to take a little rest from his long speech.
“So… creating a diversion in the backline of the enemy, while using water, mixed with riverbank plants with some scent-amplifier would be one of the suggested solutions. The other things I would recommend to implement would be…”
The captain became more serious after listening to the speech of the youngling standing before him since he can see some militaristic background of the guy.
“I would recommend creating some dropping oil in places where the slime horde will be passing. Said oil can later be used to ignite with flaming arrows. Also mobilizing some alchemists to create Acidic bombs would be a good solution too. And I can suggest two more things. First is to use some scorching coal, some slimes are easily flammable as per books I’ve read, and creating some ditches to later fill them with oil would be a good solution too.”
Drevart finished talking and waited for the evaluation of the suggestions. Captain scratched his cheek for a second and then answered.
Cap: “Ok, I see where you are getting this from. I can see that your suggestion are logical and some of them are indeed possible. We have a limited supply of alchemists in the city, but creating some acidic bombs shall not be a problem. You wanted to get some manpower to plan out the layout of the ditches and to create them, am I correct.”
“Yes, sir.”
Cap: “Good. Those solutions are good even though some are hard to implement. Go on with your work and get us some samples of the preferred grass for river slimes, also I’d like to see the most optimal mixture of said grass and water if possible.”
Drevart bows.
“That’s fine with me. I was going to do exactly that since digging ditches isn’t really my specialty. But can I ask for some supplies before I go?”
Captain raised his brow and asked.
Cap: “And what’s that might be, lad?”
Drevart scratched his head a little and answered.
“To be honest I don’t have neither a bag nor bottles to test mixtures”
Captain nodded thoughtfully and said in a rough voice.
Cap: “I shall give you these things. They will be provided by the city guard but try to return as many bootles intact as possible.”
Drevart nodded and answered politely.
“Good, I will be going then.”
Captain Harrison nods.
“You shall be, lad. May the goddess of victory smile upon you.”
………………………………………………………………
After leaving the town through the southern gates Drevart made a deep sigh and mumbled.
“Well… time to get going… I’ll have to do some reconnaissance again it seems…”
He already had a couple of ideas on how to proceed from here. First of all, he needed to go to the river and observe a bit of how river slimes feed. Later on, using some stones he can grind different kinds of river grass in the paste and see which one attracts them more. And the final stage would be to use some simple measuring to get an approximate range of the most effective proportions. Since ranged units would somewhat decrease their advantage of having walls dealing with them should be prioritized over the foot soldiers. At least in his opinion. So, after an uneventful journey to the river, Drevart left the main road and went into the forest to the left. There he will try finding some wild river slimes.
After a couple of hours of walking, he decided that it was enough and it’s time to do some scouting. He could already feel a cool breeze, coming from the river, but sadly there was no time to actually appreciate the atmosphere. But Drevart did make a mental note for himself to visit this place on a later date after the horde.
“Now’s not the right time…”
*Sigh.
“Father, Mother, I hope you are alright in that unknown world…”
Only during such moments of solitude can he allow himself to show some of his true feelings. Teachings of the Great House of Craft and later war taught him not to approach others easily as well as not to trust others easily and not to show what’s on your mind easily. Three “golden” rules…
“Ok, I need to get to work. And get some sleep later on.”
First of all, he needed to find river slimes. Doing that was easier said than done. Due to their half transparency as well as watery color, it was kinda hard to notice them in the constantly moving water, but at some point Drevart noticed some bulbous, bouncy substance crawling at the riverbank.
“Huh, so that’s how the slimes look here… Seeing their drawings in the book is totally different from real life.”
After mumbling that the guy crouched down and started quietly observing the slime. He tried taking note of wich grass it was eating but that was deemed as a futile attempt considering he saw only a single specimen. The slime was “rolling” onto the grass, slowly letting it seep through its membrane and later digested it. This full circle of these actions took just about ten minutes. Showing just how strong the inner acid of slimes can be.
…………………………………………………………
After a few hours of a lookout and scouting Drevart finally could make out some logical chains on the behavior of the river slimes. They prefer certain patches of grass over the others. When he decided to come closer to look, one of the feeding slimes shot a highly concentrated jet of water. Thankfully he was careful and managed to dodge it, just got a grazing hit. It still tore away a bit of Aether essence from his body though as well as torn some clothes. After hiding behind the trees he noticed that when he left a certain radius from those patches of grass they like so much the shooting ceased.
“So they are highly territorial, at least considering their “feeding grounds”. And the power of the jets is quite high…”
Said Drevart while looking at the dent in the tree trunk he was hiding behind.
“Guess I will have to wait for a bit more…”
After that, he nimbly climbed a tree and laid there looking at the riverbank. It was already evening and soon it will become completely dark.
“Time to sleep I guess… I haven’t slept for a whole day-night cycle already…”
*Yawn
After awning and almost dislocating his jaw, Drevart used the remains of his robe to tie himself to the tree, so he won’t fall down and quickly fell asleep.
…………………………………………………………………..
The morning of the next day was an… eventful to say the least. First of all mosquitoes were annoying, like really annoying.
“Makes me want to finish this task as fast as possible and go sleep I a normal bed..”
Drevart was grumbling while untying himself from the tree and didn’t notice how he accidentally stepped on a snake. It immediately attacked the source of danger, meaning Drevart’s leg.
“Ouch!”
After getting quite painfully bitten he stumbled and fell down, Thankfully he was sleeping just 3-4 meters above the ground, but still, it was a painful landing. Drevart’s figure started leaking some misty substance in the place of a bite and after the landing, his whole figure became a bit… hazy.
“Dammit! Dammit! Daaaaammmiiiiiit!!”
After cursing for a good while and getting up, he finally managed to put on his robe and looked around with a bit of a difficulty.
“So, what do we have here?”
His image already stabilized and no haziness was present.
“Crap, that’s a bit painful actually…”
Drevart clutches his robe and looks around in search of water slimes. To his surprise, there were many more of them than last evening.
“There are so many of them…”
He saw at least 10 in a region of around 12 meters.
“They feed on water and riverbank grass… water and grass… Ah, I see… grass with dew.”
His eyes sparkled in understanding. And also, thanks to observing them when river slimes were eating wet grass, he managed to see a different organ, something like a sack. It was located near their core and was really hard to notice when they aren’t feeding on fluid since half of it was headed directly in that sack.
Drevart decided to test one of his ideas. He chose one of the slimes and send a bit of Aether through his pores to affect it, creating an illusion of himself entering their hunting ground. And an immediate reaction was that the slime became tense, his body vibrated a little and then a thin line of water shot out of its water-storing organ and hit the created illusion. Due to him being the originator of the energy Drevart can see created illusions as half-transparent silhouettes but that goes only for those he created himself. So he saw as his illusion got torn apart by a powerful jet of water.
“It was more powerful compared to the other one I saw yesterday… and this slime is smaller but if the intake of water is higher then the pressure will be higher too… so it’s like that, huh… well, this needs further confirmation, but I think it wouldn’t be so bad for a basic theory…”
………………………………………………………………….
After quietly waiting for a day to come Drevart finally managed to get an opportunity to look at their feeding ground closer. Thankfully you don’t need to be a master ranger to distinguish what the slimes were eating from the empty patches of land they leave behind. Soon… well, a couple of hours later after rummaging through every species of grass on the riverbank he finally managed to get two specific ones which are almost always given priority by the slimes. One of them was a soft grass with three long leaves on one stem and grayish dots near the connection. And the other being a grass with a sort of a round leaf. It grows mainly near the water or sometimes in it. Said grass type has only one round leaf which has somewhat of a scaly pattern on it. Getting this one was quite a hassle since there could be river slimes floating randomly in the river and shooting water jets at him, but after some trouble, he managed to get some specimens for further experiments.
“Let’s see what do we have here…”
Drevart found two flat stones and after cleaning them for a while in some not slime-infested part of the river he started making different mixtures.
“So these two will be 1:1 proportions. Let them be control subjects. They will define the default behavior of the slimes on this grass paste mixed with water. Next I will do 2:1 and 1:2 proportions as well as 1:6 and 6:1. Since I have only so many bottles with me I’ll have to first determine if they lean towards more water or more grass in comparison to each other…”
After making a mental note and all the mixtures Drevart thought for a while and decided to try doing something… more original. Not genuine testing of his mixtures, but first use two control subjects to test standard behavioral patterns and later he will just copy the smell of the mixture and coat some pebble with it for a certain slime. And then he will see If it will attract him more or less.
…………………………………………………………..
The control experiments went well. After he coated some boulder near the river with the mixture from the first two tubes, the slimes soon noticed it and went to eat. But for the first type of grass they were not as active as for the second, so Drevart made an assumption that the second grass with one round leaf and the scale-like pattern is preferred to be more balanced with water, then the other grass which grows on the dryer parts of the riverbanks. Probably that is due to the difference in smell. The second type of grass has a stronger smell to counteract water and the first one has more mild one.
The second experiment was a success too. His illusion indeed can copy the smell of the mixture well enough to attract slimes.
After repeated trial and error he finally found some decent proportions. Those were 4:1 grass to water for the first three-leaf grass and 1:2 grass to water for the second type of grass. Noting everything down Drevart climbed down the rock, he was sitting on and looked up at the sky. His stomach rumbled.
“Well... I guess I’ll go get the report done after say everything I’ve found out to the captain. I just want to eat!”
After shouting his desire to eat, Drevart went back to the town of Scribel.
………………………………………………………………
At the captain’s office.
Cap: “So you are saying that these two plants are prioritized by the river slimes?”
Drevart answered with a bit of a pained expression.
“Yes, sir Harrison. Due to some coincidences, I’ve found out that these two types of grass are enjoyed the most by the river slimes. And the proportions are 4:1 grass to water for Three-Tailed-Sick Grass (three long tails with a gray dot near the connection point) and 1:2 Grass to water for Fishmud grass (one round leaf with scaly patterns, has an intense fishy smell if turned into a paste). The problem is that to get enough Fishmud grass we’ll need to get closer to water and there are actually a lot of river slimes…”
Captain waved his hand as a sign to him to stop talking.
Cap: “You did a good job, lad, that’s enough. I know that you won’t get many rewards for this mission in the guild but I believe you deserve some rest to get us this information and providing decent defense proposals. You can leave bottles and a bag with you. Those aren’t that expensive. Now go… and wash properly you reek of Fishmud grass.”
After bowing, Drevart went back to the Guild’s receptionist's desk to get the report done. All of this in accompaniment with the grumbling stomach…
OOC: Hope I didn't mess up Captain Harrison's character that much from intended @Nahrenne
And I hope I've managed to enrich our library a bit regarding river slimes XD
(Optional) Stay with her, forever and ever, always and at all time
A little girl once told me: "Miss, please help me. I'm so lonely..."
After that, we played and played, and played, and played—
I realised, we needed more friends! More friends for more fun!
Please, she is lonely, and I am too!
Help her! Help me! PLEASE! SAVE ME! FREE ME!—
We are waiting for your arrival! Come have fun with us!
A little girl comes in skipping and hands the quest report to the receptionist.
"This was Adsall's last request. Please honour it."
She then emitted a ghastly aura was then emitted, causing most if not all the receptionists and adventurers to cower in fear.
"O̷̢̤̦̤͍̳͙̦͔͆̀ͅr̸͕̲̯͚̜͓̜̤̭̦͇͈͚̩̗̜͊̎͒́́̀̽̂̕͝ͅ ̵͉̹̞̼͍̟͚̊́͗̅̆̈́̉͐͒̚͠ė̵̡̛̘̗̱͎̱͍͉̳͕́̈́̇̉̈́̏͜ĺ̷̡̡̨̢̼̫̭̱̞̮̮̱̰̼̳̦̞̊͗̈́͌̇́́̽̊̊̽͝s̷̤̫̤͔̭͋͜e̶̢͖̔̋̑͆́͋̿͑͊̓̔~", she said as she skipped away.
I accepted this request. I don't know why, I just felt like I should do it. I must do it.
I located a worn down house, and knocked. They said to break the door down, so I did.
Out came a Slime girl named Okarin, it seems that I've freed her from her house.
I didn't know or care. I just needed to find the house.
I eventually found it. It was really run down... really old... really nostalgic. I knocked on the door and a little girl greeted me.
"Are you here to play mister?"
"Yes... Yes I am."
"Come In, Come In!"
Inside... It was amazing. It was like another space. A space overlooking this world.
"Hey is that our new friend? It's been so long! YAY YAY!", a boy screamed, interrupting Adsall's train of thought.
"LETS PLAY!", they both yelled at the same time.
"Okay", I responded, but something felt strange. Everything looked smaller, my voice was higher. Looking into a nearby pond, I saw my reflection.
I had turned back into a child.
"Hey let's play tag!", The girl said grabbing me. "Tag you're it!"
The game lasted for... who knows how long...
They then gave me a tour of this place. It seems to be a different space. Detached from... everything. We weren't affected by anything, but we could see everything. Oh the things I've seen. The many many things. I've seen my friends wonderful journeys and the fun they've had, I've seen all the great discoveries first hand. But I've also seen War... Oh the numerous wars I've seen. The Fall of Old Civilisations. The Fall of Scribel. I've seen it all.
It's so peaceful here. This pleasant abyss. There isn't anything worth watching in Tonia anymore, nothing interesting. Only dust.
It's much more fun to play, to run around, to be free.
We played a lot of games! Checkers, Backgammon, Chess, Video Games, etc. Too many to list out.
One day or month or week, who knows. Anya the girl and Elric the boy approached me. Those are their names by the way.
Only I know their last names though.
Back on topic. They told me that it was time.
"Time for what?"
"Goodbye.", they both said sadly.
"Why?"
"You're not meant to be here.", Anya said "You're meant to be down there."
"But I came here. I felt like I needed to come here."
"I know. It's been really fun having you here again. I missed you so much.", Anya said in a quavering voice as she began crying
"Missed me? What do you mean?"
"It's no use to explain it. You'll forget it when you get reborn anyway.", Elric yelled.
"Don't get angry Elric! It'll be different this time. We have the mask! It'll help him.", Anya quavered.
We then got into a long debate, but eventually I gave in.
I was granted a last request. A Quest Report, that would be sent back to Scribel. So that I may go with nothing left unfinished.
This paper I'm writing now will be sent back to Scribel, whether it gets marked as a crazy man's dreams or whatever. I don't care.
I've now run out of excuses to stall my staying here. Now I have to go wear that mask.
"So I just put this on?", Adsall asked.
"Yes!", Anya and Elric responded.
Donning the mask, Adsall fell to the floor and felt... bliss. It felt like he was in heaven, like everything was tranquil. It all just felt right.
As he began to disappear, he heard something that temporarily snapped him out of that feeling of bliss.
A distress flare just went up in the wilderness.We have no idea what it might be, but someone needs to go check it out. Do you think you are ready for this task? Rewards:
A little girl entered the guild hall, she is moving step by step more awkwardly than usual.
The little girls trade mark clothe her 'plain white one piece dress' is in complete tatters, barely holding her body from being seen bare naked.
Her whole body is covered by her own black blood. As a large burn cover haft of her body & many deep cuts from sword can be seen clearly.
The little girl is also missing her right arm for some reason.. but, if one look closely they can notice its regenerating at a very slow rate
The little girl name is Reciful... She currently standing in front of the guild receptionist counter, which she barely reach's.
Her iconic Black writing canvas is nowhere to be found.. Reciful give her report to the receptionist with her still intact left arm... & Absurdly left without even waiting for it evaluation wherever its success or fail.
The Receptionist just silently watch the little girl leaves the building, unable to form any words from that sight... & Look upon the report that may contain the answers....
A flare is shot 16 hours ago from somewhere outside Scrible city...
Reciful's task is to look & find where the one who makes the distress signal.
Reciful entered the shadows travel's through the darkness of the dead of the night, since its much faster than going on foot, Reciful is still not yet completely comfortable walking with humans feet's.
Ignoring some slime, boars, & Goblins in the distance. Reciful just focus traveling to the location of the Distress signal, in Northwest direction... Since the Receptionist said its urgent.
From the distance Reciful saw something shining in the darkness of night & also sounds of shouting & metal clashing.. So Reciful went towards the direction of the light.
*****
After a few minute
What Reciful found is 3 carriage one is shallowed by flames, 12 people wearing armour, 5 of them is gravely wounded. They are protecting 4 people not wearing armour.
The 3 of the 4 people, are golden haired & have blue eyed pupils. They are people that wears fancy yet funny looking dress... & The last one is a Old man wearing a robe like those magic guys in the guild.
They are against a rather large group of slimes, in various size & type variety... From Reciful Observations there are plenty of Poison Slime, Acidic Slimes, & Even some Herb/Healing Slimes is present attacking the humans, they are in great disadvantage.
why so?.. the knight guys armour is useless against the Acidic Slimes, & there is many Poison slime too! waiting for a ambush at any given moment, they won't be able to constantly heal its poison forever.
Since Reciful can't find right timing to Join them!... Reciful thought of an Idea!
While in the cover of night, deep in the shadow of the forest. Reciful gathered stones, pebbles, rock & Boulder! Many-manyyy~ of it!!
Then, Reshaping Reciful tendrils/tentacles producing many vacuum suction cup like that of a Octopus! To Vacuum the small stones, like pebbles & fist sized rock. then aiming it at the group of slime! & Bam!! Shooting in rapid succession! Upon the slimes!!
*RAT-TATATATAT-TATATAT!!* Rapid sounds of stone and Pebbles projectile, cutting through air all in high-speed!
The humans were alarmed of the sudden unknown sounds, then immediately they were left dumbased upon the spectacle happening in front them.
Many slimes jelly bodies, were helplessly punctured! By high-speed pebbles projectile. Shaving a chunck of their body in each hit, while other die immediately when their core get shot!. soon after, large boulder rock suddenly rain down killing each & every slime who luckily survive the shooting... Only to be crushed from above.
The slime is still way too many! But, as if they are being command by someone, they immediately retreated somewhere.
The human fell on their knee in relief. They survive the slime attack.
Seeing the coast is clear! Reciful decided to greet the group of human! In a friendly way...... naively, Innocently, foolishly.
****
Oh the slimes run away~
Reciful did a good job!! Reciful is a genius!!.
Since the humans is now slime free!... Reciful shall greet them & ask them if they are ok & also if they are the one who make the distress signal~
Reciful walks towards them, waving Reciful's hand & tendrils as an act of hello greeting~
while still in her partial humanoid form...
" Thank you for saving us! what your-----name--!!!! "
The Blond haired guy who is a noble approach Reciful & gives thanks.
Reciful, writes on her Black Writing canvas to reply...but then..
"M...M-m-MONSTER!!! A DEMON!! AAAAHHHH!!!"
Eh?..... there is still slimes? Reciful is about to attack the monster, that the noble guy mentioned with Reciful Tendrils.. but then
... A large ball of fire suddenly approach Reciful at the front.....
.......Eh?
" Young master!! come back here! the slimes is just its minions the true evil finally appear!!" Said by the old wizard man
*BooooooOOOOM!!!* The large fire ball exploded at Reciful sending her body flying & clash in a nearby tree.
"Uuuuaaaghh!!" Reciful Vomited black blood, as Reciful twist in pain of magic attack.
Eh... Eh?... What happen?... Eh... Why Reciful is in pain?.... It hurts..It hurts...IthurtsIthurtsIthurtsIthurtsIthurts!!!
When Reciful looks up another magic attack is in coming this time smaller fire balls.
Eh........why....why...why... they attack Reciful...why?
*Bam**Bam*bam**Bam**Bam*bam* many explosion echo as each & every fire ball hits Reciful's small body~
"!!!!!!!!! Uuugghh!!!!!!" Reciful felt her body is being burned by magical fire.
" I-I-It still alive!? Knights!!... Attack the evil Demon!! "
Reciful is about to reach her Writing Canvas to write a massages saying she is not demon that she is not a enemy..... Unfortunately.
When she reach her Canvas in the ground.. her right hand has pierced by a throwing spear... Skewering her right hand & the Canvas to the ground.
Soon after, many more spear came raining down on her body.
*Thud**Thud**Thud**Thud*
"Uuuugahh!!" Reciful Vomited a large amount of blood. as many spear punctured her body to the ground.
" DIE MONSTER!!" *slash*
"THIS IS YOUR END DEMON!!" *slash*
"DIE-DIE-DIE-JUST ALREADYY!!" *slash**slash**slash*
Knights approach Reciful and Keep stabbing, & slashing her body repeatedly! Her dress is torn, her flesh is chip off, her black blood sprayed like a fountain.
It hurts it hurts It hurts it hurts please stopp!!
Then a large fire ball than before aimed at Reciful....*BOOOOOM*
" Begone wicked!!! May the gods vanquish you from existence " the old man shouted
But when Explosion clear up..... The demons remains is nowhere to be found
Reciful escapes by entering her own shadow.... 3 days later she pass her report to the guild
OCC: aaaaaand there!!! a introduction of some of Reciful weakness,my god~ it reach up to level 4 just to show it eh ... Magic attacks!, sharp objects!! & Her greatest weakness her naiveness & Innocence....
Ahaha! from this point Reciful will change her personality! Bye bye childish Reciful!!....maybe
Slimes are a pest in Scribel City, and they end up in all sorts of weird places.
While they aren’t too dangerous, they can slowly erode and damage structures over time.
They also spread diseases if they get into the sewers and pick up icky stuff.
Slimes are bad! Eliminating them is a public health campaign!
After arriving in this world due to a certain pesky goddess I will kill Loki even if its the last thing I do. With an entirely new body I decided that what better way to get used to it would be a nice fight. Now if only I would stop crashing into things. I summoned my familiars Fuu and Rai and followed them to the North Scribel Forest? I think that's the name anyways I would rather not end up in the North Pole again. Anyways the fight wasn't that hard I just hid in the shadows of the trees then poked their cores out with a quick jab with a tree branch.
The fact that I'm submitting this the next day does not mean I was too busy playing with my familiars. It's not my fault they are so fluffy and sleeping outside is free. Honestly the only good thing that came out of this gender bending thing is that now I can practically bury myself in their fluff... and ride them. Yay for small victories. Here's the 10 slime cores you requested.
By the way I found a big wolf sniffing around my camp so I tied it up. Do you think I can keep him?
Networks of criminals, thieves, and street gangs are known to operate in Scribel.
In order to stay one step ahead of crime, we need to know what they're planning.
Please infiltrate a criminal organization. Do not get caught. Rewards:
Well I was back in Scribel after an exhausting journey from Spire Reef. I had been ordered by the boss of the criminal organisation to go and relax and so I was going to bloody well relax. Who decided that I should only get 4 hours of sleep for 14 days and than to delay us all for an extra 15 that's right we were delayed sightseeing for 15 days because one of the big shots wanted to go and look at something what exactly it was I have forgotten now but by the time he decided he wanted to see it well it was back tracking 6 days and then 8 days to get back to here. the entire time I was forced into cooking breakfast and than when we "somehow" got lost they decided that because I had made the journey once I could lead it but anyway I somehow got us back on track well not really I just led us in a straight line till we found a river and then estimated what part of the river we were at and led us along it's banks back to the path. The big wig was happy getting to walk along the river for so long but not me nope I was distressed by being on 4 hours of sleep a night max for at that point about 3 weeks of course I can easily function at full capacity on no sleep but that means I have to actually regulate everything which you can't do on a 3 week trek.
Anyway I'm sure I blathered on enough about my problems but wait now on to more problems. Yes of course there was more with such a big group with such dangerous looking appearance we weren't attacked by things along the way. Nope it was 100% a personal problem that only I experienced. There were 3 girls on the trip other than me nice enough I guess but they wouldn't stop trying to include me into things after I'd done all my jobs at night of course that wasn't every night but they would often keep me up for another bloody four hours which of course meant I got no sleep. All in all it was one of the worst journeys I have ever been on but at least the planet was breaking apart slowly and the atmosphere being made poisonous all whilst trying to lead a small army to drop ships. Now that that was a pain.
Anyway I thought we were in Scribel so my job was done so I drop dead to the grass as soon as we were insight of Scribel and so of course I got kicked by one of the men which woke me up and gave me a headache. Oh they will all pay for this most definitely. To compound all this who else should decide to piece it's fragmented mind back together but a certain daemon which meant I had to spend even more energy dealing with that bloody thing. Ahh yes dealing with a daemon whilst sleep deprived is hard enough but it of course was also giving me nightmares when I could sleep. FUCKING JUST GO POSSESS SOMEONE ELSE YOU BITCH ASS DAEMON. Ah that was necessary and now I need a nap. What I haven't told you anything about the criminal organisations activity's in Scribel so I can't sleep yet? Bah all they are doing is just a mop up of a power that exists in Scribel which is smaller and weaker than Maranura sauce or whatever it was. They call themselves the Ickabogs I think anyway they probably already cleaned house with them and are now going to go and clean up any remnants of Manarani they can find for failing to keep their end of the deal.
Oh why did you wake me up again from that short nap.. Oh you are asking what spying they were doing if they were doing any? Well i already said about finding the Marinara group didn't I and there is also putting some feelers out to see the situation of the girl that was kidnapped by the Crimson coins but you of course don't know about that right? Ehh you do? Well that's about it I think well other than me who is supposed to open up all my old contacts or something. I'm done for now I'm going to have a nap and you can't stop me. I'll get my reward after a nap!
She woke up late. The sun directly shone on her face, through the hole in the ceiling, waking her from her sleep.
She felt really lazy, unmotivated to do anything that day. She just wanted to laze around. She decided, she wouldn't take any quest for that day. Stretching her body, she prepared to stand up. A feeling of slight pleasure filled her mind as she streched. After she stretched, she stood up and took one ration bar from her stashes.
Eating one third of the ration bar, she put the remains in its pack, sealing it as best as she could. Then she curled herself to continue her nap.
+++
She woke up in the afternoon. As it was, she felt really refreshed and did not feel sleepy at all. She wanted to continue to sleep, but her mind refused to do so. Seeing that she had no other things that occupied her, she went and wander around the city.
Bored. She was feeling really bored right then. Nothing in the city seemed to interest her. She visited food stalls in the market, but she didn't feel hungry at all. She browsed through the armor and weapon displayed. Those wouldn't fit her at all. She didn't think she would be able to wield any of those anyway. She looked at the potion shop, but its price was really expensive compared to what she had. She wondered if she should just take a job to end this boredom. As she looked around, she became more certain that she should just take a quest.
In the end, her feet brought her to the adventurer guild. She took one, uncaring of what she took, and brought them to the receptionist. The receptionist accepted the quest form, and she was given a slip.
Guard office? Then...
Her mind helpfully remind her of the night watch quest. She was already feeling bored. How boring would it be? Would it be bad if she wished there was some excitement in her night? Feeling some dread from her expectation of boredom, she walked to the guard office.
> > >
Night Watch
Sponsor: Adventurer's Guild
Location: Scribel City
Required Level: 1
Objectives:
Watch for monsters, vagabonds, and criminals.
Sound the alarm if there is an attack.
Stay awake and vigilant for the whole night.
Do not leave your post.
Currently, the Scribel City Guard is understaffed.
We need people to help keep the city safe.
Rewards:
Points: 30 EXP
Money: 10 G
Other: n/a
> > >
+++
The guard who was posted with her was the epitome of professionalism. He stoically looked to the far horizon. Body unmoving, he sat cross legged as his bow and arrows laid beside him. She could hear his breath as he inhaled and exhaled in rhythmic fashion, never breaking pattern once.
One hour passed. She was amazed at the man for never changing his position, and felt bored observing the man. She tried to do something similar to the man, but her thought was filled with how boring it was. As it was, her mind was filled with a lot of things.
How did the man sit still like that?
The man finally moved. He stood up, and move to the edge of the tower. He stood still for a moment, and then moved back to the direction of the bell. Was there something on the horizon? She couldn't see anything beyond the forest.
Right when she exerted her eyes to see anything, the sound of bell rang behind her. The man rang the bell continuously until someone came through the stairs.
"Report!" the man barked.
"Two direwolves are currently pursuing three... no, two people in two o'clock direction. Distance is around... 13km from here." Where did the man get the information? She had not seen anything from here, no matter what she did.
"Gate guards! prepare to engage! we have two direwolves incoming!" He shouted. When she looked below, there were some people standing in formation, presumably in ready position to engage.
Were they coming to this direction, those people? She waited and waited. Her body ready in anticipation.
"One remaining." The man said. Not long after that, he said that everyone is dead.
"What is the distance between the direwolves and the wall?"
"9 km."
"Alright, everyone rest." he commanded. At that command, those people came back inside the tower. The commander was also returning below.
She was really curious.How did the man do that? Even she was unable to perceive those people. Seeing the commander believing in him, though, made her sure that the man could really sense them. Was it special ability? or was it something else? She continued to observe the man. He was as calm as ever, returning to the previous position before.
"How?" A word unconsciously muttered by her mouth. Her mind echoed the question again and again.
"Magic." The man's word rang true. She expected him to continue to explain, but it seemed that he wouldn't do it at all as she waited in silence. Should she ask him to elaborate? She did not understand magic of this world. It would be a futile effort even if he explained it.
Magic. A magic from this world. Instead of code manipulation that wizardmon and witchmon of her old world did, it was true magic. She felt curiouser and curiouser. The word magic felt like it would bring countless possibility. Could she ask the man to teach her? Could she learn magic of this world?
"Can you teach me?" She said.
The man turned his head slightly, facing her properly. It was the first time she had this man's focus. Then the man said,
"Perhaps. Later."
The man then resumed gazing at the distance, and we spend the night in silence.
As morning arrived, the man finally moved from his position. Footsteps from below could be heard, probably the next shift's guard. She stretched her body and looked at the... woman? Where was the man? Where did he go?
She looked at the woman. The woman was a head shorter compared to the man. Though it seemed that that was the only difference she could find, outside of body shape. The man's long red hair, the facial features, head shape, skin tones, it was the same as the man. Were they twins?
The trapdoor from the bottom of us opened, and another guard greeted us.
"Good job, Himeko, adventurer. Himeko, make sure you send the guild's report with her okay?"
"Right. Hey, sorry I've been cold to you last night. So... what's your name?" The girl named Himeko said.
"Mei." She said, still in disbelief.
Was this girl the man who spent all night with her? She wondered if this was another magic. Was magic this weird? The personality of those two seem like day and night. The girl seemed like a cheerful person, and the man seemed cold. Though, the girl seemed to remember what happened last night.
''Nice to meet you, Mei. I'm Himeko. How about we talk while we go?" The girl said.
As she nodded to the girl's question, the girl then took her bow and strapped her quiver. Then she said goodbyes to the next shift's guard. Together, we went down the stairs, and we continued our journey to the office.
"Right, mei. You said you want to learn magic, right?"
She nodded.
"Hmm... how about an exchange then. Ask for my name to the receptionist when you do the alchemist assitant quest. After we do three session, I'll teach you then." The girl said.
The remainder of the journey was spent by Himeko prodding into her. Questions like how long since she had been here, whether she arrived here alone or not, or innocent ones like whether she liked it here or not were coming out from Himeko's mouth. It was really a stark contrast compared to the man before. As they arrived, the girl entered the guard office alone, asking her if she wanted to enter or not beforehand. She declined, and she spent five minutes standing there alone.
Another woman came. The blonde woman stood there beside her. On her hand she could see something like a bento wrapped in cloth. It seemed like the woman was waiting for someone, as she continuously look at the door. Not long after that, Himeko came out. When she did, the woman came closer to her, and kiss her.
It was already 30 seconds, and they did not stop. Was this what her partner said about human lover relationship? Suddenly Himeko was interrupted by a flying sandal hitting her back. She heard someone shouted, "Die riajuu! do your PDA elsewhere!"
Himeko, who was interrupted by the flying sandal, took it and threw it back. She shouted, "It's not my fault you're still single, Gilbert!" She then held the woman's hand and came to her.
"Right... Mei, this is Shara, my wife. Shara, Mei."
"Nice to meet you." Himeko's wife said.
She bowed slightly at the woman.
"Right, Mei's here an adventurer. She helped me last night." Himeko explained to her wife. Then she took out a paper from her pouch, and give it to Mei. "Mei. This is your evaluation for last night. Bring it to the guild with your report, okay?"
After that, they parted and she went back to the guild.
"Pitiful having to use magic to see in the night like that." AIEO makes a big yawn. "I can do that naturally probably it's not like there was anything in the way of his view." AIEO yawns again. "Anyway here is your reward." REWARD:
Points: 30 EXP
Money: 10 G
