After making up her Mind, Merius began walking towards the entrance of the guild only for Kira's "Gate" to appear before her, she reacted quickly taking a step back but Femto bumping into her sent her tumbling into the gate and landing nearly head first into the chair next to Kira, Merius wasn't amused, she was upside down, glaring at Kira who set up the magical portal." I could've broken my neck." She told the dark elf flatly. Suddenly Femto came to her side and licked the nekomata's face as they flipped out of the chair onto their feet.

While Merius fixed her headlamp helmet, Zel gave them orders, a simple mission that anyone of them could do, but with the extra weight of both Kira and Nebu she was gonna be slightly slowed down." Alright Zealous, I'd prefer to do this on my own without having to worry about the other set of feet following me, but I'll do it." She patted Femto behind the ears and climbed into his saddle. If Femto was an actual wolf now he would be able to scout and return to Merius but being a wolf and not an npc, or rather person, he wouldn't be able to relay any of his findings.

This was a bad time for Merius' captains to be gone, the others called them servants, but Merius decided to choose a more fitting title for them they wouldn't do much besides defend the Guild house from people who would try anything unsavory. Merius groaned, but it ended up coming out as nekomata's "Nya" Ignoring it she pointed over to Nebuchi." I'm gonna assume lead for this scouting mission Nebuchi, I'm going to trust that you won't give into your stark blood lust and can survive in cold weather like I can." She assumed." I don't want or have to need Sir femto to drag you back inside because you froze on me and start suffering from hyperthermia."

Merius fixed her helmet once more grabbing the front brim of it." Kira, just stay close to Femto for warmth, if you absolutely have to use the gate to make a retreat for yourself, don't let the early stages of hyperthermia get to you, I know with my combined skills I could be out there for hours, but you and Nebuchi I don't know about."

She looked at the both of them." If you aren't ready right now, I suggest you get ready because I'd rather we not be out there after dark, cold weather temperatures are gonna be freezing making our hard job even harder." Merius told them the truth. Cold weather training was a killer to most not ready for it, the old memories Merius had of their cold weather training was a drag to get through with their old squad and they couldn't remember how they toughed through the freezing weather and everything they had to do to keep themselves from freezing to death or Freezing till they were medevacted." Just know that cold can be a killer as much as anything we can find out there, don't take it lightly." She warned them." Some of the early symptoms of of hyperthermia are confusion, dizziness, headache, and an elevated heart rate. Followed by fainted and coma, so stay in constant communication and if you feel off speak up."

@Crusader Lord@Zelosse@Ookawa

@Zelosse@Darked13

---

"Eeeeh...? Why am I getting regulated to house-keeping duty!?" Tania complained loudly. "I am royalty! I shouldn't be doing such menial things! Besides, you see how small I am?! I can barely lift an apple!"

"Hmm," Lena frowned lightly before shaking her head. "Of course, Lord Overzealous. I shall make sure this one behaves."

"Bah, fine. Make me a maid or something then. See what I care, but I'm not wearing a maid dress." Tania grumbled taking her seat on Lena's head once more as she turned to Arche. "Come on then, fancy robes lets get this show on the road." Tania honestly wasn't expecting much out of this little trip. A collapsed hall? Have some golems or something do it. At least Lena was suited to clearing rubble easily. All she had to do was go punch it a few times and it'd cry like a little baby.

"...Lady Tea, I get the feeling your thinking something quite absurd."

"Haha, don't worry your pretty little elven head over it." Tania replied with a giggle, causing Lena to sigh as they walked, eventually reaching the collapsed servants quarters.

"Jeez, this is actually pretty bad." Tania mused. "Oh well, nothing I can do. I don't have healing magic or an ounce of physical strength. So you two handle it." She found a seat on a nearby door frame and waved nonchalantly, earning a disapproving look from the Elf. As lackadaisical as she was being, it was true she wasn't suited to something like rubble clearing.

"Ahem, Lord Archene." Lena addressed the mage. "If you don't have need of me for the moment," She cast a worried glance to some of those who had been injured by the cave in. "I'm going to take care of a few of those that are hurt." She was a healer of sorts after all. She might not have been the best at it, but she liked to think she could heal almost anything.

As Xavier approached the room, he notices Archene, Lady Tea, and her indentured servant Alena exiting the hall. So there are others here! It seems that they were headed in the direction of the servant's quarters, if his memory served him correctly. Like the servants.

"Hey! Hey guys! Wait up!"

Xavier grabbed his hands together and gave a quick, powerful flex, causing the rest of the snow clinging to his upper body to be pushed off. After brushing himself off for another moment, he performed a light jog to the group as they walked, catching up in a few seconds.

"Oh, man, it's so nice to see you guys! Glad I'm not the only player here! But I gotta ask, is this cool or what?! Arch, with those fly robes, Tea, all fun-sized, and me, even better-looking than I normally am! And that's saying a lot!"

Xavier goes on for a bit about how amazing this whole situation is, before finally realizing he's being a bit talkative, and taking a deep breath to calm himself.

"So, what are you guys up to? Out for a stroll, maybe taking in all the scenery..." That's when they arrive at the servant's quarters, where everything is kind of in ruins. "... Oh... Well, I don't got anything better to do so maybe I can lend you a hand with this."

Xavier starts on his task of moving rubble and boulders to free the possibly trapped servants... But, to be honest, it's more of a test of Mark's newfound strength.

(@Zelosse @Rune_Alchemist @Darked13)

Seeing someone cast Gate just inside the hall was more than enough proof for him that his magic should still work, and given how it was done, it didn't seem like he'd need much more than calling the spell by its name. And the wolf ended up going through it. He quietly thought to himself, 'Well, that truly could have ended badly... but I doubt that anyone here would be able to get seriously hurt from just tripping around.'

"Well, at least, it seems that magic is working pretty well. And not as hard as it could be."

Hearing the Guildmaster asking him, Lady Tea and her... caretaker to go have a look at the servant quarters, he nodded before addressing Lady Tea, "Wouldn't be too good for you outside anyways, it is cold, snowy and windy." He turned over to Overzealous, "I don't mind checking everything down there."

And then Alena looked at him and said, "Come on then, fancy robes lets get this show on the road." He just smiled at her, replying rather happily, "Alright, alright. Though if you think they look fancy now, just wait until I have all the nice buffs up. I wonder how the effects look like around here." He chuckled a bit as he went along with her and Alena towards the servant wing.

At least, he heard a voice behind them, "Hey! Hey guys! Wait up!" There was a pause in his walking, "You are here too? Thought you wouldn't stay till the end or just be off having fun somewhere without us." He chuckled a bit before saying, "Good to have you around. We are just planning on, seeing what happened around here, first step should be clearing around the rubble then taking a look beyond it. I'm sure the, others can pretty much take good care of themselves."

By the time they arrived at the servant quarters, he glanced from the rubble to the now-sentient NPCs... and sighed. Just as he was able to begin properly think more on it, he heard Alena speaking with him, "Ahem, Lord Archene. If you don't have need of me for the moment," He furrowed his brow for a bit, "You can also just call me Arch, Archie, Arche or Archene, it is fine. And do your best, I'd help in the healing if I could, sadly, I'm more of... a damage dealer than anything." He scratched the back of his head with a half smile before turning towards the rubble.

While Xavier might be able tojust go use his raw strength onto the rubble, Archene was a mage through and through. He thought a few moments about the 'most proper spell that was end up collapsing even more things' to use before choosing... something appropriate.

He took a deep breath in put a hand forward looking a bit head of himself between him a some of the rubble, "[Greater Summon Elemental: Earth]!" Then it happened, a faint green light slowly expanded from the spot he focused on and slowly a pile of rocks floated out of it before forming a vaguely humanoid figure.

The figure was almost 2 meters tall with thick limbs and torso. It's body was made of countless rocks of varying sizes magically stuck to each other, with a greenish glow coming from in between every rock of its body. On its head vaguely forming a pair of eyes and a jagged mouth emitting the same green glow with some more intensity.

"Ohhh, it looks even better than it did before!" He looked at the Elemental that was just there standing in front of him, poking its torso a few times before sighing rather happily and asking it, "Alright, hmm... Earth Elemental, carefully remove the debris without hurting anyone or destroying this place." He then gave it a thumbs up, and with some delay, it began moving towards the debris not too far from where Xavier was to move debris along the wondrous man.

The golem worked swiftly, aided by Falcons own considerable strength, to clear the rubble blocking the doorways with ease and tossing the rocks to either side of the tunnel entrance in a newly forming pathway through the rubble. To Xavier it would seem that even heavy lifting brought no strain to his formiddable new bodies incredible stamina, the path clearing wide without him ever likely breaking a sweat.

As each door was cleared and a servant emerged, they were quick to prostrate themselves and thank them repeatedly for their benevolence before scurrying away to the halls and the aid offered by lady Tea and the Elf. Despite the pixie queens relatively low healing skills it was rare that a single spell did noy fully recover the health of a wounded servant, again thanking gheir saviors graces over and over.
In short order there were none left in need of mending. With a word from Lady Glathra whom had begun her head count by order of Overzealous, they had all been put into groups and sent off to the other areas of the Guildhome and put to work.

Lady Glathra rested her fingers on the hilt of her sword while shifting a glance at the foreboding darkness separating the orderly guildhome from the chaos of the unknown dark.

"Please be careful." Her tone held a tinge of fear for Lady Tea, whom had finished with the last of the wounded when Glathra had arrived. The two were the last ones in the hall besides the Elf. "One of the servants with [track] said there were animals in number lurking farther inside."

---

Stitch gave what passed for a bow to his newfound companion and lingered on introduction just long enough to get the mans name. Marchosias was not of Ardent Herald and therefor not worth any more of his time. Unless the fellpw dared strike out at the groundskeeper they would be allies so long as their paths were the same which appeared to be correct.
Behind them loomed the Dragonmouth. Closer inspection revealed the teeth to be worked stone, crude but passable work. The high snows had forced away whatever guard had just been here judging by the footprints in the soft dirt beyond the stone teeth leading inward.

The truth was both the creatures blocking the pathway had been crushed in the Avalance that brought the immortal and the undead down here. Crude markings of a horned circle scratched on the wall, along with many shattered and intact skulls littering the area, was enough to assume the enemies werent friendly in the slightest.

"Perhaps we can ask for safe passage. Surely this tunnel leads up to a higher lwvel!" Stitch strode forward, seemingly oblivious to potential danger and having yet to draw a weapon. "GREETINGS!" The shout echoed deep into the dark caves with frigthening volume as the groundskeeper marched forward.

3 stone spears soared out of the darkness, thrown by a group of tall beastkin resembling goats wearing loinclothes and the skulls of mountain predators as their armor.

Marchosias sighed as the stranger, who didn't exactly introduce himself, took point. Marchosias barely had strapped his shield onto his arm when he noticed the signs around the cave entrance and knew what was coming. In a flash the slammed into steel, however that sound did not come from the groundkeeper's body, but Marchosias's shield. The stone heads shattered and didn't even scratch the Wolf Knight Shield as the knight glanced back to the wiry servant. "Don't be cocky. Look like these guys already don't like you." The black knight looked towards the goat men as more and more gathered. Marchosias was surprise when he realized that he recognized them, vaguely. They were Garef; goat-like beastkmen that were a player race option back in Yggdrasil. Off the top of his head he knew about their racial horn weapons and their abilities to ignore difficult terrain brought about uneven footing, plus their climbing abilities. It made sense that they would make their home in a treacherous place like this mountain.

What was odd however was that Marchosias was pretty sure the Garef were a "peaceful" race. Though isolated and ignorant of technology, they tend to be cordial enough. So the fact they began their greetings with spears told Marchosias something was up. Alas, there was no time for parley as the second wave of spears came. Some were aimed at him, but most were aimed at the groundskeeper. But despite being a stranger to the undead warrior, Marchosias saw fit to protect him; perhaps he would get into these Ardent Herald's good graces if he brought their servant back to them alive. And so Marchosias activated a second ability, Living Shield, which caused the projectiles to turn mid-flight towards the heavily armored knight. And like before, their spears shattered against the warrior's shield. "Alright, play time is over. CLEAR OUT!"

With a mighty roar, Marchosias shouts echoed through the cavern, getting the attention of the garef warriors gathered there. They prepared their spears again, but instead of using their throwing javelins, they were going to try and swarm and overwhelm the black knight with numbers. Thus they switched to their combat spears which were considerably larger. Marchosias responded by taking out his crossbow, pulling on a crank to get it ready to cull the herd. "Don't waste my time. Come at me all at once!" And should the goatmen heed Marchosias's demand, he would meet their numbers with a hail of crossbow bolts.

---

Deeper within the darkness, there was the hollow sounds of wind echoing throughout the cavern. As Glathra mentioned, there were animals in this hole. Most of them harmless, simply displaced moles and other vermin who were buried into the snow for hibernation. After all, how were they suppose to expect the sudden arrival of this grand guild hall? But while the number of minor beasts were inconsequential enough, there was something else lurking in the darkness. Soon, there was a distant roar which stirred the beasts into action. At first, what came was a wave of rats and rodents, flooding the floors between the feet of the servants and golems that were clearing the debris. But suddenly, a smell of death struck the hall. And flooding forth after the rodents came undead garef, armed with axes made of stone and bones.

They came in great numbers and with very little warning. They didn't even scream or shout; they immediately saw the other members of the Ardent Haralds, and with speed and savagery that is perhaps a bit unexpected for undead, they would swarm and try to crush everyone with sheer numbers. "Parpara, drepa, eaav!" A deep voice echoed through the dark tunnel. Behind what appeared to be hundreds of undead garef warriors was a small group of garef necromancers, with one who obviously led them. He had a large, ornate crest on his horns that signified his importance. "Obavain ukavrengavh. Obavain numberuk. Kulknej liwo avake avhiuk ukavone forav!" Came his guttural words from his black maw. They seem to believe the Ardent Heralds to be an unwanted invader to their lands. Or possibly just a new and underestimated treasure trove for them to raid and pillage.

Lady Tea and her elf compatriot would have to tend to their uninvited guests, less their manners and poor hygiene sully not just the guild's carpets, but also the ladies themselves.

Nebuchi stood up, licking her sharp canines.
"Aye, aye boss", she called out casually before turning to the gate Kira created and stepping through it, just to almost trip over a Merius.
The cat girl chuckled at the plight of the one of her own kind, but that chuckle quickly vanished as she waded through the heavy snow.

"Who the hell thought that a secret lair up in the mountains in no man's land is a good idea...?", she cursed as she had to lift her legs up uncomfortably high to progress further to anywhere.
Even though she had pretty high stats, that did not prevent her from struggling through this deep snow cover.
She was audibly annoyed, clearly recognizable by her groans and 'Nya''s of frustration.

So, when Merius addressed her blood lust, her mood was clearly not the best.
"Frick off. I'll just have a taste once and then it'll be good. It's not like I am a vampire and I require blood as food."

Naturally, she was still peeved when Merius went into lecturing mode and behind the cat girl's back, Nebuchi made mocking hand gestures.
To be fair, she didn't feel much of the cold, at least not right now. Her armour warmed her a lot, even if it was a bit heavy on her body, making her wonder what it would be like in a damp and muggy swamp. She'd probably melt inside that armour.

(@Zelosse@Crusader Lord@Spriggs27)

@Zelosse@Darked13@Tim

---

"...I'll try to work on that, Lord Archene. And thank you for your assistance, Lord Xavier." Lena replied with a small smile, before turning to healing the wounded. It was easy enough work, and Lena made sure that Tania at least offered some minor assistance. Most of the servants didn't require the attention of her stronger spells, but it still made her non-existent heart feel for them. At least Lord Archene was doing a good job of clearing the rubble so this would hopefully be relatively simple.

At least until lady Glathra decided to put a small kink in those plans.

"Animals? Hah!" Tania smugly brushed off the fear. "I'm a queen. I'm not scared of a few animals. There's only one thing in this world that scares me!"

"Beasts?..." Lena, however, was taking this a bit more seriously than the pixie. That was no good. What sort of beasts would be here? Something that dwelled in caves, and likely nothing good. Tania wasn't much good in a direct fight, but she was fairly confident in her shielding abilities. "I see. Thank you for the information Lady Glathra. Please, get everyone to safety then."

"I'll take fancy robes and muscle fetish guy and explore the collapsed place-"

"Swords ready!" Lena shouted, a terrible, loud roar of death echoed from the hallway. The undead elf had already drawn her blade, holding her shield in front of her, ready to defend. In close quarters like this, she had very little room to maneuver but that was fine. All she had to be was a wall to stop others from getting by anyways. If they got close enough, she'd easily just whack them with her shield.

"Alright musclebrain and fancy robe! Lena will provide support and defense! You guys just bash those things head in or something!" Tania fluttered up to the ceiling, the horrendous smell causing her to scrunch her nose. "Ugh, you brutes smell worse than I do after a long day of work and that's saying something." She grumbled, waving her hand in the air, unleashing a blast of wind towards the swarm of undead, hopefully slowing them down enough for the two men to do their job of protecting the delicate ladies.

---

After casting the spell, she placed her card back in the pouch with the rest at her side. It was A smaller, localized use of this spell, a first tier fire spell even, for keeping one's self warm in the cold. At least, for the time being as they set about this. It surely made the cold that much more bearable, and not being very heavy she could walk on the snow following Merius rather comfortably. Though as the three paths were presented before them, the golemancer pouted a bit before pointing up to the goat trail.

"Understood, and i'll keep in contact. If we need help moving about i've got fly, though hovering over the snow would be the best if it came to that due to the weather," the dark elf said, at first being serious but then switching back to her usual self after acknowledging what Merius said competently, her pout intensifying for this, "I'm no tracker, though, but unless we want to turn back to the guild that little trail there seems the most stable."

She had been resisting the internal urge to add 'is that ok, mom?' as a snarky comeback to be aimed towards Merius herself.

Then again, she had the Gate incident not long ago to reflect on if she needed a giggle. Though looking to her own right and seeing Neb making those mocking signs behind Merius' back, that was funny! Haha. She could barely stifle a giggle at that point, putting her hands over her mouth. As much as it was a serious situation, she didn't want to freak out either about all of this. Not that she hadn't noted the serious matters before this little stifling of her own giggles.

@Ookawa@Spriggs27@Zelosse

Who knew clearing rubble with your bare hands would be so cool? And Xavier wasn't even using his full strength! He could just imagine the punches! What can he destroy with his fists?! If he punches hard enough, can he send someone into orbit?! Would they even survive the force?! This isn't even considering the Right Arm! Xavier's thirst for punching something, anything, would not be sated. If only he had some hostile NPCs to punch...

Speak of the devil, and he shall appear.

With the coming of this sudden, undead mob of enemies, Xavier's luck was starting to scare him a little. Nonetheless, he rushed forward into battle, standing beside Alena and instinctively going into a martial arts stance. Tea was shouting something and got his attention.

"Alright musclebrain and fancy robe! Lena will provide support and defense! You guys just bash those things head in or something!"

And Xavier took exception to that.

"Hey, who are you calling musclebrain, short stuff?!"

But now wasn't the time to argue. As soon as they got close enough, Xavier would rush into the fray, punching, throwing, maybe even kicking a few people if the need came. Xavier is pretty good at not getting hit by stuff, so he trusted his reflexes to watch his back.

... Muscle Fetishist, the nerve of some people...

(@Zelosse@Rune_Alchemist@Darked13)

It was good to see that the elemental worked pretty well. At least, it seemed that he could give commands with more detail than in the game. Since those were summoned beings rather than custom made NPCs and couldn't get lines and lines of detail back in the game. Archene was also quite happy it actually... move far more swiftly than in the game, then again he never tried to use those for something this mundane. He mostly used it as something to stay in between himself and weak NPCs that may disrupt any of his longer casting spells.

As the path got cleared up and servants started coming out, Archene sighed softly. Whenever one of them prostrated, he waved a hand before speaking with a warm smile, "No, no. You don't have to do that. Just join the others. Lady Tea and Lena will heal you if you need it, otherwise just rest as we finish this."

---

Soon enough though, there was a horde of undead... there being all lovely savage acceptable targets whom he didn't have to think twice about killing! They didn't even look those nice undead he met every once in a while at the game!

"Alright, alright. Let me see now..." He pointed a hand at the Earth Elemental dramatically, "Earth elemental, attack them!" With a flourish, he pointed at the horde! It was just a level 50 earth elemental though. It'd jut crash into them and be a very big moving rock for now.

He then muttered to himself, "Hmm... let me see... [Arcane Barrier]!" He did a gesture with his hand as he felt his mana bleeding out of him until there was an spheric purplish barrier around his body.

"And now for some attack..." He pointed his staff towards towards the horde as he spoke, "[Exploding Flame Lance]!" One of the higher end fire elementalist spells, it worked as the name said! It was a lance of fire, that exploded! The explosion wasn't very wide, but it was still a rather strong fire spell. One difference he noticed casting this one, is that the mana spent was almost as bad as the one to summon the earth elemental. At least, he was still rather full.

@Crusader Lord@Spriggs27@Ookawa

The pathway leading up was packed with snow, stacked very lightly in an ever growing pile as the stones rose to form a long walled off pathway. A pathway that had recently been traversed, hoof prints like that of a large mountain goat had come from a single barely hidden cave entrance at the end of the pathway dozens of feet above the Ardent Herald Guildhome. The prints had come from the cave, looped around the outer walls and onto the pathway the three had come from and then made several more loops around the large stone walls but the tracks were nearly covered again in snow.

Several large piles of snow dotted the area around the clearing that looked natural. Suspiciously natural. Almost as if it was a small bush laying blanketed below the snow.

---

@Lucius Cypher

Like the allies fighting in the servants quarters much higher above them, the Garef at the dragonmouth were equipped with crude weaponry and supported by dozens of undead servants all holding clubs and bones as they shambled forward mindlessly to destroy the threat.
With the initial projectiles soundly deflected of outright shattering on his shield it seemed obvious the enemies were low level. Drastically so. Mr.Stitch and Sew watched the metal clad undead shout a battle cry and resisted the taunt, eyeing the beings hand as a crossbow was leveled and fired. Repeatedly!

"AH, sir knight! A repeater crossbow. Your taste in weaponry is unorthodox for such an armored individual like yourself." Stitch commented from behind, conceding the lead for a moment as the crossbow fired into the crowd of shambling animated corpses.
Many of the quarrels should have lodged into the spongy decaying flesh of the zombies, instead they punched clean holes through the enemy ranks as if they were made of paper. Even glancing blows were enough to tear chunks of their putred flesh right from their bones.

From behind, Stitch saw his opportunity to aid the warrior and took it, placing a hand lightly on Marchosias' back and shouting the spell. [Blessing of Might: Holy], [Greater reinforce armor], [Blessing of protection].
The spells lasted over 20 minutes and granted tremendous buffs to the undead warrior, increasing armor and resistance to debilitating effects like blind and slow while the might buff made all of his attacks deal bonus holy damage.
To the zombies, Marchosias' very touch was now anathema to their undeath.
Thankfully it didn't effect the recipient.

A dozen Garef warriors leapt from their concealment as the pair marched into the stone tunnels, ambushing from behind and in front as they tried to pincer the two intruders as they rushed forward wielding heavy weapons in both hands.

"ORAAAAAAH DAKKA DAKKA DAKKA DAKKA DAKKA!" Marchosias shouted as his crossbow rattled, sending a heavy bolt tearing through the fragile undead. Normally he expected his weapon to be rather useless; against high level mobs he was better off just cleaving through them with his weapon. But these must be really low level mobs if his crossbow, which was only doing 1/4 the amount of damage it would normally do, kill kill them utterly. Still no time to dwell on his enemies weakness; these zombies were obviously just trash mobs meant to slow him down while the heavy hitters would come soon enough. Marchosias felt himself get buffed up and decided that it was time to move forward, putting his crossbow away in exchange for his lance.

Normally, such a long weapon in narrow corridors like a cave was a risky move; his weapon could end up getting stuck on a wall or other obstruction. But these caves were wide enough that he felt this wasn't going to be too big of an issue, not to mention the sheer amount of enemies around him meant he needed to be able to go through many enemies at once, instead of just whatever was in front of him. He noticed the additional Garef warriors who were rushing from behind, silently cursing himself for not checking for ambushers. "Tch... Only way to move is forward then. Fine then! Come forth, KNIGHTMARE!" Planting his Banner Spear into the ground, Marchosias summoned forth his War Mount; a fearsome Nightmare. If these enemies were as low level as he believed they are, then the Nightmare's innate fear aura should scare off the living Garef Warriors, though the undead will of course be unaffected. But that would also mean there'd be less to deal with.

"You there! Get on my horse and ride onward! I'll catch up!" Where Marchosias alone he would have mounted his Nightmare and charge through the horde, however since he needed to protect this stranger, it was better if he could reach the guild safely than for Marchosias. Besides, if he leaves then Marchosias can really go all out. As he covered the other person's escape, the Executioner would use his spear to impale any Garef warroir that got too close, using his superior reach to easily take down anyone who got within 10 feet of the black knight.

---

While it was expected for the undead to meet some resistance, the Necromancers did not imagine that their initial charge would be repelled so utterly. And by so few! Tea's wind wall slowed the momentum of the undead charge to a near grinding halt, which made them unable to brace themselves when Xavier came in, fist flying. His attacks broke through their bones and rend their flesh like a shovel through sand; he would feel little resistance as parts of the undeads bodies just caved under the weight of his blows, with most of them being too slow to even strike Xavier before he had either killed them or moved onto another enemy. The Necromancers commanded the zombies not immediately engaged against Xavier to push forward, only for those zombies to get flatten by a charging earth elemental. Before they could regroup, the Exploding Flame Lance struck down another group, eliminating the first wave.

The acolytes seem unnerved but the chief Necromancer wasn't at all afraid. If anything, he was a bit impressed. "I see, then these people are not so worthless after all! They will make fine minions! Send the second wave, RELEASE THE DEATH WORMS!" A second wave of undead garef berserkers charged forward, and alongside side them were huge worm-like monstrosities that tunneled through the ground, charging towards the guild. These Death Worms were also undead but no less deadly then their living counterpart, and now were tireless and fearless as the other undead warriors. One tried to tunnel out of the wall and bite into the Earth Elemental; the elemental was far too large to swallow whole, but the death worm could possibly still try to grapple it. The other Death Worm went after Xavier, coming out of the ground to swallow him whole, even if it had to kill many Undead Garef Berserkers to do so.

@Rune_Alchemist@Tim@Darked13

@Stern Algorithm

Overzealous had risen from his chair and followed along behind the enthusiastic craftswoman Brunhillde as she beat a steady pace over the stone floor to the guildhome crafting room she had, at some point, simply claimed as her own. None had ever bothered to argue against her claim as they had proven adept at creating nearly everything you could think of. What seemed like a struggle now was that the actual act of forging no longer had a blank loading bar that dinged to merely create the desired item in seconds.
Quiet as possible, Zeal watched Omniac come to life and respond as it deployed various communication 'bugs' from within itself. Its replies had been the standard responses for an automoton but maybe there was more to it. If the other npcs had developed a personality then..

"Omniac, our faithful guardian, how do you fare? Is there anything strange afoot to your sensibilities."

The answer he expected was a crisp negative or something similar. To the ghosts side, Brinhillde had created a simple sword similar to one starting warriors used and had begun to animate her various tools much to his own surprise. In YGGDRASIL an animated weapon needed to be a high level item.. the rules had changed.

"We should try creating something more complex." Zeal thought aloud, recalling the library they had stocked with all kinds of real world literature that had been converted to digital copies. If they were real now they would have a collection of light reading and even crafting books covering metalcraft, blacksmithing, blueprints for car manufacturers, nearly everything in some form or another.

@Crusader Lord @Rune_Alchemist @Darked13 @Spriggs27 @Ookawa @Lucius Cypher

The scouting drones that Brunhillde had Omniac send out were a sort of test. Omniac had been designed with the concept of 'sound', so 'canonically' it was able to hear whatever its scouts heard. What this meant in-game was simply that it had shared aggro with its scouts and was able to detect enemies and intruders outside the guild where the scouts were posted. Of course, Omniac would 'declare' that it had 'heard' from its scouts through what was essentially a magitech 'psychic'link akin to radio. A few of these scouting beetle drones alighted on the shoulders of Kira, Merius, and Nebuchi, who were exploring outside the guild, and one went over to Alena's shoulder. Multiple had been sent to the group outside in case they split up, but that possibility was much less likely for the group that was dealing with matters inside, so only one was sent to Lady tea, Marchosias, and Archene collectively.

"Omniac, our faithful guardian, how do you fare? Is there anything strange afoot to your sensibilities."

"The interior group is currently dealing with a breach in our defenses. They are holding their own quite capably against what appear to be necromantic goat-men and their undead minions. The external group is continuing to scout the perimeter."

Brunhillde slowly looked up, startled. Omniac was not capable of offering interpretations of events. She looked at Overzealous, wide-eyed, but didn't comment on it. An indistinct sort of 'radio chatter' emanated from Omniac, with hints of familiar voices from the guild members being eavesdropped on. This also meant that they were indeed picking up the sounds in their vicinity and transmitting it to Omniac, who was replaying the sound faithfully, though the signals were being mixed. Brunhillde would need to think of a way to deconvolute the signals.

As for the other guild members who had scout drones in their vicinity, they heard similar radio chatter coming from the drones, the only difference was they didn't hear their own sounds, but did hear Brunhillde's and Overzealous' voices, as well as the clanging of the forge.

"We should try creating something more complex."

"Y-yes," Brunhillde replied, trying not to think about what she had just heard from Omniac. Being a bit of a fanatic, thei first thing Brunhillde thought of was... "Trains! I mean, it would be a pretty long-term goal, since the engine is massive, and we'd need to lay down tracks. But at least it uses fuel already available in a medieval setting, namely wood or coal. It will be donkey's years before we could make anything even close to resembling a smartphone, but maybe we can start trying to generate electricity. I'll need acid and metals to make simple voltaic cells, but that shouldn't be too hard to find. We'll need magnets if we want to make turbines...I wonder if lodestones are a thing in this game? I mean, world. But I'm getting ahead of myself, before we get to electricity, the industrial revolution was only a few steps away from the medieval age, right? Or what about gunpowder? Ancient Chiense invented that, right? OH! Or dynamite!" Looking around, something else dawned on Brunhillde. "Measuring equipment..." she said in dismay. Before, in the game, an ingot of iron always weighed 'one weight' and was a foot long. There was no need to measure anything since everything was digitally managed by the game. And while Brunhillde could craft a sword from a pre-existing ingot, that was only because she had memorized the sword recipe. To make anything outside of the game's original crafting menu would require making their own measurements. "I'll need rulers, bottles, glass, lots of glass. Scales...big ones, small ones. Standard weights. Omigod, omigod!" Brunhillde's diminutive form bounced up and down in excitement. "I don't know where to start! What do you think would privode most immediate utility to the guild?" she asked Overzealous.

Once we were outside in the snow the cold was a little numbing but it wasn't enough to do actual damage to me, I kept looking back to the blood lust filled kitten and the dark elf to make sure they were alright, as much as I wanted to do this my self it was still Zealous' guild and his guild house best if I didn't object to his orders or request unless I really felt I would half to.

Femto blended into the snow almost exactly unlike me who stood out among the snowflakes; suddenly my wolf mount cocked his head downwards and started sniffing the snow, his muzzle sniffed around a set of tracks that I dismounted to take a better look at, I made sure not to mess up the tracks and wave the two over." Kira! Blood kitten!" I called to them." I've found tracks."

I pointed down to the area they were before looking to Femto to see the massive wolf's head cock upwards towards two different trails along the snow; I brushed some of the snow sticking to my face off and grabbed something from Femto's pack." New plan you two. Kira I want you and Neb to patrol around the pathway and guild house, follow those tracks and be careful what you come across, I'm going to follow the other set of tracks up to that cave for a quick scouting." I informed the dark elf.

Pulling out a big white blanket I wrapped it around myself covering the top of my head and ears, I leaped up onto Femto's back and rubbed the side of his neck before he started following the trail leading up to the cave nearby, I laid closer to Femto's body to almost appear like I was apart of him he sniffed the snow following whatever creature this was scent.

I was ready to take this thing on, whatever it could be, I just hoped that Kira and Neb would be okay with their given orders, or if they would even take them seriously, I really was wishing I had my npcs instead of these two, not because I could trust them, just because I wanted people that I wouldn't have to think or worry about.

---

"Ok ok, mom," Kira said, giving a teasing wink before her look shifted to a more reasonable one for the occasion, almost as if she was a tad more exasperated at things than she had seemed back in the guild hall, "But i'm gonna at least cast something on you in case. Sending a low-tier snow golem too. It'll blend in and not be so loud since this is a pretty snowy place. Plus this'll be pretty dang light on my MP."

It would be very light on her rather....bulky amount of MP to say the least. But as much as Merius was someone who knew her way in the wild in general, it seemed, Kira herself on the other hand was one who knew more than enough about golems. If there were tracks, there might be something here. So why not have a construct that would blend in following? Just in case some bulk was needed. Though due to the nature of her magic, this "snowlem" would be better than other low-tier golems by virtue of her build, a thing she was grateful for personally.



A mass of snow shifted, forming balls and rock-shaped pieces all composed of magically compacted/formed snow, until a humanoid-shaped body formed rather quickly. Its body was oddly shaped, but it stood about 7'2" in height overall. In other words, a basic snow golem. Able to absorb snow to regenerate damage, it was only really useful in places like this with a lot of snow. Modest physical damage, however, accompanied its moderate level of HP. However, its weight behind the blows could smash and stagger things well, making its modest physical damage stat a bit deceptive when it came to smashing blows.

All in all, a useful construct for this type of terrain. And upon finally forming, the snow golem began to follow Merius automatically as per its orders. It almost made the golemancer smirk to herself, but this even for her wasn't much of the time for that.



The latter spell was targeted at Merius and Femto in this case as they had begun to move away, being a spell potentially being of use for this situation. As much as she wanted to kick back in part and drink back at the hall, and another part of her was still trying to wrap her head around all of this after her initial freak out upon arrival, she didn't think it smart to leave even the experienced person alone.

Then again, her own potential death by blood-thirsty catgirl, should things go awry, was its own potential danger. Sighing to herself, Kira began to walk back down the path they had came. She wouldn't go all the way back to the guild hall, merely go back enough just to make sure of where the remaining tracks were leading and going and such. And to confirm there weren't uninvited guests on the way to attacking the hall.

"Alright, lets go check this path a bit."

That was as much as Kira said to her remaining, armored blood knight catgirl companion as she began to walk down her selected path.

@Ookawa@Spriggs27@Zelosse

Nebuchi huffed. Blood kitten... She stomped forward, her new ears twitching wildly.
Never had she liked the other cat, but, it seemed as if she was kind of stuck with her. Whatever, she could deal with the annoyance, especially now that she was actually separated from her.

With heavy steps, she followed Kira, sulking a bit.

"This is weird...", she whispered, her tail scraping over the heavy snow cover... and she could sense it...
"Kira, you should seriously have had a tail. This feels pretty awesome."
It seemed now, that Nebuchi was out in the open, in the cold, she had, as you'd say, cooled down. Her hot-headedness was going down every second she was exposed to the elements.
"And the ears, they are mega awesome! Like, I can hear so much more now. Nobody will be able to sneak up on me!"
A short little giggle escaped her as her gloved hand touched one of her new ears.

@Spriggs27@Crusader Lord

How had she ended up in this mess?

That was the thought at the forefront of the little girl's mind as, teeth clattering and body shivering violently the entire time, she traversed the snowy terrain that surrounded her. It was a simple enough answer, for the most part. She had been outside the guild-hall doing a few menial tasks when suddenly the entire terrain had simply....transformed. Instead, she and the guild hall were atop a snow mountain. Well, to be precise she was tumbling down a ravine away from the guild hall because the ground beneath her was suddenly gone. Not a fun trip, but the loli was tough and had healing spells so thank the lord she hadn't fallen much further. She barely survived as is, but now faced the bigger problem that was the cold.

See, her cloth armour was handy dandy in combat. Which was what she was effectively designed for. But dealing with extreme weather, like this freezing cold atop a mountain? Yeah, it really didn't help all that much. But she somewhat knew her way back up as she slowly scaled the slippery terrain around her. Each cautious step hopefully taking her closer to the safety and warmth of her master's home.

Hopefully.

But that was when she heard a few voices. Perking up at the familiarity of the sounds she heard, she hastened her ascent back up and hauled her tiny frame towards the voices. That was Master Merius! And...Master's Kira and Nebuchi?
When she finally got up the mini-cliff she had been climbing, all she saw was the wolf Femto. Was it her, or did it seem fatter than usual? Not saying that a companion to one of her masters was fat usually of course! But...uh...well.

Banishing the argument she was having internally from her mind, she contemplated the situation. If Femto was here, then Merius wouldn't be far off. So she should just go see what the snow wolf was up to then. She totally didn't want to pat and nuzzle it or anything. Banish the thought!

"Yo! Femto!" She yelled loudly, flailing her arms around like a madwoman and making enough racket to wake the dead. "Whatcha doing?!"

Whoa. That was a big worm that just burst from the wall. And judging from the tremors that Xavier currently feels, that wasn't the only one. Remembering that his character had a movement ability, Xavier tried really hard to use his Light Dash. Fortunately, after realizing he had to actually move to use it, he dodged backwards just in time for the worm to burst the ground.

"Note to self: Move."

On the upside, he wasn't eaten like those standing around him. On the downside, there was a giant worm of death here. So yeah. There's a problem.

Xavier, now remembering that actual moves are a thing, tries to activate his "consecutive hits" ability. A barrage of punches seemed to be just what was need right now. Well, and some air freshener from all the corpses, but that can wait.

@Rune_Alchemist@Lucius Cypher@Darked13