---

After reaching the door, barely avoiding the swipes and jabs and vicious claws of the fish men, Phoenix tried the door.

Locked. Of course.

"Hey! Open up! There's, th-there's a bunch of weird fish out here!" Phoenix's cries fell on deaf ears as whoever might've been in there did the smart thing and kept the door closed, keeping both the innocent bystander and the violent monsters outside. A solid hunk of wood appeared to Phoenix's side as a Pelagic spear embedded itself in the door. He yelled and stumbled sideways, slipping on the moss-covered deck and falling to his knees.

It hurt, sure, landing right on his wrists and knees, but Phoenix didn't have the time to worry about little things while he was in incredibly real danger of being skewered. He clambered across the wood, but not because he had any ideas of where to go. He only knew that there weren't any fish that way, making it a great way to go. Up until he hit his head against the railing with an audible -katunk-, that is.

"Ow."

With the fish continuing to chase him and the new throbbing headache, Phoenix looked this way and that, trying to find a good escape route. (Going around will just take me back to where they are, going into the water is bad because they're fish...)

"N-Nowhere to go but up!"

Channeling every ounce of his grade-school P.E. training, Phoenix got a foot on the railing and pushed off, a jump with just enough height to clear the edge of the suspended boat. Now, dangling much like a bright blue pinata, Phoenix swayed to-and-fro in an effort to shimmy himself up into the boat proper, scrambling right as another volley of spears flew beneath his feet.

(I....really...need to exercise more...) Phoenix groaned inwardly as he continued his climb, pulling himself onto the metal claw holding the boat, more sharp spear tips piercing the boat's bottom. It was probably the slowest escape in any universe, but hey, it was working!

@MULTI_MEDIA_MAN @Lugubrious @Gentlemanvaultboy @TruthHurts22

Din watched in awe from the shore as Euden transformed into a massive dragon. Fortunately, she had chosen to continue casting spells from the shore, and was not affected by the gust that the dragon created. But when the dragon dematerialized, and the young boy began to fall, Linkle called out, spurring Din to action. From the shore, Din shot into the air with a powerful flap of her wings and dove like a bullet towards the falling Euden, only to open her wings and begin decelerating so that she would not impact with Euden with too much force. However, she hadn't thought this move through entirely: since her wings were attached to her arms, she couldn't hold him and fly at the same time. She did the first thing that crossed her mind in such a tense situation. As a dancer and acrobatic, her legs were strong enough hold up her own body weight or to cradle others if necessary. So she wrapped her legs around Euden's waist while her arms continued to flap, though the added weight essentially forced her to slowly descend to the floating house. Looking at the blond prince closely for the first time, she couldn't help but notice his innocent but determined face, and the fact that they were engaged in a rather compromising embrace made Din turn away, blushing in embarrassment. It also didn't help that Geralt was right there, causing a flurry of conflicting feelings.

Din eventually touched down and disengaged from Euden. Gogoat, still on the far shore, decided that it needed to reunite with its master, and leaped onto the bridge leading towards the island, using Horn Leech on any pelagics that stood in its way.

A lot happened at once.

Linkle came in, crossbows firing rapidly. A spear flew to his side as one of the fish was gunned down by the aforementioned heroine. One of the boys launched himself into the air, transformed into a dragon before shouting a warning. The spear of another fish monster glided off his ethereal shield, cracking the protection as he spun with the momentum, lashing out and digging his sword deep into the monster's neck, where the scales weren't quite as hard.

And then the gust of wind came. It was like Yennefer was here again, the sheer force behind it. The beasts they were fighting, almost to a one, were blown off of the bridge and platforms, back into the water. The one he'd just wounded landed in the water, tainting the lake with its blood. Linkle grabbed onto the dragon boy's companion, hugging tightly onto his back. Din was so far off that the winds didn't quite reach her, and the man they were trying to rescue floundered about, still trying to escape the creatures that were so dead set on slaughtering him.

Geralt, meanwhile, braced himself and lowered his stance, allowing the wind to pass over his side as a way to minimize his profile. It was an important trick when dealing with aerial monsters that could kill with a flap of their wings. He couldn't activate Quen again just yet, either.

His problems only multiplied when he heard the massive CRACK, and he sighed sharply when he saw the tougher, heavily-armored Guardian rise from the lake. Of course things couldn't be simple. He was Geralt of Rivia. Everything was complicated for him. Investigating a missing pot lead him to a murder mystery. A. MISSING. POT!

Pointing his sword at the newly-arisen enemy as he approached, Geralt shouted a challenge as he shifted to a combat stance. "Whoreson! How'd you like this silver?!"

The constant battle against the swarms of undead and one of the two large demons had an effect on Gene; that is, instead of being his usual goofy self, he fell silent as he fought relentlessly. In fact, he didn't have time to notice that the God Hand had worn off until he felt himself growing much larger. "What the-!?" He turned, only to see the strange wizard Kamek. Gene gave a goofy grin and thumbs up to Kamek, before turning back to the remaining Suffering. Jak and the others had taken out one, and the horde of undead was thinned out exponentially. It was time to end this.

Gene pulled out his Roulette Wheel and focused on the Suffering, praying for a Divine Smash. Failing that, literally anything that wasn't Grovel or La Bomba. He gave the wheel of fate a spin, and its decision was made...

Shockwave!

Satisfied, Gene let loose a shockwave at the Suffering as it charged right for him. God could only hope this would work.

In the wake of the blistering wind, Gran -the boy gripped by Linkle to avoid flying into the drink- yanked his sword free from the wooden walkway. He gave an agreeable nod to the archer, seemingly glad to have been of help, before turning his attention to the waters once again. Euden's efforts provided a brief respite, but the pelagics would not remain below for long. The boy in question, however, fell toward those perilous waters headfirst, awake but unable to stop his fall. Gran reached out a helpless hand, but Din leaped into action. The dancer pumped her wings and shot out over the open water. She caught him with her legs and continued onward, which seemed to fluster the lad despite a heroic effort to keep his composure. “Ah. Thank you very much,” he said, remarkably deadpan and proper. In a few moments the pair landed on the far shore, distant from danger but out of the fight even as it began anew.

Even without direction, the Gogoat managed to cut an impressive figure. Its Horn Leeches pierced the pelagics' scales with unusual efficiency, proving to the keen observer that puncturing worked far better than slicing. However, it could only rely on its instincts with its trainer so far away, and thus continued to harry the fishmen nearest the land as they reemerged.

As Phoenix made his escape, evading chucked spears as he made his way upward, the pelagic guardian moved in. With his current physical ability, the monster grew closer faster than he climbed higher, but just before it could slice his ankle open with its cestus a barbed taunt drew its ire. Frothing, the creature turned about to face Geralt, whose silver blade was bared. Phoenix ascended out of its reach, hastened upward by pelagic spears, but the guardian no longer seemed to care. A hideous, guttural sputtering noise resounded from its gullet as it beat its shield with its cestus, crimson eyes filled with murderous intent.

BA-BOOM!

Two bomb arrows struck it square in the face and blew up together, staggering the sputtering fiend. Behind Linkle and Geralt, pelagics rose from the water once again, a good eleven or twelve more ready to tear the heroes a new one with only Gran to hold them off. The rabbit-eared girl had dealt their boss a hefty blow, however, leaving the Witcher a golden opportunity to start the hunt.



"GRRGH...RAAAGH...URGH...AAAAAAAAGH...." That was a rough approximation of Donnie grunting, straining, and half-yelling with exertion as he attempted to push a Class B motorhome up a cliff, from over the edge, by hand. The Disc was helping the logistical side of things, but whenever Nero's grip faltered, he had to also remember to stop the Disc's movement to accordingly to prevent himself from getting squished.

Yes, he was in peak physical condition for a human, and yes, a superhumanly-strong person was helping pull the van up the cliff from the other end, but that didn't mean that this wasn't the biggest workout he'd gotten all year. And that included the bigger missions with twenty-four other adventurers!

But eventually, the van made it up the other side. Donnie fell backwards on the Disc, too overexerted to really do anything as he absentmindedly commanded the platform drop on the ground next to the van with him on it.

"Hey...Nero..." he said as he panted and gasped for air. "These guys"--he took in a deep breath--"are just minions, I think." He sat up, his breathing becoming more relaxed. "I think we might be under-gunned. With those four kids in the fancy car, I thought we might have had enough people, but those idiots ran ahead without us, charged in swinging against a threat they were not equipped to fight, and left as soon as they realized they couldn't solo the Qliphoth."

He pointed to the teleporter. "So now we're down four people. I think we need backup. Lots of backup. I've got some more people I can call on the other end of the teleporter, but they're all on their own missions and you said we're meeting someone named V. If those two demons gave us that much trouble, I figure you probably already had allies in mind. If you do have your own backup, you think that'll be enough with the talking skeleton over there?" he said, finishing his statement by pointing to Mr. Bones.

Nero heaved a ragged side. His focus made it clear that he wanted anything but to be sitting on the sidelines, having a chat while his muscles ached, but he needed time to recover. In a coarse voice, he told Donnie, “Problem’s not too few fighters, it’s too many. Gettin’ in each others’ way, not working together. Nico doesn’t usually hang ‘round with me while I work, and for good reason. Protecting’s a hell of a lot harder than hunting, and you can’t do both at once.” Reaching down, he selected the last arm off of the magazine that hung on his waist, another Gerbera. It socketed in nice and neat, a few jolts coming off it as it came to life. A deep breath, in and out. “Some problems can’t be solved by throwing more people at ‘em, Handlebar,” he said. “Should have left this to me. Let’s clean up here and find V at that cathedral.”

“Fair point,” Donnie said as he recovered enough that he could push himself to his feet. “We weren’t exactly a well-oiled machine back there. Oh, by the way, I cured Gene. Found something off the Tank, a little black stone that redirected a curse onto itself, and I guess whatever he caught behaved like one. It broke in the process though.”

Then Donnie realized in shock that Gene might have used the van’s shower. And then decided to bring it up to Nero later when the demon was dead.

He offered a hand to Nero. “Anyway, you ready to kill that big demon over there?”

Nero snorted and stood up himself. “Past ready.”

Donnie chuckled as he retracted his hand and unsheathed his weapons before rocketing into battle against the Suffering. He coordinated his assault with Gene’s Shockwave, delivering a Blackout Kick to the side of its head as he passed by (after the shockwave hit it of course), following up with an attempt to cut a nice, wide gash into its giant upper-left arm muscles on the next pass. If he did this right, he’d be out of its reach before it even knew what hit it, while it would be bleeding from a spot that most certainly had a lot of blood vessels to drain.

The impromptu double attack struck the enraged Suffering head-on. First came a point-blank crack of lightning, stunning the demon in its tracks and frying its foul flesh. As the brute struggled to keep itself upright, the second part of the one-two punch hit home, with Donnie’s foot cracking the skulls lining its head before the monk ploughed a wide furrow into its arm. Unholy ichor spattered onto the burial grounds as the Suffering rolled over sideways. Temporarily immobilized and with a guard wide open--Nero could not have asked for a better shot.

His Blue Rose unleashed a charged shot with a brilliant blue flash, and two bullets whizzed between Gene and Donnie to bury themselves in the Suffering’s head, sending skull shards flying. The ravenous bullets tore through the demon, snaking through its body on their own, piercing organs as they carved twin tunnels of agony. Two more fully charged shots joined the party as Nero strode forward, gun arm extended. While the damage done by his shots couldn’t be seen, the monster reeled in pain, barely able to move. And still, Blazermate’s sentry needled it, just about ready to run out of ammo.

Donnie alighted next to the fallen beast as he got off the Disc. Its head was exposed and wide open, and the skulls it used as armor were already cracked. Excellent. Time to make its day even worse.

He raised his leg in a complete 90-degree split, filling it with chi and bringing it down onto its skull-covered cranium with enough force to completely shatter what was left of the macabre shell, exposing its bloodied-up mottled green flesh for the world to see. The force of the impact shattered its teeth, lacerating the inside of its mouth and causing it to bleed profusely from its gaping maw. He sliced a few times at the bloody skin and muscle for good measure, more for catharsis after it made him lift up that godsdamned van more than anything else.

Then came the van.

Without a moment’s notice Nico’s van careened into the Suffering from the front. The other heroes could scarcely get out of the way in time before the stone-breaking front of the Minotaur reduced the compromised beast to demon mulch and bone dust.

After a few bumps the vehicle came to a halt, and a breathless holler echoed from the driver’s seat. “Whooooooooowee! Howja like that, li’l bitch?” The bits beneath -and clinging to- her tires began to turn to ash, and a Suffering spirit drifted out from under the chassis. That made two, though a number of undead remained in addition to the stumbling reanimated corpses. The aggressive ones that remained lost the green luster in their eyes, and started mindlessly ambling toward the heroes to be cut down.

One particular undead, however, walking right up. Though a perfectly white skeleton, he moved naturally, and his blue eyes held the twinkle of humanity. “Whoa!” he said, a hint of nervousness in his voice as he tried to break the ice. “Amazin’ job there, y’all.” He gave a thumbs-up before crossing his arms. “I’m, uh, Mr. Bones. Good to meet ya.” A thousand or so feet to the north, the other skeleton lounged against a headstone with a casual grin, uninterested in meeting the new arrivals.

“I don’t know, I wouldn’t discount your role. Those lightning bolts were handy. And the name’s Donnie.” He held out a hand for the skeleton to shake. He knew undead well, and it was pretty obvious that Mr. Bones was the “non-mindless” kind. It would be good to have someone who knew the area well, but it would be up to Nero to decide if Mr. Bones was going to stay...assuming he even wanted to go through this entire trip in the first place.

Bones took the offered hand. “Huh,” he said. “I knew you were good folks.” After shaking, he ended up scratching the back of his head. “Well, uh, hate to bail on ya but I gotta find this dirtbag called DaGoulian. I’ll see y’all around.”

“Uh...before you go…” Donnie said before Mr. Bones left. “A fair number of us are new to the Dead Zone, and since you live here, do you mind giving us the lay of the land? You’re clearly here, so I figured you might know if there’s any more people we can talk to in this region for supplies or information, you know, that sort of stuff.”

The monk’s skeletal acquaintance shook his head. “Ain’t a lot of dead with their wits left about ‘em. I’m new in the city myself...Dead Zone, you said? Heh. Haven’t really mapped the place. It’s just too dangerous, and I’m not even alive. We came by the Cathedral, barely got around this freaky horse monster. If you’re headed up there, be careful.”

Walking by, Nero smirked. “Just our luck.” A bang rang out as he plugged a zombie with the Blue Rose, after which he hopped inside the van as it started to roll. “Take care yourself, Bones.” Miraculously the demon hunter seemed well, which explained his eagerness to move on. The others, even Jak, could either keep up, pile in, or fall behind.

“See you around,” Donnie said to the skeleton as he scooped up the Disc, grabbed the Suffering Spirits, and jumped into the van. He held up the Spirits, asking the others as the Van started moving, “Hey, anyone want those demons’ Spirits? They could make good equipment.”

Magnumus Agoston, Centurion.

Level 3 - (23/30) EXP
Location: Morgensloft Field
Word Count: 268
@DracoLunaris@Lugubrious

---

Centurion raised his arm in greeting to the Nopon. "Hail, Tora! Yes, let us gather some wheat." He announced, approaching the field. This place was somewhat unnerving. It had the feeling of a battlefield. A tension, as if something was about to burst. Perhaps he was just imagining things- his instincts may very well be out of place in this strange new amalgamate of the multi-verse. God's domain was far more expansive than Agoston ever could have imagined. The fact that he was now so casually conversing with a creature such as Tora was absolutely baffling, yet here he was doing it. He had read that one of the things that seperated humanity from the beasts was their adaptability. Humans can theoretically survive in almost any environment. He supposed now that went for creatures with a human like intelligent. He had never met any non-human sapient beings before, but he had to imagine the same went for them as well. Centurion was hardly any stranger than anything else, really. Especially after his...modifications.

Still. Tora was quite strange to look upon. Would a being such as he be happy in the Empire?

Well, no matter. On to farming. How hard could it be? Agoston had watched peasants farm many a time. Even better, this abandoned farm had already gathered and raised a lot of foodstuffs. All they had to do was find them.

Centurion began his search, trying to put his big arms to good use. "Food for the hungry! There is hardly a more noble cause!" He announced, scooping up a bundle of something that was probably wheat.

The chatter coming from Tora that resulted from his question was enough to keep the kings mind off the indignity of the peasant work he was performing, at least for a few moments. Bowser snorted in amusement at Tora’s backhanded compliment for Poppi but unfortunately it bought something of an end to the speaking as they got on with their task. With great, brutal and inpatient cleaves Bowser messily mowed his way through the field while jr continued to explore the nearby buildings, though the boy found little of note in the quaint farmstead and, true to his word about not going far, did not venture further afield to the spire like houses found beyond the idyllic plot of land they had found.

The young koopa returned to the fold at about the same time as the Centurion showed up out of the blue and eagerly joined in with the gathering of the fallen wheat.

“OH HAY. ITS YOU. YOU DON'T HAPPEN TO KNOW HOW TO HUNT DO YA? OR KILL STUFF WITH ‘ACCURACY’? CHEF LADY SAID KILLING WITH PRECISION IS THE BEST WAY TO GET LOADS OF MEAT” Bowser asked as they loaded the last of their collective efforts into a cart. There was some grumbling about not being a donkey from the king before he grasped the two poles that would be attached to either side of the horse as if they were the handles of a wheelbarrow.

“Kamek not back yet?” Jr asked upon rejoining them. Upon receiving the shakes of some heads he continued “Then we should check out this village till he gets back! Take a break before trying to hunt stuff again?”

Bowser nodded before wiping his brow free of sweat that had built up while reaping “Yeah sure. I could use a drink.” farm labor was sweaty work he had discovered and so he hoped there might be a bar or well of some kind in the town.

“LEAD THE WAY POPPI.” he instructed before lifting up the handles of the cart full of ore, gems, plants and stolen farming equipment and beginning to push it towards the spiky town. It wouldn't do to have any dirty thieving rats sneak in and take their stuff while they were investigating the town after all.

---

wordcount: 636 ( +1)
Kamek: Level 3 EXP: ////////////////////////////// (17/30)
Location: Charnel Lane, Dead Zone

Kamek hovered over the battlefield. A risky position to hold if the enemies his allies were facing had any inclination to strike at him, but fortunately his doppelganger trick wasn’t actually needed this time as the brutes where either to stupid or to busy to bother attacking the small floating target above them. This let him focus on other things, like listening in on the conversation between their monk and bleach haired punk this team had tagged along with. From what he was seeing in the brief time he had been here Kamek was inclined to agree with them. This squad seemed like they had bitten off a bit more than they could chew. It was certainly a far more actively hostile place than the land of adventure was.

There you had to go looking for trouble, here it seemed like the opposite was true as from up in the air all Kamek could see was more and more broken down concrete infested with undead creatures stretching out in every direction.

Still, the team was handling it admirably enough. As the wizard watched Gene used his increased to size to unleashed a massive shock-wave before the pair he had been listening into worked together to finish the fight, blades and bullets carving into the suffering before the driver of the van they had righted used her vehicle to finish the job.

With the primary threats dealt with Kamek released his enchantment, causing Gene to shrink back down, and then helped clean up the regular undead with a series of magical blasts from his wand before landing by the group. The wizard and his doppelgangers all quickly scooped up a bunch of regular zombie souls, there was plenty to go around, and started crushing them, fishing for something, anything, that might be useful for hunting massive boar/cow monsters back in the Land of Adventure.

”What you were saying earlier, about being ‘out gunned’ as you said it?” Kamek spoke to Donnie as he flew alongside one of the vans windows, he and his clones crushing sprites as they went, ”If you do feel like throwing in the towel then there’s a nice little village on the other side of that teleporter. If you don't then I can't promise much help from our side That group has split up to do a series of quests for this adventurers guild in the town. Roaming the land, solving problems and hunting dangerous beasts for prestige with the Guild.”

”That last part is what I came here for, we were having a bit of difficulty hunting the beasts in the proper manner to harvest their meats, as it required precise and unwasteful killing of the beasts which is not something my royal lieges are particularly apt at unfortunately. They’re a touch all or nothing. I was going to ask if you had tools or people to spare that would be more appropriate to the task but, well, you look like you need help a lot more than we do. Lives on the line rather than the prospect of dinner.” The old Koopa continued rambling

He finished crushing the 20 zombie sprites and then asked, ”So I should ask, do you think you need my help? Because nobody else is available, unless you want to try and recruit some adventurous from the guild through the teleporter, though I’m not sure how easy it would be to convince them to come here. What I do know is that if you hold fast till nightfall, or just call it a day till tomorrow, and we’ll have resources from questing and the other team back together to lend you a hand if you want it.”

”I’ll stick around a little longer at least, see what you all want to do.” The wizard finished before he and his clones, arms laden with sprite created items, hovered over to the trolley and deposited their loot. Four out of the five then poofed out of existence, leaving only the real wizard to inspect his ill gotten gains.

@ProPro@MULTI_MEDIA_MAN@Stern Algorithm@TruthHurts22@Lugubrious

---

Linkle let out a mighty whoop as Din glided past her, wings spears and clutching the dragon boy in her legs like a bird of prey. Even Better than that, Spiky was currently shimmying up the relative safety. With two less thing to worry about they could now turn their attention completely to their fishy foes.

Geralt had had the same idea, it seemed, because he had made his way onto the bridge, shouting a challenge to the the big fish monster just in time to make it turn to face directly into her bombs. The blast sent the monster staggering back, and she could practically see a gauge hanging over its head just waiting to be broken. She was about to rush forward and capitalize on that when she heard splashing and wet footsteps behind them.

Looking back she could see the reason she'd wanted to get everyone off the bridge crawling out of the water, a horde of stinking scaly bodies standing between them and the shore. Only the boy from the guild stood facing them, seemingly determined to hold off the whole lot if he had to. She was really starting to like the cut of these twos jib, but she didn't know if he could handle that alone.

She spun around. "Gut the big fish and the rest will lose heart." She said to Geralt before heading to back Gran up. She hoped that was how it worked at least. Little guys always seemed to fight less fervently when you took out the big version. Sometimes, if you were lucky, they just gave up the whole base once the leader was gone. "I'm gonna make sure you have some space to work."

Despite the wall of spears and teeth blocking Yume in Linkle was actually feeling pretty good about this battle, half skipping up Gran even as they gurgled menacingly at them. "They're scared. They probably think you're a dragon too." She said. "Let's get'em while they're still figuring that out. HYAAAAAA!"

With that battle cry she darted forward. She took aim at one of the fish man daring enough to stand front and center, rushing up to him even as he jammed out his spear to try and catch her. Linkle ducked to the side without losing any speed and threw herself against the monster. Instead of body checking him, however, she instead just kept running up the fish monster. She used his loose flabby skin as a set of stairs until she got to his head. There was a short spark of flame as she kicked off his face, flying up and away as she let loose dozens of bolts into him.

She floated in the air a moment, looking down at that disgusting sea of faces. Then she spun herself in the air, raining bolts down on those faces indiscriminately. As her spin was coming to an end and she felt herself starting to fall she used that energy she got from the rotation to bring her heel right across another fish mans face as she came down, setting off a small fiery shockwave as that heel hit the ground that hopefully cleared the landing zone a little bit.

She was starting to feel the momentum of battle flowing through her.

The Courier looked over his small gains from those bullet creatures as he hopped back up onto his chocobo mount. A small gun, significantly lower caliber than his regular pistol, some strange half-hearts, and bullet casings of various colors. He could definitely use the casings to make some new ammunition. Maybe the casings were magical and the colors represented different effects? It was difficult to tell in this mishmash world what was used for what purpose, but he supposed it didn’t matter much. He’d find out by doing, but that was for the future. For the present he spurred Drumstick onward into the corral.

Immediately life all around him made itself known, strange and alien creatures that were utterly fascinating. Flying jellyfish and huge bugs lazily drifted around the air, apparently unafraid of his presence (not that many animals were ever afraid of him even when anybody else would drive them to hostility). Crustaceans, birds, and all manner of other creatures made these corrals their homes. This sort of beauty, it wasn’t anything he was used to seeing. Still, he had to focus on finding the wigglers, but a little souvenir wouldn’t hurt right? The Courier broke off a sizable chunk of choral, something to experiment with. Surely it’d have some chemical properties that’d make a nice chem.

A few minutes later and drumstick took them to a dip in the choral hills. There, at the bottom with some standing water, were little creatures that matched the description given by the quest card… But not the description given by Bowser. ”Can’t blame the big oaf I ‘spose. Lotta worlds mashed together, makes sense some have shared words.” Maybe he’d find the wigglers Bowser spoke of another time? He loved seeing new things after all, and-Oh my. Speaking of new things…

The wigglers were proven to be frightened of something. Not the Courier himself, but something else. An utterly amazing monster, something that looked like it stepped right out of the old pre-war history books: a dinosaur. 6 had to admit he didn’t know too much about dinosaurs (they weren’t a relevant topic even among academics in the wasteland) but it didn’t match any he knew about. Oh well. He hopped off Drumstick and pat the bird to reassure it, to keep it calm, then slowly approached the reptilian creature.

”Howdy,” he said, keeping one hand out as a gesture of good will while keeping his other hand at his holster just in case this animal wasn’t as friendly as the others. He was a magnet for goodwill from non-sapient animals, but it didn’t work on the monstrous, the especially mutated, or even some of the most vicious of even normal creatures. He had to be careful. ”You hungry feller? I got some meat saved from a castle feast none too long ago if’n you want some.” He held out a bit of turkey from his sack, offering to the Tzitzi-ya-ku.

---

---

Unable to help with the large suffering remaining, at least not without risk of explosions causing some friendly fire, Ratchet took to hopping and flipping around the battlefield, braining zombies left and right with his omniwrench. Now that the van had been pulled up safely he knew he could move away from Nero to join the battle proper. Smack, thwap, bam! Brains splattered to and fro while none of the creatures were able to keep pace with the fast and agile lombax.

Clank zoomed in on Jak’s unconscious body and snagged him up, pushing the long-eared human out of the danger zone. A couple seconds later and the giant shockwave made from a giant Gene would have left Jak in an even worse state. Once he was pushed out a few meters though, Clank could no longer move him. The rocket thrusters on the little robot were only good for small bursts, and he wasn’t strong enough to lift a fully grown man by himself. His temporary use expended, Clank vanished, his spirit returning to Ratchet.

”AAAAAAAAAAH!” Daxter ran screaming between the gravestones to escape his undead predators, inadvertently running toward the second suffering demon after Nero had unleashed his wrath upon it! The little ottsel climbed up its back like a big dirt mound, realizing his mistake only after reaching the summit. ”Oh dear…” Donnie’s kick brought the monster’s life to an end, something Daxter himself was turned away form and thus did not see. That’s because he was too preoccupied with the large van heading straight for him!

Nico’s van rammed right into the suffering’s limp body, and with that Daxter hit the windshield like a bug, limbs outstretched and tongue hanging out comically. Once Nico slammed the brakes, Daxter went flying once again, bouncing off the ground like a stone skipping across the water. ”Ow! Oof! Gah! Uh! Yeowchies!” Once he came to a stop, Daxter stood up and shook himself off, brushing the dirt and grime from his pants. ”One of these days, I tell ya!” he shook a tiny fist at Nico, not that she’d be able to see beneath the dash thanks to his small height.

With the main threats taken down and the zombies reanimated by the suffering no longer following the tactics of their masters, Ratchet chuckled. ”These guys are just way too easy!” He kept the slow shamblers off the group’s back while Donnie made pleasantries with the lightning hurling skeleton and everyone else got on board the van again. He was about to hop back into his kart when realization kicked in: Jak destroyed it! And Jak was still unconscious on the ground! Grumbling, Ratchet hopped on over and grabbed his friendly rival and hauled him up by the shoulder. ”Alright, come on, let’s get going.”

”Yeah, hurry up!” We ain’t got all eternal-dark-and-spooky-night to wait on you!” Daxter called out from just inside the van.

Ratchet shook his head but hurried all the same. ”Hey Blazer, you might want to focus on Jak here. He really let loose with that dark eco attack.” Once he got them both safely aboard the van, Ratchet accepted Donnie’s offer of a suffering spirit and crushed in in hopes of another gun. A big gun. He needed a lot more firepower to rebuild his arsenal.

While Blazermate was healing Jak, who was in quite the critical state, the combined effort of everyone including the giant Gene brought down the big suffering leaving behind a few souls. When the monster was defeated, Rachet came over commenting on how Blazermate should heal Jak due to what he did with Blazermate replying. "I have sensors, I can see~" using a bit of a teasing voice. She looked over at the corpse of the giant behemoth and the souls it left behind and figured that such a large creature would give some interesting parts. Worse comes to worse Peach could always remove them. Making sure Jak wouldn't get worse, Blazermate followed Ratchet as he got his spirit and grabbed one herself. Much like the Engineer spirit before she had taken, she inserted the Suffering spirit like she would any other medabot part, preferring to replace her non healing arm. Speaking of Dehl, as the fighting died down and the sentry gun was cleaning up the rest of the stragglers, the striker disappeared, leaving his buildings up on that platform to do what they did.

A new ally had revealed themselves among the chaos calling himself Mr. Bonez, but as Blazermate had to get back to Jak to heal him up, she grabbed her spirit as the others also grabbed their spoils, Kamek stocking up on the standard zombies. "Thanks for the help. And it was funny how a van delivered the final blow, I thought it'd be giant Gene." Blazermate said in a bit of a rush as she congratulated everyone on their victory. "Any of you want to help me hoist Jak to the trolly? I can't carry and heal him at the same time, not in his condition." She asked the group before flying over to resume her healing duties on the eco user. Ratchet offered his help, and while Blazermate wasn't too thrilled by how he was carrying Jak, he was carrying him to the van at least.

There was a noticeable pep in the Cadet's step as he made is way from the Guild Hall, a copy of the quest posting in hand. Capture wigglers, a classic! Not to mention, finally something he was familiar with. It didn't matter that someone else had already accepted the quest, he was just happy to take it - not to mention maybe they could split the reward! Or, he could finish it if this mystery other person failed.
He'd been weirdly calm since whatever happened... well, happened. In fact, most people hadn't seemed to care at all. The same went for Ace Cadet of course. He had spent the last few days doing whatever odd jobs he could find, building up his zenny stash from scratch. He wasn't usually a hoarder of wealth, but he needed to hold on to it until he could find a proper blacksmith that wouldn't give him a weird look when he dumped a pile of scales, bones, and internal organs on their table and said "make me a suit of armor from this, please!"
Really, he was so pleased today he hadn't even been bummed that the lovely Guildmarm had completely ignored him yet again. When he spotted that quest in the Coral Highlands, he absolutely jumped at the chance - and so, now found himself in the strange, aquatic looking environment. He spent a few minutes just basking in the sunlit areas of the place before getting to work. Wigglers... wigglers... The quest says South but I should remember exactly where... He scratched his head, staring at the quest posting. South. Really specific. Now that he looked more closely at the words, it mentioned a net. Agh, his slinger! He didn't have it. He was so eager to get out to the area he hadn't bothered to bring anything with him. His master would be so disappointed. Still, it was just some wiggler catching. He could probably just grab them with his bag. Stealth wasn't exactly his forte, but he'd be damned if he messed up a quest like this!

Ace Cadet moved on, headed South, sticking to the edges of the cliffs and peering down to spot anything of interest. Sometimes, there was a nasty smell that drifted up from the Rotten Vale directly below the area, but that wasn't the case now. The Vale probably wasn't even physically here, in this world. At least not yet. Eventually, the sound of someone's voice reached the Cadet's ears. The other quest taker, maybe? Curious, he jogged a little further ahead and peered down the cliff at the source of the noise. A human dressed in some pretty interesting clothes, with some kind of big bird-thing... and a Tzitzi-Ya-Ku! Score! Surely even the most inexperienced blacksmith could make something out of a proper monster! The Cadet grinned to himself and was about to jump down when he noticed the stranger approach the bird wyvern with something in his hand. That definitely wasn't the way to get a monster to eat some drugged meat.

Wait a minute. Those clothes, the weird way he was acting, his total lack of (visible) weapon... this guy... he was...!

...a total newb!

Ace Cadet held a hand up to his mouth to stifle his laughter. Yeah, this amateur was just asking to cart. He shouldn't laugh though, everyone had to start somewhere - hell, even he was a pretty poor excuse for a hunter before the Ace Hunters took him in. Something else came to his mind too: were there even felynes around to save hunters in the midst of battle? He thought back over the last few days, trying to remember if he'd seen any. He didn't think he had, besides the chef. Without those brave cats to run out into the fray and dump injured hunters onto their carts to bring them to safety, the danger-level of even weak monsters jumped up pretty high. I better help out then! Cadet thought, standing up straight and making sure all his gear was properly attached, preparing to jump from the cliff.

"Hey!" Cadet called out to the man below, trying to get his attention. "I'd cover my eyes, if I were you!" With that, the young hunter jumped from the cliff, rolling his body as soon as he landed and brandishing his weapon on the Tzitzi-Ya-Ku's flank.

With Agoston's assistance, the remainder of the gathering went smoothly and quickly, taking only a couple more minutes. By that period's end, enough of the grain lay stacked in Poppi's cart to make a mountain of noodles, and more than likely only the King Koopa himself would be able to haul the overburdened carrier back to Lumbridge in time for dinner. However, the spirit of adventure meant that their trip wasn't over just yet; Poppi's discovery provoked Bowser's interest, and after dusting their hands of chaff and spare grain the party started east toward the settlement the artificial blade claimed to have sighted. Bowser pulled the cart along, clearly not fond of the idea of leaving it where it could be pilfered from.

The hamlet did not prove difficult to find. Shortly past where the swaying golden field ended, a large number of odd buildings stood is close proximity. These houses defied all logic—tall and thin, each seemed barely able to accommodate one person standing up, let alone a family. Between them lay rather picturesque lanes, complete with hedges and trimmed trees, though all less spread-out than one might expect of a town. Tora, hustling behind Bowser as he led the way, was the first to spot one of the hamlet's inhabitants.

His eyes went wide as they laid upon a trio of pigs in the middle of an urgent discussion, standing in front of the spindly, windmill-sized castle that might have marked town center. They stood upright, they walked, they talked, and they wore not just any clothes but fine clothes indeed. For a brief moment the Nopon couldn't believe his eyes, but after a moment he thought better of it. Of all the things he'd seen in this strange new world, civilized swine were practically mundane.

At about that time, the pigs noticed the newcomers too. Most of the townsfolk went about their business while keeping a wary eye on the outsiders, but after brief deliberation these three approached their guests. Bowing, the mustached pig greeted them. “Hail, travelers.I bid thee welcome to mine humble hamlet. I am Truffleston, the mayor. Art thou in search of something, or need thee anything?” As he inquired, nearby guards eyed the strangers cautiously, their axes firm.



The first word out of 6's mouth caused the Tzitzi-Ya-Ku's head to snap his way, orange eyes glaring. It instantly went on alert, stepping away to face the Courier head-on while lowering its own head and tensing its leg muscles. 6, however, displayed no hostility as he grew nearer and nearer. As the seconds passed, it showed no overt sign of attacking, perhaps confused by the human's actions. A high-pitched growl issued from its throat, warning him to get no closer, but the Courier took another step. Immediately the monster's head went up, and the horns on either side of its head started to unfurl. A warning shout echoed from above as a rugged-looking, red-haired man came into view, just in the nick of time. The next instant the reflective membranes of the Tzitzi-Ya-Ku stretched wide, catching the sun and concentrating it into a brain-blastingly bright flash right in the Courier's face.

With a snarl at the incoming Ace Cadet to discourage his intervention, the monster hopped back before launching itself at 6. It lashed out with its legs, the cruel hooked blades on its feet shooting out to cleave flesh from bone.











Though curious about what exactly the others were doing with the spirits, especially Blazermate as she 'installed' one of the Sufferings to manifest a new left arm from nowhere, Nero did nothing to prevent Nico's van continuing on. It went northward, rumbling across cobblestones toward the graveyard's other side. As it went by the other passive skeleton, he and Nero exchanged evaluating looks. The demon hunter didn't know what to make of these friendly undead, especially the stout one with clothes that could not have possibly been from a human given his proportions. While he looked harmless -lazy even- Nero's instincts told him something wasn't quite right with the guy. Well, whatever. So long as the dead didn't get in his way, he didn't need to pay them any mind.

Toward the northernmost section of the Charnel Lane, the number of reanimated corpses went up, but they presented little obstacle. Those that lacked the self-awareness to get out of the van's way got smacked to the ground and run over by Nico's Minotaur. Shortly afterward, its fender busted through the wrought-iron gates. Beyond lay a small brick lot with a couple benches, a trash can, and no discernible purpose. Its three walls and small staircase, however, left no avenue for the van to continue onward. “Aw, crap,” the driver observed. “Looks like y'all gonna head up there on foot.” The stairs accommodated the elevation change to the higher ground the cathedral rested upon as it overlooked graveyard and Empty Space alike. Even from this poor angle, everyone could clearly see the giant Qliphoth root extending upward from the great church's roof. There was in one corner of the lot an open sewer grate, perhaps the way by which the skeletons came.

Nero's boots hit the ground, and he slammed the van door behind him. “Fine by me. You should head somewhere safe. Well, safer.” Ignoring him, Nico reclined herself into a relaxed position. A sigh escaped Nero as he took the steps two at a time, and after a moment he emerged onto a parking lot between the stairs and the cathedral. It opened up into an enormous roundabout plaza, circled by buildings on all sides not bordering the void. He took one step beyond the elaborate archway leading to the stairs before shrinking back with a cautionary hand behind him to warn against the others forging ahead. “Wait a minute, hang on.”

Something was up with the place. Boughs of dark wood with branches of red leaves extended from most of the buildings, wrapping in and out of them, reaching into the air and ground. A number of zombies, many still moving, were impaled or trapped among the foliage. This eerie plantlife matched that of the deadwood crater, which the heroes had avoided, but this time there appeared to be something too big to avoid.

Leaning against the giant double doors of the cathedral was a hulking mass of gnarled wood, garbed in a soft pink mist. It might have been mistakable for another piece of the scenery if it wasn't moving ever so slightly. Its exact form was difficult to determine in that position, but a menacing air wafted from it nonetheless. Whatever it was, it didn't seem to be aware of the intruders just yet.

“If you need to heal or rest, do it now,” Nero advised. “V must be around here somewhere. If he isn't trapped by that thing, we'll at least get his attention. We're taking that thing down next.”

It was a short trip from the field to the town, but already Bowser was getting as sense that rolling this cart around was going to be a pain. Especially if they tried to go back through the forest. Upon closer inspection the town turned out to consist of houses with the same dimensions as outhouse. How the pig people, who the Koopas found entirely normal seeing as almost everything in his world was anthropomorphic, did anything other than sleep standing upright inside their dinky cabins was a mystery. As was where they had gotten such finely tailor outfits living out in the middle of nowhere. They were a damn sight fancier than their closest neighbours the Lumbrigians, that was for sure.

After they entered the town without much fuss, drawing mainly wary glances from the townsfolk and attentive gazes of the porky guards. As was more or less the exact same reception they had received in the other two neutral settlements they had been in the royals paid it little mind. They did however draw the direct attention of thee pig people who had been having a discussion of some import in front of the fanciest building in town before they arrived. After a few moments of deliberation they hurried over and bowed before the party in greeting. King grinned in response to the pigs showing him proper respect. The presumed leader of the trio introduced himself as the Mayor of the compact little town and asked what they needed.

”I’M KING BOWSER, THIS IS MY SON BOWSER JR AND THESES OTHER PEOPLE ARE MY MINIONS.” Bowser said, introducing the party to the mayor. There was a brief pause as the king mulled over what he wanted with the town now that he’d seen it, but ultimately he came back to his initial reason for coming over here, ”SO... WHERE CAN A GUY GET A DRINK IN THIS PLACE?”

Jr, who had landed his clown car once they had hit the town’s outskirts, had some actually useful questions. Still a little hung up on the fact that the wheat they had found not being wild, and having realised that it meant either that the scouting info they had gotten was terrible or they were lost asked:

“So what's the deal with this place? What's in it? Whats around it? How long you been here? Got any hunting gear we can use or quests for the Adventurers Guild?”

The rest of the bombardment of questions was mostly based on stuff he though the guild might want to know that they could possibly be paid for.

”YEAH, THAT STUFF TOO.” Bowser said, supporting his son’s more useful lines of enquiry.

---

The pink brazier indicated a straightforward hallway that led Michael and Franklin to fanciful door. Pushing it open revealed a small chamber, compared to the one they’d encountered before, with a royal palette. Vivid wooden walls gave way to brilliant purple curtains surrounding stained glass windows, through which beamed impossible sunlight. Their shoes tread across plush red carpet as their feet brought them to the far wall.

That wall played host to some sort of extravagant ball game. A number of colorful pegs were arrayed across a colorful background depicting scenic countryside. Above and below the field of pegs were two machines: the one at the top looked like some sort of dispenser, complete with miniature cannon, and the bucket apparatus at the bottom slid from left to right and back again. To the field’s right extended a sort of scoring system. Depicted in the top notch of the scoring system was another painting. The left, meanwhile, displayed a number of available balls, as well as a strange-looking unicorn behind the glass.

In front of the game, a single terminal rose from the floor. It sported just one stick, movable left and right only, and one button.



The two took several moments to observe their next puzzle. The room they were in was certainly fancy, and a stark contrast to the nearly empty room that the last puzzle took place in. The newest puzzle appeared to be some sort of ball game, although how it was meant to be completed was unknown to them. "Huh...it reminds me of pinball, sort of." Michael said, scratching his chin as he looked it over.

"Yeah, a little bit." Franklin squinted his eyes at the puzzle. Soon after they entered, a terminal rose from the floor with what had to be the controls to the puzzle. Looking around the room to make sure there was nothing he was missing, Franklin walked towards the terminal. "Looks easy enough." He turned back to Michael. "Well, you got the last one, so I'll get this one."

Michael shrugged. "Works for me."

Turning back to the game, Franklin grabbed the stick, moving it back and forth a bit to test it. It seemed to move the angle of the cannon, and trying to move it forward proved impossible. With no clue as to how the game was meant to be played, he decided to do what seemed to be the best option. Moving the cannon to the left, he pointed it straight down, and pressed the button.

The cannon launched a ball straightaway, firing the pearl-like sphere downward. When it struck a blue peg the ball bounced, destroying the peg in the process. It continued to bounced around, off the walls and other pegs, eliminating each one. Striking a blue one didn’t seem to do much, but when the ball hit a singular orange peg, it burst in a shower of sparkles and one of the lights on the right-side gauge lit up. A few seconds later, the ball disappeared through the bottom of the machine, not falling into the bucket. A low tone sounded out from the mechanism, and one of the balls on the left-side gauge went dark.

Franklin frowned as the ball disappeared, seemingly not accomplishing much. He still wasn't sure what the goal of the game was, but a few of the rules had been cleared up- striking the blue ones didn't do anything, but hitting orange ones seemed to be the right thing to do. There was also the matter of the bucket at the bottom of the stage, which, if he had to guess what would happen if he landed a ball in it, would either result in him winning the game or getting a lot of points. Either way, he assumed it would be a good outcome. With that in mind, Franklin angled the cannon towards the right side of the stage, and once the bucket started approaching, pushed the button.

The aimed shot bounced off the right wall without hitting any pegs and dropped neatly into the bucket. No points were added, and nor was the gauge on the right filled, but a glowing message appeared reading, ‘Free Ball!’ Sure enough, the count of balls on the left side didn’t go down.

"Huh." His theory was partly correct- it was something good, but it didn't win the game for him. Still, it was something to keep in mind. The only way he could see to win the game so far was to hit all the orange circles. While a few of them were seemingly out of reach of the cannon, he had an idea. Angling the cannon towards the right side once more, he aimed at one of the blue circles and fired, hoping to bounce the cannonball off it to hit the orange circles.

The man’s solid idea went into play, and a moment after it fired the ball pinged off the blue target. Its trajectory after that, however, was luck of the draw. It arced lazily over to narrowly miss the orange Franklin hoped for, bounced off two blues in quick succession, and clocked another blue and orange before hitting the wall and falling out the bottom.

Franklin frowned as he watched the ball fall off the stage. At least I got one... While the outcome wasn't what he had been hoping for, he now knew what he had to do. Taking a few moments to mentally plot out the likely trajectories of the ball, he began to angle the cannon. Over the span of about a minute, he fired off a multitude of projectiles, spread across every side of the stage. He attempted to maximize the amount of orange circles that he could hit with every ball, firing most of his projectiles off in an attempt to finish the puzzle for good.

With each attempt, he honed his aim. One after another, he struck the orange pegs and steadily filled up the right-hand gauge. Three times, twice on purpose and once by sheer luck, Franklin got the ball into the basket, and it saved his bacon. With the free ball granted by the last decisive score, he aimed the cannon and let loose at the final peg, exposed by its neighboring blues taken out by prior attempts. The game slowed down as the ball grew close, threatening to miss by a hair, but the marble struck home. Instantly rainbows filled the game, flashing along the sides and trailing behind the ball as it continued to bounce, and triumphant music resounded.

After the confetti stopped flying, a slot opened up in the bottom of the machine, like in a crane game. Into the tray plopped a painting of the game’s goofy-looking unicorn, a memento of the anachronistic carnival game and a testament to Franklin’s victory.

Michael, who had been watching with passive interest for the most part, jumped back slightly as the music began to play. "Ahh! What the hell?"

Franklin let out a chuckle at Michael's surprise, grinning as rainbows filled the stage. "Now that's what victory sounds like." As the tray opened up, he reached down to grab the painting, holding it up to inspect it. "That's one more painting. Guess we're almost done."

"Well, if the kid got the others...then yeah, we're almost done. Let's put it with the others for now.

@MULTI_MEDIA_MAN @Lugubrious @Gentlemanvaultboy @TruthHurts22

"You okay?" Din asked Euden with a wink, before turning her attention back to the fishmen that continued to crawl ashore on the island. Seeing Linkle and Geralt deal with what appeared to be the fishmen's boss, Din felt it would be better for her to make sure they weren't distracted by dealing with the other pelagics. Swinging her Rod of Seasons, Din froze several patches of the lake surface. The she unfurled her wings and unleashed a gale towards the island, the breeze flowing over the platforms of ice she had created. She hoped to either cool the lake surface enough that the patches of ice would grow and cover the whole lake, preventing any more pelagics from surfacing, or else cause the platforms to crash together, creating waters that were too cold and too difficult to navigate, mincing any pelagics that dared to try. Seeing Din return, Gogoat came to her side and continued to fight off any pelagics that approached. Not only did it seem that puncturing attacks seemed to work well against he scales of these fish creatures, but grass was also naturally effective against water-based beings.

@Gentlemanvaultboy @Stern Algorithm

Taking advantage of the moment where the large fish-man was stunned by Linkle’s bomb arrow, Geralt raised his empty hand and made a symbol with his finger, causing a shimmering field of energy to surround his body. Now protected once more by Quen, he moved forward and aimed a stab for one of the fleshy sacs on its neck, hoping that it would be a softer target.

The tip of his sword slipped into the bulbous nodule, piercing it to draw blood but losing speed quickly as it traversed thick, fatty flesh. It reached just far enough to penetrate to the other side before the guardian started to move. With a gurgle it wrenched its body sideways and pulled its shield around to bash Geralt’s sword arm.

Geralt managed to react to the attack quickly enough to avoid having his arm broken by the shield, but he was hit in the hand by the bash, knocking him off-balance and damaging his own passive Quen shield. The hit wasn’t enough to shatter it, but even a glancing blow would do the rest after that.

Deciding to make a bit of distance instead of risk further attack, Geralt used what momentum he could take advantage of and rolled towards the beast’s side, raising his sword in between them as he stood. His foe saw him on the defensive and bulled forward. Using its size to its advantage to force Geralt to retreat, it advanced a short distance before taking a wild swing with its bladed cestus. The blow cleaved through the air, leaving a white swipe-mark in its wake.

“Damn!” Geralt cursed as he turned his sword arm, barely managing to catch the oversized cestus on the flat of his silver sword, a loud ‘TWANG’ sounding out across the battlefield. Knowing that he couldn’t let himself be overwhelmed by momentum, Geralt took a risky tactic: while their blades crashed into one another, he quickly reached into his grenade pouch and pulled out a small grapeshot grenade. He took a quick step back and to the side while tossing the grenade between the legs of his foe.

The guardian’s dull red eyes flickered towards the object as it rolled between its tentacles, but only for a moment while it raised its shield to crack the Witcher across the skull. Before it could his grenade went off with a rattling bang, piercing its tentacles with beads of metal. Blood flew as the pelagic groaned, stumbling backward as it tried to make sense of what happened.

Unfortunately, it wouldn’t get the chance. As the guardian got its bearrings, a voice rang out from above the fight. “Look out below!” It was the blue-suited, spiky-haired man Geralt had come to save! Perched on the metal claw attached to the house, Phoenix stomped hard on the raft hanging in the air. A few good kicks got the boat dislodged, falling straight on top of the guardian - and Geralt.

The boat came down on the unprepared pelagic with a tremendous clatter, not just stunning the beast but knocking it to the ground. Spittle flew from its mouth as it disappeared beneath the debris.

Geralt didn’t expect the call from above, causing him to be caught off guard by the falling boat. He was lucky enough not to be completely crushed under it, however, thanks to his enhanced reflexes and above average strength allowing him to leap out of the way. His leg did take a glancing blow from the falling object, however, resulting in Geralt hearing the familiar cracking sound of his Quen shield failing. Shaking his head as he stood up, he called to the man above him. “Good idea...could work on the timing.” He gave the boat a good look, hoping to see a crack or a hole that he could stab his sword through without exposing himself to a counterattack.

More than a few openings existed for him to explore. Tentacles writhed under the debris as the guardian’s eyes lolled, but after a few moments it began to stir. Gathering its strength, it threw off the wreckage, but the lawyer’s tactic had taken a toll. Frothing at the mouth, the pelagic flailed about to force Geralt to back away before raising its shield again. Phoenix, the lesser threat, went ignored. After a moment it threw a straight lunge punch.

Geralt saw the frothing, desperate flailing for what it was, and tried to find the closest distance he could remain at without being at risk of taking a shield or cestus blow, and waited for the right moment. As soon as the fish freak threw a punch, Geralt twisted his body to the side of the monster, lifted his blade, and stabbed for its throat, hoping to deal an even more serious blow than his previous attacks.

The Witcher’s perceptiveness and reflexes allowed him to slink past the lunge and counterattack. His blade slipped right in, piercing the pelagic’s scales like a rapier would chain mail. Geralt’s expertise well informed him that piercing, rather than ineffective cutting, constituted the best form of attack; the guardian gurgled as it swung its arm back, desperately aiming for Geralt’s head even as blood gushed from its throat.

Abandoning his attack in favor of not dying, Geralt desperately pulled his sword and himself down and away from the monster, the blow barely managing to not crack his skull, instead slicing hair, a bit of scalp, and air as Geralt scrambled backwards, eyes narrowed at his foe. “I’m too old for this,” he commented wryly as blood dribbled down the side of his face.

Displeased at the way things were currently going, Geralt sheathed his sword and drew his hand crossbow once more, racking a bolt and building some distance between the two.

Though having displayed an extremely limited intelligence so far, the pelagic guardian hefted its shield the moment Geralt produced a ranged weapon, but the sagging of its fishy flesh suggested that its strength was leaving it. A raised shield plus the armor on its belly meant that no vital points could be shot, but the champion could scarcely pursue Geralt now.

From above, Phoenix watched the fight, clinging frightfully to the metal beam supporting him. Sure, he’d been in many dangerous situations before, and he was punched in the face at least a few times during his career, but giant monster fish with spears were a whole different league. While he was more than fine hanging around up and out of harm’s way, Phoenix figured he should at least try to help. It was his fault this white-haired guy was fighting, after all.

“Hey! Uhhh, fishsticks!” Phoenix shouted down at the guardian, and chucked one of his shoes at the thing’s head. “Pick on someone your own… hue?”

In its prime the guardian might have shrugged the shoe off, but it was wounded and alert when Phoenix’s makeshift projectile hit. The pelagic sputtered and turned partways toward him, lifting its shield higher out of dumb instinct.

Geralt had to stop himself from laughing at the dumb luck that he had. From nearly getting scalped and a boat dropped on him, to a dude in some posh-looking clothes actually being helpful in a fight. He took aim at the distracted monster, allowing himself a moment to get a truly good shot, before firing a bolt at the fleshy orb on the back of its neck.

The bolt hit home, lodging up to the feathers in the pelagic’s glinting, blood-speckled flesh. With a final, low rumble, the creature sunk to the ground, deteriorating on the spot. It decomposed to a certain point and stopped dead, a sodden corpse.

“I-Is it safe to come down?” Phoenix asked, staring at the deflated corpse below. Maybe it was better to stay up anyways...

Geralt ignored the decomposing monster and the man above him, instead turning to the fighting going on around him and getting ready to keep going.

With a few minutes to spare, Nero headed down the stairs and back to the van. He figured Nico wouldn’t mind him throwing open the door and stepping inside. A quick bathroom break turned up a suspicious smell emanating from the shower, but they could worry about that later. He seated himself on a couch and produced the Blue Rose, which he examined closely. Unlike Dante’s Ebony and Ivory, his revolver shot real bullets in addition to bolts of demonic energy, so it needed a little cleaning now and again. A few moments’ practiced work rid the firearm of soot, burn, and blood, and as Nero was wrapping up he called to his partner in crime. “Hey! Need an open shop here.”

“Yeah, yeah. Keep yer panties on.” Having extracted herself from her lounging position in the driver’s seat, the woman made her way to the workshop bar in the back. A few taps on the jukebox and an evocating song started to play, and Nico opened her store. Weapons and projects of all sorts in various states of completion either were either hung up or confined in cages to keep from flying about when the going got tough. Notably, a revolving rack displayed a fair few prosthetic arms, and Nero devoted his attention to them first.

“Gerbera, Helter Skelter, Buster Arm,” he ordered, reaching for the first as Nico plucked it from the rack.

She yanked it out of his grasp. “Ah-ah, you know the drill. Cash first.” With a weighty exhale Nero held out a hand, and above the palm welled a cluster of crystallized demon blood. The gleaming crimson stuff floated just above his skin, allowing onlookers to get a good view of the many faces leering out from within. Nico snatched it, and Nero took the arm.

He glanced down at the magazine on his waist. “Don’t you have some sort of upgrade for this thing yet?” he asked, only for the weaponsmith to lay down an extender loop right in front of him. “Well,” he chuckled. “Would you look at that.”

Nico was all smiles. “Ain’t I a genius? Toldja I could read yer mind.”

“Yeah?” The look on Nero’s face was incredulous. “Can you tell what moves I want?”

With a smirk, Nico directed him at the lion-headed goddess statue sitting on the end of her counter. “Don’t wanna hog all the limelight. Ask her.” Nero approached and laid his hand on it, transferring demon blood within. Technique mastery flowed into him in return. Somehow, Nico seemed to know what was going on. “Ooh, Payline and Hard Way? Hate t’be whatever sucker thinks he’s outta your range.”

While they had nothing better to do than take Nero’s good advice to recuperate and recollect themselves for the endeavors ahead, Banjo and Kazooie decided to relax and poke around inside the mobile home, which sported a deceptively spacious interior not betrayed from an outside perspective of the vehicle. Despite that, it was due to become crowded in there soon as the others gathered within, so they spent their grace period to gander (and, depending on what was included, grab at) the various extraneous materials due to be experimented with that Nico had accumulated. Call it explorer’s instinct (or just plain nosiness), but they couldn’t help going over whatever wasn’t tied down, hidden, or out of their reach. Sadly, should they want any of it, Nico’s exchange with Nero--her own friend--was a shamelessly transactional one, and they were skint broke. They were unlikely to gain favor from her this time around.

After Nero was done making his offer to the idol, the bear and bird became curious and decided to observe it a little closer themselves. It would certainly prove expedient (to an extent) if they could unlock their latent abilities (again) through means other than the passage of time. They couldn’t always afford to wait, after all.

With their preparatory options exhausted, they were left with naught but time to kill before they made their next move, so they both found themselves a seat (or a mounted coat rack, in Kazooie’s case) to kick back in away from the couch, which they left for the unconscious Jak. Shortly into their idling period, Banjo found himself slowly, rhythmically, instinctively swaying, head bobbing, and foot tapping to the mood music emanating from the jukebox. A terrible shame it was that him and Kazooie made the untoward mistake of not packing their instruments while under Galeem’s influence; they would almost certainly be playing along, otherwise.

As for Donnie, he was taking the time to think about all of this. When it came to Nero, there was obvious demonic influence at play. It wasn’t readily apparent from looking at him, but using obviously-demonic crystals as some kind of currency, and then feeding them into a demonic statue to gain...knowledge, maybe? That definitely confirmed it.

Not that he was against those who wielded the demonic, despite being a demon hunter himself as of late. He had known many warlocks on his adventures, and he had learned firsthand that just because you wielded a dangerous power didn’t make you evil. Not to mention that when fighting demons, having someone specialized in dealing with them was a godsend. Especially when warlocks could just enslave and bind any demonic enemies that proved particularly bothersome.

And of course, there was also Kamek near the window, who was suggesting backup as an option.

“I would normally say that’s a great idea, but I’m not actually the leader of this party. That’s Nero, the white-haired guy in the back. And when I brought it up, he said we had too many people, not too few, and we were getting in each other’s way. He’s the expert on our quarry, so”--he turned around--”hey, Nero! I need to talk to you real quick!”

The demon hunter glanced his way. “Yeah?”

Meanwhile Jak’s injuries were healed up nicely thanks to Blazermate’s high tech beam. He awoke quickly and with a start, lurching forward from his seat in the van, hands outstretched. He let out a growl, quickly flashing into his dark form for only a brief second, but upon seeing his best buddy Daxter waving his arms to signal everything was ok, his instinctive transformation subsided. The two stood off to the side so Daxter could fill Jak in on what had happened without bothering the others. Blazermate was a bit too preoccupied with her new part and was fiddling around with it to realize that Jak had up and left, being fully healed.

Ratchet was pretty intrigued with the weapons Nico had put on display. Unfortunately he didn’t have any of those red orbs Nero used to pay, but maybe she took other kinds of currency? The lombax sidled up near Nico, looking over the armaments.

”In the galaxy I come from we pay with bolts.” He held out a handful of bolts and lugnuts to show off to Nico. ”Any chance you’ll take these for a new gun or a weapon upgrade?”

The weaponsmith looked over his offering. “Hmm…” A fairly meager payment considering that she normally traded in the crystallized essence of hellspawn, but she liked the cut of the weird little cat thing’s jib. And if she didn’t need spare parts, she could always melt them down for material. “Eh, alright. That’ll fetch ya one second-hand Coyote-B.” From under the counter she produced a shotgun, which she pushed toward Ratchet with a pleased smile. “Ain’t as strong as Dante’s Coyote-A, havin’ no supernatural power, but she’s a feisty varmint and no mistake. Whether it’s a wall or a demon, she’ll bite right through.”

A shotgun that could power through walls definitely sounded appealing to Ratchet, but it still didn’t have the same punch as what he was used to carrying. Better than nothing and at least gave some variety to his arsenal. ”Sounds like a deal, weaponsmith!” Ratchet slapped down the bolts and took hold of the Coyote-B shotgun, doing a jaunty little animation with the weapon to both show it off, and also get a feel for its size and weight. A second later it disappeared into his hyperspace storage to be called upon at will.

Back at the van window, Donnie said to Nero while gesturing to the Magikoopa, “Well, this is Kamek, he’s the one who supersized Gene. He’s thinking...well I’ll just let him summarize.”

Kamek was in the middle of sorting out the various items he had acquired from the zombie sprites. Herbs and potions where being stored in various pockets in the wizard’s robes for later use while the wooden boards and spoiled milk where left on the trolley until a use could be found for them. He paused as the man Donnie had called Nero.

”This is your leader? And you’ve not.. Never mind” Kamek said to Donnie as he inspected the eyes of the white haired youth before shaking his head and moving on from his concerns to the point. Nero’s bemused, slightly indignant look went ignored.

”There’s a safe town on the other side of that teleporter” he explained simply ”A place to recuperate, get supplies, maybe safely spend the night if you can't reach your target before fatigue begins to take its toll, and if you want less people around, well, there's your solution.”

”The suggestion of leaving aside, if you’re getting in each other's way I’d suggest working on increasing your coordination, teamwork and tactics before insisting on taking on this chaotic world alone. One hero is a threat on their own but a well oiled team of heroes can be a force of cataclysmic proportions.” he added.

Nero shook his head. “Or lambs to the slaughter. Look, I know you get it by now. I don’t want anyone dead, but I’m not your leader, or your babysitter. Just the most qualified. You’ve used up a couple years’ worth of luck not getting infected or killed already. We’re only gonna be fighting stronger, faster, smarter, more diseased stuff from here on in. You all should leave the tree to me and take a load off in this village.” He crossed his arms. “Provided you don’t carry any sickness there with you, that is. Anyone here could be carrying zombie-itis already.”

“Oh, uh, about that,” Donnie piped up. His hands flashed with magic energy for a brief moment. “We’re fine on that front. Ever since the worlds collided, I lost a lot of my power, and with that, I lost spells as well. And I’ve been [i[ever-so-slowly[/i] getting them back. The one I just cast on myself is one that I got back after the fight with those two demons, it’s called Detox. It’s a basic disease cure spell and it also works on poisons. Requires very little energy or Mana, I can do it as many times as you want. I don’t think it did anything, since I’m clean, but we should once-over everyone here just to make sure. I’ll need their consent though. You guys want to try it first?”

Nero raised his eyebrows. “Huh.” He shared a glance with Nico, then shrugged in concession. “Well, it couldn’t hurt.”

The light flashed twice, and Nero and Nico could feel the magic running through their bodies for a brief instant, scanning for harmful chemicals and microbes and simply deleting them in a purifying wave. Any pre-existing conditions or diseases they might have had--like, say, the respiratory diseases that Nico was probably on her way to getting--were gone in an instant.

“That’s the two of you,” Donnie said. He called out to the rest of the van, “Hey! I just got my cure-disease spell back, get over here and get any zombie viruses cured just in case!”

”Ah good, I’m glad I'm not the only one missing a great deal of their repertoire.” Kamek said as he began to methodically hammer the bones he had gotten from the zombies into the ground using the blunt end of the spiked tentacle without any explanation.

”As for the leadership position, I believe that your disinterest might be for the best. If none of the rest of you haven't stepped up to fill the role then perhaps you could vote on it. Or continue to ignore the issue entirely.” Kamek shrugged and stopped trying to force the issue.

”If your going to go around curing everyone, then I might as well give everyone a boost while I am here before you fight this tree. A lesser version of my enlarging spell that I can grant the entire group.” he added, before offering the buff to anyone and everyone who came to get their diseases cured. Those touched by the spell would increase in size by 50% with no loss to agility, though the effect would only last until they took a damaging blow.

While everyone was getting their diseases cured and their buff from Magikoopa, Blazermate continued to fiddle with her new part. This spirit manifested more like she was used to, replacing her arm instead of combining with her totally like the Engineer spirit had done. Although the arm she was given wasn’t very cute, in fact the maw shield was a bit off settling, at least she still looked better than most heavy platform medabots. Figuring out how to move it properly and everything, she began testing all that it could do as she walked back to the rest of the group. First she noticed it could let out a scream, which when pointed at one of the shambling undead, seemed to make the undead do an action depending on how it screamed. Blazermate wasn’t too familiar with this ability yet, so she made wandering undead throw themselves into the void, jump up and down, run into each other, or attack each other. ”Cool! I don’t think there has ever been a medabot that commands others like this.”

Having tested the screaming that this arm could do to control the nearby undead, Blazermate decided to move up to one of the mindless undead who had stopped moving due to one of her scream commands and wanted to test what else this thing could do. She noticed that the teeth on the maw of her arm dripped some strange liquid, and when she injected it into the undead by biting it with her arm, it transformed, turning into a weird lopsided muscular figure that looked at her waiting for her next command. Since she didn’t really know how to command it, she just pointed at another undead away from the group and the Charger barreled towards it, slamming into it and running off into the distance with its quarry. Her last test wasn’t nearly as interesting, as she tested the barbed tongue on her arm and it only seemed to be a weapon, nothing really unique unlike the drool and scream.

Having tested her arm thoroughly, she finally joined up with the group. She was sure a few of them saw her playing around with her new upgrade, especially since the screaming made a fair bit of noise. ”Hey, thanks for waiting for me to test out my new part.” Blazermate said as she ran up to the group. She looked at what Nero, Nico, and Ratchet were doing, and shrugged when she saw the weapons. ”Sadly I don’t think I can use any of those. Need one arm to heal, and this thing I’m not used to yet” Blazermate said, moving her new arm.

Donnie and Magikoopa were a bit off to the side, casting their magic on everyone and playing with their loot. Blazermate noticed that whoever she scanned that was covered in zombie fluids seemed to be diseased by something, which went away when Donnie used his magic on them. ”Uh fellas, I think all you guys covered in zombie stuff might need to see Donnie. I don’t know what my sensors are picking up, but a lot of you have this weird disease thing on you like Gene did.” Blazermate said, making sure everyone was healthy before they moved on.

Perking up at hearing his name, Gene nodded at Blazermate's words. "Yeah, that fat guy that barfed on me infected me with some sort of disease. Thanks to what Donnie found on the big buff zombie, I'm all good. Thank god he's got that spell of his now, traveling through a place like this will catch us a bunch of nasty diseases. Not having a way to counteract that is a death sentence."

A few realistic words from the melee fighter won an approving nod from Nero. “Yeah. Now that we’ve got a cleanser, though...things are looking better. I mean, you all could still become hero pancakes any second, but at least we won’t have to deal with the whole turning thing.” He narrowed his eyes as he looked Gene over. “So, no weapons, huh? Just that arm of yours. Can’t say I’ve found a lot of fistfighters able to take on demons.” While he said nothing explicitly, something in his tone implied that he wanted to know more.

"What can I say? I'm just that awesome." Gene shrugged, giving Nero his usual goofy grin. With a chuckle, he shook his head and continued, "But nah, this right here is the God Hand. In my world, this badass guy faced off against demons. God, or a god, or several gods, or something... Well, they powered up his arms so that they both carried the power of a god in them."

Feeling a filibuster coming on if he kept on like he was going, Gene shook his head. "But uh, I'm not one for long-winded explanations and I don't know much anyway. Long story short the guy's arms were preserved and, eventually, they were passed down onto me when I lost one. There was another guy with the other God Hand but I whooped his ass and took his. Though, when I came to this world, I only had the right arm."

Nero considered that for a moment. He’d met more than a few people mistaking demons for deities -the Savior came to mind- and exchanging their humanity for power. Then again, with the confluence of worlds, maybe things were different where Gene came from. Besides, goofiness aside, he seemed alright. Something else occurred to him. “Saw some interesting moves back there. What was that one where you got down and grovelled..?”

Gene's normal grin shifted to a more sheepish one. Scratching the back of his head, he chuckled nervously. "Uhhh... I have access to a special power where I can use a powerful move, but it's a bit of a gambit. What you saw back there was my... 'Grovel' move. Only good thing about it is that after I use it, the bad guys'll take it easier on me."

”Don’t worry Gene. As long as you don’t die, I can heal ya..” Blazermate said, pointing to the now revived Jak.

While Nero didn’t quite know what effect that might have on mindless undead, the mention of moves from Gene plus his thoughts on that God Hand of his gave him an idea. “Interesting. Hey, I wanna have you try something. See that statuette on Nico’s bar there?” He pointed at the lion-headed goddess. “Try touching that and closing your eyes.”

Quirking an eyebrow in curiosity, Gene got up from his seat and walked over to the statue. He looked at it for a moment, wondering what power was in the statue, before touching it and closing his eyes as Nero suggested. Then, as if before his eyes, he could picture the melee techniques he had, as well as the various moves for his Roulette Wheel.

He felt like a kid in a candy store. They were all available for him! ... Then he noticed the looming price tag over them. As if knowing how much demon blood he had, he quickly deduced that he'd be able to get a few standard attacks alongside a Roulette Wheel move. Good enough for him.

But, just because it was good enough didn’t mean Gene wasn’t a bit annoyed. Groaning at his lack of options, Gene quickly purchased the God Stomp - a Roulette move that allowed him to knock enemies to the floor and stomp on them for a while - along with a few standard techniques. The four that he purchased, that would replace his current combo, were Elbow Spin 1 (a quick two elbow hit attack), Chin Music (a fast one two punch), Right Hook 1 (what it says on the tin), and Mach Speed Jab 1 (five quick jabs in succession).

Buying the moves and quickly "assigning" them, Gene noted that he was out of demon blood. Hopefully, he'd be able to get more. Removing his hand from the statue, Gene backed up and tried out his new combo. It felt good, and much stronger than the basic attacks he had been using. "Whoo! That's the stuff!"

“...Hang on, that works on anyone? Let me try!” Donnie said with the eagerness of a much younger person. Yes, this was demonic, but, as noted earlier in his internal monologue, if he was going to complain about people using the demonic for good he might as well have every warlock in the land executed.

When Gene finished, he put his hand to the statue and closed his eyes…

Nothing happened.

“Dammit. Nothing,” Donnie said, walking away in a huff. He then realized something.

”I don’t know what you were trying Donnie, looks like a statue to me.” Blazermate said, shrugging.

Donnie tried to look a bit more dignified. “Don’t you know anything about magic, Blazer? Clearly that statue did something for Nero and Gene. It just doesn’t work on me for some reason.”

"Huh... It worked just fine for us," Banjo interjected, trying to add a layer of perspective plausibility to the discussion. Though, they might not find his overly simplistic commentary to be all that helpful.

He cleared his throat. “A-anyway…” he reached into his Luggage. “I’ve got some gifts for you guys.” He pulled out a bunch of glass bottles of a red liquid and set them on a nearby table in the back. “These are Healing Potions. They’re drinks imbued with an enchantment so that they’ll cause a regenerative effect when you drink them. They taste like medicine--because they are--but they work. I want each of you to take one. If you get injured against the monster up ahead and can get yourself out of harm’s way for a moment, just drink it and it’ll heal most of your injuries. I only have a limited supply and can’t make more, so don’t waste them. They also can only be safely drunk once every minute or two, so I’m only giving you one each because battles don’t last very long.”
He looked at Blazer. “Uh, in your case, just ignore that.”

Nero waved the gift off. “Thanks, but I can heal with green orbs from enemies.”

“Eh, suit yourself.”

That seemed to settle something for the demon hunter. “Alright then. We’ve spent enough time in here already.” He stood and headed for the door. It was about time to get started.

A brief but uncomfortable silence ensued following the pigs' questions. Poppi looked and Tora expectantly, but he said nothing, and neither did Agoston. Bowser ultimately rescued them, however, asking for some sort of drink. The question came out of the blue, making Tora wonder. That phrase typically referred to alcohol, but Bowser didn't seem like the sort of person to be aware of something like that. Regardless, the yellow-haired pig brightened up. “Oh! Thine thirst wouldst be well quenched after a visit to mine storefront. No shop in the Hamlet could boast a better inventory.”

Following that exchange, the Koopa's kid let loose his own barrage of questions. Mayor Truffleston considered each one, rubbing his chin with a trotter. “Whilst thy initial idiom escapeth me, I can tell you that this noble Hamlet hath seen but a few days in these verdant fields. Prior, we lived in a country most dreary and unusual. As for our surroundings, thy eyes hath already lain upon the eastern golden expanse we doth attend. To the south lieth a pristine woodland, shrouded in sublime green. Northeast, if mine memory serveth, featureth a fair basin and sweet-smelling pines before the mountains. East of our esteemed Hamlet thou may discover a vast yellow-green steppe, littered with edged red stone. Beware that place, for a terrifying beast stalketh those hills.”

The other male pig seemed more intent on Junior's last question. “So too did other visitors mention a guild of adventuring, a day and a half gone. We hath no relation to any such institution, yet many are our burdens nonetheless. Thou mayest procure a healthy sum of oincs if thou see fit to lend yon trotters to our aid.”

While the antiquated speech gave him a little trouble at first, Tora knew a quest when he heard one. And of course, he wouldn't be a Nopon if his ears didn't perk up when money was involved. “Meh meh, if piggypons have quests then Tora and Poppi can help!”

Poppi crossed her arms. “Masterpon on tight schedule. Need to finish quests that already open before get more.”

“Er, yes, meh,” he admitted, scratching his head with a wingtip. “Plus, we need beat evil bosses soon as possible. But still,” he turned an excited smile to Truffleston and his friends. “What you need done? Maybe Tora and friends can help on way.”

The hairy-eared pig beamed. “Mine heart doth soar to hear it! Our greatest trouble be a loathsome pack of diminutive green savages, encamped northward. A sound pummeling wouldst rid the Hamlet of their menace.”

As much as Tora wanted to get paid, even that sounded like a substantial detour. They needed to find some way to hunt baurun and get back to Lumbridge soon. Plus, even Bowser couldn't lug that cart around everywhere the group went. Poppi noticed this too, and chose to voice her thoughts. “Will consider. However, folks did not answer one Junior question. Does Hamlet have any hunting gear we can use?”

The pigs looked between each other, questioning in low tones. The shopkeeper ended up answering. “I fear not. Pig appetites be great, yet compunctions be few. Yet, there resteth in the inn a person who may be the solution to thy problem, a sharp-eyed lady together with a great eagle.”

“That just what Tora wanted to hear!” the Nopon explained. “Maybe we can ask for help. Thanks very much, piggypons!” With that, he sprinted toward the building indicated by the shopkeeper, and Poppi followed behind. The pig guards watched them go disapprovingly, silently bemoaning their lack of restraint and manners.



Euden gave Din a nod before picking himself up. Now distant from the fighting, he joined Din as they proceeded back along the shoreline toward the others. His eyes lay upon the fierce duel between Geralt and the pelagic guardian the whole time, watching the brute and the Witcher exchange fierce blows. Even with the man's prowess, the unprepared-for threat and the treacherous arena in which they did battle offered a deadly challenge, but an unexpected miracle presented itself. The very fellow who cowardly fled from the fight to scale the clown house decided to turn back and help, and his intervention from above turned the tide in Geralt's favor. A dropped boat and a thrown shoe paved the way for the eldritch monster's defeat. Euden let out a cheer when he saw the thing fall, hideous even in defeat.

Yet, the battle was not yet won. Whether they had yet to notice or just didn't care, the remaining pelagics fought on. Linkle threw herself into the scrap with bombastic energy. She evaded a fishman's stab before using him as a steppingstone to launch skyward. A deluge of bolts sunk into its scaly skin, eliciting an agonized gurgle before it collapsed. The archeress continued to rain bolts until gravity forced her to land, but her momentum never left her. Gran, meanwhile, fought heroically, yet one look at his fighting style suggested that he typically battled alongside a number of allies. Linkle's help -and distraction- prevented him from being overwhelmed, but already he'd taken a few too many slashes and stabs. His blood flowed freely as he desperately continued to struggle, cutting down pelagic after pelagic.

The situation prompted Din to action. Her magic stretched out across the lake's surface, icing it up, and the wind kicked up by her wings spread the chill even further. Euden, already feeling better from his brief rest, could not afford to hesitate. He leaped from the shore onto the ice, taking a slippery shortcut to reach the frontlines faster. The dancer's Gogoat, meanwhile, returned to her. With a little direction it proved itself an invaluable ally, striking fast with brutally effective attacks before retreating out of range. Enraged strength filled Euden as his blazing sword flashed into pelagic scales, but even then a horrible doubt gnawed at the back of his mind. Even if there weren't that many left, unless he and his allies could annihilate the remaining pelagics now, Gran could take his last blow any second now.



The group could continue to make preparations all day, but Nero knew that at some point it would just be avoiding the coming fight. They needed to get into gear before they started losing steam. With that in mind, he led the way back up the stairs toward the cathedral plaza, and without reservation strode straight through the arch and into the vast, open area.

A few moments' walking brought him in line with the cathedral's double doors and the gnarled wooden behemoth hunched before them. He gave it plenty of room at first, but knew that ultimately he'd be more effective in melee range. The others had plenty of time to get themselves ready, be it reloading their weapons, setting up turrets, commandeering some of the captive undead, or warming up. After a short while he cracked his neck, then his knuckles, and started walking forward. “Alright, you stinking stack of firewood. Let's see what you've got.”

As if in response, a low moan echoed through the plaza. Whatever it was, the monster started to move, each jerking motion giving a great wooden crack. The pink mist surrounding it dried it up as it stretched, untangled, and stood. A dire red light glowed in its recesses, and when it turned to face its challengers, the Ent unleashed a roar that shook the air itself.



In response to the roar, small round hollows dug up from underground and ran to the nearest hero, swinging their little weapons. The Ent, meanwhile, slowly raised a leg before smashing it on the ground. A wave of red energy surged toward Nero across the ground. To avoid it he jumped upward, then again off a conjured midair circle, before unleashing a midair Color Up shot. The bullets entered the Ent with a splash of splinters but no resistance, although they barely seemed to do anything. As he landed, Nero sighed. Even without much evasive or defensive ability, this would be a tough hunk of wood to whittle down.

The Ent lifted its gigantic arms and slammed them down, unleashing a limited-range but omnidirectional wave that rattled the entire plaza.

The familiar sung expression of gratitude from the orange fire spirits that passed for a death throe and marked the dissipation of their flames confirmed Hat Kid’s initial suspicion of a repeat trial, and with her curiosity satisfied, she pressed on through the blue door to the next room, where another test surely awaited her. Within, she found herself momentarily entranced by the soothing, if inauthentic depiction of space--her ‘true’ home. The familiar visual made her feel a touch more at ease in her otherwise unwelcoming surroundings. Though, she didn’t linger gazing at artificial stars for long before bringing her attention downward to the actual point of interest.

The hollow reverberations of her tiny footfalls upon the glass plane that separated her from the isles beneath it filled the chamber as she paced about, examining the curious scene below. A single mountain (the tallest of them) protruded through the floor from the center of living tropical diorama, and atop its peak, instructions inscribed in stone were laid out for the child. After carefully reading them over, she followed them to a T, hovering her hand over the black mass--the ‘ritual’--as per the first step.

At the kid’s provocation, the black orb hatched like an egg, giving forth a luminous entity like a great golden snake with a smooth black head. From the moment of its inception, the Breath -ever in motion- circled around a point directly below its creator’s hand. In the strange, lustrous world beneath the glass, this thing would be the child’s avatar--a deity made miniature.

Her eyes followed the ritual entity as it traced around the map with every movement of her palm. Sure enough, it was bound to her, ready to carry out her commands, which started with testing the extent of its ability to ‘shape the land’. After a minute of trial, she found that it largely involved simply gathering and redistributing the existing material, but being unable--as far as she could tell--to create any new material, dramatically alter what was already there, or even mold it into a refined shape. She found out as much when her childish mind prompted her to try building a sand castle only for her attempts to falter as the loose accumulation of soil fell into a formless mound. No matter what shape or motion she made with her hands, the outcome remained unchanged, and the elements would not fully obey her, much to her disappointment. She pursed her lips to one side and nodded her head at the underwhelming development that made her wonder if what she was controlling was really much of a deity, because it didn’t exactly feel like it. Just as well, it would be better that she take her new godly responsibilities seriously.

Turning her attention back to the matter at hand, Hat Kid wiped over the map above the sandy mound she had built up to flatten it out into a traversable bridge of land for the water-locked villagers to safely pass over.

“Over here!” She signaled to the tribespeople to make their way to the flooded totem while she began to ‘scoop’ water from the pool it sat in, leaving just enough around for them to supply their resettlement unimpeded. It was equal parts unclear and unlikely that they could actually hear her order or in any way perceive her at all, but they needed only follow the beacon--their god--encircling the structure to know what to do next.

Sure enough, the villagers followed the Breath as it crafted for them a bridge to new land. They waited for the sandbar to take shape, then crossed the span in small groups. Those first among them reached the second totem just as the Breath finished clearing away the water. Mimicking their god, they surrounded the totem in a circle, and a new ritual commenced. Chanting resounded beneath the glass, and prongs extended from the earth. Entire buildings soon emerged from the sand, rising upward on their stilts, until a circle of them arose to form a village around the monolith. Plant life began to spread immediately, blanketing the new island even as greenery spread across the bridge from the old. Correspondingly, the green meter above the glass rose.

There was something slightly fascinating about seeing greenery manifest beneath the villagers’ feet to gradually spread out and recolor the once barren sand as far as it reached, all simply as the result of their arrival and subsequent prayer at the totem. It was as if where life went, life would flourish and follow, and where life was absent, life would go to create life. While the process at work didn’t make too much logical sense by itself, Kid came unusually close to a thoughtful philosophical realization of some kind that might reconcile the idea. The partially filled gauge on the tablet was more easily explained. It served as a clear indicator of her progress for one of her objectives: to revitalize the land. By the looks of it, she still had a good ways to go.

Plantlife’s grip reached only as far as the beginning of the stone isthmus that stretched out across the sea to the west, an infrequently-connected archipelago. Enough sand existed to bridge the gaps, but creatures like enormous horseshoe crabs dotted those islands. On the other side of the broken isthmus lay a third, much larger island with varied terrain. A few great mounds of sand dotted its surface, and upon a high bluff stood a carved stone inscribed with crashing waves.

A keen eye could spot worried body language given off by the villagers. Their elderly shaman watched the sea, restless.

Little by little, Kid started redistributing soil by the ‘handful’ to reconnect the isles so that the plants and people may continue to cross them, putting forth a little extra effort to carve out a taller trenched path that steered manageably clear of giant crustacean territory to keep the churning waters off of the villagers, and keep them out of the waters. On that note, the noticeable increase in the tidal fluctuations had the people feeling uneasy. She looked to the sea in the same direction as the shaman, but could see nothing yet. S/he somehow knew something that the child didn’t, even with her superior perspective view of their world. The runic monolith atop the bluff struck her as a clue, and perhaps held the solution to the yet unforeseen (by her) problem they were about to have. Obviously, she couldn’t do anything with it herself, so she directed a small party of around three or four able-bodied villagers uphill to investigate.

The villagers approached the totem warily. Two of the three men studied it from a distance, but the last approached to run his hands along the deliberate grooves. At first it looked as though he merely felt the thing, but after a few moments the deftness with which he navigated the curves and contours spoke of some sort of deeper understanding. Another minute went by before he stepped away, but he did not leave empty-handed. The runes on the stone glowed with soft white radiance, wafting into the air around it. Bit by bit, the squiggles fashioned themselves into floating words.

Ancient...knowledge...recovered

Ritual of Repel Water

An ill wind was blowing. It whipped the sea, turning it turbulent, and bit at the dunes of sand. Enough blew from the hilly isle to expose the very top of an ivory-white shape, the hidden third totem. Even with very little sky in the world beneath the glass, the landscape grew stormier and stormier. Behind Hat Kid, on the mountain plinth that gave her instruction, runic characters appeared in the air.

1:30

Then, second by second, the counter ticked down.

Yeah… that didn’t look good. It seemed the people were correct in their fearful prediction of the weather. The atmosphere went murky with obscuring grey storm mist, and even without being able to feel it, Kid could tell it was getting harder to stand up down there with the sudden increase in wind speed. On the bright side, it was at least nice enough to reveal the next objective to her… and wait for the villagers finish exploring before counting down to disaster. The bad news was she didn’t have long to prepare for whatever was coming. All she knew was that the village needed the newly acquired knowledge, like, NOW, so she ordered the scouting party to hurry back as quickly as they could (or quicker) so that they may begin their preparations to perform the ritual.

Meanwhile, Hat Kid would start unearthing the next totem and laying the soil in a perimeter around the village island as high as it would go to help hold off the waves somewhat, taking care not to bury any of the villagers while she was at it. Once she was done digging a great dip around the third structure down to its base, she would cut a relief ditch into one of its edges to allow the inevitable floodwaters to flow downhill (away from civilization, of course). After that, all she could do was wait for nature to take its turn and hope for a miracle to save the village…

Something came, but it wasn’t a miracle. As if given some invisible signal, the waters began to recede. Large amounts of sandy seabed laid itself plain to view, unlucky fish flopping in the muck. Then, from the southeast edge of the map, a wave rolled in. It grew higher and higher, five, ten, twenty times as tall as a human. The villagers, under order of the Breath, gathered around the perimeter of their village in a circle, locking hands. A chant began, its voices nervous but swelling in strength as desperation clutch the villagers’ hearts. The rampaging tsunami bore down on them, dark as pitch and taller than the tallest trees. It swept over Hat Kid’s physical defenses like they were nothing and crashed against the village, but instead of sending it to the abyss, it broke as though against an invisible dome. Thousands of proportional tons of water washed around the village, inches from the outermost huts, held back by only faith and unity. Another minute passed before the floodwaters began to subside, dwindling until the shaken villagers could breathe easy once again.

Hat Kid felt the villagers’ desperation as her own as she watched with increasingly heavy, nervous breath as the sea threw itself at the island, set to consume it in its entirety. She bit the collar of her sweater nervously while she helplessly chased the ever enlarging wave with narrowed eyes, her atypical anxiety growing with it the closer it came to the settlement--both out of fear of failure as well as an inkling of underlying compassion for those that counted on her. When positive change didn’t come soon enough, she equipped her ergokinetic cap, inhaled sharply, and reared back a charged, unsteady fist, ready to act dramatically in likely futility as if she could affect the world below from where she was. Before she could throw energy she didn’t know how to effectively use at the problem, however, she saw that she wouldn’t need to. Her expression and stance loosened immediately upon seeing the mountainous tide split to pass around the village and spare its people. Talk about a moving display of prayer and song. With the storm subsided, the sea level normalized, and the village safe from it all, Kid, too, was able to breathe a sigh of relief.

Still, there was work to be done before everyone could celebrate another day of continued life. Hat Kid checked the map from the currently settled totem to the next for any damage to the path between them to rectify as needed before sending the villagers on their way. As much as she would rather not rush them along, there was no telling if or when another event like that would sneak up on them, so for the sake of all, extended delays could not be afforded. Once Kid was done on her end smoothing out the trail for them, she left the beacon to rest at the next totem and sent the people on their way.

Just one island remained in between Hat Kid’s dominion and the elusive gate beyond. North of the sandy -now soggy- island, connected by a long stretch of shallows, lay a volcanic atoll. Cooled lava formed a good amount of exposed stone, enough to take intrepid travelers all the way to the atoll’s opposite side. However, the stone wall eroded over the eons sported a sizeable hole in the center, and every minute or so the crashing waves rushed through it to sweep across the landbridge. Barely any earth bespoiled the place, though a steadily-flowing volcano still remained.

Upon attempting it, Kid found out she couldn’t use the Breath to carve away stone, so shaving off a section of the volcano’s rim to strategically redirect lava flow into the ocean was out. No matter. She was still perfectly capable of directing the entity to the crater to gather the necessary raw material to patch the hole in the dam herself; it just made for a slightly less satisfying solution. Although, rather than correcting thousands of years of damage right away, she figured she could let it help her out with some additional roadwork first. She halted the villagers’ advance no less than ten meters from the area affected by the waves and began collecting full spheres of molten rock to lay down flat over the partially sunken path, allowing the periodic tide to cool and harden the primitive asphalt with every other pass. Though, she couldn’t do anything to smoothen the newly paved road, the villagers would now have solid, reinforced footing above the water to tread to the other end of the atoll. With that finished, Kid proceeded to pull from the same resource pool to fill in the gap in the wall left over by the passage of time, waiting for a moment to check the quality of her work (i.e. structural stability) before giving the villagers the go-ahead to press on.

The child’s braininess made short work of the final obstacle. With the waves’ onslaught blocked by her freshly-cooled wall of rock, her villagers forged onward. They reached the end of the atoll in moments, and ahead of them, a natural incline led right up to the gateway. While the Kid worked, her plants had continued to spread, and by the time her villagers were ready the gauge was full and the doorway had come open. Particles streamed into it in a black whirlpool, which came off as more than a little menacing, but Hat Kid’s goal remained before her nonetheless. The people had braved (for them) a great deal already under her watch; she wasn’t about to let a spooky door to who knows where--that she was supposed to reach anyways--stop her just shy of achieving her goal. Without delay, She ushered the villagers onward through the gateway...

The villagers disappeared inside, and the world beneath the glass began to darken. A new light came on as the ocean faded away: a spotlight highlighting the mountain where she’d received her instructions. Before her eyes, the land turned to sand and blew away. In its place was left a painting of a villager on the beach, holding a staff to the sky as a tsunami rose to the right and a volcano blew to the left.

When the land, sea, and sky began to fade into pitch nothingness, Hat Kid sauntered over to the dissolving mountain where the key to her true objective lay beneath its surface. After the last grain of sand fell, the painting stood, unsupported, beneath to lone light, waiting to be claimed. Smiling wide, the child took the painting by the trim in both hands, observing it for a second like a prize she had just received before heading for the chamber’s exit. Even without the artificial light that led her in before, she would have no trouble finding her way out… and on to her remaining objectives...

Magnumus Agoston, Centurion.

Level 3 - (23/30) EXP
Location: The Hamlet
Word Count: 304

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"Sure, I can hunt," Agoston responded to Bowser. "It is one of my many proud past times. However, where I come from, deer is the largest, toughest thing I ever killed with a bow and arrow. One time me and a group of scouts had to kill a bear, but that was more out of necessity than hunting sport. Also, I don't have a bow on me. I imagine this creature we're after is of the bizarre and supernatural variety that I have no experience with.

Centurion stared at the pigs and their speech patterns. This world is a curious one. He looked at the kind people, scanning them up and down. To be honest, some of their speech went over his head. It reminded him of direct translation from the old tongues into the modern languages.
"Well, we are quite busy, Sir Truffleston. There's a war on, you know." He turned to his allies. "As much as I can coming to appreciate this mercenary lifestyle, our attention should remain focused on one task at a time. I say we deliver these supplies as soon as possible and make short work of whatever beast we're after. Then, we should probably focus on getting everyone regrouped to complete our goal."

Indeed, the group of warriors assembled to defeat Galeem have scattered. Their cohesion was non-existant. Centurion had seen this kind of thing before when working with sellswords- often they did as they pleased. While fortunately the heroes of this group were decidedly more good natured, they were far braver aswell and eager to go on their own adventures. Hopefully the rewards and resources they all have gathered in the meantime have been worth it. Eliminating the lieutanents of Galeem, then slaying the false god itself is their ultimate goal, afterall.