Another day, another virtual life and death situation survived.
Raime simply fell, ass first, onto the cold dirt of the grove out of relief and awe that they actually managed to survive and even keep Ari alive throughout the fight. He didn't feel the poison coursing through his body to boot. It was around this time that ugh made it known that he had acquired his nuclei. "Wew. Good job, buddy." The scout said to Lugh as he performed a singular fist pump and offered the man a supportive smile. He'd think of delivering the solitary man some of his nana's signature dish, the savory churro sandwiches in celebration of gaining his nuclei and as thanks for tanking most of the damage during their rescue operation.
He suggested that they go find a place they could regroup, ideally, back to town. Make the catgirl take on a proper starting job and restock their consumable items and whatnot. "Yeah, no problem. I just hope that Mags and Ames won't do something dumb like wander into a monster's lair or something while we're gone." He says while typing a message to the group chat. Raime then saw their tank begin dragging away the still severely wounded Ari by the ear. "Lugh, be careful. With your strength, you'd likely rip her ear off by accident." Raime says with a cautionary tone while following the duo.
Username: Raime Braun Race: Human Gender: Male Height: 189 cm Weight: 90 kg Voice Pitching: 0 Decorations: None notable. Appearance: Splitting image of his own physical appearance. Wearing a full set of traveler's clothes.
=Points when applied to HP, MP, or SP, each point consumed grants 10.=
HP – 320 [Determines how much damage you can take before death.]
[Ranged Proficiency Lvl.1] = Increase Proficiency with Ranged Weapons.
[First In, First Out] - Passive. Increase movement speed by 15% when engaging and disengaging enemies.
[Dive N Strike] - Active. 10% SP cost. Dive in any direction and roll, increasing evasion. If evasion is successful, increase the damage of the next attack.
[Zoned In] - Increase AGI by 20%. Passively Consumes 10 SP Per-Turn while Active.
[Asess] - Active skill that consumes 50 SP. Observe a single target and determine whether they are stronger or weaker than you. Has a chance of gleaning further statistical information.
Perception: Realistic Gore: On Pain Setting: 100% Clothing Damage: On Nudity Censor: Off Profanity Censor: Off Combat Action: Manual Spell Incantations: Manual
Helmet: [N/A] Armor: Traveller's Clothes (Gray) Arm Equipment: [N/A] Main Hand:Light Crossbow Offhand:Wargtooth Dagger Leg Equipment: Traveller's Shorts (Gray) Footwear: Traveller's Geta
Type Auxiliary Arms, First Stage +20% AGI, +50% DEX A length of yellowed parchment, with pictographs written upon one side in red ink. At each end of the parchment is a loop made of silvered roots.
All Beneath the Earth
Active. Periodically consumes 20 MP. Nuclei wraps around the caster's eyes like a blindfold, before granting them the ability to see night as if it were day, as well as to see through objects within a range of fifty meters. In this sight, Immortals and Riens are outlined in blue, monsters are outlined in red, and flora are outlined in yellow.
Equipped: Dual kodachi, plain black wood scabbard, nondescript hilt. Kusarifundo, plain long iron chains with weights on either end.
Uploaded Image Username:Ari Reina Caladis Race: Cat Gender: Female Height: 142cm Weight: 40kg Voice Pitching: -2 Decorations: Appearance: No real equipments yet, but looks like the picture just with more drab turtleneck and long skirt combo.Classes: None
Perception: Anime Gore: On Pain Setting: 20% Clothing Damage: On Nudity Censor: Off Profanity Censor: Off Combat Action: Manual Spell Incantations: Manual
She bounced off the shell of the centipede on her way down, recovering quick enough to notice Lew bursting from the centipede's head with a new ability.
"Did we do it? We did it!" Ari jumped about with a high pitched victory yell for a while, before noticing the centipede seemed to coagulate into a cool looking sickle. "Ah! Can I have it?"
Ari was asking but she was already grabbing the weapon, admiring it before Lew grabbed her by her ears and dragged her away.
"Ach! Those are sensitive, nya! This is the second time already nya! Get your paws off my ears nya! Mya! MYAA!"
Bulwark Boneplate Rare Armor +100 HP Reduce physical damage taken by 20. Recover 2 SP for every hit taken.
Shamanic Beads Common Accessory +20 MP
Raider’s Wargtag Common Accessory +4 DEX, +4 LCK
Thunderstruck Amulet Uncommon Accessory +20 HP, +5 END, +3 LUC Reduce lightning damage taken by 20.
HP potions: 1 uncommon, 2 common
Alright, then. If the last few minutes had taught Amulak anything, it was that Ari seriously needed to get the fuck out of here, go back to town, and take a Job already. Fortunately, it seemed that Lugh agreed with him. And speaking of Lugh...
"Big congratulation, Lugh. You get Nuclei!" Amulak clapped for Lugh's newly-acquired Nuclei, though he was just a bit ever so jealous that he still didn't have one yet. The hell was it going to take?
"But yes, Ari need to go back to town and take job. Ari, if you don't stop being idiot and take job, we going to have problem, yes?" The aspiring necromancer smiled at Ari as she was dragged off by Lugh. It wasn't a friendly smile. Although as they left, a thought occurred to Amulak.
"...Shit." He said, turning to Raime. "We down two more than I plan for getting through zone. Ari was useless, and now Lugh have to drag her back so she stop being useless. Should probably regroup with others soon, yes? Hopefully they didn't get killed already."
There should have been such a small chance of getting out of the Thunderstruck Grove when they had neither map nor compass to guide their return, but either they were incredibly lucky or something else was going on, because within five minutes, the fog parted around Lugh to reveal the slope that lead down to the city-state of Nyu-Taro. Ari’s ear, thankfully, hadn’t been totally ripped off by the warrior’s monstrous strength, but that warm feeling that infused his being had disappeared soon after. Perhaps the effects of the Swiftness Talisman decayed more quickly once one was outside of combat, or perhaps it was just the time dilation effect making it feel as if it lasted longer than it actually did. Regardless, the two Immortals found themselves inside soon enough, with a decent amount of coinage to be converted into rishi too.
Whether Ari went on a second shopping trip or was simply manhandled into getting a job was up to Lugh though. Certainly, they couldn’t spend too much time in the city-state. Who knew what sort of trouble Raime and Amulak would get themselves into within the Grove? Two ranged fighters, one of which with a crippling addiction to pain, didn’t exactly inspire much confidence in such lethal wilderness, after all. @Cu Chulainn@GreenGoat Despite apparently agreeing on the fact that the two of them should regroup with the others, Raime and Amulak ventured deeper into the fog-shrouded forest instead, intent on another, darker task: procuring a pristine human corpse for the would-be necromancer to utilize for his nefarious violation of the sanctity of life and death. Could the two of them alone survive an encounter with another centipede woman? Could they even survive a fight against a couple of normal mobs? Though Amulak was well-equipped for someone of his level, Raime was practically naked, an unarmored, low END Scout who had skills meant for staying on the periphery of combat, rather than in the bloody frontlines. It was, in more ways than one, a bad idea to be so hasty in continuing through the Thunderstruck Groves.
But they continued regardless, confident perhaps in the potential birthing of a Nuclei to save them from a temporary death, just as how it did so for Klein. Or perhaps, between a masochist and a pro gamer, neither of them had the self-preservation instinct to realize that the Thunderstruck Grove, the highest-level hunting grounds in the neutral city-state, may not have been meant for people who had only been farming in the Goldspun Fields just yesterday.
Still, it appeared as if their dark intents were well-received by the cursed woods.
As they slipped down a rocky hill, they came across an old maple tree, its trunk wrapped up with thick, rotting rope. Leaves, sickly and bug-eaten, clung tenaciously to its branches, while at its base, there was a bundle of cloth, from which the face of a baby peeked out. The newborn slept still, their skin pale in the dim light of the fog, and whatever tracks that Raime could discern in the immediate area indicated that the area had been undisturbed for at least a day.
An abandoned, unwanted child, left to be rid of by the maneaters of the Thunderstruck Grove, spared only due to the newborn having not woken up and realized their solitary state yet.
Could there exist any Rien more suitable for the production of a pristine corpse? @Psyker Landshark@Searat
Raime only gave the obvious trap a deadpan look. Among the countless undead, abominations, bandits, and other nasty things that lurked in the mist. There was no possible way for an infant to be left alone in a place like Thunderstruck Grove and expect it to live longer than a minute; what more a whole day? "I think our little hunt for players at low health is a bust." He knew what had to be done. Raime was a little disappointed that he wouldn't be able to play longer but he did make a deal with the caster.
No kids dead as long as he provides him a person to kill.
He knew that thing wasn't even a kid but, if he didn't do this, his companion might be unable to hold off his urge to murder the 'helpless' child and likely cause both their deaths. Raime would rather only one of them die in this fool's errand of fulfilling class requirements. Swallowing his pride, he turned to face the caster. "The chances of our survival are absurdly low. Even less if we fall for that trap over there." He uses his head to gesture to the not baby. "How about we call it quits on finding low health players or bandits and I just let you kill me? I promised you a corpse. Well, here is the opportunity." He says before going to a seiza. "So how we gonna do this? You gonna strangle me or maybe you break my neck?"
Username: Raime Braun Race: Human Gender: Male Height: 189 cm Weight: 90 kg Voice Pitching: 0 Decorations: None notable. Appearance: Splitting image of his own physical appearance. Wearing a full set of traveler's clothes.
=Points when applied to HP, MP, or SP, each point consumed grants 10.=
HP – 320 [Determines how much damage you can take before death.]
[Ranged Proficiency Lvl.1] = Increase Proficiency with Ranged Weapons.
[First In, First Out] - Passive. Increase movement speed by 15% when engaging and disengaging enemies.
[Dive N Strike] - Active. 10% SP cost. Dive in any direction and roll, increasing evasion. If evasion is successful, increase the damage of the next attack.
[Zoned In] - Increase AGI by 20%. Passively Consumes 10 SP Per-Turn while Active.
[Asess] - Active skill that consumes 50 SP. Observe a single target and determine whether they are stronger or weaker than you. Has a chance of gleaning further statistical information.
Perception: Realistic Gore: On Pain Setting: 100% Clothing Damage: On Nudity Censor: Off Profanity Censor: Off Combat Action: Manual Spell Incantations: Manual
Helmet: [N/A] Armor: Traveller's Clothes (Gray) Arm Equipment: [N/A] Main Hand:Light Crossbow Offhand:Wargtooth Dagger Leg Equipment: Traveller's Shorts (Gray) Footwear: Traveller's Geta
Type Auxiliary Arms, First Stage +20% AGI, +50% DEX A length of yellowed parchment, with pictographs written upon one side in red ink. At each end of the parchment is a loop made of silvered roots.
All Beneath the Earth
Active. Periodically consumes 20 MP. Nuclei wraps around the caster's eyes like a blindfold, before granting them the ability to see night as if it were day, as well as to see through objects within a range of fifty meters. In this sight, Immortals and Riens are outlined in blue, monsters are outlined in red, and flora are outlined in yellow.
Equipped: Dual kodachi, plain black wood scabbard, nondescript hilt. Kusarifundo, plain long iron chains with weights on either end.
Uploaded Image Username:Ari Reina Caladis Race: Cat Gender: Female Height: 142cm Weight: 40kg Voice Pitching: -2 Decorations: Appearance: No real equipments yet, but looks like the picture just with more drab turtleneck and long skirt combo.Classes: None
Perception: Anime Gore: On Pain Setting: 20% Clothing Damage: On Nudity Censor: Off Profanity Censor: Off Combat Action: Manual Spell Incantations: Manual
Scratching her head, she looked glumly at the list of jobs on the stone. Ari didn't really want to get one that she didn't feel like playing, but apparently she was supposed to have one.
"Ah this ranger thing has stealth in it huh? I'll pick that one then." Looking past the list, it was also stated to have traps in it. A good start she suppose. Ninja was supposed to be stealthy, strong, fast and able to make their own gears. For now, she would have to see what she can do first. Traps would really help a lot. Getting stronger would be great, as well as gathering some poison now that she had a taste of the stronger creatures to be found. She read somewhere that very brightly colored creatures were the ones to look for for poison. All these knives would be great poisoned. As well as her twin kodachi.
Twin kodachi?
"Oh, that's right. Lew? What happened to my other sword?"
Bulwark Boneplate Rare Armor +100 HP Reduce physical damage taken by 20. Recover 2 SP for every hit taken.
Shamanic Beads Common Accessory +20 MP
Raider’s Wargtag Common Accessory +4 DEX, +4 LCK
Thunderstruck Amulet Uncommon Accessory +20 HP, +5 END, +3 LUC Reduce lightning damage taken by 20.
HP potions: 1 uncommon, 2 common
As much as he wanted to just knock off at least one requirement for his Necromancer job today, not even Amulak was greedy enough to take such an obvious-looking piece of bait in a zone where it was already incredibly dangerous for his level.
"Relax," He waved dismissively to Raime upon speaking of the hunt for low-health players.
"I not going to take obvious trap, this baby don't need to die, yes?"
What came after, though...
It wasn't killing Raime he had a problem with, oh no. If he was offering his neck, Amulak would take it. The problem was his odds solo against another monster like the centipede in this zone. He really didn't want to take another full 24 hours to make another run at the Grove if he screwed this up or got unlucky. And if Raime was gone, he was basically flying solo for the rest of this session considering Ames and Mags were...somewhere.
"Killing you is not problem. Making it through zone so we don't have to do this shit again is real problem. Lew back to town to simp. Ames and Mags disappear to somewhere. Not certain of chances at soloing. If I make it to tunnel, should not be problem." Amulak mused out loud, staring at Raime for a long moment before coming to a decision.
"I will take risk, then. Is only game, after all. Strangle...might take time. Turn off pain setting completely before we start, yes?" He started chanting, conjuring up Seeker Chains that he planned to wrap around Raime's neck. "We begin strangling after you make this not weird for you."
The scout looked up to the caster from his knelt position and shook his head from side to side. He had already swallowed most of his pride when he permitted himself to willingly die by the caster's hands for a class requirement.
He couldn't bear to put it any lower by denying himself his goal of completing all of Cacophony Concord's playable content at 100% realism. "I cannot do that, my friend. You, of all people, should know that I am too stubborn...too bullheaded to do so. Once I've set a goal, I'll do my damndest to achieve it." Despite being the one being executed, Raime held his head high with pride. Presenting his neck to his would be killer. His eyes filled with grim determination. "Do not insult my resolve and go easy on me."
Username: Raime Braun Race: Human Gender: Male Height: 189 cm Weight: 90 kg Voice Pitching: 0 Decorations: None notable. Appearance: Splitting image of his own physical appearance. Wearing a full set of traveler's clothes.
=Points when applied to HP, MP, or SP, each point consumed grants 10.=
HP – 320 [Determines how much damage you can take before death.]
[Ranged Proficiency Lvl.1] = Increase Proficiency with Ranged Weapons.
[First In, First Out] - Passive. Increase movement speed by 15% when engaging and disengaging enemies.
[Dive N Strike] - Active. 10% SP cost. Dive in any direction and roll, increasing evasion. If evasion is successful, increase the damage of the next attack.
[Zoned In] - Increase AGI by 20%. Passively Consumes 10 SP Per-Turn while Active.
[Asess] - Active skill that consumes 50 SP. Observe a single target and determine whether they are stronger or weaker than you. Has a chance of gleaning further statistical information.
Perception: Realistic Gore: On Pain Setting: 100% Clothing Damage: On Nudity Censor: Off Profanity Censor: Off Combat Action: Manual Spell Incantations: Manual
Helmet: [N/A] Armor: Traveller's Clothes (Gray) Arm Equipment: [N/A] Main Hand:Light Crossbow Offhand:Wargtooth Dagger Leg Equipment: Traveller's Shorts (Gray) Footwear: Traveller's Geta
Type Arms, First Stage +5% HP, +5% MP, +5% SP, +5% STR, +5% END, +5% AGI, +5% DEX, +5% LCK A silver-blue bracelet on the left wrist, from which a crackling thunderhead exudes out from. The thunderhead is affected, but not dispersed, by the wind.
Sanctity of Fulmination
Passive. Zeus can absorb a certain amount of Equipment, Accessories, and Consummables. Consummables absorbed by Zeus can stack infinitely, so long as they are the same type. After doing so, Zeus is able to transform into any of the Equipment that it has absorbed, possessing these traits, regardless of the form taken:
- Traits that fulfill special conditions that absorbed equipment would fulfill, such as spellcasting implements. - Stat increases taken from the highest bonuses offered by the absorbed items, per individual stat. - All effects possessed by the absorbed equipments and accessories. - The ability to verbally invoke the effects of any absorbed consummables.
Transformation is instantaneous, but can be slowed intentionally for dramatic purpose, in which case it occurs initially as an object being drawn out from the thundercloud, and with every instance afterwards as a bolt of lightning bursting before reforming. At First Stage, Zeus can absorb 3 Items.
Items Stored (3/3): - Lotus Bloom (Rare Shield) [+20 HP, +50 MP, +15 DEX, -10 END, Reduce magical damage taken by 20, and reduce water element damage by an additional 20. At the cost of 50 MP, temporarily extend magical damage reduction to all allies within 10 meters.] - Kodachi (Common Sword)
Weapon Proficiency LVL 1Increase proficiency with all weapons. Power AttackActively consume SP while preparing for an attack; unleash for increased damage on attack. Combat StancePassive. Increase STR, END, or DEX by 10% at will. Five second cooldown. Double StrikeActive. 25% SP cost. Attack twice with your weapon, dealing incremental bonus damage based off SP consumed. Can be combo'd into from Power Attack. Sundering BlowActive. 40% SP cost. Strike downwards, causing a burst of energy around you and dealing damage to all enemies. May inflict Stun. Range increases by 5 meters for every 100 SP consumed, starting from a radius of 10 meters. Can be combo'd into from Power Attack.
Lew sighed in relief as Ari finally picked up her class. He clenched his hand into a fist while waiting for her selection, still feeling the surging of his nuclei within him. He wondered what sort of combos he could perform with such an item, especially if he had more money to buy better items to perform them with. Before he became lost in thought, he was brought back to the world by Ari's musings, namely the status of her sword.
"Oh. I'm going to borrow it for a while, if that's fine. Staff isn't cutting it right now. I'll give it back later, anyway."
Lew remembered the best place to get a sword at, and how he spoiled his relations with the proprietor of that store. Still, he definitely felt as if having one in his possession would be better off. If he could somehow make amends, he would. It was either that or finding another smith to craft him a sword... or praying to the RNG to give him a sword, too. Placing his hand on the keystone quickly, he made an inquiry to keep a future note of.
Class Search: Swordsman, Katana
"Well, we should at least get you caught up." Lew sighed, not particularly excited about the prospects of going to the woods with Ari when she's still likely going to need to play catch-up. "We could probably do a quest or two in some of the easier areas to get you ahead, maybe grab some more rishi to buy better things. Should we start on looking?"
Lew made his way to the nearby bounty board either way, searching for any jobs particularly aligned to the temple that he belonged to, or the San-Li. If he could build up rapport with the faction most aligned to his faith, it would likely be all the better for him to reach his goals in the future. Holy damage tends to be quite effective vs. Monsters, after all.
Type Arms-Guard, First Stage +20% HP, +20% STR, +10% END A set of tattoos branded upon your skin, which calls forth a flaming demon to your assistance when certain conditions are met.
Retaliation on the Brink
Activates upon receiving fatal damage. Survive attack with 1 HP, remove all status effects, and summon [Ashwatthama] with HP equal to the total amount of damage dealt to you by the attacker. All attacks and skills targeting you will target the [Ashwatthama]. Upon vanquishing the creature, recover HP equal to double the remaining HP of the [Ashwatthama].
Lv 12 - Low Class
Traveller’s Proficiency – Passive. 10% increase to STR, END, and AGI when out of combat.
Mountain Wind – Active. 30 SP cost per round. Recover HP equal to 10% of your END. Splitter – Active. 20% SP cost. Perform a powerful vertical strike. Damage is doubled against inanimate objects, such as terrain or equipment.
Ooh... So that is why there was a person in the tree. That makes so much sense. Klein nods as the area around him slow contract to his size. Soon, he will be pressed and dried up like those bugs in a collection books. And, truth be told, he wasn't very angry about his angry. Just thoroughly surprised at this miniboss. Perhaps he will rage again when he lost this boss, but now he knew it, Klein is just going to be a bitch and go online to search. He understands that he is not the first to play this game, the ample amount of reviews being upload on the past few days already show how hot this game is.
Still, just because he had accept his death here doesn't mean Klein won't without a fight. Klein crouch and proceed to hit at the ground (or the tree roots between his feet?) He can only tell apart what are his feet and what is ground by touch. Even then, the fact that he need to touch to determine his previous cut before swinging another axe also slow down his progress significantly. He doesn't know how much time he had left, but the pressure on his head is growing.
For better or worse, it seemed like they were invited to the home of the oni. They didn’t seem to be hostile to the duo. Wary, yes. In all fairness, who wouldn’t be wary of them? Immortals were violent murder-hobos that saw living beings as piles of XP. Riens weren’t much better. Mags didn’t quite make eye contact with any of the oni. She’d rather be the sideshow than get ganked for looking at an oni’s wife the wrong way. She did walk with some bravado, though. Her dance from early never really stopped. It just transitioned to walking dances.
When she passed the chef oni, Mags quickly handed it off to him. She didn’t exactly know what force she could yeet the meat at the chef. She hadn’t limit-tested her strength yet and she didn’t want to accidentally aggro every single oni in existence over some meat.
Finally, they stood before what Mags presumed was the chief oni. Judging by his unique appearance, he was definitely a fight that Mags couldn’t win.
Probably. Wouldn’t know unless she tried, but her gamer instincts were telling her to not try to game on him. The question was, was what he said a command or a statement?
Well, it didn’t matter. Mags instantly turned to Ames. “Remember how to party rock?” She asked, already ready to shuffle.
Ames was momentarily stunned that the chieftain spoke English. Or common or whatever. Human translated language. It pleased him to think that with at least one oni that could communicate directly to them, that maybe he could learn the oni language in kind! ...buuuut that wasn't really immediately important at the moment.
"That's an old one, but... yeah I'm pretty sure I remember it," Ames replied, scratching the back of his head. Much the same as his companion, Ames entered the hidden den with respectfulness, trying not to marvel too hard at all the oni and their cultural things gathered there. Every little comment, even in their foreign monstrous language, perked the redhead's ears and he'd turn in someone's direction only to pass his eyes quickly over, returning to the back of their guide until they stood in front of the chieftain.
And with the sheer virility of someone who would sing that they’re sexy and they know it, Mags began to shuffle with the as much gusto as she could. With pursed lips, a whistle that imitated the backing electronic samples that were so iconic to the dance came out of her mouth. Her partner was right beside her, picking the pace up as the steps came back to him. Jeez, talk about vintage, Ames was pretty sure neither he nor Mags were even born when this dance came out. Still, good moves were good moves. It was easy to keep pace when Mags was whistling the haphazard tune, and the bells still strapped to Ames’ ankles filled in with the slap of their feet against the ground.
Throughout the entire display, which was varying degrees of interesting and cringeworthy, the spiderweb-marked oni did not so much as twitch, even if the three other onis swayed and bobbed to what fragmented beats Magpie and Ames formed through their movements and their whistling. At the end of it, with both Immortals soaked with sweat, only a single word left his mouth.
“Why?”
With a huff and a puff in her breath, Mags was caught in a rare moment of introspection. Why did this entire dance arc of her gaming career begin? It was something about wanting to see if they were friendly. Though, saying that she decided to dance like a moron because she wanted to see if they’d attack her in response might not have been the smartest thing to say. Who knew, maybe the oni chieftain respected honesty above all else.
But Mags was a bit blustered from the chieftain. Really just killed her vibe.
“Seemed like a good idea at the time, really.” She said as she scratched her head, a slight blush rising as she glanced at the ground.
"Uh... I mean, don't you all dance too? " Ames asked, following up on Mags' comment and himself feeling thrown off by the chieftain's question. He caught his breath quickly and stood up straight, puffing his chest out in a meager display of pride before the oni. "So I guess... why not?"
“Kuru-Chiba’s Grave is where the weak become meat. Your kind slay ours. Our kind hunts yours.” The oni turned his head to the side, one hand turning palm-up. The shadows bent, before another oni, clad head to toe in bandages smeared with calligraphy, emerged, placing a bone pipe, smoldering with something that smelled of almonds, into the hand. He dismissed the servant, and smoked from the pipe. “You choose here to dance, though you’ve no qualms with slaughter elsewhere.”
He breathed out the nutty smoke, and for a moment, the two Immortals could see the cloud shift, from kappas to goblins to wolves, before dispersing into the aether.
“Why?”
Mags didn’t quite expect this to lead to an actual moment of introspection. Really, why did she treat the oni different? Well, the kappa attacked her first. The fight against the martial frog made her think that there was more to encounters than just murder-for-XP. Though, she was still very indifferent to the entire murder thing. It was just a game, after all.
“I kinda like the dadbods..”
Ames hadn't heard what his friend mumbled, which might have saved her some embarrassment in the long run. He thought about what kind of answer the oni leader was really looking for. 'We didn't know you guys would be cool' didn't seem to be that strong of a reason and, like Mags, Ames didn't think 'it was the set up for an attack' would fly either.
Waaaaait a second, he thought, was this one of those really upfront moral choices that used to be popular in games a few years back? The kind that admonished the player for playing the game? Wasn't killing monsters the best way to level up in games like this anyway? ...it was fair to consider, but after a moment Ames thought it probably wasn't. It was still early on in their CaCo game time, but he was reminded that the game's selling point was how realistic it was. So they probably really didn't need to go around killing everything, and if they did those things they killed would probably be upset.
...then again he did really want to level up.
"...I guess we didn't know there was another way?" Ames said slowly, chewing on his own words. "It's like, fighting stuff is normal for us humans and it can be kind of fun honestly. But it was fun dancing against your tribesmen too. If you could get stronger just making friends instead that would be cool."
Another long moment, another narrowing of the eyes, before the leader of the onis removed the pipe from his lips. He did not speak a word as he turned it around, then offered it first to Magpie, then to Ames.
Mags was not going to turn down the chance of ripping a fat toke. After all, she spent hours inefficiently grinding to figure out apothecary stuff the day before. Getting the chance to light up some magic hindsight stuff? No way in hell she was going to miss that.
So she took a puff from the pipe.
The pipe tasted of rotten wood, mixed with the faint flavor of alcohol and a stronger stench of burnt mushrooms, a combination disgusting enough that Magpie almost gagged on it. Whether through personal experience with recreational drugs or just a desire not to look like a loser, however, the brawler held on, heaving in a lungful of it and feeling the smoke settle into her veins.
Around her, the world began to darken, tinged in a light blue that blurred the edges of whatever she saw. Numbness settled into the tips of her fingers, and her spine felt electric, oversensitive to the fabric rested against it. As her gaze turned up to see the oni remove the pipe from her hands, however, Magpie could see shadows lingering behind him. Countless individual shadows, humanoid in shape but unclear in form, clinging onto his sinewy form. It was like looking into the depths of an oceanic trench, a darkness that swallowed your mind whole. Others in the room too held such strange darkness, including Ames, but only the oni leader had it in such density, such concentration.
And as the buzz faded, Magpie’s vision returned to normal.
Mags didn’t really learn anything from doing that. If she had to hazard a guess as to what she saw, it would be their power levels. She didn’t really think too hard about it considering how she had to try incredibly hard to not vomit everywhere and look like a dweebus. All she could really do is look at Ames. She didn’t say anything, but the expression on her face told the red-headed warrior everything. Don’t do it. It’s like huffing a tree’s ass.
Ames looked between Mags and the oni chieftain, eyeing the pipe apprehensively. Magpie was uncharacteristically quiet after the huff of... well, whatever was in the pipe, and the look on her face read clear regret, if just for the taste.
"Um." Ames smiled widely, unsure. Would refusing enrage the chief? If possible Ames wanted to keep these nebulous friendly relationships going. At the very least he wanted to leave the oni's den alive. He had a lot of shit to do today in the game after all.
"A... peace pipe?" Ames tried asking a more subtle inquiry as to just what it was, gingerly taking the pipe but not indulging just yet.
“Heightens one’s awareness, briefly.”
"Oh!" Well, that didn't sound that bad. The face Mags was making didn't bode well, but Ames could probably survive a sour taste in exchange for "heightened awareness." He put the pipe to his lips and inhaled.
And immediately choked.
It must have gone down the wrong pipe, or he must have done it incorrectly, or he simply did not have the same fortitude as Magpie, or perhaps he was simply inexperienced with this whole drug-smoking thing, but Ames didn’t even last one second before his body twitched, spasmed, and coughed out the rotten-wood-smoke. What buzz might have been felt was overwritten by sheer disgust instead, and the pipe fell out of his hand as he wretched forwards, lungs heaving out with violent force.
The purple oni caught the pipe before it struck the ground, and gave Ames a look that mixed disappointment and amusement.
“Try again?”
Wheezing and eyes watering, Ames harshly nodded his head. The red head hadn't smoked a day in his life (well except that one time last semester... but it was just a trial run!), and didn't really plan to start, but one: this was a videogame. Two: he really couldn't stand that hint of disappointment in the chief's eyes. It irked him more than being laughed at ever could. To impress the cool demon philosophical dudes he'd have to take another drag of that disgusting concoction. "Goddamnit," he hissed weakly. It was seriously gross. Ames reached out for the pipe again, cutting a quick glance to Mags fishing for sympathy.
Mags could only look at her with frigidity. She told the red-head so.
Really should've listened to her, yuck, Ames thought, but he also felt it was probably worth it. With the rancid taste already lingering in his mouth, the second try wasn't as bad. Ames felt the hairs on his skin stand on end, every little sensation amplified once the smoke entered his body. The blue tinted visions of shadows haunting everyone in the room reached Ames the same way they had Magpie, and they faded away just as quickly.
"Wow, that was..." Totally disgusting. "Um, strong." Ames blinked away the last of his darkened vision, rubbing his eyes briefly. "That was heightened sense? What was with the shadow people?"
“I am,” the purple oni said, reclining once more against his throne, “a spirit-seer. All under the heavens, excepting the foreigners, grow strong through no other manner than the vanquishment of others. Through battle, we make the might of others our own.”
The three oni who had initially led Magpie and Ames here were slowly slinking off now; whatever weight the conversation had was lost on them.
“That is to say, there is no other way. Knowing this, what does your future look like?”
Spirit-seer. That sounds cool. Ames listened to the chieftain, and from what it sounded like... the oni was just reconfirming what the warrior already thought was true - that you basically had to keep defeating enemies to get stronger. Ames could feel himself deflating a little bit. All that mystery and nasty smoking just to hear that come from the head oni's mouth. Still, it occurred to Ames that the chieftain wasn't exactly shaming the humans for killing earlier as he'd previously thought, but that he was genuinely confused as to why the hell they'd decided to follow through with a non-aggressive approach that time. It kind of made Ames feel like the whole experience was going right over his head. His face colored lightly.
”I don’t know, I’m kinda stupid.” Mags frankly said. If that was a vague threat, then her head would probably be popped like a grape in a minute. No real point in fighting it. If those shadows were dead people, then they were thoroughly outmatched.
"Come on, you're not stupid, just headstrong," Ames said. Magpie could be a genius so long as it came to better serving herself, or so Ames thought. The red head looked back towards the chieftain, meeting the oni's eyes. He didn't exactly know what his future held per se, but he did have a goal in mind.
"Being able to talk with you was cool, but I'm not gonna stop fighting stuff. Like you said, it's the only way to get stronger, so... in my future, I'll become a strong and cool magic knight." Yup, his goal was really as simple as that, for now anyway. "And I want to learn a bunch of stuff about the world, like species languages and cultures!"
The purple oni nodded, his inhuman expression unreadable. “Was it only you two who followed?”
”Probably, yea.” Mags replied, her hands almost shielding her eyes from Ames’ sunny disposition. ”Unless you count the shadow people that surround us, apparently.”
“Then I will leave them to you.”
Rising from his throne, he raised his right leg up into the air and stomped downwards, an action that caused the entire tribe to stand up straight. A guttural roar sounded out, and immediately, the cavern became a flurry of motion, horned oni of all shapes and sizes grabbing what valuables and consumables were available. The chef oni, in an impressive display of might and endurance, raised his massive pot of stew over his heat, apparently unbothered by the searing hot bottom of the cookware. The three hunter onis that had initially invited Magpie and Ames over were bundling up weaponry and essentials as well, while the mothers were similarly in a frenetic hurry, herding up children and leading them off into smaller tunnels.
And as for their leader? With a murmured incantation, the skeletal throne clattered to life, unearthing its true form: the reanimated skeleton of a giant, three-headed snake. Stepping up and claiming his place upon the central head, the purple oni looked down at the two, as the cavern quickly became less and less ornamented.
“Our kind dance together as a part of a mating ritual,” he spoke, flashing, for the first time, a toothy grin. “Though there are many other tribes within Kuru-Chiba’s Grave, if you wish to speak again to me and mine, approach an oni and ask after ‘Rashasta’.”
Above, the booming of some arcane force resounded, causing dust to fall from the ground.
“Bring good food, good drink, and good stories. And if you wish to take my strength as well, then prepare to wager your own.”
Oh. So that explained a lot. No wonder the dad-bodied oni hunters were so interested in strange humans dancing like that. It was one hell of a culture shock that sent Mags to a crouching position, her hands covering her blushed face. She almost engaged in ERP. Wild.
Still, after the throne revealed its true form, Mags couldn’t help but announce how fucking cool he was.
”God, he’s so fucking cool. He’s so fucking cool!”
"Can't argue with that," Ames said. He was taking the whole mating ritual reveal a lot easier than Mags. Poor girl was developing a serious crush, but Ames wasn't one to judge. He committed the chieftain's name, Rashasta, to memory and watched the tribe go about cleaning house. Their efficiency was impressive, and Rashasta's parting words were equally so, but...
"Uh, wait, what do you mean ’them’?"
The answer to Ames’s question was answered, not by the departing onis, but by a much louder explosion, followed by the groaning of an old tree being torn apart. Heavy footsteps sounded out, and within moments, five adventurers practically burst into the cavern. Their vanguard, replete in full body blackwood armor enameled with gold, bore a hammer made of translucent amber, from which some demonic insect was sealed within. Bringing up the flanks were two swordsmen, one bearing a straight sword with a lion’s head as a stylized crossguard, the other a dual wielder clad in a smouldering wushu robe, whose steps left fire in its wake. From behind, tattooed arm raised and mana flowing within, was a dark-skinned caster who wore a bearskin cloak over their shoulders but had nothing but a scrap of hide to conceal her rippling chest muscles. Amongst the hubbub of the four’s dynamic entrance, Magpie and Ames almost missed the core of the party, a sallow miko with bagged eyes, tangled hair, and a stained vestment that looked more like a painter’s apron than a holy woman’s dress.
The five looked around immediately, but the oni were long gone, the cavern bereft of any sign at all of previous inhabitants, and with a growl, the heavily armored vanguard pointed at the smaller tunnels within the walls, some Magpie and Ames knew would lead to communal rooms, others of which the oni tribe had taken to escape from. “Oi!” he called, voice echoing off the walls, “You two! Where did those oni go? Charmed ‘em into leading you to their den, yeah?”
If they played their cards right, the brawler and the warrior may be able to join forces with a party that looked consistent enough to actually stick together while farming, and practically feast on EXP once they hunted down those oni! May be a little rude to do, but on the other hand, Rashasta hadn't ever told them not to do as Immortals often do, had he? @OwO@Yankee With the selection made, Ari could almost instantly feel a surge of power shoot through her body, the fur of her tail standing on end as she leveled up eleven times over, the reserved EXP she retained from her fight with the two kappas and the centipede woman finally coming into play. The AP that she had now could certainly go a long way in ensuring that she could adventure with her friends without dying instantly…but on the other hand, she could skyrocket herself to 100 AGI instead with that amount of points.
Decisions, decisions, decisions…
Lugh, on the other hand, spent a quick scan of the planks nailed to the wall once more, but unfortunately hadn’t yet found anything that seemed to scream San-Li Clan to him. While there were some merchants hiring to go in that direction, it didn’t appear as if there were any bounties out for monsters that the San-Li particularly wanted dead. Perhaps, as a neutral city-state, Nyu-Taro had strict controls over what sort of quests each of the five clans could advertise out in public? Upon a second glance, however, the warrior was able to find two quests posted by members of the Shin-Yu Temple.
One had to do with collecting ‘Spirit Grass’, grass that looked perpetually covered in frost, which when exposed to direct sunlight, would wilt and dry up into a dark red shape. Though it paid well, it was also found in the Thunderstruck Grove; whether Ari was fit for such an encounter now that she was properly levelled (to a degree, at least), was up for debate.
The other quest was simpler, that being a journey through the wetlands bordering the Goldspun Fields and the Pearl Bloom River to collect a certain package from a hermit that lived in the area, and then to deliver it unopened to the Shin-Yu Temple. Certainly, it was an easier task, but on the other hand, there were kappas, and could Lugh’s mind truly survive another round with those slippery bastards?
In the absence of both these quests, however, there was always the option of just killing monsters like they’ve always had. The simplest trade of an Immortal was one that dealt in mortalty, after all.
Sword Warrior +15% SP | +10% STR | +5% DEX
A warrior devoted to the study of swordsmanship, capable of both skillful and brutish maneveurs.
Achieve Max Level in Warrior. STR and DEX combined is greater than or equal to 150. Vanquish 50 monsters with a sword.
Sohei +10% MP | +5% END | +15% DEX
Warrior monks sworn to the protection of their faith, whose virtues are made manifest in their skill with the blade.
Achieve Max Level in Monk. SP is greater than or equal to 1000. Earn the recognition of the highest ranking priest of your temple.
Samurai +5% SP | +10% STR | +15% END
Noble weapon masters, sworn to a clan to slay the champions and scatter the infantry.
Max SP equal to or greater than 100. Slay 5 Ogres in solo combat. Join a Clan and obtain recognition from the Clan Leader.
Exorcist +10% HP | 5% MP | 5% SP | 10% STR
The slayer of ghosts and the purger of curses, wielding blades capable of laying to rest those that have yet to pass.
Max MP and STR equal to or greater than 100 and 10, respectively. Defeat 5 monsters, utilizing a spellcasting weapon as a martial weapon. Learn and perform the Daikagura at Shin-Yu Temple.
Blacksmith +5% HP | +5% SP | 10% DEX | 10% LCK
Hammer-bearing craftsmen who refine ore and shape metal.
END and DEX combined greater than or equal to 20. Obtain a Personal Forge. Receive training from an individual with Max Level Blacksmith.
One, Immortals apparently didn’t have anything in their bowels or their bladders, so Amulak wasn’t immediately hit by the stench of Raime’s taint.
Two, even Immortals were worth EXP, and the mage, for all his efforts, gained another level, putting him at a nice, round, 40.
Those were the only two benefits, and with Raime’s refusal to set his pain levels down to 0% for this grim, and frankly unexciting task, Amulak had a wholly fantastic portrayal of an adult male being slowly choked to death by magical chains, complete with spasming limbs, terribly strange facial expressions, and a complexion that changed from red to purple as drool slobbered out of Raime’s mouth and his fingernails were chipped and torn by his body’s instinctual attempts to tear the magically-constructed chains off his neck.
But the scout’s strength was insufficient, and after five long, weird minutes, Raime died, leaving Amulak with a corpse that was warm and sweaty, but at least relatively uninjured. Thankfully, the mage still possessed the strength of four humans in his body, and with only some difficulty, he hefted his dead friend on his shoulders and started striding off into the mist once more, leaving the bundled baby to whatever fate awaited them.
Alert for nearby monsters and constantly taken refuge behind trees or rock formations, the mage carefully made his way towards the Blasphemed Tunnels, reliant only on directional instructions that were no longer too clear to him, after so many detours within these desecrated woods. As luck would have it though, Amulak found his way after all, spotting landmark in the form of a tree pierced seven times by massive, iron nails and travelling southwestwards after that for another five minutes, to find himself at the mouth of the tunnel.
Dark, purple moss clung over the top of the tunnel, which leered partway off the ground like the jaws of a snake. Heavy ropes were littered about all around the opening, their talismans burnt or torn by those who wished to enter regardless of what taboos they’d be committing. It was all for the sake of power, after all, all for the purpose of being able to live a particular fantasy. A ghostly wail, or perhaps just the subterranean wind, blew out from the Blasphemed Tunnel’s entrance like the sigh of a forgotten god, bringing with it the smell of damp and rot.
Before he could delve into the depths though, a footstep sounded behind him.
“Oh shit, you’re trying for that thing too, aren’tcha?” A beautiful youth (though really, what Immortal wasn’t beautiful?) stepped out from the fog, his hair as white as freshly fallen snow and his eyes as red as rubies. Stitchmarks (perhaps real, perhaps tattoos) crossed his face, and he wore a ragged cloak that partially hid his studded, leather armor underneath. A brutish axe, rusted and chipped, was held in his right hand, while in his left, he dragged a wooden sled with him, from which a short-haired archer with stitches wrapping around her neck laid, complexion as pale as death.
“Looks like we’ve both not got a party or nuthin’, so wanna party up for this?” @Psyker Landshark@Searat His SP continued to drop, until it reached zero, and after that, his HP began to drop too, every second bringing him closer and closer to death. The roots sealed him in darkness soon, and only the sensation of gravity could inform the muscled warrior which way to swing his cleaver. The space became smaller and smaller, the air becoming humid with his breath. Small roots tangled his limbs, but he could still get out of their grasp. But he was being smothered still, the exhaustion slowing his body down more than the entangling roots ever could.
Like being stuck in a swamp. Like being suffocated by a pillow. Like being only half-asleep, unable to muster up the strength to wake up.
His health drained. His limbs slowed. His body began to shut down.
Within the Thunderstruck Grove, there once more was a large tree, its branches budding with petals stained by the blood of the Immortal trapped within. There it stood, offering deathly repose for those who carelessly wander by. For within these desecrated woods, it was not merely monsters and ghosts that sought to rend your soul for your body. Trees too were…
A fist, alit with demonic fire, burst out from the trunk and tore it open in a display of bestial fury. The tree quaked, but the damage that it had already taken from Klein’s nearly single-minded desire to smash it apart had yet to be regenerated from, and it was certainly in no state to deal with the mountain man again. Whatever status effect afflicting Klein had been removed the moment his Nuclei’s ability triggered, and with that, his body regained strength, strength enough to turn this grotesque mass of roots masquerading as a tree into naught but charred woodchips and ash!
Really, it was a bit concerning, how he was reliant on his Nuclei’s ridiculous power even after getting levels and a job, but oh well. Least he leveled up from it, right? @Shovel
Bow Proficiency - Passive. Increase proficiency with Bow weapons. Focused Shot – Active. 20% SP cost. Perform a highly accurate ranged attack. While aiming, increase persona time dilation by 10%. Spread Shot – Active. 30% SP cost. Nock three projectiles into your ranged weapon at once, and attack three different targets in a single attack. Damage is reduced by 20% for each individual attack.
Type Auxiliary Arms, First Stage +20% AGI, +50% DEX A length of yellowed parchment, with pictographs written upon one side in red ink. At each end of the parchment is a loop made of silvered roots.
All Beneath the Earth
Active. Periodically consumes 20 MP. Nuclei wraps around the caster's eyes like a blindfold, before granting them the ability to see night as if it were day, as well as to see through objects within a range of fifty meters. In this sight, Immortals and Riens are outlined in blue, monsters are outlined in red, and flora are outlined in yellow.
Equipped: Single kodachi, plain black wood scabbard, nondescript hilt. Kusarifundo, plain long iron chains with weights on either end.
Uploaded Image Username:Ari Reina Caladis Race: Cat Gender: Female Height: 142cm Weight: 40kg Voice Pitching: -2 Decorations: Appearance: No real equipments yet, but looks like the picture just with more drab turtleneck and long skirt combo.Classes: None
Perception: Anime Gore: On Pain Setting: 20% Clothing Damage: On Nudity Censor: Off Profanity Censor: Off Combat Action: Manual Spell Incantations: Manual
"Hmm, fine. I'll let you borrow it for the moment." She wasn't too displeased, still staring at the weird sickle, or kama as it would be called here. It felt... fleshy? Like the chitinous squishy feeling of an actual black centipede, the 'blade' made of what seemed to be centipede legs, dark and bright orange in places, spreading when she gripped it to form an oddly hard sharp membranous blade between them. It was definitely what Ari would describe as 'cool as heck'
Ari felt the sudden thrum of power as she got a class, making every single bit of her body vibrate like a string on a guitar.
"Whoah what happened?"
Looking through her status, she noticed the unspent points, and allocated them immediately. Of course, she had a specific idea of what she wanted already, and hesitated not one bit in any of the allocations. There was now no stopping the excited girl from zipping about the stone, unable to contain her excitement.
"Hey! Hey, Lew! Help me with something?"
Perhaps now would be the time for that little errand for Fat Truck?
Type Arms, First Stage +5% HP, +5% MP, +5% SP, +5% STR, +5% END, +5% AGI, +5% DEX, +5% LCK A silver-blue bracelet on the left wrist, from which a crackling thunderhead exudes out from. The thunderhead is affected, but not dispersed, by the wind.
Sanctity of Fulmination
Passive. Zeus can absorb a certain amount of Equipment, Accessories, and Consummables. Consummables absorbed by Zeus can stack infinitely, so long as they are the same type. After doing so, Zeus is able to transform into any of the Equipment that it has absorbed, possessing these traits, regardless of the form taken:
- Traits that fulfill special conditions that absorbed equipment would fulfill, such as spellcasting implements. - Stat increases taken from the highest bonuses offered by the absorbed items, per individual stat. - All effects possessed by the absorbed equipments and accessories. - The ability to verbally invoke the effects of any absorbed consummables.
Transformation is instantaneous, but can be slowed intentionally for dramatic purpose, in which case it occurs initially as an object being drawn out from the thundercloud, and with every instance afterwards as a bolt of lightning bursting before reforming. At First Stage, Zeus can absorb 3 Items.
Items Stored (3/3): - Lotus Bloom (Rare Shield) [+20 HP, +50 MP, +15 DEX, -10 END, Reduce magical damage taken by 20, and reduce water element damage by an additional 20. At the cost of 50 MP, temporarily extend magical damage reduction to all allies within 10 meters.] - Kodachi (Common Sword)
Weapon Proficiency LVL 4Increase proficiency with all weapons. Power AttackActively consume SP while preparing for an attack; unleash for increased damage on attack. Combat StancePassive. Increase STR, END, or DEX by 10% at will. Five second cooldown. Double StrikeActive. 25% SP cost. Attack twice with your weapon, dealing incremental bonus damage based off SP consumed. Can be combo'd into from Power Attack. Sundering BlowActive. 40% SP cost. Strike downwards, causing a burst of energy around you and dealing damage to all enemies. May inflict Stun. Range increases by 5 meters for every 100 SP consumed, starting from a radius of 10 meters. Can be combo'd into from Power Attack.
As Lew examined the different classes that would enhance his swordsmanship, one peculiar choice did cause him to raise a few eyebrows. Blacksmith? How were they even considered swordsmen when they specifically wielded hammers in their description? None of this really made sense to Lew, but it felt as if the class was put there for a reason. Perhaps this class was his true calling? It was only sensible, after all, as his Nuclei was already a pseudo weapon crafter. It would also be a way for Lew to contribute to his allies in a much more tangible matter, and it could even open a more direct approach to modifying his Nuclei. Maybe he could even forge in the middle of battle through his Nuclei, creating the right weapon for the current situation. This was perfect, as Lew knew just the blacksmith to-
... Right. Lew just remembered why he couldn't get a new sword. Maybe if Lew bought her more sake, or even found a slab of rare ore for her to use, she'd consider training him? Ehhh, fixing NPC relations was too much for Lew to think about. He'll probably consider some of the other classes for now, but go into smithing only if he was able to fix his relationship with the Oni Smith at some point... or if he could find someone else to train him. Nah, Oni Smith sounds like a more interesting trainer. Regardless, the other classes seemed interesting as well. Exorcist was always an option given his place at the Shin-Yu Temple, and Sohei also looked like a direction he could go to if he wished to impress the ranks of the priesthood. Aside from that, all it really required was to max out the Monk class, which also sounded easy. It's not like it would require a dramatic shift in his playstyle or anything anyway, right?
As far as the quests were concerned, Lew had decided to grab both, but had a particular interest in the delivery quest. Well, "interest" is not the right word. After dealing with the kappa for so long, not knowing just how far his physical limits can be stretched (in more than one ways, sadly), Lew almost dreaded facing them off once more. What drew Lew to the quest was that it was something Lew could most easily guide Ari through. As painful as it was dealing with the Kappa, Lew was far more familiar with their moveset out of everyone else in the party at this point. Countless hours of solo grinding them meant that he would be able to know most, if not all of their tricks, which meant that he would be able to protect Ari from facing her second death.
And speak of the devil, Ari was zipping around the place like she just snorted a line of coke. It seemed she needed help with something as well. Lew visibly strained as he took a glimpse at Ari's health bar, however, seeing as it is still pretty abysmal. He didn't judge, for now, but it's likely he'll need to actually try and be a tank at this point, which will be annoying for him to deal with.
"... Alright, what do you need help with? If you die again, I'm not helping you a third time." Lew groaned, annoyed that his role had dramatically shifted from "tank" to "babysitter" once more.
Abilities: Power Attack Actively consume SP while preparing for an attack; unleash for increased damage on attack. Combat Stance Passive. Increase STR, END, or DEX by 10% at will. Five second cooldown. Double Strike Active. 25% SP cost. Attack twice with your weapon, dealing incremental bonus damage based off SP consumed. Can be combo'd into from Power Attack. Sundering Blow Active. 40% SP cost. Strike downwards, causing a burst of energy around you and dealing damage to all enemies. May inflict Stun. Range increases by 5 meters for every 100 SP consumed, starting from a radius of 10 meters. Can be combo'd into from Power Attack.
Funds: 3883 Rishi
Item Pouch (Common):
Wargtooth Halberd
Ankle Bells
Common Health Potion x4
Equipment
Main Hand: Adventurer's Sword C
No extra effect.
Off Hand: Adventurer's Buckler C
No extra effect.
Head: Battlerider's Cowl R +50 HP +10 AGI
Increase [Charge] attack damage by 20%. Increase [Riding] proficiency by 10%.
Armor:
Arms:
Legs:
Shoes:
Accessory: Divining Rattlebones C +8 LCK
No extra effect.
Accessory: Banner of the Raid Chief R +30 SP +15 STR +10 DEX
x% chance of increasing ally’s damage by 10% when they attack. X equals 5 x the amount of party members. This effect does not stack.
Accessory: Deep Red Cloak C
No extra effect.
Accessory:
Perception: Fantastic Gore: Pixelated Pain Setting: 40% Clothing Damage: On Nudity Censor: Personal Profanity Censor: Off Combat Action: Stylish Spell Incantations: Stylish
aмeѕ aмeѕ
_________________ Man, those oni worked fast. Ames watched them hurry away, but as soon as the sound of people crashing through the cave towards them reached her ears she kicked at Mags to get the brawler up and over her embarrassing sexual crisis. Very soon, the two Immortals had company in the form of fellows humans.
And those fellow humans were cool! Ames' eyes sparkled as she looked at their sleek matching armor and neat weapons. She couldn't wait to look like that! As each of the newcomers appeared in the room, Ames gave them a once over. This was a proper party! With super cool gear! Her own group really needed to get their shit together. Herself included. As soon as they left she'd have to finish up unlocking those classes. Actually this whole dance battle and subsequent spiritual experience in friendship kinda of got her way off track...
"Oi!"
"Hm?" Ames blinked, her mind coming back to the situation at hand. Humans were way less intimidating than monstrous races, so she let her thoughts wander as she sometimes did. Now that she was back and listening to the guy, her brows grew furrowed. It wasn't exactly surprising that they were some kind of hunting party after the oni... but Ames wasn't about to send them after Rashasta and his tribe. They had like, some kind of bond now! So she stood with Mags in the cavern's center chamber, soil packed hard beneath her feet loose first still filtering in from above. She looked the vanguard in the eye, breathed in deeply through her nose, and...
...she broke into a light sweat. Ames was bad at lying. Maybe she could pull it off with strangers if she kept her cool though, so she released the breathe she'd been holding before speaking.
"What oni? We just found a hollowed out den and decided to explore."
Type Arms-Guard, First Stage +20% HP, +20% STR, +10% END A set of tattoos branded upon your skin, which calls forth a flaming demon to your assistance when certain conditions are met.
Retaliation on the Brink
Activates upon receiving fatal damage. Survive attack with 1 HP, remove all status effects, and summon [Ashwatthama] with HP equal to the total amount of damage dealt to you by the attacker. All attacks and skills targeting you will target the [Ashwatthama]. Upon vanquishing the creature, recover HP equal to double the remaining HP of the [Ashwatthama].
Lv 12 - Low Class
Traveller’s Proficiency – Passive. 10% increase to STR, END, and AGI when out of combat.
Mountain Wind – Active. 30 SP cost per round. Recover HP equal to 10% of your END. Splitter – Active. 20% SP cost. Perform a powerful vertical strike. Damage is doubled against inanimate objects, such as terrain or equipment.
In Thunderstruck Grove, where screaming noises echoes in the background and the lightning flashes inside the heavy clouds, Klein was slowly making his way out of this place. The battle was not very challenging except for the final part where he was almost executed if it was not because of his passive. Usually, Klein would have gone for another hour or two of farming, now that he knows how to defeat these trees. But, he just wanted to see what would happen if he plants the demonic tree down in the goblin area? Like... He is just curious about what would happen next. Like, would the tree wither due to it is not supposed to be there? Is he going to get an error code as the developers never envision such a thing being done? Or the tree would become a new invasive species?
With these thoughts in mind, Klein begins to search for another demonic tree, preferably a weaker one so he could beat it close to death then carry it back. He can't kill it because it would dissipate into pieces of equipment and that is not what Klein needs. With a gleeful look and a beaming smile slowly spreading on his face, the humanoid beefcake search for his next target, determine to find the answer to his question.
"Any demonic tree nearby? Please speak up..." And with that, Klein continues to venture into the mist.
Klein is going to search for a demonic tree (an infant, if they even have that).
I notice that I calculate wrong the Str where its was suppose to be 78 and 72, but somehow I type it into 72. It is fixed now but I don't think I will fix the other post. Just a notify as why do you see a sudden jump from 68 to 80 when not in combat.
Bulwark Boneplate Rare Armor +100 HP Reduce physical damage taken by 20. Recover 2 SP for every hit taken.
Shamanic Beads Common Accessory +20 MP
Raider’s Wargtag Common Accessory +4 DEX, +4 LCK
Thunderstruck Amulet Uncommon Accessory +20 HP, +5 END, +3 LUC Reduce lightning damage taken by 20.
HP potions: 1 uncommon, 2 common
Well. Amulak couldn't say it wasn't interesting to watch someone die of asphyxiation. Fucking Raime, putting himself through this for what, epeen? In the end, he decided not to linger on thinking about the sight as he picked his friend's corpse up, lugging it over his shoulder as he set off. He really didn't need to keep seeing a man choking to death in disturbingly realistic fashion on what should have been a happy occasion.
A night of research paid off, and Amulak reached the Blasphemed Tunnel in relatively short order. There had been a few close calls with nearly aggroing monsters, but fortunately, he hadn't pulled any mobs on accident.
“Looks like we’ve both not got a party or nuthin’, so wanna party up for this?”
Amulak turned at those words, briefly looking over the one who'd approachedh him. Another prospective necromancer? Similar shitty gear, and lugging around a corpse of his own. It could be a trick to get him to lower his guard for an easy gank. Emphasis on could. Then again, you couldn't really know how strong someone was at a glance without the proper ability or being in the same party. And since they were both in the same situation...it wouldn't make much sense to try for a risky gank here on the verge of getting one of the more complex jobs to unlock.
"Party up sounds good." Amulak nodded briefly, sending the other player a party invite. "Name Amulak. You also going for Necromancer, huh? You see baby trap on way here? Very obvious."
Raime regained his consciousness to a black screen with a timer counting down 24 hours. "Huh. Getting strangled to death was surprisingly not that bad compared to what I've experienced." The now dead scout mused to himself as he looked around. As if expecting something like a pop-up to continue option if you paid real or in-game money. But as he waited, the more he realized the semi-permanence of his death. "Eh. It was worth a shot to wait a bit." With a dismissive shrug, he logged off CaCo and returned to the main hub of his Full Dive Device. Deciding to make it look futuristic but cozy at the same time.
Not too shabby if he were to say so himself.
The passage of time within the main hub was significantly faster than when in-game but it was still slow enough to allow Raymond to move at his own leisure within the personalized space. A godsend to most, but merely a convenient place for Raymond to spend time in given no better options.
Sitting down on one of the available seats, Raymond willed a browser screen into existence and began informing himself of the going ons of Wakeford, the rest of Canada, and the rest of the world.
Being 2038, it was of no surprise to Raymond that the biggest piece of news was, once again, to do with the midterm elections in the US. This season promised to be the most tumultous of elections since the one in 2020, after all, with looming environmental issues such as the gradual loss of coastal land being scrutinized as a political concern. Was President Alex Wang doing enough to put forward policies to ensure America's future? It was up in the air, for sure, and analysts were predicting a loss of the majority he had enjoyed during the first two years of his presidency as a result of this mismanagement. Plenty of columnists, Canadian or otherwise, had strong opinions on the candidates of the three parties, but this late into the campaign, there weren't any particularly hot takes from the editorials that caught Raymond's attention.
More interesting was the Food Network's latest Top 100 Across the Nation reviews. The family restaurant had been visited by one of the people about five months past, and it had been a bit special, to see their diner being paid any attention at all by one of those fancy magazine reporters, but, disappointingly enough, the Moreno family diner didn't seem to have made the cut. A shame, but they were mentioned in the 'names to watch out for' section of the article, alongside about 50 other restaurants that were great, but not great enough.
A new PV was released for Mobile Suit Gundam: Ascalon, rumored to be the final installment in the series. It certainly looked like something final, with gorgeous 2D animated mechas duking it out over a busy cityscape as panicked citizens fled to bunkers amid raining rubble. Though somewhat apocalyptic in its tone and music, perhaps that was to be expected. Profits for Sunrise had been falling in the last couple of years, and there were rumors of bankruptcy.
Still, it wasn't all that bad. Raymond's social media feed was alit with moments, after all, the sweetest of which was the engagement of one of his high school buddies with someone he met playing Beat Saber: Relit with. Bit of a weird romance, but Raymond had been invited to the wedding in three months time as a groomsman...and looked like Zack wanted him to figure out catering for the wedding too. Maybe a bit forceful then.
Of course, e-mail hadn't died either; there was at least 20 waiting for him to click on, but the struggle was certainly real when the subjects of them all sounded so painfully dry. Promotions from banks or alumni events from that culinary school he had gone to before. Inconsequential, but occasionally interesting.
Until a small ping of a notification took his attention away from the articles he was reading. Discord's familiar symbol wiggled in place with a bright red box with a white 1 smackdab in the middle. With a simple thought, the semitranslucent chatbox appeared with a name that brought a smile to his face.
[Frankiestien]: Yo brochacho. I see that you've died in Cacophony Concord. Your name on my friends list being all grey and all. Not surprised though. Hahahaha. Raymond snorted good naturedly at his younger brother's jab at his skill. [Frankiestien]: So...what did you in? [Raiman]: I let Stanislaw kill me. [Frankiestien]: What? Why? [Raiman]: Necromancer. [Frankiestien]: Ah. [Raiman]: Yep. Well, I've got a couple more hours to do whatever till we need to prep for opening. I thought about passing the time with the 3D model program I got. [Frankiestien]: You can do that or...maybe you wanna play some Minecraft for a bit? My classes don't start until a little bit later. [Raiman]: Sure. Send an invite my way.
Just as sudden in its appearance, the message window disappeared and was replaced by a window containing an invite to play the aforementioned game. The last remaining hours before the prep for opening was spent happily goofing off with his little brother. Doing the usual routine of readjusting his eyes to his room's light level and stretching before setting aside his FDD, he got ready for the work ahead. But as he left his room and down to the diner, Raymond noticed that the family owned restaurant was more busy than expected.
He knew that weekends were a little busier than weekdays due to their customers having more free time but this was a little excessive. His grandmother and grandfather were already in the kitchen preparing enough ingredients for the diner's signature dishes to easily serve a dozen starving men. His mother and father were setting up the tables, booths, and counter seats; making the positioning of the plates, utensils, and glasses in an aesthetically pleasing way. The last time they were this busy was when the mayor celebrated an event here. But it was weird that they didn't bother to get him...
"Raymond? What are you still doing here?" His mother asked confused at the sight of her eldest son while he gave her a confused look in return. His father soon broke the silence. "<Oh God.> Did you forget what today was?"
Then it clicked in his head. He forgot.
Quickly pulling out his phone and looking at its calendar and associated events, his eyes widened to the size of dinner plates as his face contorted to abject horror and terror. "Oh shit." Was the only words that escaped his lips before the tall Spanish-Canadian man dashed out of the building. Hopped on his bike and began biking like a man possessed out into the streets of Wakeford.
For today Raymond did quite a big oopsie. For he forgot that today was the day he was supposed to pick up a Ms. Charlotte Delacroix from the train station nearly an hour ago.
The very same Ms. Delacroix that served as a seasonal musician of the Saskatoon Philharmonic Orchestra, a beloved daughter of Wakeford's own mayor, one of the pride and joys of Wakeford, but most importantly Raymond's childhood friend and lover of over five years.
The man in question had just left his second and final stop and was only a few minutes away from the station. Hoping to high heaven that a bouquet of flowers along with a box of her favorite sweets would be enough to say 'I'm sorry that I goofed up and accidentally made you wait for nearly an hour. Please don't be that mad at me.'
If worse comes to worst, he'd just have to give her the sad puppy look to some effect.
A kick came and woke Mags from her embarrassment. It had appeared that the oni had fled for a reason. Other immortals. No native NPC would dare look how they did. Fair enough that they did run away, though. Had the oni been a group of simple warriors, they may have stood and fought. But there were children, too. They were tiny piles of EXP to sociopaths--Mags would know--but things to be protected by oni parents. Probably.
But god damn was that party cool. They looked much better than the duo's leveling/newbie sets.
"We kind of just meandered on in, to be honest." Mags said in a wicked half-truth. Really, what she said was more true than false. She was technically right. Made for a more convincing lie. Better than Ames', at least.
Mags ended up lightly slapping the back of Ames' head. Repayment from Ames kicking her while she was down.
"Stop gawking at the pretty character models," she said in an attempt to cover for Ames, "and don't get physical with me.". It was kind of like a manzai routine, though significantly less funny.
"So what are you guys here for? Looking to grind some XP or something?"
“Its uh…” She blanked out for a moment, unsure if what she was going to say was going to be well received. Now that she actually sat and thought about it, she was basically going to ask him to infiltrate some yakuza gang for a deed that may or may not be worth it. But she also did give Fine Tung her words, so she might as well try.
“I’m going to sneak in some gang’s hideout and steal their stuff.”
“I… what?!” Lew exclaimed, taken aback by Ari’s plans. Forget Thunderstruck Grove. She wants to break into a criminal hideout in the starting city, probably the only city where they have a reasonably positive relationship with. Clearing his throat in order to calm down, Lew began to get to the bottom of why Ari wants to do this of all things.
“Where did you get that idea from? Is that one of your class requirements? I think you might be a bit too underleveled for that. If they’re a successful crime family, they probably are about as strong as both of us combined. Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
“Don’t worry, don’t worry!” Ari spoke confidently. “I’m not going to jump in their front door. I found another way in. I’m sure the old man will have a good reward for me- us, if we can nick the thing.”
“Besides, I found a large area under there that might have some good items too. All we need to do is stay silent, and not go uh… John Wick on them.”
Lew thought about the consequences for a moment. One of the main things he was worried about was reputation especially since many of the classes he was interested in required he was in high standing with certain factions. If they could stealthily accomplish their goals, it’s likely that such an issue wouldn’t even factor in. If anything, helping those less fortunate would be good for Lew’s reputation.
And then there was the matter of Ari’s health and endurance, or lack thereof.
Taking a deep breath, Lew sighed heavily, as if resigning to Ari’s demands… but not before flicking his finger mere inches away from one of her cat ears, demonstrating the full superhuman force that his fingers alone could produce due to his inflated stats.
“Your HP is so low, I could have killed you with just that alone. I’ll play along with your plan for now, but don’t run off too far and stay as close to me as you can. Feel free to use me as a human shield if you really need to.”
Once all that was established, Lew silently followed Ari towards whatever secret passageway she found.
“You worry too much, mya!” A nonchalant response with a carefree smile. Upward raised arms, and a sloppy reproduction of the technique she’s seen on an anime, but it worked enough to achieve its effect. For a normal human it would be a bit of a sloppy movement, but with her current stats, it was enough to move her behind him faster than he can move. “As long as I don’t get hit, I’ll probably be fine! Probably!”
Tugging at his arm, she dragged him towards the sewer entrance, going to the one she has entered before. She had died in one part of it before, but with Lew here, she might actually get through and get to the hideout. Then she can grab all the treasure and the deed at the same time.
It didn’t take too long before she got back to the place where there was a clean patch of floor, leading to where the slime was. “Ah right, that place over there has a slime in it, or something. It could be hiding something good.”
The scrolls on her arm unfurled suddenly, as she raised a hand, two fingers extended in front of her.
“Shin no Ippo..”-20mp
The scrolls wrapped around her eyes, as the world turned bright and monochromatic in color, though specific things were coloured differently. Perhaps she could try to see beyond the slime before Lew did anything to it.
After climbing up the slope once more through the smelly darkness, the two stopped at the point junction while Ari activated the ability of her Nuclei. At once, the world around her lit up, bright as if the sun were shining over head. Expanding outwards to a range of fifty meters, the catgirl could see that the cleaned path travelled down a slope for another thirty meters, before flattening out into what seemed to be a large reservoir that was only partly full with water of unknown cleanliness.
Strangely enough, however, no red outlines emerged within the range of Xu Fu’s ability. Whatever Ari encountered during her last escapade through the sewers of Nyu-Taro didn’t appear to be around this time. Maybe because it had already done its job cleaning this section? Or perhaps it was simply further along.
“Bleh. It's gone.”
Dispelling her nuclei, she grabbed Lew by the hands again. “Cmon then, the way in is this way. Its kinda a maze and very dark so don’t let go, alright?”
Without waiting for an answer, she moved again, quickly, seemingly oblivious to the height difference as she simply moved along through the claustrophobic tunnels. Faster than she did before, they reach the end, staring into the dark abyss that was the watery hole she died in.
A strange phrase for sure. And even stranger when she looked back at the darkness below, dread finally overtaking her excitement as she remembered how she died.
“H..Here we are! There should be a hole in the water there. Some sort of entrance we can get into once we get through the turbulent waters.”
Ari fidgeted for a moment. “Uh… You go first?”
Going through the crowded sewers was not what Lew thought he’d spend his day doing. Of course, for the first few moments, he was motivated to trudge on through due to the promise of slimes and potentially slime girls, but the damp air and putrid stench almost dissuaded Lew from following Ari further. Is she used to this sort of thing? Before Lew could begin to question Ari’s daily life, they finally reached their deep, dark destination.
Lew peeked at the wall for a moment, confused as to what Ari was talking about. He wondered if she just slipped from the water, slammed into the wall, and spent her last moments of her virtual life imagining such a thing. He sat down for a moment, tired of trudging through the filth of Nyu-Taro, and wiping some sweat away from his brow.
“Uh… what?” Lew asked, staring at the wall, then at Ari, then back at the wall.
“Myeh… Fine I’ll go first.” All of a sudden she had a determined look as she unfurled the kusarifundo, and secured the turtle shield on her back. It will at least be some degree of protection this time, and now she was stronger and faster. Hopefully she could throw the chain into the opening, and pull herself into it. When… IF, Lew came after, she can snag him with the chains from the opening.
Having already pushed everything else from her mind, she dived into the hole.
“Ari, wait-!”
Lew watched her disappear into the darkness, still relatively confused in regards to her sanity. At this point however, he more or less gets what Ari meant. For a moment, he considered equipping his shield like she did. At the same time, he did not want to lose such a rare item in the bottom of a sewer. Between that, Lew’s high END, and his impressively sticky armor, he at least felt like whatever was down there, he was prepared to face it head-on.
Following his ally into the darkness, Lew took the plunge as well. As he did so, he thought about the real world and what it had to offer. Maybe he’ll hit up Raymond and bug him to make some churro sandwiches, or whatever it was he was into at the time…
The undercurrent was more powerful than Lugh could have ever anticipated and, within the darkness, the warrior could only flail about as waters carried him past the wall, then into the drop. His body bounced against the stone walls over and over again, but even if his waterlogged armor restricted his mobility, Lugh was still tough enough to take no damage in every single instance, and after a few terrifying moments of being at the whims of gravity and water, his hand grasped onto the wall, slowing, then arresting his descent totally, until the underground river could only pound his body. If Ari hadn’t been lying out of her ass about whatever it was she sought down here, then it would be simpler to take it easy, wouldn’t it?
So, with a waterfall blasting him in the face, Lugh climbed down, his physical strength and his weirdly-designed sandals working rather well to stick him to the slick, stony walls. It was never a straightforward path, and his lungs continued to burn from the lack of oxygen, but suffocation was a slow death for an Immortal; by the time he spotted a light piercing through the dark waters, Lugh was still mostly healthy, even if he was also miserably cold.
All it took was a kick off the wall to send himself out of the water and rolling onto the marble floor, wet as a dog. And beside him? Ari, drenched as much as he, but sporting more than a couple colorful bruises. Though she had been prepared, her physical strength hadn’t changed nearly so much to trivialize the sheer force of the waters. Her chain had been dragged down before it could be hurled out, and the catgirl had managed to get into the opening only because of previous experience.
Still, both of them were alive, and could fully take stock of the area before them.
Behind, the opening that they had used to get in looked to have been a section of the wall that had simply crumbled away with time. Water, over the course of hundreds of years, must have carved its own path through the earth, until the marble of the wall gave way. In front of them, however, was still all the opulence that Ari had caught a glimpse of in the past. The cavern’s ceiling must have risen at least sixty meters above them, stalactites studded with some sparkling ores offering a starry illumination that bathed the area in a cool shine, contrasting with the hundreds of bronze statues lining the main paths. Every ten of them bore a pole rather than a spear or a sword, and from that pole a paper lantern hung, strange symbols painted on the screen in black ink. They exuded a warm, incandescent glow, but for how long had these fires been burning for?
These main paths threaded through districts of multi-storied buildings crafted from wood and supported by ceramic pillars sculpted to resemble sinuous dragons. The most opulent of these buildings laid at the far-western side, towering over the rest with a tower from where a great brass gong, apparently untouched by time, rested. And, as Ari and Lugh’s eyes started to drift away from the buildings, the streets, and the statues, they would see the embossed details within the massive marble walls that enclosed this circular city. It was a piece of art, how color and shading was brought to these walls through the interplay between the cold light of the stalactites and the warm light of the lanterns, depicting, as best as they could tell from a first glance, the history of some kingdom.
Beyond the pounding of the underground river, beyond the beating of their own heart, the place was completely silent, devoid of life. What they did now was up to them. Lew took a few moments to fully absorb his new surroundings, coughing up water as he had done so. He had wished he brought more talismans, still cold to the bone from being slammed by sewer water. Not that suffocation was the least of his worries. He glanced over to Ari’s body quickly, almost surprised to see she was still alive. Looking back towards the underground city, Lew could only wonder what kind of shortcut this was, or if Ari really knew what she was jumping into.
“Some kind of shortcut, huh…” Lew coughed, activating his Nuclei in order to summon his lotus shield, its shimmering silver petals surrounding a deep blue core. Hoping that the lightning from its effects were only aesthetic, Lew raised his shield as he slowly proceeded onwards into the main path, taking a closer look at the statues. Despite considering becoming a Blacksmith in the past, Lew was not admiring the craftsmanship of these bronze figures. Rather, he was trying to see just what sort of people they were modeled after… and if they were even human.
“Guessing I should lead the way from here?”
“Myurgh..” Ari slowly got up, stretching her sore body as her tail fluffed up, before shaking off her body vigorously, sending every bit of hair on her body standing up. Huh… So thats how cats feel when they shake off water.
She looked around at the area for a moment, taking in the lanterns bearing strange sigils, the statues, and the overall oldness of everything.
“Wait, this isn’t the gang’s hideout!” She proclaimed loudly. Taking a moment to rearrange her inventory, she took in a deep breath before almost exploding in excitement as she flitted about the statues, taking in their details and the flags.
“Look! Look, Lew, this one looks ancient!”
This was it. This was what she wanted. Adventure, finding something new and unknown, and the slight feeling of danger and risk.
“Wait, that tower looks important! Let’s go there first! We can have a look at the whole place too!”
Lew glanced at Ari jumping around all over the place, sighing once more. Assuming those lanterns were lit not too long ago, whatever might be down here probably isn’t too friendly. It’s because of this that Lew preferred to head deeper inwards silently. Still, he couldn’t deny the catgirl her excitement. She lived in the middle of the ocean, didn’t she? Probably not much to look at, and probably a shitty place to live in as well. Being a Canadian, Lew was already familiar with that feeling. It was only the allure of monster girls that made him as jumpy as Ari was, however, and Lew could only hope whatever terrors his overly excited friend alerted, it looked at least somewhat feminine.
“Huh… good idea.” Lew stated at Ari’s suggestion, continuing along the path towards the tower. His approach was still cautious, his shield raised and his eyes darting across each of the buildings they had walked past.
Travelling through the empty marble roads, Lugh and Ari could see more statues interspersed around the underground city, facsimiles of what the two Immortals could only assume to be ‘normal’ people. Shopkeepers, children, street cooks, old folks, all outfitted in clothing that seemed to predate what the modern Nyu-Taro resident wore. The buildings they were placed beside, however, were closed, and the windows were opaque, preventing either of them from easily peering into them.
Still, their journey through this strange place went unbothered, all the way until they reached their destination. Rather than simply being a tall building, however, this palace was elevated above other buildings with a wide, almost pyramid-like staircase that ringed all around it. Thick walls, five meters in height, circled it as well, and there stood only a single gate made of steel-reinforced wood that prevented outsiders from stepping upon the staircase. Two statues stood at attention at the sides of this gate, bearing polearms that gleamed with coppery brilliance.
Considering Lugh and Ari’s respective strengths, there were any number of ways to get through this meager obstacle. Would they though? Or would this arrangement require further introspection?
Ari’s enthusiasm was dampened a bit as they walked, the strangeness of the statues and the sheer silence pervading the atmosphere made her fur stand up. Even the starry lights from the cavern ceiling, which looked like glittering stars now seemed like the menacing eyes of a thousand fiends. Who had taken the time to model these statues so, then made the effort of dressing them, and even made small items to model what these shopkeeper statues were supposed to sell.
It was beyond fascinating to see what seemed to be a snapshot of this area’s history, but it was beyond creepy. Ari was glad to finally leave that area behind her and finally arrive at what seemed to be a large palace, with the sole gate of its perimeter walls flanked on either side by a guard statue, with beautiful metallic brown sheens on their weapons. They were certainly well made, though she would have thought they’d use the usual lion dogs like she’d see in real life at home.
“Ah, I think we’ve arrived. What do you think?”
“We should definitely check the rest of this place out before we go into the tower.” Lew stated, clenching his shield tightly as he eyed both of the bronze warriors carefully. Despite what felt like an obvious set-up for some sort of boss fight, Lew was also getting less-than-satisfactory vibes from the statued citizens as they made their way through the city. Were they made this way by some sort of eccentric craftsman, or were they turned into bronze? After his brief stint with medusa girls, Lew was overly cautious of the latter being a reality. And seeing that the weapons that these gate guardsman bore shimmered with a metallic sheen unlike the others they had seen before? Yeah, they should probably avoid those two.
“Try not to touch anything bronze. I’m going to see if I can piece together anything about the city.” Lew added, before making his way to the walls once more. Some sort of history was painted on them, perhaps a hint detailing the fates of whoever dwelled within the city?
“Ah, I understand!” She gave a mock salute before scampering into the city first. Exploring it should be fine right? Even if it was very very scary. If any of her books and movies have taught her anything it's that there might be some logs, notes or papers that might hint at what this place was. A diary would be the motherlode of course, but she doubted it was as easy to find like an old investigator’s notes on Cthulhu.
Though the vantage point was poor, and there wasn’t any clear indication of which portion of the wall he should start viewing all this in, Lugh nevertheless was able to identify each individual scene. The art, while gorgeous, was also concrete enough, simple enough, that whatever it depicted was fairly clear. The warrior’s eyes first settled upon the most striking image, that of a mass of shadows cast by starry light encroaching upon a firelit individual bearing a bow that shone gold. The firelit individual laid down in the next scene, but looked different in some way, larger, with longer hair, and were surrounded by lavishly dressed officials, all of whom were decanting a starlit liquid onto the firelit individual’s body. The scene following that was more abstract, a great city in construction, and the one after that was of humans of all ranks standing at attention before the city. Wealth and prosperity soon followed, symbolized by firelit carts crossing roads to a city different from the one in the previous scene, depicting, perhaps, the passage of time, and not a single portion of that frame was starlit. But, upon the final scene, the stars, and the shadows cast by bold engravings upon the marble, encroached once more onto the city.
What to make of it, would have to wait, however, for in the distance, Lugh could hear very clearly the splintering of wood, the echoes of a shockwave.
Ari, of course, would have experienced that up close.
The catgirl’s adventures through the underground city was both fruitful and fruitless. Though her initial attempts to pluck bronze wares off the carts and stalls outside were defeated by the fact that these objects were mere mimicries of a display, fused together in such a way that her item pouch simply couldn’t fit any of them, such flagrant displays of attempted thievery was unchecked by all the bronzen guards outside. Perhaps she could even go so far as to strip naked and run around like a hyperactive cat, and nothing would happen?
That wasn’t what she chose to do though. Instead, Ari approached one of the many buildings within the city, grasped the brass handle of a door, and pulled.
The smell of decay and dust struck her nose even before she could register the contents of the house. Large, cloth-sealed jars were stacked up on the far wall, and pieces of tableware were scattered on one side of a slanted table whose legs had given away underneath it with time. Clothing, fancy in a way that was precious enough to have only been worn during special occasions, had become naught but skeletons of their former selves, bitten to bits by insects and faded away with dust. A few jade ornaments, jewelry, perhaps, were placed upon a dresser, right in front of a faded mirror. Someone, maybe a family, must have lived here before; Ari could count three desiccated pairs of straw slippers in the entranceway. Whoever lived here, however, had also abandoned it for a long time.
Her ears tingled then, and through instinct alone, Ari ducked down, feeling a sudden heat on the tip of her ear as a blade sliced overhead. It shattered the door and part of the wall from its impact, and as she turned, the ranger caught a glimpse of what had attacked her.
A bronze guard, fresh-faced and wielding a longsword. Behind him, a standard-bearer watched, eyes filled with red light, as if gauging what threat Ari posed.
Lew observed the murals with interest, wanting to know the story of such a lifeless city. The story it seemed to tell was quite grim, and that final mural filled Lew with a grim feeling. Before he could really ponder on what these murals might be telling him, he was quickly alerted to the crashing of wood from afar. Between that, and the notification he received from party chat, Lew had a feeling Ari was in danger. Sighing once more at the turn of events, Lew turned towards the direction of the noise without a thought. As he made his way to Ari’s location, he looked up to the ceiling, observing and taking note of the shimmering stalactites once more, and wondering if there was another, more attainable source in this subterranean city…
“Ah I see! Your creator destroyed the populace to replace them with mere effigies of life!” Rather than rush them, she blew a raspberry at them as she bounded away outside, throwing an aimed knife at the reddish eyes of the watching sentinel. Anticipating the guardian to follow, she stepped to the side and leapt upwards, first by throwing then pulling herself by chain to the roof, then to the air, unfurling the kusarifundo to its full length as she did so.
Ari’s throwing knife whistled through the air, striking the standard-bearer before bouncing off. It had done no discernable damage to the construct, but the animated statue responded regardless, eyes glowing with even more intensity as it raised its flag up into the air. Concentric rings of light emanated from the top of the banner, rippling out to others around it. For that affront to their authority, three more bronzed guards were animated and they immediately chased after the fleeing catgirl.
The one who Ari initially evaded leapt twenty meters with a single bound, before slamming into the roofs and continuing their pursuit. Two more formed a human vault, linking arms together to form a platform for the third, a polearm-wielder, to leap up on. They drew their weapon back whilst in mid-air, and as the chains of Ari’s kusarifundo extended, the spear was hurled right at her, at a speed so swift that even Ari, who moved ten times the speed of a normal human, who experienced time at a pace ten times slower than ordinary folk, could tell.
These guards were fast.
Luckily, she was already prepared, perhaps not for this actual scenario, but prepared nonetheless. Her chains already unfurled, she twisted her body in midair, catching the chains around the spear and redirecting it even as she reactivated her nuclei.
“Shin… no IPPO!”
The red glowy eyes, that one must be important. It didn’t pursue her, so it must still be below. Utilizing her momentum, she flung the spear back down, aiming towards the blob of color inside the house.
The force it took to arrest the momentum of the flying spear was intense enough that Ari’s arms almost felt like they were being ripped out of their sockets as she forcefully turned it around. Just like that, 18 HP was lost, while the return throw of the spear scattered against the roof of the building that Ari had aimed at, unable to pierce when the catgirl’s strength remained lacking.
On rooftops adjacent to her, the swordsman leapt upwards, longsword drawn to slice her in half while her chains were extended and she remained falling. Down below as well, the three other guards awaited her landing point, ready to skewer her once their compatriot slammed her down, if not totally bisected her.
The blue of those things… They’re colored blue? Confusing, but considering she was working her mind overdrive to escape from this situation, Ari didn’t have the luxury of waiting around. The chains, extended as they were, would take a bit to retract and attack the swordsman already on her. But the chains weren’t primarily a weapon when it was in a ninja’s hands; it was also a tool. Throwing the spear was admittedly a failed gambit, but it also flung her chains further onto the house.
Ari(hp32/50,mp30/50,sp100/100)
Following through on her movement, she spun herself into her chains, pulling away from her attackers, at an acute angle away from the house and onto the ground.
The guard flew overhead, the blade missing Ari by a millimeter as she pulled herself out of the way. Before she could escape further through the air however, her pursuer twisted their own body around and hurled their sword. It spun like a golden disc, striking the chain that connected Ari to the house and slicing right through.
Her weapon, after all, had been only of common quality.
Links of chain fell from the sky, and so did Ari, landing on her feet right as the three guards waiting on the ground descended upon her, their weapons already swinging down to scatter her organs against the marble pathway.
Every bit of fur on her was standing on its ends by now, her heart beating like a drum at the sheer exhilaration of facing death at the edge. With her weapon broken, she took out another, the only other thing she thinks might be able to help against beings of pure stone. With a spinning dive she shot straight between the legs of the tallest as they swung at her, the evil looking centipede scythe flashing out as she spun, striking at the small of its back.
The marble shattered beneath the combined force of the trio’s blows, but Ari had narrowly missed getting her body turned into ground meat. The Maneater Sickle sliced easily through the air as she swung it and sparks scattered brightly at the impact. Yet, all that it left upon the statue’s back was a groove where the tip of the sickle struck.
And, unimpeded by that backstab, it twisted around and delivered a roundhouse kick that Ari could only block, the materials of her twisted weapon groaning under the force of the statue’s shin. Her arms were aching, and the skin of her palms had been torn off by her defensive maneuver, but the catgirl was somehow still alive. At the brink of death after having suffered 19 points of damage, but still alive.
As the pain became familiar and as the weightlessness of her body began to disappear, Ari could see the city spread out before her. She had been sent fifteen meters into the air, and at her landing point, there stood the guard that had initially pursued her, fist drawn back and legs coiled into what must have been the preparations of a flying uppercut.
Ari(hp13/50,mp10/50,sp100/100)
No more chains, no more tricks. It was all or nothing for her now. She could tie the rope monkeyfist onto the sickle to extend her range, but that took time she might not have. An all out attack. The shield on her back went to her hand instead, as she held it out further away from her body as she prepared for the inevitable punch. If the shield could take the brunt of its attack, even if it shatters, she could slice it in half. A small chance maybe, but better than nothing.
Lew finally reached the source of the crashing, watching the current scene in amazement. He wondered how anyone could mess things up so badly as fast as Ari did, but then he also remembered this was Ari they were talking about. Still, to get confounded by these now animated guardsmen so easily, especially with how many points she sunk into AGI? It must mean these were true threats after all.
Lew leapt towards the guard awaiting Ari’s descent, slamming into his back with his flowery shield with a Power Attack. As his shield began to connect to the bronze soldier, he also shouted aloud, his silver shield crackling with lightning.
“THUNDER!”
A blast amounting to ten of his Attack Talismans surged from his shield alongside his empowered attack in the form of a thundering blast. Hopefully the blast would knock this guard’s attack away from meeting Ari, if not incapacitating it outright. He still wasn’t sure how effective these talismans were, especially when against stronger opponents, but Lew knew he needed to just try and save his friend…
… As much of a headache that she was, at least, Lew did not believe in abandoning his friends in their need. Whatever it was she did to awaken these guards, he would do his best to draw them to him. He was built to be a tank, after all.
Ten talismans burst in unison with Lugh’s shield bash, and sent the guard sprawling five meters forwards with a cacophonous clang of metal against metal. It gave Ari, who had landed on the ground with her shield, some breathing space, but it was troubling too. Lugh had the strength of eight men, had charged with the speed of six, and had bolstered his attack with ten magical talismans as well. All that, and there was simply
a shield-sized dent in the guard’s back? All that, and they were only moved five meters away before grinding to a stop?
The warrior had felt it in his bones on impact; it was as if he had struck a brick wall when he rammed into the bronze guard.
And then, from a sidepath, stepped the standard-bearer, expressionless face turning to see two Immortal trespassers now. Once again, the banner was raised, and once again, concentric rings of light emanated from the object. As the quartet of guards advanced, four more statues, two on each side of the road that Lugh and Ari found themselves on, awoken, their limbs stiffly moving as they readjusted their grips on their weapons.
“Lugh! The banner!” She landed neatly on her haunches, tying the rope monkey fist to the sickle as she did so. “Keep them off me!”
Speed. Speed was the key. Her target was the banner holding statue. Shield in hand, she moved at full speed, her weapon hand gripping the rope and the sickle tightly, trying to dodge the other statues in her path, sacrificing the shield if necessary. Inhaling, she activated her skill. Throwing out a kama on a rope was a ranged attack, was it not? No time to really think about it, for the sickle was already unfurling and slashing towards the banner statue.
Lew looked around as they began to get surrounded, keeping note of Ari’s plans. Seeing that one of these bronze soldiers was durable enough to survive a charged up blow from Lew’s shield meant that they needed to play this carefully. Focusing on his shield, lightning struck Lew’s hand as it shifted into the kodachi.
The blade was useless. Disregarding the fact that it may have the durability of the rare shield also in his possession, it was still just a common weapon. Any head-on attacks against these minions would amount to nothing as well. Ari was already going for the killing blow, striking down the mob that seems to be controlling this soldiers. All Lew needed to do was hold them back.
Lew centered the blade on himself, moving forward ever so slightly to allow the soldiers to surround him. Taking a deep breath and closing his eyes, Lew raised his silver blade, before swinging it twice.
“Ari… jump.”
And so, lightning struck the same place twice as Lew delivered two consecutive Sundering Blows within the area. Whatever the damage was didn’t matter too much to Lew. All he needed was to apply the stunned effect to these bronze automatons. With his blade plunged into the earth, Lew finally exhaled, standing back upwards as he opened his eyes to glance at the aftermath.
Twinned shockwaves resonated outwards in a flash of brilliant energy. Under the impact of Lugh’s sundering blows, the marble ground shattered, spiderweb fractures extending outwards from the epicenter that was Zeus. Three of the eight bronze guards were stalled by the impact, their forms shaken by the reverberations of the stone-shattering blow, but five more still descended, bronze blurs that launched a dizzying flurry of blows onto Lugh. If the thrashing that the centipede woman had given him could be compared to a car crash, this frenzy of weapon-assisted violence was like being curbstomped by a gang. Swords, polearms, fists and feet all slammed into his armored form, and all Lugh could do was withstand the torrent of devastating blows, 211 damage sustained through the merit of his incredible END and armor alone.
But through the agony, through the threat he displayed to all those guards, Ari’s flight went unimpeded, and what a flight it was. With Lugh’s warning, the catgirl had been able to reposition her shield mid-step, catching the brunt of the shockwaves to propel herself forward at even greater speed. Centrifugal force built up alongside momentum and her sickle flew through the wind without resistance, like wind scythes of a kamaitachi.
Clang!
It struck the pole of the banner, sparked against the metal and…clattered down onto the ground.
Once again, this virtual world made it clear: a sufficient amount of durability trivialized even the greatest efforts of an insufficient amount of strength.
The standard-bearer, his face locked forever into the alert neutrality that some ancient sculptor must have given him, raised the banner up in the sky once more at the affront of Ari’s actions, and around her, four more guards awakened, drawing their respective weapons.
@Cu Chulainn@GreenGoat If there was a button to doubt, the warhammer man would certainly be pressing it right now. While a couple of his party mates chuckled or smirked at Ames’s blatant bullshit, the warrior cocked an eyebrow instead, an exemplar of suspicion as he stared down at Ames, then at Magpie who tried to cover for the redhead. “Right,” he drawled, rested the head of his hammer on the ground. “Dunno if the pair of you’ve lost yer senses n all, but y’see, we followed you here. As in, saw you, with those big chunks of Kamuy on your shoulders, following three other of those oni down to where you are now. Had to figure out how to deal with the tree and all, of course, but…well.”
He leaned in a bit further. “Cut the bullshit, ya fuckin’ noob. Where did they go?”
While Magpie was currently being intimidated, Ames, provided a wider view of the rest of the party, could see the one with the lion head sword begin to sniff the air, his face shifting to take on more bestial features as he began to sniff out something that lingered in the air. If this kept up, perhaps that Warhammer man wouldn’t even need to wrestle the info out of Magpie’s mouth! Was there something that Ames could do to prevent it though?
Time was growing short, and it was still uncertain how far a whole tribe of oni could travel within the minute or two that had elapsed since their departure. @OwO@Yankee “Baby trap? Nah, saw some dumbass get eaten by a tree.” The stitch-marked youth accepted Amulak’s invite, and soon, his resources popped up in the corner of the mage’s vision. “I’m Patches. Nice to co-op with you, Amulak.”
Though it was still difficult to tell how powerful this particular individual was, his resources were certainly more lopsided than Amulak. With 755 HP, 2190 MP, and 535 SP, the fellow was either a good couple levels higher than himself, or had invested much more heavily into those three attributes than Amulak had. Regardless, with the formation of a party, direct murder was off the table between Patches and Amulak, and the two of them strode into the darkness of the Blasphemed Tunnel.
The edgier of the wannabe-necromancers took the lead here, Amulak having already memorized the safest path through the tunnels. It was a drafty place, the cool, damp wind seeping from cracks in the ceiling and unseen openings from distant locations. Bioluminescent moss, or were they will-o-wisps? lit the way, soft blue lights that reflected off the puddles that had collected from the low-hanging stalactites extending from the ceiling. Though echoes of battle could be heard reverberating through the walls, they were often short-lived, silenced by a mere shifting of the winds. Other than some small talk that Patches initiated, on topics from level, to who Amulak’s corpse was, to impressions on Cacophony Concord, their journey through the Blasphemed Tunnels was uneventful.
Under Amulak’s leadership, the duo continued down a long, narrow tunnel that gradually curved. After they reached the opening, it would be just another 100 meters down a slope to the southwest before they’d get to the end of this particular dungeon. They were making good time, certainly. But then, the two were forced to stop.
Rocks, made of shattered stalactites, blocked the way and sealed the passageway shut. This had to be something new; the map that Amulak checked out certainly hadn’t included this at all. Couldn’t have been natural either. He hadn’t encountered any such rubble yet, so this couldn’t have been caused by just an untimely earthquake or something. Which meant…
“Uh, Amulak, incoming…”
Seeping in from the walls behind them, stick-thin humanoids giggled, their bright eyes wide open as they leered at the four pieces of meat before them. Apparently unaffected by gravity, they floated in the air, their distended bellies inflated like balloons as they chanted in a sing-song voice, “Great success, great success, great success!” All the while, their small mouths drooled with a clear liquid that hissed as droplets of it struck the ground.
There were twenty, perhaps more, emaciated shapes melding together in the dim lighting.
"Well shit, guess it wouldn't be the Blasphemed Tunnels without a ton of these freaks, huh?" Patches swallowed, hefting up his axe with a wide, forced grin as he readied himself for battle. But perhaps with some quick thinking, there were other ways for Amulak to solve this predicament. @Psyker Landshark “Over here!”
As Klein wandered through the foggy forest, his feet stomping against lightning-scarred earth, a voice, child-like and guileless, answered his call. If the Mountain Man followed that voice, it would indeed lead him to another tree within the grove. This one certainly looked younger, its bark white and its trunk slim, branches shooting upwards diagonally. At a distance, it had yet to reach out with its roots and strike at him, but still.
A tree, talking? Was this a feature that all these demonic trees had, or was there something else that was going on? Maybe all this was just him overthinking things though? Certainly, it fit the bill of a ‘young’ tree, if it really was a demonic tree, but on the other hand…this tree only looked younger than the other trees in the area.
Thinking was hard.
Would Klein approach, or was a talking tree really that much scarier than a maneating one? @Shovel
Type Arms, First Stage +5% HP, +5% MP, +5% SP, +5% STR, +5% END, +5% AGI, +5% DEX, +5% LCK A silver-blue bracelet on the left wrist, from which a crackling thunderhead exudes out from. The thunderhead is affected, but not dispersed, by the wind.
Sanctity of Fulmination
Passive. Zeus can absorb a certain amount of Equipment, Accessories, and Consummables. Consummables absorbed by Zeus can stack infinitely, so long as they are the same type. After doing so, Zeus is able to transform into any of the Equipment that it has absorbed, possessing these traits, regardless of the form taken:
- Traits that fulfill special conditions that absorbed equipment would fulfill, such as spellcasting implements. - Stat increases taken from the highest bonuses offered by the absorbed items, per individual stat. - All effects possessed by the absorbed equipments and accessories. - The ability to verbally invoke the effects of any absorbed consummables.
Transformation is instantaneous, but can be slowed intentionally for dramatic purpose, in which case it occurs initially as an object being drawn out from the thundercloud, and with every instance afterwards as a bolt of lightning bursting before reforming. At First Stage, Zeus can absorb 3 Items.
Items Stored (3/3): - Lotus Bloom (Rare Shield) [+20 HP, +50 MP, +15 DEX, -10 END, Reduce magical damage taken by 20, and reduce water element damage by an additional 20. At the cost of 50 MP, temporarily extend magical damage reduction to all allies within 10 meters.] - Kodachi (Common Sword)
Weapon Proficiency LVL 4Increase proficiency with all weapons. Power AttackActively consume SP while preparing for an attack; unleash for increased damage on attack. Combat Stance LVL 1Passive. Increase STR, END, or DEX by 10% at will. Five second cooldown. Double StrikeActive. 25% SP cost. Attack twice with your weapon, dealing incremental bonus damage based off SP consumed. Can be combo'd into from Power Attack. Sundering BlowActive. 40% SP cost. Strike downwards, causing a burst of energy around you and dealing damage to all enemies. May inflict Stun. Range increases by 5 meters for every 100 SP consumed, starting from a radius of 10 meters. Can be combo'd into from Power Attack.
As blades, poles, and metal appendages all struck Lew, he began to think back to a simpler time. A time before he had subdued himself, before he had chosen to succumb to a terrible numbness that had consumed him in much of his later years. In another place, in another time, Lew was... different. Around his last year of middle school, he was but an average teenaged boy... No, average was not the right word to describe him. There was definitely something different about him, something he didn't care to think about. At the time however, he still allowed others to notice him, and notice others did.
"You're so fucking stupid! We sat next to each other for five months and you still haven't caught on? I even wore this cringe shit for you!" She yelled, throwing her cheap Halloween (before it was banned after a certain group of people started giving out razor blades instead of candies) cat ears to the ground and stomping on it. A younger Lew, his eyes still sparkling with deviancy, only shrugged as he looked onto the poor girl, faceless due to the gaps in his memory.
"You really think cheap accessories like that would put you in the same league as me? Stop kidding yourself, normie." Lew simply sighed, walking off as he ignored her tirades. There was some sense of regret in his decision, but he also ignored it, feeling that he would also be considered a "normie." She definitely wasn't what many would call attractive, but she was still cute enough, and despite Lew's accusations, she shared many of the same interests he had, but in a more subdued matter. Of course, none of that really mattered to the young Lew, as he had felt no mortal girl would be at his league at all. School was only his last barrier to his true goal.
To genetically perfect the catgirls that Elon Musk had ruined.
And so, Lew ignored the girl who just moments before had fleeting feelings of young love for the deviant. He ignored her cries of anger, and he certainly ignored how she pointed out that her best friend was captain of the school's field hockey team. And on the next day, he ignored the five or so angry teenaged girls who followed him as he left school, armed with hockey sticks and prepubescent anger. Yes, it took Lew getting beat up by field hockey players for him to finally snap out of his delusions.
The beatings he received were very familiar, harking back to a past that he had abandoned. If anything, it seemed like these beatings only awakened a beast he had kept at bay for a moment. A beast slimier than a kappa, angrier than an oni, and creepier than that centipede demon they had fought. For a mere moment, these bronze soldiers and possibly even Ari would experience the beast that Lew once was.
The gremlin had once more awakened.
Thunder struck Lew's hands once more as his blade shifted once again to Lotus Bloom. As it had done so, he spun the shield around, shoving away the next oncoming wave of blows before finally charging towards the bannerman. He would shrug off as many of the blows that he possibly could, blocking them with his shield, and even his other arm if he had to. If he could not push through the bronze soldiers, he would simply weave through them, and if he could not do even that, then he would only endure their onslaught. The pain did nothing to dissuade him, nor did his increasingly diminishing health bar, as he honed in on his target.
If he was able to push through the tsunami of bronze at his wake, Ari would too see it. The misshapen, angered face of a scorned nerd, one that Lew had never sported before. And as he reached the standard-bearer, if he reached the standard-bearer, he would raise his shield in the air, lightning crackling as it instantaneously shifted into a blade once more, before swinging it down, screaming to the top of his lungs something... different from the incantation he had normally bellowed out.
"This is why you don't minmax, basic stupid catgirl!"
Lew swung his blade down, delivering a final Power Attack charged with all sixteen of his Attack Talismans, in order to cleave the banner, and the soldier who wielded it, into two.
