@PKMNB0Y @DracoLunaris

“Hi, hello. I’m Rayne, Witch Knight, and, I hope, a friend. What’s your name?”

Fran tilted her head in curiosity as this person, Rayne they called themselves, conversed with her. They also called themself a Witch Knight, which....was quite accurate, considering her appearance. This woman was clearly a mage of some kind, what with her floating and all, though Fran could tell that she was not her Master, as she did not sense the usual Master-Servant connection that happens when a contract is made upon a summoning. The berserker also noticed that she had absolutely zero information about the world she was in. Usually, upon being summoned for a Holy Grail War, said Holy Grail provides Servants with a basic summary about the current era and state of the world they are summoned into to get them up to speed on the times. The fact that she didn't confirmed one thing:

There was no Holy Grail in this land. So.....what was she doing here?

To bring "salvation" that this "Lavielle" spoke of? And then there's Rayne, who looked so different from the rest of the people in the town square that she had to not be from around here. Was she too summoned here, as well? Are there others like her here? How many?

Questions upon questions that Fran figured she wasn't going to get answers to anytime soon. Those will come for a later time, then. For now...

"Fran.....ken....stein.", Fran answered, to the best her Madness Enchantment afflicted self can muster. "Ser.....vant.....Ber....ser.....ker."

“Your… Frankenstein? A… Servant Berserker? Or is that a servant who is also a Berserker?” Rayne echoed, checking that she was putting the slowly delivered words together. She had plenty of other questions too, like what a servant berserker was, or who she was a servant of, and so on, but it looked like the latest divinely abducted individual was in no state to answer any of them. Rayne’s incorrect guess was that the fall must have hurt Frankenstein more than her unharmed body might have suggested.

“Also are you hurt? Concussed?” she asked before glancing around and saying “You should probably sit down if you are. Here let me get you a chair, I think there was one just around-” before interrupting herself by blinking away round a corner, and then returning in a flash, finishing her sentence with a “-there” as she set down a plain but well (hand) carved chair down and then floated a step back as she offered it to Frankenstein.

Then she thought for another moment, considered that it would be rather strange for her to be sitting in the middle of the square on her own, and so in a few flashes another, non matching, chair was added for Rayne, as well as a table because why not, it completed the setup that she’d now made in the shade of one of the town square’s bordering buildings.

“There we go,” she said, dusting her hands off. If Fran did take a seat, Rayne would join her in doing so, the very short woman hanging her hat off the back of her chair when she did, before saying “now I’m sure you have questions, so ask away. We have time and we’re not in any danger. Anymore anyway. We already ran off the people who did this” gesturing vaguely at the state the town was in.

@PKMNB0Y @DracoLunaris

“Your… Frankenstein? A… Servant Berserker? Or is that a servant who is also a Berserker?”

Fran nodded her head at the first two questions before shaking her head negatively at the third. A Servant is what she is, not an occupation, though wouldn't fault Rayne for thinking that. It only further confirmed her budding suspicions about the current situation. Then Ranye, in span of a few seconds, set up a table and two chairs for them to carry on their conversation. The berserker smiled and nodded in thanks as she took seat.

“There we go, now I’m sure you have questions, so ask away. We have time and we’re not in any danger. Anymore anyway. We already ran off the people who did this.”

Well, that explained why the town looked the way it did when she first fell down here.

"Hmmm...", Fran pondered, finger on her chin as she asked her first question. "Are....the....re....oth....ers....like....us?"

When Millie's eyes finally blinked open, Anne's entire demeanor seemed to shift in the span of a moment. Layers of grim pragmatism melted away, and there beneath them was a rare smile, a look of sheer relief mixed with a deep-rooted warmth and caring. As if the person who still existed beneath all the accumulated scar tissue finally felt safe revealing herself to the world, even if only for a moment.

Even if she'd failed to stop the Heralds from destroying the town. Even if she'd failed to shield Alvin from the trauma of his loss. She had at least been able to protect this one girl. So long as she was still able to help her, and keep her safe, then Anne still had a purpose here.

She answered Kendrick with a gentle nod, glad that he still trusted her enough to let her handle things on this end. "Of course. You all let me stay under your roof, the least I can do is help out a little." Though she thought she'd heard a fresh commotion outside, it was probably just the villagers clearing some more rubble. If she was needed out there, she was sure he'd let her know.

Her attention quickly returned to the freshly roused young girl. "It's nice to meet you, Millie. Here, stay put for a moment—I'll get you something to drink." Without letting the girl ever pass too far out of sight, she got up to retrieve a mug and fill it with the water stored nearby. A little spilled over the edge as she made her way back, but her hand was steady again as she offered it up to her charge, paying careful attention in case Millie had any trouble holding it. Her condition seemed remarkably good after all that she'd been through, but it was best to take things slowly and carefully when dealing with unknowns.

@PKMNB0Y

Why did she get this sense of disappointment? The boar had attacked them first?! If it hadn't been for Fujiwara's sudden appearance, Youmu would definitely have been trying to demand answers!

But the Hourai Immortal's sudden appearance made that somewhat more difficult.

"If we could meet the goddess, I think I'd have to teach her a lesson," Youmu found herself agreeing, "She could have at least contacted Yuyuko-sama first. But I don't think I could turn away from what's happening here, either..."

It was far more dangerous for the people living here then many incidents that the half-phantom had experience with, with some exceptions. It wasn't right to simply walk away when people could die and have their lives destroyed.

But, with that being said, that didn't mean that she wasn't considering using her blade to instruct the goddess not to try pulling someone so suddenly it nearly split them in half.

At least if she got the opportunity. Still, Fujiwara's sudden appearance had her wondering if this goddess was still bringing people from their own world and others over.

It sounded like she was desperate...

The odor that ripped Youmu out of her thoughts immediately caused her to wrinkle her nose in disgust, her hands swiftly returning to the hilts of each of her weapons. It was a horrible, rotten scent, one that brought to mind decaying meat that had been left outside to putrify for far too long.

And it turned out that was exactly the case. The bloated corpse of the boar, just as large as the one she'd seen before, was clearly partially-decayed.

She didn't need Fujiwara's warning that eating it would be deadly. That was plain to anyone who laid eyes on it in the first place. But it was't just that it was rotten.

The huge cavity on its belly, rimmed with blackened, dried blood, gave a view directly into the putrid carcass.

It was almost entirely empty. Something had eaten the insides.

Youmu averted her eyes with a grimace, trying to cover her nose with one hand.

"What did this?" she asked. Her eyes were almost watering. There was no other word for that scent aside from vile.

@Izurich@Raineh Daze@PKMNB0Y@Lugubrious@EchoWolff

After the organics who knew one another exchanged some dialog, Remilia remembered her present company and graciously introduced Lewa to the newcomers, offering them his own name in kind. The toa bowed his head, her polite gesture very much appreciated. He didn't extend his hand to shake, since the practice didn't exist among his people, and he didn't offer a fist bump since he reserved such camaraderie for his brothers and sister, but he nevertheless tried to return her politeness in kind. "Friends of Remilia's are friends of mine."

With its numbers bolstered by the new arrivals, the group could continue traipsing through the woods in search of problems and solutions alike. Though he couldn't possibly know what he or the others might find out here, Lewa kept his guard up and a sharp eye out. The culprit behind the wounded earthmane boar's piteous condition could be near, and whatever could inflict such grievous injury on such a majestic beast could definitely threaten the beleaguered villagers, if not the members of this posse themselves. Lewa did not know just how right he was, however, until the group discovered another boar. This one turned out to be not only dead, but also savagely mauled and left in an grotesquely advanced state of decomposition. Though unfamiliar with this world's biology, Lewa thought that this looked like a clear sign of predation. "We may be getting closer to the real problem," he hypothesized, not aware that the timeframe of decay meant that the predator could already be long gone. That made the question of what it was more important, and if Youmou had no idea, how could he?

"Fujiwara no Mokou..."

Sanae mulled over the name that Remilia had provided for a few moments, eyes closed as she dug through her memories, before something fianlly clicked for her.

"Oh! You're the one that, uh... What was it that the rabbit said again? 'Snuck out with the princess for a night on the town' or something?" she said, clapping her hands together at what had to be correct. After all, why would a resident of Eientei lie to her about something like that, especially when they had been so helpful during that whole lunar invasion incident?

Never mind what the truth was, though, more help was more help, even if she hadn't been part of any sort of team to pick them up and bring them back home.

It didn't take long for the group to begin to move again, though, and the smell of that decaying corpse hit the young woman's nose well before she saw it. To say it was nauseating to her was a bit of an understatement, and seeing the thing was far worse for her psyche.

"That's wretched," she choked out as she held her nose and mustered up the courage to look at the thing again. "In what world would someone even think of trying to eat that?"

This was, of course, no time for being grossed out—not when Remilia had brought up the possiblity that whatever had poisoned the boar she and Lewa had encountered could have encountered whatever this unfortunate one had.

"...It's not unlikely, though. I'm no expert in stuff like that, but if whatever ate this thing carved through it's stomach, it couldn't have been that strong. The boar we met was pretty durable if a bunch of danmaku didn't leave much of a dent in it's hide."

At this point, though, there was little else to gain from staring at the decaying corpse beyond a growing sense of disgust and physical revulsion. If anything, though, the fact that it was still fresh enough to be rotting meant that they were probably on the right track...

And that probably explained why the other boars had showed up in the area. Fun.

Moving further into the forest would come with the loss of a lot of the ambient noise they had been dealing with prior. While the leaves still rustled in the wind and plants still crunched beneath their feet, no longer were there any of the bird cries that had come in every so often. It was almost as if anything that could move away already had, which was not exactly the most encouraging of things to notice.

It was then, though, that Remilia would feel something somewhat sizable fall onto her head from the branches above. The sound of the impact was enough to cause Sanae to turn to look at what had caused that, and seeing what that was...

Well, it was enough to elicit a rather heartfelt scream.

A massive centipede, at least as long and as thick as her lower arm, had fallen onto the vampire's hat. While that was immediately concerning, of course, it didn't take long for her scream to alert... More of them.

From the underbrush, more centipedes—some twice as long as the one that Remilia had encountered, began to appear from every nook and cranny of the forest at her accidental provocation.

With a bunch of prey right in front of them, it would have been difficult not to expect the swarm to lash out at them.

Naturally, Sanae's first reaction was to fly upwards, only for more centipedes to reveal themselves in the trees above. That only resulted in the secondary response in her arsenal: fire ofuda at anything and everything in the vicinity to get those massive bugs away from her as they attempted to attack the group.

Momoyo had been one thing, but she at least looked mostly human!

@VitaVitaAR@EchoWolff@Izurich@Lugubrious@Raineh Daze

---

With Kendrick having left the pair to go and find Alvin, the uncertainty and confusion that was already peeking through Millie's voice was beginning to show on her face. That much might have been expected, given the situation; the last thing she had remembered was Alvin running away with her in his arms, and everything hurting all over before things went black. Waking up back in town was... Confusing, to say the least.

Hopefully, though, "Uncle Ken" would bring her brother back—and maybe with Papa too, if he was at home.

"Thank you, Miss Anne," Millie said as the unfamiliar woman brought her some water to drink. A small sip would leave her coughing, however, and the young girl would take a few moments to recover before putting the mug to the side for a bit.

Maybe she would try again later.

"Um... Miss Anne?" Millie asked, turning towards Anne with wide eyes, "Uncle Ken said you saved a lot of people. Does that mean you're super strong, like those heroes in the stories Papa told us?"

@Drifting Pollen

---

As the pair continued their conversation in the middle of the street, a young man—one lucky enough to have survived the chaos with only a few bruises and scrapes to his name—quickly scrambled into the area. There was cause for concern written plainly on his face, and given how out of breath he was it seemed as if he was in more than a bit of a rush.

"S-sorry to bother you, miss!" he said towards Rayne, taking a moment to catch his breath as he held a hand up for a moment, "But there's been a bit of a situation out in the fields, and I heard that you might be able to help? A bunch of livestock got loose and with everyone busy trying to help clean the town up, I've been running around like a headless chicken all morning trying to catch them. Some of the people working near the gates said that you were helping clear the rubble out, and I don't want to impose, but it'd be a real help if you could... Well, help."

Given the state of repairs and what could be done, though, maybe this situation was something worth looking into...?

@DracoLunaris@Rezod92

With the green miko's statement providing a rather welcome distraction from the state of the revolting boar--seriously, what was that rabbit doing, going around phrasing things like that? Showing Kaguya around was one thing, but it wasn't as if there was any sneaking involved... Eientei was hers, after all, and it wasn't as if she was obliged to never leave it. Well, Kaguya's introduction to Japanese customs had been around her own childhood, so maybe the norms had stuck more...

Of course, that was when the miko started screaming and there were now a whole lot of centipedes. That was... concerning. Like any reasonable, experienced inhabitant of Gensokyo at this point, she opted to take the smart choice and get the hell off the ground. Except... they were in the trees, too? Which now meant one of them was on her.

From the look of the boar, getting bit by these things would be excruciatingly painful. Then they'd eat her. She didn't think it was likely, but the last thing she wanted to add to the world by being eaten was some immortal venomous centipede that would go on to be a weird antisocial youkai in a couple of centuries. So she took the one that had landed on her shoulder and burned.

One crispy centipede later and... how the hell were there so many of these? The shrine maiden sort of had the right idea, spraying ofuda everywhere--though that added dodging her wild attempts to the whole issue of dodging the centipedes--but cleaning all of them up was going to be a pain. Well, a pain with other people here, the forest seemed damp enough that it might not catch alight. Still, her usual less danmaku-heavy methods would work quite well, here: just point and boom. One reasonably-sized fiery explosion, one less patch of centipedes.

Hm, hopefully this pace wasn't too slow...

"...fufu~" Seeing the revulsion coming from Youmu and Sanae elicited a quiet yet smug giggle from the Scarlet Devil. Well, it couldn't be helped, they were but young girls after all, unlike herself, Sir Lewa, and Lady Mokou, indeed, twas' a good thing that the adults were here to accompany their younger peers. In time, they'd learn that a rotting corpse was simply a part of the cycle of life and death. As for the dead boar, it seemed pretty much everyone was in an unanimous agreement that staying around the partially-rotten carcass would achieve little at this point, the group had made all the analysis and hypotheses they could, now was the time for action. Next order of business, identify and locate the culprit or culprits.

Thus, they marched on; three humans, a half-ghost human, a youkai, and a toa traversing deeper into the verdant forest. "..." Until eventually, Remilia noticed the subtle changes in the forest atmosphere, it was as if they were entering a graveyard as everything but the whistling winds and rustling plants went silent. Was this an omen? Perhaps a basilisk had taken residence here, scaring away the other critters, that'd also explain why the venom mixed in the boar's blood. Hmhmhm~ crippled as I am, with these many allies, we should be able to slay the beast.

And then, Remilia's musings were proven true, at least partially. The culprit she envisioned was indeed here, but that was the extent of it.

Feeling something dropping on her bonnet, Remilia's first instinctive assumption was that a fruit had fallen on top of her head, but if that was the case, why did the Moriya Miko make an expression as if she had just seen a ghost?

...and then, something dangled down right in front of her eyes.

"...eh?"

Sanae's scream pretty much confirmed that shit had hit the proverbial fan.

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!!!" Utterly taken by surprise by something that wasn't exactly pleasant to look at, let alone touch, the group was "blessed" with the very first instance of a high-pitched wail from the normally aristocratic vampiress. Driven purely by fight-or-flight instinct, Remilia grabbed the offending insect with her left hand then crush it with extreme prejudice... only to end up spraying viscous bluish liquid that served as the creature's blood all over her hand, dress, and face. To make matters even worse, the vermin wasn't alone, far from it, as swarms upon swarms of the oversized arthropods revealed themselves, coming from above and below. "..?!" This happened nigh-simultaneously with Sanae's own panicked response and Mokou's copious application of pyromancy.

All of these combined created a potent assault upon Remilia's composure, one that was already quite fragile due to everything that had happened to her since she arrived here, and it... broke.

"S-s-..." Remilia stuttered pitifully amidst all the chaos of skittering centipedes, hails of ofuda, and fiery explosions, then in a quick jerk, she craned her neck up toward the sky, her voice becoming exponentially louder as it drowned out everything else for that exact moment, "SAKUYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!"

---

---

@Lugubrious @PKMNB0Y @Raineh Daze @VitaVitaAR @EchoWolff

While there was no longer any visible bodies, the rank scent seemed to only grow worse. The fact that there were no animal calls, despite the prospect of plentiful food(scavengers didn't care much about decay, did they?) only made things feel more ominous.

Youmu was hardly an expert on animals, but what Kochiya said made sense. Whatever ate the boar went through one of the softest parts of the creature, and it hadn't touched the bones or a lot of the thicker muscle. Plus, if it was using venom, that must have meant it probably wasn't very strong, right?

Poison wasn't the weapon of the powerful, right?

At least, that's what made sense to the young Konpaku.

The rotten stench that permeated this area of the forest made it clear this was the creature's killing grounds, at least. Where it hunted and fed. Youmu grimly noted it was certain she was smelling the remains of older victims.

Predators had to hunt, but that didn't make this any less grotesque, and she had no idea what would have eaten like that. A snake? But why would it chew a hole into the boar like that? Snakes normally just swallowed things up, right?

Normally-

At that moment, something landed ahead of Youmu with a soft thud.

Roukanken left its sheath in an instant.

It was no snake.

Before her eyes was an enormous centipede, thick and close to a whole meter in length. A feeling of revulsion struck the half-phantom, her entire body tensing as a chill ran up her spine and she flinched.

Gross gross gross gross gross...!

But at the same moment she adjusted her grip, and as the horrible thing started to move Roukanken's edge already reached it, dividing its writhing body instantly in half.

She was disgusted, but she wasn't afraid.

These things had to be what killed the boar, and they had to be what was driving the other boars out of their natural habitat.

Blue, viscous blood dripped from Roukanken's edge as Youmu sprang back and slid into a ready stance.

There were so many, now, but that didn't really matter. They were disgusting, but even alone she could have handled them.

A thin blade of light projected from Roukanken's edge, whistling through the air and slashing through the swarm in the same instant that Mokou's explosive attack struck, slicing multiple centipedes to ribbons.

@Izurich@Raineh Daze@PKMNB0Y@Lugubrious@EchoWolff

@PKMNB0Y @DracoLunaris





Before Rayne could answer her question, a young man stumbled toward them, panting and looking quite near his wit's end.

"S-sorry to bother you, miss! But there's been a bit of a situation out in the fields, and I heard that you might be able to help? A bunch of livestock got loose and with everyone busy trying to help clean the town up, I've been running around like a headless chicken all morning trying to catch them. Some of the people working near the gates said that you were helping clear the rubble out, and I don't want to impose, but it'd be a real help if you could... Well, help."

A curious head tilt was the response Fran gave to the man's plight. Wrangling livestock was definitely below what a Servant is usually capable of, but...Perhaps aiding the man, along with helping the other townsfolk, could give the berserker the lay of the land, as well as any possible information as to what was going on with this strange summoning. Plus, Fran felt that helping was the right thing to do.

"Ah!", announced Fran, raising from her chair while nodding, indicating to all present that she was willing to lend a hand.

Rayne was glad that she didn’t seem to have been talking, or acting, to fast for Frankenstine to keep up with, so maybe she wasn’t concussed, or she was only hurt in a way that stopped her from talking a lot, or maybe she was just a woman of few words? Either way, she was more than ready to make up for her lack with plenty of excess when one of the villagers enquired if she’d be willing to help with some escaped animals.

Which probably only went to show how accustomed the villagers had already become to strangers with strange looks and stranger powers showing up out of the middle of nowhere, given as he barely even blinked at Frankenstine’s presence.

Speaking of the women in question, she seemed more than happy to help as she agreed to do so in what was, it seemed, her minimalist style.

Rayne, naturally, also agreed with a “I'd be happy to help” before lifting off into the air, picking her hat up off her chair, and then setting it on her head, giving it just the littlest turn of adjustment before being satisfied with it.

“I’ll admit, I haven't had the most experience with herding, mushrooms don't exactly get up and run around thankfully. Imagine if they did though, little legs scampering under bobbing caps” she joked, farmer to farmer, before pausing and adding “which I guess maybe they could do in some other world” because the familiar was now no longer a given.

“Either way, I’ll do my best!” she concluded, before turning around to Frankenstein to continue the fairly one-sided conversation they’d started.

“So, let me explain some stuff while we go '' she said, before proceeding to do just that “First things first, this is a different world from the one you're from. But also I’m from different different world. There’s also this big Toa, they’re a bit like golems but they’re people, called Lewa from yet another different world, a lady called Anne from another, for some reason 3 ladies from one specific other other one and… well you get the pictures there’s a bunch of us, and you’ll meet the rest in time I’m sure. Most of them are out in the woods dealing with monsters but they’ll be fine, I know they can handle themselves”

To explain why she knew this, and also just what had happened here, she then gave a quick little summary of the prior day’s events “See, yesterday, most of us sorta showed up in this church summoned by a goddess to protect these two children from these jerks called the Raven Heralds, but like I said, we already ran them off. Doesn’t look like that’s all she wants though, as the goddess seems to keep teleporting people here, like you and lady Remilia, so I guess she wants us to do more stuff. I don’t know what though, she’s not exactly said anything since we got here, but I guess whatever they wanted those kids for is still a big deal maybe? We never did find out exactly why the Heralds attacked the town.”

“Either way, right now we’re helping the town get back on its feet, and then after we’ll probably try and work out what in the world the goddess wants, or even just how to get in contact with her so we can go home” she concluded her quick summary as they headed out of town to where the farm animal escape situation was going down.

With the assent of the two girls now well in hand, the young man wasted no time in leading them towards the eastern gate. Given how the chaos had panned out in the rest of the town, the fact that it had escaped much of the destruction that the Heralds had wrought was a small solace, if any.

The walk back towards said gate didn't take particularly long, at least—not with it being a straight shot through from the center of town—and before long the trio had exited into the fields nearby. Needless to say, though, that the area had seen... Better days.

There weren't very many bodies of the deceased present, if at all, but there were signs of the farmland being thrown into disarray from the number of people who had so callously passed through to begin with. A look into the distance would show that the fields further away from the town seemed to be no worse for wear, though, but that was more of a secondary concern.

No, what was really the issue right now was that there was indeed no small number of livestock running around, and next to nobody running around trying to catch them at the moment. Not like it would really stick for anything beyond the cows, maybe, given the apparent destruction of the fences surrounding the pastures off in the distance.

"Ah... I figured the situation wouldn't have improved a bit," the young man sighed before glancing at the two who had volunteered to help. "...Would it be too much to ask if you also had any idea on how to stop anything we got back in from getting out again?"

@DracoLunaris@Rezod92

"Does that mean you're super strong, like those heroes in the stories Papa told us?"

Again with that question. Anne had to consciously keep herself from reacting when the girl mentioned her father, though the strained smile she put up could barely mask her discomfort. "Ah, that's..." How was she even supposed to answer this time? Offer Millie false hope and let her down after the fact, or hit her with a reality check before she even had a chance to get her bearings?

The Knight glanced away, hesitant. Is there really no way out? It was the same with Alvin, with those kids back on Garion—asking her to fight for them, needing her to be strong for them. Even when, according to every medical professional she'd seen, that was sheer impossibility.

Then again, this was a new world, with entirely different rules to it. Anne thought back on what she'd seen of the Heralds, of the destruction they'd wrought upon the village. Horrible, yes, but still minuscule in scale compared to the Beast invasions she'd faced down in the past. She'd spent her career throwing herself into close combat against planet-killing alien superweapons, but those attackers at the church had been so badly equipped they shouldn't even have qualified as cannon fodder. Even if I'm not at my best... If it's just a bunch of primitive thugs, then maybe I can still...

No, that was the wrong question.

If the children needed her to do the impossible, then she simply needed to try. Even if it brought her body, her life, and all her ambitions to ruin.

"...Well, I don't like to brag too much." She met Millie's eyes now, her smile a little firmer than it had been. "So I won't say I'm the strongest, or anything like that. But I am strong enough to protect you—and I won't let any harm come to you now that I'm here." With a steady hand, she reached out to gently pat the young girl's hair. "So rest up now, and do what you need to feel better. I have friends looking after the village, and I can stay by your side for as long as you need."

@PKMNB0Y

@PKMNB0Y @DracoLunaris





As the duo were led toward the eastern gate, Rayne took the time to help Fran get caught up on current events....and it was quite a bit to take in for the berserker. Chief among them being...

“See, yesterday, most of us sorta showed up in this church summoned by a goddess to protect these two children from these jerks called the Raven Heralds, but like I said, we already ran them off. Doesn’t look like that’s all she wants though, as the goddess seems to keep teleporting people here, like you and lady Remilia, so I guess she wants us to do more stuff. I don’t know what though, she’s not exactly said anything since we got here, but I guess whatever they wanted those kids for is still a big deal maybe? We never did find out exactly why the Heralds attacked the town.”

Fran pondered on the knight witch's words. Apparently, no one who got summoned here knew what this goddess wanted them to do and why...

....No one except Fran herself.

Could it be that the voice she heard in the Throne be this goddess? This "Lavielle"? Again, more questions.

For now, she'll shelve these concerns for a later time. There is livestock to round up.

---

The young man wasn't kidding when they arrived at the fields. The surrounding grounds were heavily upturned and ruined. And then, there was the main issue:

There were cattle. A lot of cattle. Along with there not being nearly enough hands for the average person to corral them. There wasn't even a fence built up to keep the cows from running off.

"Ah... I figured the situation wouldn't have improved a bit.... Would it be too much to ask if you also had any idea on how to stop anything we got back in from getting out again?"

"Hmmm...", Fran mumbled, thinking for a moment before snapping her fingers. "Ah!"

Then, shocking Rayne, she reached out with her hand and a large battle mace appeared in her grasp before, with Servant-enhanced speed, leapt a great distance toward the edge of the field. Once there, she lifted her weapon toward the sky as verdant electricity sparked and crackled along the surface of the mace's head and branching outward, causing a loud and bright lightshow of lightning. Said lightshow proved to be effective in spooking the cows, causing them to run from her and back toward the farm. However, some of the cows broke off and ran in a different direction, but Fran knew this would happen, so leapt toward the edge of the field they were running to and spooked them again, making them run back toward the farm and only the farm.

As Rayne would soon realize, Fran was, essentially, single-handedly corralling the cows to one area and making sure to turn back any who strayed off.

Damn, he missed a lot.

A new group member, a rotting corpse, which he felt like he would throw up if he looked at it so his gaze drifted away from it, and now a swarm of centipedes. The bugs he wasn't quite enthusiastic about, but one question kept burning in his mind; Why did the flying people always know each other? Did this world have some kind of bias? He shook it off, there were much more pressing matters at hand. He finally got to fight at least.


Arsene's spectral form flew upward, chains clanking as wings spread, and a ball of black and crimson energy was expelled at the snap of his fingers, rocketing toward the insect horde, creating a small explosion of dark energy and dispatching a few of the bugs.

Joker then dashed toward a stray bug, knife drawn, and slashed at the creature, the blade plunging deep into the creature. There wasn't really much he could do with a knife here, Youske's katana would have worked much better, but alas, this is what he had to work with.

After exchanging what conjectures they could, the team was only too happy to move on from the morbid, malodorous carcass and press on into the woods. As they advanced, Lewa brought up the rear, keeping a careful watch both over his smaller organic acquaintances, and the forest itself. Though neither the trees nor the underbrush, nor the topography of the environment itself, had really changed, a subtle menace now pervaded the once-calm, once-beauteous area. Now that Lewa knew for sure that something foul was afoot among these trees, unknown horrors could very well lurk in every shadow, every hollow. The further the team went, the more still and strange the woods became. While the wind still filtered through the trees, and freshwater creeks trickled through leaf-choked beds, their whispers and burbles were now a solo act, unnerving in implication. No birdsong arose in harmonious response. Nothing stirred among the lichen-riddled logs, nor the mossy stones. Nature's symphony had faded away, its crucial parts too stricken with timidity to play. Whatever the culprit might be, the toa of air knew he was getting close.

Then, before Lewa even realized, the trap was sprung. Something dropped from the boughs overhead--something thick, ropy, and segmented, and alive. Sanae and Remilia's scream startled Lewa, and in an instant he'd snatched his axe from his back to ready for use. He watched as more of the serpentine beasts emerged, disturbed -or maybe excited- by the girls' shrieking. They burst forth in surprising numbers, scuttling on hundreds of spindly, stripy legs, a veritable tide of chitin armor, waving antennae, and clicking mandibles.

Lewa, however, did not immediately go on the offensive. The centipedes did not frighten him, nor even register as a threat. He could see at a glance that the little bugs lacked any natural weapons that could pierce his armor, and even if they did wield some sort of venom, it seemed very unlikely that they could reach his organic components. Instead the centipedes fascinated him, as they more than anything else he'd seen so far resembled something from his own world, thanks to their hard exoskeleton and segmented bodies. Of course, the others didn't share his curiosity. For the humans, the sight of the bugs elicited a visceral response of fear and revulsion. Before Lewa could even begin to study the creepy crawlies, the organics unleashed their magic, turning the forest into a chaotic maelstrom of fireworks. It was total pandemonium. "Mata Nui..." Lewa sighed. If these writhing, wriggling beasts endangered the others to the extent that such overwhelming force was warranted, he couldn't exactly stand around and study him. Lewa went to work, halfheartedly chopping at the centipedes. If anything, he was more worried about his allies hitting one another, or himself, for that matter. Hopefully all the commotion would convince the bugs to retreat, rather than rush headlong into their deaths.

In her adrenaline-fueled panic, Sanae had been able to think of little more than firing off enough projectiles and trying to dodge whatever centipedes were falling around her—this, of course, included any that were attempting to fall on top of her head as they had Remilia's. Regardless of how dangerous they might have been (which her instincts judged to be "fairly so"), the fact that they were both aggressive and falling from the treetops made this whole ordeal far more nerve-wracking than it had any right to be.

Eventually, though, the rain of bugs began to peter out, and with that came enough time for the young woman to finally take a moment to breathe and reassess the situation. Naturally, the others had been clearing through the horde of centipedes at their own pace (some moreso than others), and the floor had by this point been stained a sickly blue color that was wholly unpleasant to look at. The scattered pieces of their bodies lying around on the floor didn't exactly make it look any prettier, but the bugs being dead was them trying to bite her, if anything.

"Haah... What the heck was that?!" Sanae cried out, her left hand clutching at her chest as she held her gohei out with her right just in case that wasn't the end of them. "In what world is a centipede allowed to get that big?"

The threat hadn't abated yet—far from it—but at the very least the young woman had regained enough of her wits to start firing at the centipedes in particular rather than get the others with her too involved.

Though most of the group's efforts would continue to be placed upon trying to clear the still-oncoming waves of centipedes, anyone with the leisure to not have to worry about dying after being bitten might notice that the bugs as a whole seemed to be an opaque grey-black color, and that their bodies seemed to be softer than one might have expected of anything with an exoskeleton.

But between all of the sounds of battle, something else seemed to be lurking about. Though somewhat covered up by the sounds of the centipedes as they were moving about or being struck down, there was another noise—the sounds of chitin tapping against bark, against the underbrush—slowly increasing in volume as the fight dragged on.

@VitaVitaAR@EchoWolff@Izurich@Lugubrious@Raineh Daze

---

Millie's eyes shone with admiration at Anne's affirmation of strength, and a small 'ooh' escaped her lips at what she said. The pure faith that she had in the woman's words could have been seen as concerning in a sense, but that could just have easily been construed as childlike naivete at play.

"Okay, Miss Anne," the girl nodded in response to the woman's comments before pushing herself into a more comfortable seated position. "Uh... Do you mind if I ask you another question, miss?"

There was a bit of a pause as Millie hesitated for a moment, and provided Anne gave her okay, the young girl would continue speaking.

"R-right... Um... have you ever had, like... Weird dreams about people you've never met or seen before? There was a really pretty lady speaking to me in my dream talking about a bunch of really scary stuff, but I'm not really sure what she meant by all of it... Or if it means anything at all?"

@Drifting Pollen

Between Sanae's ofuda barrage, Youmu's insect bisection (spraying even more icky bug fluids as she did), Mokou's arboreal arson, Lewa's bug chops (causing similar issues as Youmu), Joker's umbral explosions, and last but definitely not least, the godforsaken centipedes themselves, they were all far too much for the lost, crippled, and stressed out vampiress to handle. "..." After her desperate summons for the chronomancer maid went unanswered, the Scarlet Devil found her jaws locked shut, unable to produce even a single word as her slitted eyes constricted as much as it could, pupils trembling in palpable panic.

"...!!" Without uttering another word - not that she could - Remilia fully succumbed to the latter of her fight-or-flight instinct as her wings carried her away, far, far away from the commotion. She didn't care where to, as long as she was centipede-free. Gasping and squirming, Remilia soon found herself hiding behind a tree trunk, her back settling against its rough surface before she fell onto her rump in jittery anxiety. With trembling hands, she brought up her knees to her chest as her arms reached up to hide the upper half of face behind her bonnet, in an subconscious attempt to hide her tears from non-existent observers.

"Uuu~-... eh?" However, perhaps in response to her hubris of manipulating the strings of fate for the last few centuries, the universe didn't even allow her a moment of respite as noises akin to chitin tapping against bark along with underbush being disturbed reverberated through the forest. Then, in morbid curiosity and against her better judgment, Remilia took a peek to find...

@Lugubrious @PKMNB0Y @Raineh Daze @VitaVitaAR @EchoWolff

It was somewhat difficult to tell if her ramblings had been coherent and useful to Frankenstine, Rayne found. All she had to go off was a somewhat contemplative look. It was better than one of confusion or annoyance at least, she supposed, so she’d air on the side of optimism and hope that it had indeed helped.

A few moments after she’d finished her spiel, they’d passed through the gate and out into the farmland beyond. She’d seen it before already of course, but it was a bit different to be traveling through the wreck rather than looking down at it in a detached fashion. At least there was farm land further out that was ok.

For the moment.

At least some of it probably got hit as collateral damage as part of what happened next.

Rayne was nodding along with the farmer as he explained the issue with the animals being spread all over, and observing how there was no way to keep them back in their broken pens even if they were herded back, when Fran had an idea. One that started by pulling a massive mace out of nowhere, which was shocking to see anyone else do, and then blasting off in a mighty leap towards the beasts.

“Wait no no no we want them alive!” a panicking Ryne shouted as she started to go after Fran, misinterpreting what her plan was immensely, only for the women to call down the lightning, the thunderous explosion drowning out Rayne’s accompanying shriek of shock and fright. She wasn’t the only one spooked by this, that was for sure, as it prompted the already running about animals to do so even more, now in utter terror.

When Rayne saw Frankenstine proceed to leap and do another lighting flash to spook them in a specific direction, she did at least get what she was doing, but, well it could very much be argued whether Fran was herding the beasts, or just creating a stampede.

The witch knight blink dashed the herd and herdswoman, and, upon catching up, then shouted “Please tell me have a plan to get them to stop!” because that was very much the issue here. Despite her massive misgivings with the plan she didn’t know the specifics of (who knew whatever other powers this metallically augmented lady had after all), the little lady helped out how she could, because she couldn’t exactly stop it.

Thus she went blinking dashing here, there and everywhere, waving her hat, “yaa”ing and even body checking individual animals that weren't worth a flash of lighting. She was also very much on rescue duty, because panicked animals were not at all considerate of smaller, slower animals that might be in their way. As such a lot of her time involved things like chucking chickens out of harm's way, or blink dashing to the side with young animals in tow, lest they be trampled.