"If it's rigged so a wire runs outside the chest, it's probably underneath," Jase sighs. "If it's rigged internally, then the holes in the wall are a fake - or whoever set this up was really paranoid."
There were so many ways to rig a trap.
"Best move back," the half-elf scowled, pulling his blade. standing to one side, he carefully slid his blade under the lid, then tried to lift the lid a fraction of an inch. For all they knew, it might not even be locked. And if they heard any noises, that would suggest there was some sort of mechanism.
"Cassius... Got it," Meira responded, repeating the elf's name once before nodding her head and starting to continue back on her walk around the area. Hearing that her new companion wanted to ask about what she did, though... That was a novel experience in its own right.
"Well, if you want to hear about what I do, then sure," the young woman replied, more than willing to explain her job to the man who had already made this day somewhat more interesting than it might have usually been. "Adventurers... Well, honestly, it wouldn't be too farfetched to call us mercenaries with a better reputation. We take jobs from whoever offers them, handle whatever they're asking for, and get paid using the guild as a middleman."
After waiting a moment to see what Cassius' reaction would her comments would be, if any, the catgirl would opt to elaborate a bit more on the role that she played.
"In my case, most of the things I do involve things like culling the local monsters if they get too out of hand. I know a few teams like diving into dungeons for a chance at some rare treasure trying to strike it rich instead, but that greed could just as well leave someone for dead as it could bring them fortune."
There was a bit of a bitter tone that swam beneath her words, but Meira chose to pivot away from the matter and back towards Cassius and his experiences.
"...Well, that aside... It sounds like wherever you're from is a lot safer than what I'm used to, so it must've been some wild misfortune to bring you here, of all places. Mind if I asked what you used to do, or is that something you'd prefer to keep to yourself?"
For all the concern that the group had over the possibility of the room being laden with traps, the fact that the chest cracked open without so much as a hint of an explosion or it being some sort of monster would be thoroughly... Unnecessary. The rusted lock of the chest would easily crack and give way under the pressure and the slightest show of force from the half-elf, and the top of the container would pop open without any sort of fanfare.
Upon further inspection, the box would appear to have a flute carved of a white-green stone of some sort and left covered in a soft fur pelt of some variety.
The nature of either object was still unknown, of course, but inspecting the interior of the box would make it clear that there was no sort of trick, magical or otherwise, lying in wait.
Vrelenor was about to explain that blocking the alcoves up with ice would both require getting pointlessly close and probably be quite ineffective without a way to anchor the ice in place, but Jason opened the chest before he opened his mouth.
Nothing!
It was so suspicious, even Jason thought it was a trap, and he doesn't seem to be familiar with the 'genre'. It's probably not a good idea to expect any sort of genre convention to apply to reality, and Vrelenor is certainly not going to voice any aloud, but it's like trying not to think of pink elephants, everything he seen so far just reminds him of fiction).
Vrelenor walks over to take a look inside, maybe some sort of puzzle, definitely not saying that aloud without more proof, don't think these guys would approve. "Well, that's the last thing I expected, anyone play the flute or know what it's made of? Why is there a random flute in a harmless yet incredibly suspicious room?"
Maybe the alcoves hold a clue? He walks over to the nearest one and takes a look inside.
The other person in the shack though her method of eating was cool, and Petra couldn’t help but mentally grin to herself at that. It was cool; really, really cool.
Contacts: "Down"
Nice! And, if you were able to digest the dirt, you could potentially dig tunnels to hide or get around unseen if need be. If something bad happens, the bug-hole I dug is...uh...to your left?
If you wanna rest, I'm gonna practice my own magic. Once I feel like I could conceivably defend myself I'll try to find us some water and a way to filter it. Bound to be a well around here but I'm sure it's filthy.
Could she dig? Petra supposed there was no reason she wouldn’t be able to, unless perhaps the ground was too compacted or something like that. Then again, would she be able to eat indefinitely? Probably not, but surely, this body had a way of disposing of waste.
Against her better judgement, Petra peaked back at her internals. She didn’t have to search for long until she found what she was looking for in the form of the numerous cells dedicated to waste disposal. Several different kinds of cell carrying off the indigestible remnants of her arthropod meals, as well as various other kinds of waste, both that from the insects and the waste her body itself was producing throughout its normal activity, transporting the waste to her outer membrane where it’s promptly pushed out of her body and into the unknown.
From her observations of the process, Petra fells pretty confident that she’ll be able to dig, if in all likelihood very slowly, in fact she can probably even dig through things she can’t actually digest – things like sand and gravel – just by engulfing and expelling the material. Of course, given the lingering effects of her last attempt at magic, Petra isn’t exactly eager to try the process out just yet… actually that was a lie; she is very eager, just not quite eager enough yet for her curiosity to out way her sense of self-preservation.
As for the water problem, contamination, as Down mentioned, is an obvious concern, especially assuming a medieval context. But since her thoughts were already on it, wouldn’t it be possible for her to filter water in a similar fashion to her hypothesised digging method? Petra certainly didn’t feel as though there was any reason she wouldn’t be able to simply engulf some water, digest or separate any contaminants, and then expel the purified fluid – at least not once she’d recovered her magic a bit.
Contacts: "Down"
If you need to filter water, I think it should be possible for me to do it. I’m pretty confident this body can digest anything organic in the water and I think I could seperate out any inoragnic contamination. At the very least, if I can’t I should be able to identify if the water’s contaminated. Might be a bit gross to drink water that’s come out of me though, but it’s not like everything we drink hasn’t been piss or sewerage at some point, right?
He was beginning to see what it was then. The Guild existed as a job board, perhaps similar to Upwork or Craigslist, while adventurers were fundamentally freelancers whose trade generally involved violence or travel. Adventurers leveraged the reputation of the Guild in order to get work, while the Guild got a cut of the profits in return. No doubt, there was some sort of vetting service at play, and perhaps more famous adventurers would find themselves working directly for specific employers, but that’d be the gist of it. In the meanwhile, those who eschewed from working with the Guild were still considered adventurers, but spent their time more as treasure hunters, digging through ruins for the gold of dead kings or the like. He had heard of treasure hunters breaking into pyramids; greed and sacrilege were commonalities of humanity, after all.
And, of course, with treasure hunting came sudden deaths. Flammable gas, decaying structures, and perhaps monsters too. Or maybe you just run out of money, after coming across such worthless things as just rusted armor and dry bones, and you end up starving to death instead.
“But people who’d do such things are optimists. There’s only fortune to be had.”
And those who weren’t optimists were snakes, in their own way. Those with a clearer view, indeed, ended up as…
“I was in finance,” Cassius replied. He paused a moment afterwards, trying to figure out how to explain that to someone who didn’t live in a world of global trade and public companies, where the profit of a single company could be worth more than the GDP of a nation. “There are people who give money to businesses, in exchange for the future possibility of getting that money back at a greater or lesser amount depending on how that business develops. My work is in finding out which business is most worth giving money to, before others notice it too. Or do the reverse, and know when to take the money back before the business crashes and burns.”
They shared in the bitterness, perhaps. It was only here that Cassius let out a laugh, like a crack emerging in a frozen lake.
“Fundamentally, I help make more money for people with too much money, so they can spend it on vanity projects. Does that make sense?”
The ruined shrine was surrounded by green. The forest was fairly dense and flush with life.
It'd be a peaceful, serene location, if not for the complete absence of wildlife sounds.
Indeed, all that could be heard was that scraping sound, and the rhythmic thudding of footsteps.
The former sounded clearer, now, as if something was rattling branches or scrapping against the side of the trees.
Suddenly, the forest looked darker. Despite the fact it was daylight, no longer could anything be determined from between branches and trunks.
It was almost pitch black. It was like peering into a moonless night.
And yet it wasn't completely dark. Indeed, nothing could truly be discerned in the blackness of the forest, but there was a source of light.
Two glowing orbs. A pallid, sickly green shade, they were fixed upon the clearing ahead, and in particular on the medusa that had just exited the shrine.
And they were moving closer.
Slowly, with the sound of each thudding footfall, the scraping of bark and the rattling of branches, whatever those sickly balls of light belonged to was coming closer.
As it did, a scent began fill the air. At first it was almost sweet, but the stronger it became the more unpleasant. A grotesque, putrid aroma that brought to mind rotting flesh.
There was a shape now in the darkness, just beyond the balls of light. Something taller than any human.
Another sound reached the ears of the unusual trio. A ragged, heavy breathing, that seemed to come from every direction at once.
The shape moved closer.
Now the fallen leaflitter rustled.
From the same direction as the shape in the darkness's approach, came centipedes. Hundreds upon hundreds of centipedes, seemingly made of shadow themselves, emerging from the leaflitter and scuttling across the clearing, a seething wave of the creatures.
The air felt heavier. Stagnant. As if rot had set in.
Connor sat with his back against the wall, a little bit away from the slime, and held his palm out towards the opposite, empty wall of the shack. He had placed the weapon he dubbed "Caliboard" into a gap in the floorboards so that it would stand upright as a sort of target.
Think real hard, and try to notice a draining effect? He mulled over the slime's previous words. Apparently the "contact" function included a log, which was convenient...but what if you had a chat with someone that covered several hours of dialogue? Connor wondered if this was like one of the group chat apps he used for gaming, and if he could create his own "server" and copy-paste or pin messages from other groups that he found useful. Something else to experiment with. But for now...Magic! But be careful, because overdoing it is painful...Right...
A blip appeared in the corner of his vision, which he scanned quickly--oh! The slime was right! If they could break things down so efficiently, their own body could be used as a water filter! Which brought up another interesting possibility...
Contact: "Slime" Good idea! That makes me wonder, though--can you basically read the chemical composition of anything you take in? In some video games there are things like "Crafting" and "Alchemy" systems that let a player take, like, a magic herb or something and turn it into beneficial potions and whatnot. If you could do that, it opens up a lot of potential...Ah, wait, I'm getting distracted. Hold on a bit.
Connor liked optimizing things. The idea of turning life into a videogame, where he could actually tell his efforts were making a difference via numbers on a screen as opposed to the "real world's" painful process of continual trial, rejection, error, screw-up, setback, and worthless rewards, made him absolutely giddy.
Especially if it meant he could be powerful for once in his cowardly, miserable, self-loathsome life.
So, Kinetic Magic. Briefly Connor mentally reviewed a vast number of animated television shows, video games, novels, internet commentary, and amateur writing (of his own design) where a character tried to "learn magic." For once, wasting his life had become somewhat useful.
It's not an "element" like fire or water, so I doubt doing a kung-fu move and projecting my energy would produce any results. The slime can't talk and none of us have anything besides the clothes...or gel...on our backs, so verbal and somatic components must not be essential. So that leaves...what, self-visualization?
Applied force. Force was mass times acceleration, so was magical energy being converted into both of those things, or at least somehow imitating them while being incorporeal? And "applied" force was...work, maybe? Scientifically, the measure of force exerted on an object over a distance? So the simplest form of that was...a push?
Connor wiggled his fingers, then clenched his hand like he was trying to strike someone with an open palm--not that he actually knew how to do that, but he'd seen lots of action movies. He looked at Caliboard, and focused his mind. He imagined...a ghostly, pale blue aura, enveloping his whole body. Extending from his arm. Shaped into a wispy, disembodied hand. Stretching across the distance. Pushing against the board.
He felt...resistance? In his mind? He gulped. His heart beat quickened. He pushed harder.
The awkward, scary, and uncomfortable sensation of using a muscle for the first time--something else he had never experienced outside of gym class and a short lived attempt (exactly two days) at accomplishing a "Hero for Fun" exercise routine--that sensation pumped through him. He pushed harder.
The mental wall gave way. What should not have been physically possible became real.
A cyan shimmer in the vague shape of a hand--like a bad artist's sketch--formed in front of his palm. As slowly as Connor himself would've pressed a barbell, it drifted towards Caliboard and pushed against the flat top--paying no mind to the rusty nail--until the plank creaked. That sound caused Connor to blink and jerk back on instinct. He let out the breath that had been under oceanic pressure in his lungs.
"HO. LEE. SHIT!" He looked at his own hand, which trembled as a smile most people would associate with serial killers and supervillain clowns threatened to rip his cheeks apart. "I can do magic! I can do magic!"
He thrust his palm towards the board again. The image was faster, the power came faster. The push was more violent this time--like the numerous times in elementary school Connor had tried to protect himself from a bully, knowing nothing more than to shove them, try to get them away from him. The spell was projected faster, striking the board hard enough to lever it a few inches to one side--its other end made another squeaky noise as it ground between the floorboards.
That memory darkened Connor's mood, but didn't discourage him in the least. Again he pushed, this time physically mimicking the motion with his own arm. The two-by-four was shoved free of its admittedly shoddy brace, and clattered to the shack's floor.
Connor didn't realize he was on the verge of hyperventilating, his face flushed as a bead of sweat made its way down his cheek. But it wasn't due to the drain of the magic--he could feel it, like the way an actual athlete feels after fully warming themselves up--but his own excitement had his stomach trying to leap into his throat.
How many times can I cast this!? How hard can I push?! How far? How fast? It was shaped like a hand just like I imagined--can I shape it into something else?!
He spun in place, now facing the wall and still seated. He placed his hand flat against the dark boards, and imagined a second one made of magic. This time the effect wasn't immediate--but slowly, haltingly, Connor's body slid backwards across the floorboards until he was an arm's length away from the shack's wall. He kept pushing, the sweat of real effort joining the bead of excitement on his other cheek, and his body scooted another span, then another. Soon, he had almost pushed himself clear across the shack using only his magic.
About ten feet before it can't reach the wall anymore! He heaved an enormous sigh--he had to stop not-breathing when he did this. Maybe, what, like twice as hard as doing a pushup? As he put a hand on his chest to try and stifle his panting, he noticed the real drain--like he'd just tried to sprint across a football field. But the speed at which I moved my own weight...Maybe I could get more but...The slime's right, this could definitely get painful...
And once again, the bullies flashed into his mind. Pushing them away had never worked, had it? No. They always kept coming. Even trying to hit them with a closed fist--a weak, scrawny, desperate fist, small and useless just like the loser it was attached to--!
Connor clenched his fist, and his other hand covered it as if he'd somehow injured himself. He sniffed as he screwed his eyes shut, trying to focus on what he could feel. The magic now running through his veins.
This isn't enough. He took a forcibly slow, deep breath. Applied force. Work. How do I get more work out of something? Ninth grade physical science class. He needed to start simple. Pulleys? Too complex. Levers? Was he meant to magically recreate the fulcrum, or the arm? No. Simpler. Inclined plane? No, it'd still be just a push...A wedge?
The example of a wedge, in his mind, was an axe being swung into a log. His heart leaped with realization. Humankind's first use of technology--no, of weaponry! First it was just their fists, then blunt clubs! Then clubs with wedges in them, and then...
Blades!
He calmed himself, and now with his back against the opposite wall, he extended his hand once more. He did not release the magic, but merely formed its shape in his mind. With his imagination he crafted a 3D environment, similar to something a computer modeler would use for animation and rigging.
I can rotate an apple in my head. Proof that I'm not an NPC. he thought, sardonically.
He formed the same hand he had been using to push with. It was actually a little clearer now than it was when he cast it for real, but not by much. By practicing more, he was sure he could shape it up--but he needed something useful, and he needed it quickly. Every moment they spent in this new world without a means to defend themselves was another moment of living in fear. And Connor had lived like that long enough, thank you very effing much.
The hand's "model" was pinched and pulled by Connor's mind. First it lost detail, becoming a simple polygonal block instead of some imitation of an articulated human hand. Then he thinned one edge of that block, rotating it to be sure he had what he wanted--an edge, yes. Like an axe head. But if he wanted a blade, it needed to be...
Thinner. More taper. Not just thin at the edge, but less...long? Width from another angle? He didn't know what the flat back of the axe was called, but he shrank that. As far as vertical length, he stretched that out a little more. What else?
Foru-ded wan sou-zand timu! Superior nihon steeru!
A slight curve. He wasn't sure how to reflect the next idea in his "3D Mindspace" but he tried to "concentrate" the mass, make it denser, harder. Like it was being compressed. He imagined dragging the blade down an actual whetstone, though he'd never done anything like that either.
Then it stood out in his mind, alone among a black void. He opened his eyes. Almost on instinct, he changed the position of his hand. Instead of extending his palm, he folded all of his fingers but the index and middle. And as he took aim at the far wall, and summoned up his magic, he swept those two fingers in a short arc.
"Cut!" he ordered the power.
He felt more resistance this time and clenched his teeth as the power released. In his mind he imagined swinging a machete as hard as he could. There was a crack and snap, a blue arc flying through the air--!
And now, a single board in the dilapidated wall bore a mark. Like someone had taken a pocketknife, and tried to carve a straight, diagonal line into it. At least six inches long, not quite an inch deep. These boards were dry, bug-eaten wood...but still harder than flesh, and thicker than skin. If Connor could land that on an attacker's wrist, or neck, or across the eyes...
Again, he smiled like the villain of some cheap slasher horror-flick.
Then he gasped and fell to one knee, one hand over his face. As he blinked and slowly took his hand away, looking at it and growing pale, he sent the Slime an update.
Contact: "Slime" Gud news: Magic work. Can Jedi push stuff and shoot swords. Bad: Nose bleed, head hurts. If I hav aneurysm plz w8 48 hrs b4 eating me. Thx.
The young man laid back on the floor and panted, chest rising faster and then slower. His nosebleed soon stopped as he pinched the bridge, and he realized after a few minutes the headache wasn't actually terribly debilitating--he was just, in all honesty, a big wuss. No, this was definitely just from getting too excited. He probably couldn't cast that cutting spell more than a handful of times, at least not in a row, but he didn't think he'd damaged himself permanently.
He'd rest, and then...well, then he had to decide how to face the outside world. It made a bubble of laughter rise from his throat. New world, same problems.
Sora listened to Tiny’s lists of reasons why fire wasn’t a good idea. He nodded throughout, though a pout crept into his expression. “So, no Molotovs?” he summarized, obviously disappointed. “Awwww, maan,” he sighed. He guessed that idea would be shelved for later. “I guess you’re right we gotta see first what actually kills zombies…Is it destroying the brain?”
At this point, the dragon-man – Sora decided to call him Ryu – produced a flame. “Hoooly-” Sora gasped, and just stayed there, mouth agape, utterly stunned at the evidence of magic. Still in a haze, he heard Tiny tell him about the ‘status’ thing. “Uh…Status?” he tried, and right there it was. Suddenly, out of nowhere, completely out of place – a holographic computer screen in front of his face. Listed were his name, age, race, level, stats, and a skill. “Taming…” That made sense. He didn’t know what to make of the idea that this world really worked based off of game logic.
Like Tiny had pointed out though, it’d be a bad idea to make assumptions based on media they’d consumed. They actually had to try things out to see how they worked. “Oookay, so there’s a fucking status screen, god, does that make me feel crazy,” he muttered. With a thought, he closed the screen.
He walked back downstairs, eyeing the zombies outside. Seemed like his exclamation hadn’t agitated him. “Hey, what’cha doin’–” the question died on his lips as he saw what Blonde was up to. She opened up the cellar, and an undead stumbled out.
It was slow, ungainly, but a walking corpse to be sure. Sora exhaled harshly, cursing out the intruder zombie in his mind. As his heartbeat raced, Sora felt adrenaline surge through him like lightning. Slowly, but faster than the zombie, he walked up to it as quietly as he could. It couldn’t see him, but he still kept to its blindside, approaching it from the back. Mostly, he focused on moving as quietly as a mouse. Once close enough, he unsheathed his recently acquired dagger, and aimed a stab at the base of its skull. If he was right, the zombie wouldn’t know what hit it.
Though it seemed like it was a bit difficult to wrap her head around the initial explanation he provided, the more succinct version of Cassius' explanation was enlightening enough to Meira on it's own. Her reaction was, understandably, rather mixed.
"Mmm... I guess there are people like that no matter where you are in the world, huh?" she asked, a slight grimace peeking through on her face before she brought herself in line again. "...But yes, I get the idea well enough. It's not really my place to judge, though; when some rich idiot's ego is as big as their wallet, sometimes you have to swallow your pride and follow along."
With their dialogue taking another somber turn, though, the catgirl glanced back at Cassius for a moment before up towards the sun still high in the sky.
"...It'll be a bit longer before my patrol's done, so if you don't mind me making sure nobody's up and died in the last few minutes, I can go report in and we can head into town proper. It'll probably be a nice change of pace from all this, at least," Meira said as she began her last pass through the shacks steeped in desperation and poverty. "If you do see something I might have somehow missed, though, do let me know."
Grim topics indeed, but it served well enough to get a grasp on Meira’s character. Cassius followed her from behind as their conversation dwindled down, his gaze briefly caught by the swishing and swaying of her tail before being redirected back to his surroundings. She considered herself one step above mercenaries, so she disdained the idea of monetizing her violence for a private group’s interest. She thought little of treasure hunters too, so she wasn’t someone entirely driven by profit at the risk of her own life. Her work pertained towards slaying monsters that would prove a problem for the local populace, or in patrolling such wretched places like these in order to provide some form of protection for the living and dignity to the dead.
Fundamentally, a decent sort. He supposed if she wasn’t, he’d have been lead to an alleyway and gutted by now. Or just knocked unconscious and shipped off to a slave merchant.
That was enough to send a message then.
“Status.”
The translucent window emerged once more, and he glided through the messages from C and Slime that he had missed. Nothing of importance, and nothing that he would be able to change now. Oh well.
The Adventurer’s Guild exists, and Meira, the woman I left with, is part of them. Slimes are categorized as monsters, but are thought of as useful for cleaning up corpses. The city’s name is Neir, the country’s name is Cethaim. King Selm is the top of the hierarchy, and nobles manage territories beneath him. There are no ongoing wars of note. A convenient excuse for our appearance here is a ‘teleportation’ spell. You can make money as a treasure hunter in ‘dungeons’ here or pick up odd jobs as an adventurer, but if both of you finished school, you would likely be able to get a job inside the city.
Also, my name is Cassius.
He pressed 'send', and in that moment, as the High Elf wiped away the screen, something stuck out to him. It wasn't something in the air, nor something that he could hear, and certainly not something that stuck out to him as something he could see, but rather...an anomaly. The presence of something misplaced, even here amongst the destitute and decrepit. Nothing more, perhaps, than just a bad feeling, except a weighty enough impression that his golden eyes turned towards a lump of nondescript garbage piled up in the space between two half-collapsed shacks.
"Meira."
He kicked the pile, and the mess spread out further. The carcasses of cooked vermin, scraps of decayed vegetables, rags too soiled and damaged to be worth even cleaning. A litany of trash designed to be too disgusting to interact with, but organic enough that the vermin would take care of it so that you didn't need to.
And within the pile laid a package of something, wrapped up in a leather of unknown origin and bound with a thick cordage that seemed to suck up the orange light of the afternoon.
The cellar doors fell open upon the floor, kicking up some more dust. Rising to her feet, Bianca watched the opening carefully. The cause of that scratching, evidently, was a corpse after all. Of course it was, though it was probably better this way, just imagining a still-living person being stuck down there wasn't a fun thought.
The zombie was slowly ascending the stairs, its' head coming into view. It wasn't so fast to be alarming, but Bianca still kept watching it curiously, perhps still taking in the fact that, yes, zombies were definitely a thing. And most certainly dangerous, especially with a knife in hand. Huh. Perhaps the person just happened to die with it in hand and it got stuck there? But then, if the zombie were stiff enough to be clutching a weapon, wouldn't the limbs be too stiff to properly walk up stairs? She was hardly an expert on corpses, and even less so with zombie media, but surely-
"Oh, right!" she was getting lost in thought at a very silly time. Bianca hefted the hammer above her head, ready to squash the zombie's head and hope there wouldn't be too much to clean up afterwards. However Sora's sudden reappearance made her pause. It seemed he'd stabbed the zombie in the back of the head, which... probably was enough, right? Even the undead surely hated having their brains attacked directly!
"Uh, thanks," Bianca returned the hammer to her shoulder, "sorry, the scratching was a little distracting, and I just wanted to, uh..."
For the most part, Petra just patiently waited for her magic to recover, while her companion experimented with their own. Even blind as she was, Petra didn’t fail to notice when the other mage finally got their own magic to work, her gelatinous body immediately picking up on the sudden influx of information transmitted via vibrations through the air and floor, with each spell.
Were they shooting projectiles of some kind? Controlling the wind? Perhaps just producing raw force? Once again, Petra found no small part of her longing to have her human vision back, if only so she could get a good look at the actual spell casting process. It was magic! Just think of all the things she could learn just by watching it!
Mentally sighing to herself, Petra turned thoughts away from the nearby spell caster and to the broader nature of magic itself. Just what was magic, exactly? Obviously Petra knew she wasn’t even remotely qualified to ask that question – certainly not when she knew so little about the subject – but qualified or not, the question burned at her mind regardless. Some tiny part of Petra’s mind immediately motioned to dismiss the question – to simply label the phenomenon 'supernatural' and leave it at that – but the rest of her mind called that part traitor and smothered it down.
Supernatural was a term used to describe things that were beyond understanding; things that fundamentally didn’t follow the rules of the universe. Strange as everything she’d seen was, Petra didn’t yet feel ready to accept the idea that there were things that couldn’t be understood. In fact, that was one of the few ideas she probably wouldn’t ever be able to accept. Sure, the universe might follow a different set of rules to the ones she’d thought they did just a few hours ago, and sure, she was almost certainly, a long, long, ways off from even beginning to be able to understand these new rules, but even so, everything had rules, and anything that had rules could eventually be understood. All she needed was enough time and the right questions.
The only problem was Petra wasn’t quite sure what exactly the right questions were. She’d already cast magic, several times even, which should have given her plenty of questions, and it had, but most of those questions were surface level; important to answer, certainly, but insignificant or impossible to answer without prerequisite knowledge she didn’t yet possess. What she needed was something deeper. Something foundational.
Petra thought about it for a bit, trying to focus on the ways she was sure magic violated the laws of the universe as she knew it. She felt almost certain there was something to this particular line of reasoning. She continued to mull over it for a while, and then it hit her; obviously there were all sorts of ways magic appeared to violate the rules of reality she was familiar with, but one stood out above the others; ontology. Magic had a concept of ontology.
Her own magic, [Biomancy], worked on biological systems, except biology didn't really exist except as a human construct. Sure, things that are biological exist, at least in the sense that people can describe them as being such, but that's an illusion – one of the neat little boxes we group things into for our own convenience of understanding. In reality, biology is nothing more than an emergent phenomenon of chemistry and physics – a runaway chemical reaction that started self-perpetuating almost four billion years ago. People know what life is, but the universe shouldn’t; not any more than it recognises an aeroplane or a fairy tale.
And yet the universe does seem to recognise it. And that’s weird. Really weird. Possibly even weirder than the universe producing handy little status screens with which to categorise us – which is in itself something that couldn’t be pulled off without some way of recognising what things are and categorising them.
Does that mean that the universe is aware or that there’s some god like driving force behind it? Not necessarily, but certainly a possibility. It’s also possible the recognition comes from somewhere further down the chain; say for example if magic isn’t fundamental to the universe itself but was created by conscious agents, sufficiently advanced technology and all that… or maybe magic draws its understanding from its users or something like a collective consciousness?
Petra’s mind spins as she thinks about that. That’s already a lot of different possibilities – each of which would require a completely different approach to dissecting and analysing the field of magic – and even now she’s still thinking of more, not to mention all the countless possibilities that’ll no doubt never even occur to her.
Before Petra’s thoughts can spiral into total madness, she’s pulled out of them by a notification. Oh, right, the other guy.
Contacts: "Down"
Gud news: Magic work. Can Jedi push stuff and shoot swords. Bad: Nose bleed, head hurts. If I hav aneurysm plz w8 48 hrs b4 eating me. Thx.
Eat them? Petra’s almost insulted by the idea she might do such a thing. Even if she’s inhabiting the body of a slime now, she definitely wouldn’t consider eating someone unless she was really desperate… then again, examining a human corpse would probably help a lot in her mission to build herself a proper body, and how much progress would she make if she were able to steal human organs wholesale… wait no, bad thoughts.
Moving swiftly on, Petra focuses her attention on the important details of the message. Her companion seemed to have some kind of force magic – though the term, “Jedi push stuff and shoot swords” left the details frustratingly vague – and they’d also pushed their magic far enough to see side effects, but no far enough to be particularly worrying.
Before Petra could consider the matter further, her thoughts are interrupted yet again, by another message. For the briefest of moments, she's hopeful that it might be a more detailed breakdown of Down’s experiments with magic, but then she realises the message is from Up – not that it isn't detailed, just somewhat less interesting than magic, if important nonetheless.
Contacts: "Up, Down"
The Adventurer’s Guild exists, and Meira, the woman I left with, is part of them. Slimes are categorized as monsters, but are thought of as useful for cleaning up corpses. The city’s name is Neir, the country’s name is Cethaim. King Selm is the top of the hierarchy, and nobles manage territories beneath him. There are no ongoing wars of note. A convenient excuse for our appearance here is a ‘teleportation’ spell. You can make money as a treasure hunter in ‘dungeons’ here or pick up odd jobs as an adventurer, but if both of you finished school, you would likely be able to get a job inside the city.
She was classified as a monster? Petra wasn’t quite sure how to feel about that. On the one hand, the idea of worrying about what labels people decided to apply to her while she was stuck in this body felt more than a little silly to her, but at the same time, she really hopped that wouldn’t make things difficult for her. The “useful for cleaning up corpses” addition gave her hope that she wouldn’t be attacked on sight at least.
The rest of the information gathered also seems important and Petra makes sure to commit it to memory as well as she can – just in case her message log automatically deletes itself after some predefined period or something like that - though she isn't sure how applicable it’ll actually be to her, given her slime situation. Were normal slimes even sapient? She was, obviously, but she also clearly didn’t have the neural architecture for it.
Contacts: "Down"
What’s the plan? If your magic is something you can defend yourself with, or your too physically taxed from using it, I think it’d be best to wait for you to recover a bit before we do anything.
Also, if you’re planning on going anywhere, do you think you could carry me around in something? I can’t move very fast like I am right now.
Also if I’m concidered a monster, even a relatively safe one, maybe it’d be best to keep me hidden? Otherwise you might be able to tell people I’m a summon or familiar or something like that, but without knowing much about magic, that might be ill advised. For all we know summoning magic isn't a thing or entails additional details.
Colleen's gaze attentively watched the direction where the noises were coming from. Heavy thuds, scraping of chains? Metal? No, more like branches and tree bark being sheared and scraped against as something moved against them. The sound of breaking wood, perhaps? A moot thought, as the vibrant colors of the forest slowly turned darker, causing Colleen's eyes to narrow. The serpents that rested upon her head withered in a bit of fear that she herself would never admit too as the forest's color turned to complete black.
As the two orbs of light ignited in her vision, a sickly green glow slowly moving towards them she had already started to move. Were they focused on her? She didn't like that. Something wasn't right here, and she might be the most amazing person in existence and could totally handle whatever this was, she knew how to gauge someone, or in this case, somethings ability.
"While I'm sure I could totally beat that thing to a pulp." She'd say, swiftly moving to the goblin and picking her up just as that horrible scent started filling the air. Honestly, if Rita and the other one wasn't here, she'd totally give it a shot, but she couldn't put someone in danger just to satisfy her own curiosity. Rita would find herself roughly lifted over Colleen's shoulders, the Medusa's hand firmly holding onto Rita's butt with Rita's head facing behind her. "We're leaving, midgets! Oof, how are you so bottom and top heavy at the same time...!"
Anya was grabbed next, scooped up, but instead of being held over her shoulder though, the she would be firmly grabbed and held under Colleen's left arm with the Medusa's arm firmly grabbed around her waist, and she'd bolt through the forest, taking care to avoid any of the weird centipedes.
"I hope this body is as physically fit as my last one! You guys got any bright ideas about that thing cuz I certainly do not!"
No tripwires. No pressure plates. Noooooo problem~! Jase's blade had made light enough work of opening the chest proper, which seemed to not be trapped despite her and the man opening it standing there in front of it at the time. All in all, it was not a bad call to be safe....but yeah it had been a bit too much in this instance. Probably. However, what was inside of the chest was something that gave her gut instincts some sort of prodding. That much she knew.
Upon further inspection, the box would appear to have a flute carved of a white-green stone of some sort and left covered in a soft fur pelt of some variety.
The nature of either object was still unknown, of course, but inspecting the interior of the box would make it clear that there was no sort of trick, magical or otherwise, lying in wait.
The knight gingerly put the moss in her hand on the ground, set her sword and shield on the ground, and then gently used her hands to pick up the jade-looking flute in the chest and the soft fur pelt it was nestled inside of. She brought it closer to her shadowed face for inspection, curiously trying to look the item over. It was in a old cavern room, in an old chest, and in some sort of good shape while having been wrapped in a pelt. A religious item, perhaps? Or maybe one of a set of macguffins to cause the end of the world. Either way, she was going to keep the thing close as a 'just in case' in the same way odd items picked up early in some JRPG might end up useful later. Or such was her philosophy about the matter.
Better safe and hoarding than sorry. Or was that the sort of mindset leading to becoming a dragon? Eh, either way~!
"This screams of 'macguffin to end or save the world', or at least something thought well enough of to hide all the way back here."
The slime girl knight would then attempt to open her status, or inventory, or something of the sort. See if there were options to 'put item in inventory' or something, if she could, to magic it out of her hands and into some safe storage spot. It wasn't too farfetched to attempt, right? Plus even if it didn't work, maybe-....well, she'd have to check her info and see if it could be hidden away inside of her or something? Maybe. But also eww. Still, if she was a slime, then couldn't slimes hold something inside of their body for safekeeping perhaps? Eh? Or not? At least in such case she could keep the flute itself safe, and the fur could be a nice cape for now to boot.
Barring the prior two ideas not working in sucession, if it came too that, Nyana woould at least try to tuck away the bundle on her person for safekeeping or something. Then she'd be able to pick up her sword and shield again if nothing else. Though it did remind her of playing flute in high school....hmm. Anywhosies, that was that unless something happend otherwise~
"Alright, the mystery item is at least in our possession. If anyone else wants to grab that moss I put down, we can start trying to find another path to get us out of here. Well, do all of that carefully unless we want to get ganked or stuck in a pit trap or something at the start here.
I'll walk at the front too regardless, though, since I've got some decent starting defenses it seems."
Her tone generally seemed to go into what she'd call 'gamer mode', though to her it felt more natural than the panic of not long ago. Not that said panic was wholly gone or something, but hey having something to focus on and using familiar terms and things would certainly be preferrable to nothing, right? Right! Like totally! All she needed right now was a cold drink, her favorite tank and shorts on, and her streaming setup for a good gaming session! Well, one that was pretty IRL for her now and kinda' serious though....yeah. Yeah that was going to be a thing to need to eventually get adjusted to for sure. That on top of the new body and all.
Connor had barely begun to rest when the elf guy's message appeared--behind his eyelids, even! He blinked and shook his head. He wondered if there were any "settings" he could access within this Status System to make it a little less...intrusive. However...
Of course. A tall, glass-jawed, pointy eared bishonen bats his eyes and the catgirl tells him everything he wants to know! And makes me look stupid for wanting to be cautious and not approach anyone who could probably kill us! He inwardly malded. I bet if I'd been the one to go talk to her, she wouldn't have given me the time of day! Probably call me a creeper or just laugh at me--or hell, throw me in jail for vagrancy! But, despite already feeling angry at the personality of someone he didn't know that he'd made up in his head, Connor had to admit that this information was exactly what they needed.
Neir of Cethaim, ruled by King Selm. Was there a text to speech function within the Chat he could use to figure out how these words were pronounced? Also, was this a constitutional monarchy or just a feudal pyramid system? The latter might actually be easier to deal with, piecemeal, because in that system while the monarch might hold more dictatorial power, the local nobles would command more loyalty from the populace under them, being "kings" of their own in miniature. Or at least, that's what Connor had read when doing research for his own fantasy novels. If they needed some kind of paperwork or permission from the lord in order to travel freely, or buy property, and other things like that, it would be easier to get if the guy with the wax stamps didn't also have to get it stamped by a succession of other people with slightly more authority.
No wars? Awesome, but then if they'd been deposited onto this world for a purpose, what was it? Either that, or their arrival itself was the flag for shit to start popping off. In which case they probably needed to get the hell out of this city as soon as they could, because this was now their official "Doomed Hometown" the Demon King or Dark Lord would waste no time torching to the ground in the opening cinematics.
Catgirl was an Adventurer, but no mention of things like "Classes," "Jobs," "Parties," or "Ranks." Maybe that was too much gamification to ask for--Connor's own status didn't list anything like "Mage," or "Otherworlder," and especially not something like "Hero," so he probably couldn't expect it to be as straightforward as the usual conventions of Isekai trash. Still, signing up at the Guild was basically mandatory in these stories in order to get fast cash. Even if a "modern" education could net them a job in the city, Connor assumed people here would be just as unwilling to hire someone who didn't have connections or a reputation as the corporate assholes back on Earth. Hell, in a culture like this where values like "family tradition" and "honor" were probably still being used, if you weren't the son-of-so-and-so being apprenticed to a master of such-and-such guild, or some other such "who ya know" status, any attempt at getting a job would probably be suspect to first impressions at best. So just like the situation with the catgirl, the elf would probably have no trouble while a loser like him and a non-humanoid like the slime would be booted out.
He shook his head again. He was getting himself too worked up over strawmen. What else had the elf figured out?
Teleportation magic existed. That was a lot to consider. Was it highly expensive and intensely resource draining to make use of? If it wasn't, this medieval world shouldn't have looked so...medieval, right? Being able to teleport goods, raw materials, and most especially armies would have ENORMOUS implications on communication, industry, mercantilism, and just about any other facet of world-building. Then again, Connor felt like he'd almost blacked himself out casting...what, five or six spells? That were probably considered basic, level 1 shit by any real mage in this world? Depending on what the actual level cap of this world was and how long it took to get there, it was probably a safe bet that something like Teleportation could not be used on a wide scale or by a large number of people within the world.
However...could Teleportation, or some other similar magic, possibly get them back home? In a manner in which they'd survive? Maybe even with their new abilities (but hopefully not their new bodies, in the poor slime's case) intact?
Connor sighed and rubbed his head, which had begun to hurt again. He closed his eyes once more--but once more, his rest was interrupted, this time by the slime. He read their message in the blackness behind his eyelids. He sniffed a bit--he'd already thought of a lot of this stuff, so shouldn't it have been kind of obvious? Then again, after all, he had to keep in mind that his companion couldn't see or hear much, and probably wasn't familiar with all the tropes or even the subject matter...
Contacts: Slime Ye, keepin u hidden was what I meant when I talked about diggin ur way out or gettin under the floor if needed. For carry-on, I guess we could make a sack of sorts outta that tarp u were under b4?
I'm definitely taxed. Casted like a half dozen times rapid-fire. I think it gets easier once u have the mental image of ur spell, but I feel like I just had to run a mile while hungover. Like I said b4, when I'm better I'll see about getting us some wa--
Waitaminnit, I'll get that bastard to do it, since he didn't just abandon us after all.
As his head pounded, he nonetheless managed to concentrate and send another message zipping Cassius's way. Oddly enough, the contact list had already changed the elf-man's name. Cassius? Like famous draft dodger Cassius Clay, later to be known as Muhammad Ali? Did he come up with that on his own or was that his actual name on Earth?
Contacts: Cassius On ur way back, look for a well? We think slime can use their ability to filter it so we have H20. Next goals are fire and food. I can use magic now but not a lot, so we still need to avoid conflict amap.
After being unceremoniously stabbed in the neck, the zombie stumbling out of the cellar simply crashed straight into the stairs out, it's unmoving body lying on the wood as the two responsible for it conversed.
But that lackadaisical response was not befitting the nature of the creature that had just been stabbed. Though it bore a new wound from the knife driven through it's neck, the assumption that stabbing it like that would be the end of their troubles would only bear more in turn. Slowly, the undead creature would rise back up, seemingly unperturbed by the attack beyond a slightly more mangled face thanks to the falling squarely upon one of the stops. Aware now that the attack had become from behind it, though, the monster turned around and attempted to return the favor with the blade still gripped in it's hand.
Simple, mindless zombies these were not, it seemed.
After hearing her name called out, Meira's ears immediately perked up. The catgirl's head seemed to almost snap towards Cassius, and after seeing the elf kick over some piles of trash, grew curious and walked over to what he had done. Cassius hadn't seemed like the type to indulge in wanton destruction, so maybe there was a purpose to doing what he had.
And indeed their was. The presence of a tightly-bound package of unknown origin beneath the garbage and refuse was rather difficult to simply blow off as no more than an errant item forgotten by those living here. This had been placed deliberately, though she could feel nothing from the contents at a glance...
Well, her instinct as an adventurer told her that it was a problem.
"...Yes, it certainly does count," the young woman replied, reaching out to take the package before a chill ran down her spine. Whatever was inside was definitely bad news, but that was all the more reason to bring it to be examined.
"Ah, damn it, this is going to be annoying. I just know it..." she complained out loud before forcing herself to pick the package up. "Whatever. Let's bring this to the guild so we can get it checked—"
Before Meira could finish speaking, though, a dagger seemed to fly by her cheek before lodging itself within one of the wooden planks behind her. The culprit—a rather gaunt-looking man covered in a cloak—seemed to be eyeing her.
Well, not her specifically; it seemed that his focus was on whatever it was Cassius had found.
"So much for an easy day," she sighed, dropping the package to the side before casually unsheathing her blade from where it lay upon her back. "Cassius, I suppose you wouldn't mind if I asked you to take that thing and step back?"
Without so much as a hint of struggle, the catgirl pointed her blade towards the man and before taking a rather unorthodox stance with it.
"Can't have it getting stolen away, after all."
In an instant, Meira leaped forward, her blade at the ready as she began to slash and stab at the cloaked man as only a berserker might. Despite the ease with which she swung her weapon, though, the gashes and holes that were being carved into the earth from her misses made it clear that the weapon was heavy in it's own right. Even so, her target seemed to be doing well enough in running away...
Straight towards the shack that the three otherworlders had originally awoken within.
Fortunately, there seemed to be no trap. The elf pried the chest open without trouble, revealing a flute, seemingly carved from stone. What a strange object to be found in this cave, he thought. What could it be used for?
The knight stepped forward and took the flute, remarking on its possible use, being either something very important or at least of some worth.
"Sounds right," he spoke up. "Why else would someone put it in a chest if it wasn't of some worth or value? I say it's definitely worth taking with us. Just...try and be careful with it."
He was a bit curious as to how the status window would record items. Would it now appear in the knight's inventory? And what would the status window list it as? Could the window reveal anything about the flute, or would it merely give us the knowledge that we already know about it?
They could worry about it later. With the mystery of the chest solved, it'd be wise to get out of here.
"I'm ready to go, but we might as well take this with us," he spoke, picking up the pelt in the chest. "I don't seem to have anything resembling currency, but we might be able to barter this for something."
The alcoves, the ones he was sure were hiding sneaky monsters, cunning traps, or at least some sort of puzzle, are completely empty. The idea that this world might not be that dangerous passes through Vrelenor's head, but it doesn't really fit, if that was the case they probably wouldn't have spawned in with a bunch of almost entirely combat-related stats and skills.
He calls over, sounding a little disappointed "Literally nothing in the alcoves, I have no idea why they're even here. We could try playing the flute, maybe it'll do something interesting and we could do that while moving. I've got to say a flute and a pelt is a very random combination though, random loot is certainly common in fiction, but doesn't make much sense, maybe when we get out of here we can ask a local." He follows along behind Nyana.
When the blonde girl stepped out of the carriage, Hikari ran through a mental checklist. What would be appropriate behaviour...? From her age, she would normally have been, at most, a senior executive's daughter or something similar: someone to treat well because of association, yet not warranting any respect on her own. However, this was a fantasy world, was it not? Even if the girl was clearly still reliant on her family connections rather than possessing power in her own right, her social status and relative position was vastly more important than theirs.
Furthermore, despite the haughty demeanour, she was displaying a level of care for her subordinates that showed that she might not be a bad potential employer. Perhaps it was too hasty to consider joining the first prospect she had met in this world? If this girl was even willing to consider it, of course; to be so apparently a maid in well-maintained clothing and yet not have a job mustn't make a good impression of her character or abilities.
When the others were bowing, she was forced to make a rapid decision--she knew bowing, and it could still be seen as appropriate if she was in Japan, but... was this not obviously a more western world? And, naturally, she was in a maid dress... which might also have other considerations when bowing, given the number of tails. A curtsy it was, as formally as she could make it--which might not have been much. Bowing was far more her area of expertise. Or handshakes.
"It is as he said, we are simply travellers, although glad to be of assistance. If your attendant requires aid, I could look? Although it may not look it, I have some experience." Albeit, it wasn't like modern first aid training covered stitches if those might be required, especially not when you had taken lessons merely to ensure sufficient staff coverage...
It had been a blink-or-miss-it moment, but his ears had caught the whistling wind, even if his instincts didn’t allow him to react in any way. One moment, the two were focused on the package, and the next, a dagger had stuck itself firmly into a rotten wooden board, while a line of blood traced itself upon Meira’s cheek.
Danger. Palpable, real danger. Sharper than just a crazy bastard shouting at ghosts in the subway. Sharper than a bunch of drunk teens mucking about by the gas station past midnight. Perhaps he should have ignored that sensation, let it pass over. He’d done that plenty of times before, where it’d make more sense to walk away and ignore strange things rather than risk getting stuck beneath months of legal bullshit and fees.
Now though?
He watched the earth-carving swings, the mud and refuse that trailed upwards in the wake of Meira’s strikes. He watched the cloaked man retreat immediately, springing further back down the path, to where C and the slime laid. This was a world of brute violence, wasn’t it? A world of brute violence and…
The High Elf picked up the package. It was heavier than expected, and the weight of the object was off despite its uniform shape. He grasped the handle of the thrown dagger as well, wiggling it out of the wood, examining the blade itself. It glistened in the daylight, a clear fluid clinging to the metallic surface. What was that substance? And, why wou-
This time, his ears caught the whistling wind and he responded properly, Cassius dropping head-first into dirt as a second set of blades flew past where his back had been a blink ago. It pieced itself together too easily now. One for a decoy, to pull the armed adventurer away. Perhaps the knife throw was meant to miss purposefully, knowing that if it had caused actual injury, Meira’s decision-making would have leaned towards rapid escape instead. Perhaps she was known well enough around those parts that they accounted for her berserker behavior.
It didn’t matter much though.
A second individual stepped out, their countenance covered by a mask as they drew a longer blade that glistened with the same poison.
Cassius scrambled to his feet, holding the package to his chest and feeling his heart hammer against it.
Would they leave if he gave up the package? Would they kill him either way, for having been the one to discover it? Should he run, and fundamentally end up running away from the one person who could protect him? Or should he try to fend this assailant off, with nothing more than a knife the length of his hand?
The blood rushing to his head was making him dizzy. The stress compounding, the possibilities twisting.
And just like that, the initiative was given to the masked assassin.
