Crowvette

Tales Of Shizuyama (Far-Eastern Monster Girl RP)

Io at the Isolated House

@PaulHaynek

Io surveyed the aftermath of the fight as the major din of the battle settled, thinking about what the last villager said, and looking over the bodies left. It was quite a selection. She hadn't been amongst so many fresh corpses in a long time - if she had to explain it to a living person, she would have likened it to setting foot in a garden full of freshly planted seedlings. There was plenty of potential here. But first, there were things to attend to. Weeds in the garden, so to speak.

Io allowed some of her undead hounds to chase the living ones off. She would have to re-make her scroll, but she didn't really want to retrieve the existing one from a living beast. She had standards, and it wasn't a hard scroll to recreate with some time. Next, came the issue of the unconscious Varjans. While she was still tempted to let them join the rest, she had to at least see if they would be worth anything to the villagers alive. She bound them with rope scavenged nearby.

Io kept her zombies on guard as she singled out one of the unconscious Varjans, taking them apart from the group. She had to figure out if they knew where this merchant was, and this was the most direct way to do it. Shaking the prisoner awake, she gave them a moment to come to before she crouched down and softly began asking them questions. "Varjan. You will tell me everything you know about these 'iron marks.' And the location of a local merchant that has one." She took a moment to undo her disguising aura, letting her undead pallor return to her skin. She beckoned over one of her remaining undead hounds to draw close to the prisoner, with her grimoire in her other hand. "Telling me now will be best. I have other methods if you refuse." Her normally deadpan expression gained a slight, yet noticeably sadistic smile. She would move on to the others if this one knew nothing - Io hoped that at least one had a clue. If not... That was their problem.

Royal Rumble: Rumble over the Heavens

Alyona

@KillamriX88@AtomicNut

Aly cocked her head at Cel's reference. "What is that? Key master?" The joke went right past her head, as most references to Rhean pop culture went. She assumed most things she heard were made up on the spot when it came to Cel, which didn't help.

She didn't get a chance to ruminate any further on the situation, because the forgettable guy that followed them up to the roof decided to phase out of existence. Once again, it was something Aly did not consider normal, but perhaps her frame of reference was merely out of date. She'd have turned to search Cel's expression, but she feared for what her grip on reality might end up being if she relied on them for a compass on what was normal. "Well. They're both gone, so problem solved...?" Aly pulled out her phone to check the time, turning to walk back home.

Before she could leave, the two reappeared. The forgettable one seemed to have completely taken the goopy one out... Somehow. So that move wasn't just to remove them both from existence forever. He had done something in the meantime. Alyona's stomach tightened at the thought. This kid was some slacker hiding out in the bathroom after school, and he could do something like that? Completely unacceptable. She was going to have to go toe-to-toe with the cretins of this school some day. The least she could do is try and remove this one from the pool of people she'd have to fight.

Alyona already had her phone up, so she quickly navigated her cracked screen to her camera. She managed to get it up just in time to record Wolf kicking the poor kid to the floor. "Oh my god..." She gasped quietly, making sure the video recorded her shocked disbelief. She had to try her best to sell it. After snapping the quick video, she quickly stowed the phone in her pocket. She'd have to get pictures of the trashed schoolrooms too, to really sell it, but she had formulated a bit of plan: Submit evidence that Wolf was fighting around the schoolgrounds after hours, trashing the place, and beating other students to a pulp. If that wasn't enough to get someone in hot water, Alyona would really have to give up on understanding this new city.

She gave a stiff greeting to Wolf as he approached her and Cel. "I would rather not take credit for something like this." She shot a glance at the person Wolf left on the roof. "<You are a real piece of work.>" She added in Yekaterinan, with a hint of respect. To think he'd not even kill the guy, but instead leave him a vegetable. Maybe he wasn't as boring as she thought.

Tales Of Shizuyama (Far-Eastern Monster Girl RP)

Io at the Isolated House

@PaulHaynek

Io barely noticed the hound latching onto her arm, though she did have a mild pang of annoyance as it was making it hard to move. The dogs were trained supriringly well - or perhaps they were deaf? She didn't care enough to continue the train of thought. 'Though, a monstergirl facing down a pack of wild dogs like this... Not dissimilar to the lecherous texts of a head wizard I once knew.' Io thought to herself, amusedly. The old memory of the story gave her an idea.

Even trained animals were still animals, and ruled by instinct and feeling, Io knew. She reached down to one of the scrolls wrapped along her inner leg, causing her old robe to flutter upwards for a moment (not that anyone was looking, of course), before pulling it free and deftly draping it around the dog. The scrolls along her body had many purposes once they were activated, of course, most of them for magical enhancements... but a small few were for other purposes. This one simply amplified lust in the one it was touching, clouding other feelings entirely. Io activated the scroll, letting it wrap around the hound and have its effect.

If it worked to free her arm, Io could then direct her attention to helping those in the melee - they were too close together for Io to use another lightning bolt, as much as she wanted to simply knock them all out and sort them herself. However, her zombies could be used. Reaching out, Io would cast a wave of undead energy across the zombies and the dogs they distracted. The energy was of course harmless, even beneficial, to undead but would drain the living hounds as it touched them. Then she would simply direct her raised zombies to aid in the fight against the Varjans.

Tales Of Shizuyama (Far-Eastern Monster Girl RP)

I've made it back! I'll catch up on everything and get a post out soon, gods willing.

<Snipped quote by Crowvette>

Actually that was me putting on the canon side effects of raising the dead. Typically, raising the dead turns those resurrected into Zombies - which are monsters - who are all girls, which means males raised from the dead turn into girls. (Although, there are special circumstances for a dead man to return from the dead keeping his sex)

Is that alright with you? You don't have to worry about the raised zombies once Io is done with them. I'll be taking care of them.

@PaulHaynek

Oh yeah that's fine, I actually kinda considered that was probably the case but I kinda rushed things out so I just wrote a little bit of leeway for either case. I'm totally fine with that!

Tales Of Shizuyama (Far-Eastern Monster Girl RP)

Going to be out of town for the next six days, but hopefully I'll not be late for the next round of posts.

I'm torn between Io's zombies always getting a smexy upgrade, or that being a recent quirk so I just kind of made it ambiguous for now (she's clearly just got too much memory to go through to recall off the top of her head for that specific spell!)

Tales Of Shizuyama (Far-Eastern Monster Girl RP)

Io at the Isolated House

Io cocked her head at the description of the mark. A sign of collaboration? Such information would be useful for the locals, both to protect themselves as well as find those who had sold out Shizuyama. But before she could get more details, reinforcements arrived. They were faster than Io thought they'd be.

Io noted the change in her resurrected zombies - Io wasn't sure if she was the cause of that or something else. She would have to peruse her memories, as it had been a decent amount of time since she used that specific flavor of spell, and she had an awful lot of memory built up over her wanderings. Either way, she didn't mind the change. The form was much more appealing than their original one, so if anything it was an improvement in her mind.

Still, the ones she raised wouldn't stand up against that number of enemies. She would have to support them. She grabbed her grimoire, the pages flipping wildly on their own to a specific page. Despite being written in ancient runes, it was a spell that many mages knew well: a bolt of lightning. It wasn't her forte of necromantic spells, but it was too useful to ignore. "That many will not be an issue. Please stay inside."

Stepping outside, Io faced the incoming Varjans. Holding her hand forward, a magical circle quickly formed, and with a crack of thunder the lightning arced towards the frontmost Varjan brigand, jumping to the next one, and the next, striking several at once. For a brief moment, the entire field was lit up with the lightning.

Io picked the spell for a few reasons - Obviously it would arc between metal equipment, but the crack of thunder might also scare away their hounds unless they were particularly well trained. And of course, the possibility of stunning them rather than killing them meant Io could round them up... Which had plenty of applications. Stopping their charge with a flashy attack would also give her resurrected minions a chance to ambush the Varjans as well.

Royal Rumble: Rumble over the Heavens

Alexandria

A bead of sweat formed on Alex's forehead as the person before her went off on their own tangent. 'Um. Is this guy serious?' Alex tried to work through what he said in her head. 'Is he threatening me? He's definitely talking about stuff that only someone stalking me would know. I've never seen this guy in my life.' Alex clenched her fists in her lap. 'What would Vera do right now?'

Alex knew that Vera would likely have decked the guy halfway through the sentence where he casually dropped that he knew what she and her friends had been up to. Especially the Vera she had just ran into, who after two years of separation had only become more tenacious. She'd probably also tell him that if he approached her again, she'd break his legs AND his face. The thought made Alex nearly snicker aloud. She couldn't imagine being so bold. At the same time, this guy was even crazier than she was. For putting up a facade, she could take some notes.

Alex felt unnerved at the guy getting closer to her, but she had enough adrenaline from the previous fight to stand steady. She had already stood up to things far scarier than this today. She narrowed her eye, taking a tiny gulp before firing back a response. "No sane man considers themself on the same side as a demon. In the end, I'll be the judge of who is my ally - regardless of space or time." Clasping her fist, the latent enchantment enhancing her strength glittered around her. "Remember that, if we ever meet again." It was a simple warning, but Alex was proud of her delivery. Not quite a level of a pro like this guy, but for something on the spot it was great.

Royal Rumble: Rumble over the Heavens

Alexandria

@Dezuel

Alex was wrenched out of her own thoughts by someone sitting at her booth. She wasn't exactly ready to field questions, but she knew eventually someone would come up and ask about her since her flashy fight with Vera. She'd have to brush them off as best she could.

But the weirdo didn't seem to want to talk about Andras's powers, or how she managed to punch that hard, or why she was getting tossed around like a toy before the end of the fight. Alex wasn't really sure if these were the standard clientelle of Midnight, but she was getting weird vibes from this one. Alex nearly welcomed the distraction from her own issues - which were currently a tumultuous vortex of anxiety and sadness. 'Is this guy a stalker or something? Why would he come to ask me?' Alex raised an eyebrow as she glanced at the picture.

Alex took a deep breath and tried to work back into character. She was Andras, the Demon Lady. Who fought in underground tournaments and cared not for the domain of the living. "I'm afraid you're mistaken. My domain is not this world, but that of the Underworld. Your boldness to ask a demon amuses me, but it is misplaced." She gave him a flippant wave of the hand.

'Not to mention, I've been completely removed from normal life for the last two years...' Alex thought to herself. 'So I've not been seeing anyone other than the five people at the hospital until recently.'

Royal Rumble: Rumble over the Heavens

Alyona

The oil-slick goop that Alyona recognized as the 'Sea of Death' seemed more active than her memory of the myth led her to believe. It was said that the Sea of Death once crawled over the lake of the Tsar's capitol, as a grave punishment for his crimes against the gods and spirits of the land, and to this day the lake bears no fish or life.

Or that's how the story went. The shifting muck seemed to be sprouting distorted hands, legs, faces... poking out and then falling under its surface. Like it was trying to grow something new entirely. That unsettled Alyona just as much as being close to a giant spider.

Alyona crashed to the ground as Kiwi pushed her clear of the way, the spider-girl somehow finding a way to trip despite having so many extra legs. Alyona's aura certainly worked quickly. "Spider! Are you..." Alyona couldn't think of what to say. Dead? Able to speak? Even here anymore? The lack of response made her give up on finishing her sentence. "Oh well." She got to her feet. She was back to being alone. Same as usual, then. She took off in a run, wanting to put as much distance between her and the goop as possible.

As Alyona reached the stairwell, she realized that it would not be so simple. The stairwell was dripping with the same black mud, as if it was coming from the top of the stairs, or the roof itself. 'Great.' Alyona began to turn when she realized that there was something following her.

It was a black, dripping mockery of a human form. The same kind that she saw morphing and rising from the onyx slime. It seemed that they were becoming more advanced by the second. And it was shambling towards her.

Alyona looked around for a way out. The nearest window, labelled for a fire escape, was past the ambling muck-monster. "So be it." Alyona muttered to nobody in particular. The fire escape wasn't her preferred option, but she was used to being forced to pick the worst option in any given situation. It was better than jumping to the ground from the window.

She took a breath, watching the thing's movements before it was upon her. Just like her mentor taught her. Learning how to fight was one of the only pieces of solace she had back where she had previously lived. A way to escape her twin, the gossiping nobles, the worried look of manor servants. She hadn't taken much interest in learning what her gift - as silly as it was to call it that - was capable of until she had laid out a manor guard with a single stroke of a black lance. Through a stab-proof vest, even. Most just dismissed the case as the cursed girl claiming another victim. The same guard took her aside later and demanded to know what she had done. And from then on, she stole away from prying eyes, learning bits of how to fight from the man. The guard was stunned at her lances, weapons that passed through armor and clothing only to hit living things. Alyona remembered what he called her lances when he learned what they could do, "A weapon worthy of the Tsar's Assassin!" Alyona had always liked the sound of that. It could never translate outside of her mother tongue, of course.

That was all behind her now, of course. The manor, its mercenary guards for oligarch drinking parties, her sister. What lay before her was Rhea, a land where she could start fresh. Or so she thought, until the Sea of Death seemed to follow her. The lumbering humanoid figure had gotten close enough. Alyona would stop it, one way or another.

Drawing from Alyona's finger like a drop of pitch-black blood, another lance manifested from her accursed gift. As the monster lurched towards her, she gave an experimental toss of the lance; spearing the monster right through the torso. Yet it still lumbered forward, only slightly impeded by the lance of dark energy that seemed to burn the ooze where it touched.

'To be expected.' Alyona knew that wouldn't stop it. But she wanted to be certain that it wouldn't be able to absorb her negative energy... since Alyona felt an uncomfortable familiarity with the black mud.

The next lance she drew out was more fitting of the title, and one she shaped for a well-known task: Charging. She had to get past that thing if she was to get out of the building. It was simple, then. Bracing the lance, she took off in a sprint towards the clumsy figure. Spearing it through the chest, she drove it to the ground. It mindlessly grasped for her before being too drained to keep its form, reducing itself to a puddle of black goop once more. The slight hint of energy that Alyona managed to drain felt... odd. Alyona felt a little gross absorbing the thing's energy at all, but it was just what her lances did. No way around it.

Unlatching the window, Alyona crawled out to the fire escape. But of course, nothing would be that easy. Rattling the metal stairs from below, more sludge-figures were one level below her. Whatever was going on, the sludge seemed to be coordinating, at least in some rudimentary way. The clumsy slime monsters were having trouble navigating the metal mesh of the fire escape, but they were doing enough of a job deterring her from descending. "Up it is then." Alyona groaned to herself. She never liked going up. Increasing the potential for her to fall was never something she wanted to do.

Alyona hopped from the metal fire escape to the much sturdier floor of the rooftop. She was just happy that the metal stairs did not somehow decouple from the building and end up falling. With her luck, anything was possible. The fire escape had led her to one side of the roof, covered by air conditioning units. She took a moment to catch her breath. She didn't have a plan on how to get down, but the slime monsters seemed to be moving extremely slowly due to oozing through the metal grating stairs.

She peeked around the air conditioning units and froze when she saw someone there. A normal person, even. She nearly called out, but something Cel had said rang in her mind. The ooze had a source; someone had caused it to happen. And the stairs were out, completely covered in the sludge. She kept an eye on the person, taking her moment of peace to prepare to confront them.

'Just my luck. I run into the culprit and everything. I should have just kept walking home.' Aly mulled over what she was going to do as she spied on the figure on the roof.

Tales Of Shizuyama (Far-Eastern Monster Girl RP)

Io at the Isolated House

@PaulHaynek

Before she checked on the house, Io mulled over the corpses of the fallen. Io selected two fallen Varjan bodies, marking them with necromantic power from a touch and a briefly whispered spell. The spell was a simple reanimation spell, limited in power but quick to form and cast. These undead would only obey simple commands from her and would likely be more of a nuisance than a threat to a warrior; Io instructed them to remain on the ground until they were called by her, or a living person came near them.

It was a simple insurance policy that Io adopted often when possible. While she was perfectly capable of holding her own in a fight, setting up contingencies was almost a second nature to her. While lacking in the artistry that Io would have liked for her necromancy, it was quick, which was unfortunately important when dealing with the affairs of the living.

Io discovered survivors in the nearby house; they were alert enough to find her. There were several unknowns with these survivors, but Io surmised that they were a bit too spent to want to fight her immediately. The thing that concerned Io most was if they were bandits, or honest villagers caught up in the fight - though, something they said about an iron mark also piqued her curiosity.

Io drifted around the house to the entrance, activating one of her tattood spells along the way. It would disguise the pallor of her skin as well as the magical runes on her scrolls, making her appear as a normal (though perhaps oddly dressed) human girl. It was worth a try to not immediately escalate things given the attitude towards monsters. Plus, the appearance of an ordinary human girl had the chance of revealing their true nature. Io considered it just another contingency; the spell to disguise her was simple and easily maintained so it was worth trying.

She warily scanned the entrance as she entered, and softly spoke up as entered the same room as the survivors. "What's going on? Are you all okay?" She feigned a tinge of concern in her voice. "Did the Varjans attack your village too? Should I send for help?"

It was a simple loaded question - if the bandits were likely to be known by locals as bandits, it's likely they would refuse her offer to get help. Not foolproof in telling if they were bandits, but a reasonable question for her to ask in the situation... As far as Io could tell, at least.