Aighto, and when does the IC go up?
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A Spiny Ant
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Presumably, without the skills, she can perform the moves but would not get any additional bonuses out of it, so it’d just be a raw stat check as to whether or not her punch does anything.
"The gods can judge me when I’m dead."
Name: Esfir
Current Stats:
Level: 4 | Form: Orc Runt | Tier: 2
Current Skills:
Equipment and Inventory:
True Age: 89
Past Life: They said there would never be another Great War, but it came nonetheless. For Esfir, it had been blurry memories of ash and snow, of an unending hunger and a crushing, impotent rage. She had been a child back then. Her father and brothers had served, marching off into the deathly grasp of winter to hold off those who would encroach upon the motherland. Her mother never recovered from that, and Esfir too knew she wouldn't either. Poverty continued. The victors of the war could not simply share their spoils, the third of the war to end all wars looming upon the horizon. She did her part, labored so that she could have even a sliver of a piece of the happiness that the government promised them all, once their scourge had fallen.
Somewhere along the way, Esfir had realized that she was the only surviving member of her family. Where had her father gone? Her brothers? Her sisters? Her mother? Her aunts and uncles, nephews, nieces, cousins?
Where had the country that she had been born in gone?
The Union ended and so did the war that never became a war. Winter was cold, made colder by isolation, coldest by poverty. She was too old to marry, too old to learn, too old to accumulate the wealth that she shouldn't have needed to. Her memories granted no solace, carved out as they were from misery and trauma. Across vast lands, buildings scraped the sky and broke the horizon, and yet she was not brought along with the tides of change. The enemy, the losers of a war fought and won by her father, were now one of the foremost economic powerhouses. Across the ocean, from an unimaginably distant measure away, the ones whom the Union played political games against were becoming the sole rulers of the world, obtaining dominion through technology and entertainment.
Who would carry on her family's history? Who would remember her and hers, if not herself? Esfir Kosova, a spinster withering away in an abandoned shack in the middle of a barren forest, two hours away from civilization. Huddling in front of a woodfire stove, listening to the static of a radio older than herself, whispering half-forgotten songs from a childhood that never was. Every day growing weaker. Every day able to do less. Every day feeling more and more of the same thing.
Hatred, carved out of the bedrock of a grief that never left. Hatred, rising every time her back agonized as she bent down to pick up a can that she could recycle for a penny. Hatred, towards promises broken and oaths unfulfilled, towards the revolution and utopia that failed, towards the world that developed only by consuming the downtrodden and spitting out their bones in alleyways and sewers.
Hatred, enduring as a tundra's permafrost.
Hatred, vicious as a starving wolf's bite.
Hatred, an eternal, weighty substance, one that so thoroughly stained this soul of hers that she could neither forgive nor forget, even once the world she knew was lost to her forever.
How could she, after all? After all this time, after all this grief, how could she possibly be satisfied with pretending as if none of it happened, just so she could now toil away in a new world as a primitive half-beast?
It was out of the question.
New Life:
Day 0, Orc Runt > Awakening
Name: Esfir
Current Stats:
Level: 4 | Form: Orc Runt | Tier: 2
MP Up!
Skill Rank Up!
Gain Skill: Dusk Vision!
Skill Rank Up!
Gain Skill: Dusk Vision!
Current Skills:
- Ingestion - After consuming a required amount of biomass from a particular Creature, 1 of that Creature's Skills can be copied at its lowest Rank.
- Frost Arc - Rank I - An expanding spray of icy cold, over 10 feet in one direction and 5 feet wide at its furthest edge. The cold is more intense the closer the target is to the origin, reaching its lowest temperature within a span of about 2 feet. It constantly expends Magic Power the longer the cone is maintained.
- Murderous Intent - Rank I - Focus hatred and the desire to kill through the subtle senses. A creature that is weaker than you must exert its willpower or be Intimidated (Intimidated creatures suffer reduced speed). A creature that is already Intimidated, Shocked, or Unaware may instead become Fearful and be unable to act for 5 seconds. Creatures that are stronger than you can only be Intimidated by this Skill if they are already Shocked or Unaware, but their willpower threshold is higher.
- Empty Skill Slot
Equipment and Inventory:
- Swaddling Pelts - Equip, Clothes - Old animal skins used to keep an Orc baby warm as they sleep. Once the Runt is old enough to start hunting, these are usually just enough to cover the parts that need the most covering.
- Sharp Rock - Equip, Weapon/Tool, Material Component - A rock with a slightly sharp edge. Useful as a primitive knife or chisel. Can be thrown.
- Stomach-Bag - Small bag, improved from an Elwet's stomach.
- Elwet Antlers
- Rotleaves x5
- Rotleaf Seedpods x6
- Gizzard Sparkstone
- Elwet Feathers
- Raw Chalcopyrite Ore x3
- Bufonite x3
True Age: 89
Past Life: They said there would never be another Great War, but it came nonetheless. For Esfir, it had been blurry memories of ash and snow, of an unending hunger and a crushing, impotent rage. She had been a child back then. Her father and brothers had served, marching off into the deathly grasp of winter to hold off those who would encroach upon the motherland. Her mother never recovered from that, and Esfir too knew she wouldn't either. Poverty continued. The victors of the war could not simply share their spoils, the third of the war to end all wars looming upon the horizon. She did her part, labored so that she could have even a sliver of a piece of the happiness that the government promised them all, once their scourge had fallen.
Somewhere along the way, Esfir had realized that she was the only surviving member of her family. Where had her father gone? Her brothers? Her sisters? Her mother? Her aunts and uncles, nephews, nieces, cousins?
Where had the country that she had been born in gone?
The Union ended and so did the war that never became a war. Winter was cold, made colder by isolation, coldest by poverty. She was too old to marry, too old to learn, too old to accumulate the wealth that she shouldn't have needed to. Her memories granted no solace, carved out as they were from misery and trauma. Across vast lands, buildings scraped the sky and broke the horizon, and yet she was not brought along with the tides of change. The enemy, the losers of a war fought and won by her father, were now one of the foremost economic powerhouses. Across the ocean, from an unimaginably distant measure away, the ones whom the Union played political games against were becoming the sole rulers of the world, obtaining dominion through technology and entertainment.
Who would carry on her family's history? Who would remember her and hers, if not herself? Esfir Kosova, a spinster withering away in an abandoned shack in the middle of a barren forest, two hours away from civilization. Huddling in front of a woodfire stove, listening to the static of a radio older than herself, whispering half-forgotten songs from a childhood that never was. Every day growing weaker. Every day able to do less. Every day feeling more and more of the same thing.
Hatred, carved out of the bedrock of a grief that never left. Hatred, rising every time her back agonized as she bent down to pick up a can that she could recycle for a penny. Hatred, towards promises broken and oaths unfulfilled, towards the revolution and utopia that failed, towards the world that developed only by consuming the downtrodden and spitting out their bones in alleyways and sewers.
Hatred, enduring as a tundra's permafrost.
Hatred, vicious as a starving wolf's bite.
Hatred, an eternal, weighty substance, one that so thoroughly stained this soul of hers that she could neither forgive nor forget, even once the world she knew was lost to her forever.
How could she, after all? After all this time, after all this grief, how could she possibly be satisfied with pretending as if none of it happened, just so she could now toil away in a new world as a primitive half-beast?
It was out of the question.
New Life:
Day 0, Orc Runt > Awakening
@Zeroth Ah yah, I was more curious as to how to tell if stats increases, or where people with x skills stand in terms of attributes compared to others with y skills. Like, do our stats increase in proportion to the amount of skills we have that are related to those stats? Like someone with three skills that have to do with physical attacks would have higher STR than someone with three skills that aren't related to physical attacks? Or would STR be raised separately and be unaffected by the amount of skills you have in that category?
So how is Magic Power calculated when one doesn’t have any like, magic skills to begin with?
Name: Esfir
Current Stats:
Level: 1 | Form: Orc Runt | Tier: 2
Current Skills:
Equipment and Inventory:
True Age: 89
Past Life: They said there would never be another Great War, but it came nonetheless. For Esfir, it had been blurry memories of ash and snow, of an unending hunger and a crushing, impotent rage. She had been a child back then. Her father and brothers had served, marching off into the deathly grasp of winter to hold off those who would encroach upon the motherland. Her mother never recovered from that, and Esfir too knew she wouldn't either. Poverty continued. The victors of the war could not simply share their spoils, the third of the war to end all wars looming upon the horizon. She did her part, labored so that she could have even a sliver of a piece of the happiness that the government promised them all, once their scourge had fallen.
Somewhere along the way, Esfir had realized that she was the only surviving member of her family. Where had her father gone? Her brothers? Her sisters? Her mother? Her aunts and uncles, nephews, nieces, cousins?
Where had the country that she had been born in gone?
The Union ended and so did the war that never became a war. Winter was cold, made colder by isolation, coldest by poverty. She was too old to marry, too old to learn, too old to accumulate the wealth that she shouldn't have needed to. Her memories granted no solace, carved out as they were from misery and trauma. Across vast lands, buildings scraped the sky and broke the horizon, and yet she was not brought along with the tides of change. The enemy, the losers of a war fought and won by her father, were now one of the foremost economic powerhouses. Across the ocean, from an unimaginably distant measure away, the ones whom the Union played political games against were becoming the sole rulers of the world, obtaining dominion through technology and entertainment.
Who would carry on her family's history? Who would remember her and hers, if not herself? Esfir Kosova, a spinster withering away in an abandoned shack in the middle of a barren forest, two hours away from civilization. Huddling in front of a woodfire stove, listening to the static of a radio older than herself, whispering half-forgotten songs from a childhood that never was. Every day growing weaker. Every day able to do less. Every day feeling more and more of the same thing.
Hatred, carved out of the bedrock of a grief that never left. Hatred, rising every time her back agonized as she bent down to pick up a can that she could recycle for a penny. Hatred, towards promises broken and oaths unfulfilled, towards the revolution and utopia that failed, towards the world that developed only by consuming the downtrodden and spitting out their bones in alleyways and sewers.
Hatred, enduring as a tundra's permafrost.
Hatred, vicious as a starving wolf's bite.
Hatred, an eternal, weighty substance, one that so thoroughly stained this soul of hers that she could neither forgive nor forget, even once the world she knew was lost to her forever.
How could she, after all? After all this time, after all this grief, how could she possibly be satisfied with pretending as if none of it happened, just so she could now toil away in a new world as a primitive half-beast?
It was out of the question.
New Life:
Day 0, Orc Runt > Awakening
Current Stats:
Level: 1 | Form: Orc Runt | Tier: 2
Current Skills:
- Ingestion - After consuming a required amount of biomass from a particular Creature, 1 of that Creature's Skills can be copied at its lowest Rank.
- Isekai Skill - Not Yet Chosen
- Empty Skill Slot
- Empty Skill Slot
Equipment and Inventory:
- Swaddling Pelts - Equip, Clothes - Old animal skins used to keep an Orc baby warm as they sleep. Once the Runt is old enough to start hunting, these are usually just enough to cover the parts that need the most covering.
- Wooden Stick - Equip, Weapon/Tool, Material Component - A wooden stick. From a tree. That's...that's all there is to it. Can be thrown.
- Sharp Rock - Equip, Weapon/Tool, Material Component - A rock with a slightly sharp edge. Useful as a primitive knife or chisel. Can be thrown.
True Age: 89
Past Life: They said there would never be another Great War, but it came nonetheless. For Esfir, it had been blurry memories of ash and snow, of an unending hunger and a crushing, impotent rage. She had been a child back then. Her father and brothers had served, marching off into the deathly grasp of winter to hold off those who would encroach upon the motherland. Her mother never recovered from that, and Esfir too knew she wouldn't either. Poverty continued. The victors of the war could not simply share their spoils, the third of the war to end all wars looming upon the horizon. She did her part, labored so that she could have even a sliver of a piece of the happiness that the government promised them all, once their scourge had fallen.
Somewhere along the way, Esfir had realized that she was the only surviving member of her family. Where had her father gone? Her brothers? Her sisters? Her mother? Her aunts and uncles, nephews, nieces, cousins?
Where had the country that she had been born in gone?
The Union ended and so did the war that never became a war. Winter was cold, made colder by isolation, coldest by poverty. She was too old to marry, too old to learn, too old to accumulate the wealth that she shouldn't have needed to. Her memories granted no solace, carved out as they were from misery and trauma. Across vast lands, buildings scraped the sky and broke the horizon, and yet she was not brought along with the tides of change. The enemy, the losers of a war fought and won by her father, were now one of the foremost economic powerhouses. Across the ocean, from an unimaginably distant measure away, the ones whom the Union played political games against were becoming the sole rulers of the world, obtaining dominion through technology and entertainment.
Who would carry on her family's history? Who would remember her and hers, if not herself? Esfir Kosova, a spinster withering away in an abandoned shack in the middle of a barren forest, two hours away from civilization. Huddling in front of a woodfire stove, listening to the static of a radio older than herself, whispering half-forgotten songs from a childhood that never was. Every day growing weaker. Every day able to do less. Every day feeling more and more of the same thing.
Hatred, carved out of the bedrock of a grief that never left. Hatred, rising every time her back agonized as she bent down to pick up a can that she could recycle for a penny. Hatred, towards promises broken and oaths unfulfilled, towards the revolution and utopia that failed, towards the world that developed only by consuming the downtrodden and spitting out their bones in alleyways and sewers.
Hatred, enduring as a tundra's permafrost.
Hatred, vicious as a starving wolf's bite.
Hatred, an eternal, weighty substance, one that so thoroughly stained this soul of hers that she could neither forgive nor forget, even once the world she knew was lost to her forever.
How could she, after all? After all this time, after all this grief, how could she possibly be satisfied with pretending as if none of it happened, just so she could now toil away in a new world as a primitive half-beast?
It was out of the question.
New Life:
Day 0, Orc Runt > Awakening
Did everyone die at the same-ish time? Do you have a particular year in mind, if so?
//Night 0 | Location: Nameless Forest - Clearing
It was curious thing, how time flexed and fluctuated as it continued its path down the stream. In one moment, seconds could be draw out to weeks, and in another, hours could be condensed into a single phrase. The Sun, if it was truly the Sun that all the students were familiar with, fell soon, casting a summer’s blue into the deep magenta hues of twilight. Open skies invited foreign stars whilst whisking away the dry heat that had once been so oppressive but remained now only a pleasant memory. It was something else that Hiroshi had warned them all about. The heat that remained upon the surface of the clearing would be reflected back up if there were no clouds blocking the way.
It would be a cold night for the students who had been dressed with the expectation that they’d have a home to return to, and despite the Shelter-Building team’s best efforts, despite the abundance of tools they had, it was still a tall order to create a shelter large enough for twenty-eight adolescents, some of whom were well above the average size of a Japanese middle schooler. They had no ropes for lashing things together either, so while Rin’s theories about knots could’ve been helpful, there were few places for actual application. In the end, the best that they accomplished was a simple lean-to utilizing forked branches and thick brush. Leafy branches served as a springy, but uncomfortable mattress, and more of them were set up within the charred frame of the bus. Perhaps five people could fit inside the lean-to; the rest would have to make do.
Fire, however, wasn’t nearly so big of a problem. While Kumi was complaining about blisters and Juro was picking out splinters from his palms, the firewood gathering team returned with two armfuls of wood each. Without an axe, they couldn’t come away with a thick log or anything and without a way to more effectively carry wood, they were limited by the length of their arms, but regardless, it was enough. Juro caught a flame from the smouldering remains of the bus while Sasuke and Ayana continued to make more trips to gather more wood. By the time night had fallen, they had enough to at least seen them through the night. And with the blaze cooking up the flat rocks that Kumi had found, she was ready to start cooking.
And thankfully, there was indeed something to actually cook.
The processing of the two wolfbears had been a messy task. Without a spare change of clothes or even an apron, Hana cautioned both Tsubasa and Kogen about being careful. Getting dirty here would mean that the stench of death would cling onto them for a fair long while, unless they were willing to sacrifice some water. With Kogen’s strength however, they were able to gut the beasts and drain them of their blood a good distance away from the clearing. Skinning was a more difficult task and the trio had practically mangled the first wolfbear owing to their inexperience. The chuuni of the trio, however, made an important discovery: the hooked claws of the wolfbears were wickedly sharp, somehow even sharper than Hana’s knife. Though they didn’t have an edge, they were still good enough for roughly parting flesh. And the claws were good…then so were the teeth. Incisors were popped out from the bloody gums, the longest of them nearly the length of Hana’s index finger. It was a grisly task, perhaps even more disgusting than simply butchering the beast, but she continued on. There were tools to gather, tools that could make future forays into this matter easier.
Between Kogen’s silent schemes and Hana’s silent craft, Tsubasa was the only one that remained focused on the task at hand. Though the meat stank and would likely be stupidly tough, they still had a lot of it, and the fur, though bristly, may make for a decent enough blanket too, once they had the time to scrape the fat that still adhered to it. Perhaps it’d be better tomorrow, once they had more daylight to work with.
Perhaps tomorrow, there would be more bottles of water to fill too.
Though Masami set a good pace once the water-searching team’s method was settled on, and though Kunio, Masato, and Shun were all capable of keeping up with that pace, it had still taken them far too long to find water. They had to be on the lookout for more monsters, after all, while their own fumbling through the woods would no doubt have scared away any prey animals in the vicinity. The occasional stints of tree-climbing that Kunio did to try to get a vantage point was ultimately for naught as well, with the forest itself serving to mask any sound of running water. They were fumbling in the dark, figuratively. Soon, they would be fumbling in the dark, literally. It was a stroke of luck then, when two hours into their search, they came across a small, running stream. The flow was languid, the water was murky, but none of them were willing to leave empty-handed. So on Kunio’s recommendation, they drained the clear, filtered water that was in their own canteens, and then filled it with the stream. Maybe if they followed upstream, they would find its source. Maybe if they followed it downstream, they would find a reserve.
Of course, no one back at camp was really willing to try out the water they brought back, not after Asahi’s inventory count proved that everyone had water (some even tea or miso soup) and that most of them had their lunch boxes too, filled with nutritious, filling meals!
Except for Ayano, who was dieting. She combined bentos with Fujita.
Kumi was at her element now, searing steaks of gamey meat on hot rocks, using fire-hardened sticks to flip them. She received the murky water gratefully from Masami, washing her hands off with it as she continued to work with Tsubasa and Sohei to manage the fire and the cooking. With bento lids gathered up, Daisuke went back and forth, delivering cuts of wolfbear meat to the students gathered around the fireplace. It couldn’t be considered peaceful, really. But it was an illusion of it, at the very least. Some compassion was all you needed to calm the howling mind.
...
And that was what Duncan awoke to.
Like the others who had been injured, he found himself looking up towards a lean-to, his head propped up against his schoolbag. Haruko looked down upon him, her large, blue eyes blinking twice, before she squeezed them shut, as if holding back everything that she wanted to say.
Instead, she flashed her teeth pulling out his box of smokes from her own skirt’s pockets.
“No smoking until after you get something to eat and drink, ok? Maki, Daisuke! He’s up!”
It didn’t take long for familiar faces to gather. Maki hobbled over, her arm wrapped up in a rudimentary splint as she chewed on an oversized rice ball, nudging Duncan’s side with her foot as she greeted him. Daisuke dropped by too, the relief in his gaze far clearer as he did the wholly-heterosexual way of hugging someone: clasping their shoulder before offering them a plate of meat.
“Good to see you up. If you think you can chew, try this. Otherwise I’ll see if someone’s still got some miso left.”
...
By the fire, Kumi bemoaned the lack of a pot, while Tsubasa carved more strips of meat out for cooking. Sasuke watched the treeline in muted silence, chewing on a skewer of tough wolfbear flesh while tactfully ignoring the glances that the gourmet girl snuck every once in a while. Masami herself was eager to spark up conversation, but had ended up being relegated to snapping branches to halves in order to make them easier to burn. Cooking was serious business after all. Though the eye may wander, the mind shall not.
...
Mayumi, Hiroshi, Hana, and Juro made for a strange quartet under normal circumstances, mostly because of the inclusion of Mayumi, but their discussion was nevertheless spirited. Hana provided the experience, Juro served as a middleman, and Mayumi and Hiroshi both appeared to have very different ideas behind what was reasonable to expect. Regardless of what the topic of the conversation was, however, it was clear to any onlooker that despite not wanting the weight of responsibility to be automatically hoisted upon Masato, the gawky student council member also didn’t want the biggest weirdo of the class to take on the mantle of leadership either.
...
For all the self-esteem and confidence that he had built up over the last year with Ayano, Fujita was still but a fledgling popular kid and he certainly wasn’t all that at ease when his girlfriend was cuddling up against him while her best friend watched with a wry smile. Ayane had a mature charm that Ayano didn’t, and the population quotient only continued to rise when, after a moment’s pause, Ayane waved towards Ayana, the cutesy-klutz who still scored in the top five of the cutest girls in class. Perhaps in times of disaster, one naturally sought to rekindle their relationships with family. Perhaps she was just making sure her half-sister didn’t slip up and knock over a lean-to or something. Regardless, Fujita was soon to be the sole guy in a trio of very attractive ladies, and it was all he could do to search for help, any help. If only his Master would answer his silent plea! If only Yuki was up and about.
...
But Yuki wasn’t. Neither was Yuudai. And while the rest of the students could feign ignorance, Tsubaki couldn’t. It was all they could do to press clothes against the wounds, hoping the blood would clot, before using travel-sized containers of hand sanitizer to clean up what they could. Yukiko tried to help where she could, but honestly, she couldn’t do much. They didn’t have the medical equipment to treat injuries like these. They didn’t even have a pot to boil water with, to disinfect banadages in. It was all Tsubaki could do, dabbing the sweat off the foreheads of the two boys while Yukiko stoked a smaller fire between the four of them, hoping that the warmth could help stave off the chill of the night. It was too dark, at least, to make out the true state of their wounds. That was both a blessing and a curse. What use was water if they couldn’t drink it? What use was food if they couldn’t eat it?
...
Akito watched that unfold from a distance, watched the girls’ and their futile efforts. It brought a scowl to his face though, and he slipped into the carcass of the bus, claiming the first bed of branches for the night.
...
As for the Ito twins?
“Bro, ya gotta get to doing it.”
“Now? Kunio, you want me to do it now?”
“I mean, when else are you going to?”
“Maybe after we get out of this alive?”
“Big maybe, at this point.”
“Sheesh, someone’s feeling grim.”
“I’m just saying, don’t leave regrets, yeah?”
“Yeah, but still. Who’d do a confession now? I don’t want all this to be a suspension br-”
“Thinking too hard, man. Gotta move on from headbutts eventually, you know?”
They, evidently, were talking about love.
Iz not goblins, but iz k.
~1445 | PARIS | FASHION SHOW VENUE
Despite his shattered ribs, despite his messed-up organs, despite everything that really should have reduced a normal human being into a sobbing and/or unconscious mess, Lucian was perhaps simply too empty-headed to register the pain he was in. After all, he was too pretty for pain, and regardless, his teeth were too perfect to be relegated to combative grunts or grits.
So instead, he clapped and cheered and, as if by cosmic coincidence, triggered the speaker system within the abandoned venue. The music, reserved perhaps to serve as ambience for socialization or for accompanying models on runways, kicked in immediately, a groovy, pulsating beat that Edward’s skeletons immediately synchronized with, their hips swinging side to side in tempo with the song as his lightning bloomed from his staff.
It was dangerous, perhaps, but it worked as well. Lightning cracked against the spectral dragon’s skull, causing its head to snap back in the instant it opened its jaw. Phantom flame bloomed, a blast that deafened the ears. And yet, Vera herself was not caught in it. Her ally’s interference gave her the space as she dropped low, hair singed and skin peeling from residual heat. Sword singing through the heated air.
A clean strike at last, slicing apart the dragon’s skull from snout to spinal cord. Two halves, made imperfect only from previous trauma inflicted, fell to the ground before scattering into dust. The body that remained soon followed, crumbling as well into aether, leaving only being the echoes of Vertan.
They had slain the dragon.
The dragon was but a spell.
And now, what were they to do?
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