ERode

Expedition to Isekai

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//Night 0 | Location: Nameless Forest - Clearing

_{@OwO@AThousandCurses@baraquiel@Vertigo@Cu Chulainn@Nakushita}

Light gathered in her fingers, but not as swiftly as light gathered before the Ten-Eyes’s mien. If it was quickdraw, Rin was already losing, no matter how slowly time moved for her.

It wasn’t quickdraw, though. Not when both of them were slower than the real bullet here.

Shun’s legs burned. She could hardly feel them through the caustic agony that seared into her muscles and her mind. The extra mass she carried was just that impactful, and her mind roared out from the sheer effort of carrying an entire other body with her. Her knees cracked. Her tendons snapped. Her muscle fibers tore. And just as quickly, her flesh mended itself, overcharged within that moment. The image was crystallizing within her mind now, the image of an engine switching from gasoline to NOS. It burned bright. It burned out.

With a weapon now, she turned the remaining Ten-Eyed into bloody mist, before her foot slipped upon gore and she tumbled and tripped a second time, limbs tangling with the corpses of two monsters.

Without a beam heading towards her, Rin held all the cards now.

What was an inventory without tools, after all? When a box cutter couldn’t do the job, when the hammered nail proved too slim, then a circular saw was what was needed. Light split the darkness, a disc like a full moon dropping down upon the Long-Tailed. The sinuous beast challenged Rin’s assertation with its trusted weapon, five-meters of muscle and bone whipping out to catch the blade. For a moment, the two forces were equal. In the next, the inequality between the organic and the inorganic was clarified.

The disc, fading into nothingness, scored the earth.

The tail, dismembered violently, struck the ground.

And the Long-Tailed, outnumbered and disarmed, bared its teeth for the first time since the fight began and let out a wrathful, ear-ringing howl.

…

Kogen charged forth, his delusions finally synchronized with reality. He could endure. He was invincible! His armor, demonic and yet divinely-illuminated, was only a half-step removed from the Power Rangers of every boy’s dreams, and his body, a perfect union of supernatural elements, allowed him to launch into a classic dynamic, nay, Demonic Entry!

But a kick was not enough to dislodge a hulk-phant whose center of gravity had dropped so low to the ground. It wasn’t just trampling Ayana, after all. It had simply dropped upon her, and Kogen, whose defensive capabilities rendered him almost immune to the hurt that the hulk-phants could deal out, still lacked the strength to overcome this situation. His kick was not enough to save Ayana.

His kick was enough to reach Ayana.

Her consciousness was slipping. Her mind was buzzing. In this suffocating space, bereft of oxygen and movement, left only with the hazy thoughts in her starved brain, Ayana was falling. Her superhuman strength, her superhuman reflexes, her superhuman regeneration, all lacked the ability to allow her to go without breathing. And yet, even if her ears could not hear anything beyond the drumbeat of the hulk-phant’s heart, she could feel it. An impact transmitted through the fat of the massive monstrosity. A force that told her that someone outside was fighting for her still.

She was not forgotten. She just had to hold on.

Asahi was forgotten. But he held on too.

His arm creaked from the strain as he held on with a vicious desperation, legs swinging wildly in the air as the hulk-phant reared up upon its hindlegs to shake him off. His mind burned, confused desires and memories sticking together as his emotions focused upon a singular rage, driving the fang-tooth dagger into the monster’s neck. Against a normal human, the first stab would have done it. Against a deer or a wolf, two stabs could do it. But the hulk-phant was a true hulk, a monster the size of an elephant. The dagger’s length, caught up between fur and fat, failed to score a fatal blow with a singular strike, and Asahi’s own body, though it surpassed the bounds of humanity, could not make up the difference in quality.

He made it up with the difference in quantity then.

Over and over, the pink-haired youth stabbed and thrust, even as his stomach heaved up and down from the chaotic motions all around. His left hand, the hand that kept him bound to the monster, was wholly numb. He wasn’t holding onto anything, and yet, spider threads, ribbons, wires, whatever that was, kept him tied to his mortal enemy. Each stab caused greater pain. Each stab brought greater joy. Each stab drove one closer to death, the other closer to victory.

And finally…

…his mind threads snapped.

Asahi crashed into the dirt, unable to roll with the impact in time. The hulk-phant, half-blind and bleeding, loomed before him with a titanic vengeance etched upon its animalistic features. It would destroy him. And there was no Kogen, no Ayana, no Duncan, no Rin, no Shun, no Masato, no Sasuke to prevent otherwise.

Nothing, but an ear-ringing howl through this long and terrible night.

The hulk-phant that was crushing Ayana rose. The hulk-phant had spat Kogen out charged. The hulk-phant that would kill Asahi turned. And with a singular mind, the trio rushed in a straight line towards their pack leader, smashing apart the remains of the bus along the way.

Faced with the thunderous stampede approaching from behind, it was all Rin and Shun could do to scatter, avoiding the trampling. Their bodies were spent, no matter the elation that may have been rushing through their minds, and even if they could have slain the Long No-Tailed if they pushed themselves, the retaliation that such a thing would have invited may have been too much to bear.

Within moments, the monsters disappeared into the forest, leaving behind the mangled corpses of two dead Ten-Eyes, and the severed, five-meter tail of the Long-Tail.

In the monsters’ wake, they had to pick up what pieces remained. Of their camp, of each other.

_@Yankee

Within the forest, drawing further and further away from the camp, Masato could hear it still, the echoes of that wrathful howl, followed by the rumbling of massive footsteps. But what did that mean? What happened to those who were left behind? A couple students looked as if they wanted to go check, but Kunio’s report as the last one who joined them, wasn’t promising.

Ayana, buried beneath one of the monsters. Kogen, swallowed whole. Asahi, on the verge of being trampled beneath pillar-like paws. Rin and Shun, outnumbered and isolated.

How much did he trust in them, really? How much of a risk would it be, to return to camp? What if the monsters were still there, that howl a howl proclaiming victory? There were so many injured present. If he had them all come, and they had to make another escape, did they have the stamina for it? Yukiko was falling behind, her tiny heart sounding heavily within Masato’s ears. Sasuke’s breathing came shallowly, rasping out from his chest. Daisuke, tough as he was, couldn’t defend the group against multiple monsters, even with the help of the Ito twins. There were no other athletic types beyond those three, at least none that could stand on their own two feet. Could he have them go then, to scout things out, while he defended the group? Memories of his encounter with a singular hulk-phant reminded him of how foolhardy an idea that was. He could hold back one, but there were three.

And there were certainly even more monsters within this forest.

Their cellphones couldn’t be used for communication. Their voices could alert other creatures of their location. To split up may be to be split up forever. What more could they do? What more could he do? What?!

So fucking annoying.

“Masato!”

Akito.

Right. That was the other major injury. A missing arm. Lost to a beam of light. Perhaps his thoughts could be driven down other avenues, but his senses refused to tell a lie. The blood-stench had become thicker. None of them knew how to make a tourniquet properly. She had been bleeding out slowly all the while, each step that she had to be helped with another step towards her grave.

Blood. So much blood.

Tsubaki was going to die. Even if they could stop the bleeding, the blood that had already been lost would finish the job. Sasuke or Yuki, no matter the efforts of their respective caretakers, would follow soon after. He had learned, from Hiroshi’s impromptu trivia breaks, about how fatal internal bleeding could become.

Had they been lucky or unlucky, that this happened at night, where most of them could hardly see what was transpiring right in front of them? If they fell asleep from exhaustion, could they steal a few moments and let themselves believe that it was all a nightmare?

He couldn’t.

He still bore the weight.

But what could he do? What should he do? Was a swift death the only mercy, or should they struggle on, agonizing for even a minute more of life?

The timer was ticking.

Masato did not know when it’d stop.

Tabletop peeps? Why just 5th edition?

Limitations and simplicity make for accessibility. Combat being bound by pages upon pages of rules is a dealbreaker for some people, and 5e is already pushing it.

Why Were We Reincarnated as Orcs?!

For reference, Lucius, Grunthor got indigestion just because he ate some undercooked and overcooked food. I don't think orc digestive systems are all that godly. But considering how it's actually still straight-up morning, Esfir probably wouldn't mind the wait after all. Plenty of time to build up the fire again and make something out of the antlers in that case.

Expedition to Isekai

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//Night 0 | Location: Nameless Forest - Clearing

_{@OwO@AThousandCurses}

The initiative was Shun’s now, and she did not hesitate to take advantage of it, her fury and madness, sorrow and rage, all mixing up into her mind and heart and blood as she pounded the Ten-Eyed’s face into paste. Each blow fused gore with dirt further, the choking yelps of the monster weakening with each successive impact. Even through her cathartic violence, Shun could understand that the ground was not a wholly effective weapon to use against such creatures, but it didn’t matter. She had the advantage and the initiative, and an ineffective weapon simply had to be used more times.

The earth became a divot. The divot became a crater. The crater became a grave. Her forearms plunged deep into the ground by the time her emotions were spent. Fur, flesh, bone, and organs had all mixed together into a slurry of ground meat, the entirety of her form so far removed from the child that she had been even just a day before.

Twenty-four hours, that was all it took for Shun to become unrecognizable.

…

Twenty seconds and Shun did not return.

Rin’s fingernails burned still, the froth of the supernatural bubbling up within the surface of her mind. A hollow arc flew out with one hand as the other drew her bullet into existence, but without the presence of another, it was two against one. Terrible odds now that she had shown her own hand, for while humans had their cunning, beasts had their ferocity.

The Long-Tailed charged forth, its blade swinging sharply to clash head-on with Rin’s arc. Mere imposter that it was, the energies composing her feint shattered in an instant, doing nothing to impede the beast’s descent. Her needle shot out next, a penetrating bolt that shot through tail and flesh alike, leaving a hole within the Long-Tailed too, but so what?

It pierced. It did not stop.

And through that pain, through an injury that did not kill it on the spot, the monster’s five-meter tail, craft of sinuous muscle and flexible bone, wrapped around Rin. An instant later, she was lifted off her feet and airborne.

Funny, wasn’t it? What had happened hours ago was happening once more, the sky and the earth reversing at rapid speed as Rin plummeted upwards, her slowed perception of the world only adding to the vertigo and dizziness.

That slowed perception, however, allowed her to at least see the gathering of light once more, a brighter concentration of energy than ever before.

The Long-Tailed had ensured that evasion, defence, and even counterattack was sealed as options, hurling the gear-headed inventor skywards in a way that caused her to spin. The remaining Ten-Eyed, then, would finish her off, with a beam that would only send her ever-higher if it did not punch a hole through her lungs or heart from the get-go.

But time was still slow. Her mind was still bright.

And her fingers could still move.

Why Were We Reincarnated as Orcs?!

@Zeroth Considering the position of the Sun thus far, would Esfir be inclined to believe that they have time to wait for Gren and Lola to come to a decision/get their food cooked? She’s generally leaning to ‘no’ if it’s already the afternoon, but if it’s actually still just early noon or whatnot, she might be convinced to wait around a bit, just so the gang can work on crafting their own hijinks.

Why Were We Reincarnated as Orcs?!

Simplest thing to do would just be for your runt to consider his options and decide that it's better to party with the four rather than Lola. No need to presume deaths n hijinks.

Blades of Iron Roses: An Anime-Inspired Knight RP

_@6slyboy6

That was everyone accounted for then.

Without saying anything, Serenity passed a small waterskin towards Amy as the half-demon stood upright once more. No need to mix flecks of vomit and bile with the interior of a flute. No need to linger too long upon the expression that was developing on Amy’s face either, so filled with righteous fury. How many times had she seen herself in those eyes, reflected by puddles of dirt-water, back in those days when everything was new? Even a wholesome faith could create shards to pierce flesh, if struck with a sufficient impact.

The lioness repressed that unwelcome smile she felt bubbling up. Even a cleric could become a demon, depending on the interpretations of the texts.

And so, it was for that same reason that Serenity allowed Amy to take her wrist, to work her magic, to share a sliver of the root of that terror. T’was an abyss, rotten and fetid, pulsating with cancerous growths that sucked one inwards unto their demise. The mind, a bastion of rationality, rebelled against such self-destruction, but that same mind became the vehicle for the morbid enticement. The void called. What would it be like to answer it?

She had seen once, a man fall off from the window of a tower. Panic, replaced by resignation, replaced by tranquility.

She had wo-

The connection broke, leaving nothing but the black of the night and the stench of blood, seeping out from the open doors of the fort. She breathed in. Breathed out. Felt the earth beneath her feet once more. Focus her eyes once more on Amy. And, after a moment of deliberation, shook her head.

“If there is any who would benefit most from such protection, it would be the Knight-Captain.” The position as one who would inherit all that a Saintess was could not be besmirched. “Stay by her side, Dame Amy.”

And, with that, Serenity entered the Fort once more. Not behind the cleric, but beside her.

...

A stand-off.

Hah.

So eager to protect their client's identity that they would keep their silence, even in the presence of such a storied Order, one that served the rulers of this Kingdom directly? Did these sellswords forget upon whose land they tread upon?

Her toes tapped a rhythm within her boot, entirely inaudible.

No need for words, no need to act.

But that need may change, depending on Fanilly's next decision.

Why Were We Reincarnated as Orcs?!

Hm.

Lola must be the one that didn't speak up then, the one carrying the mangled snake-creature. Esfir looked at her, then at the hatchet-wielder who had moved onto some crafts while awaiting an answer. An answer from both of them.

"If there are only four Camazots within the cave, those would go to us first." A clear line to be drawn, between the group that had been together since inception, and those that wished to join after the fact. "Otherwise, if she is alright with it, then follow." A tacit understanding that Esfir would not be waiting for the two runts to finish cooking their own food, finish digesting their own meal, finish selecting their skills.

An understanding too, that she wouldn't be waiting for 'Lola' to have her say.

Esfir strode off, northbound towards the mountains that peeked out from the canopies. "We have fire," she spoke to Akeno, "and if we didn't have fire, we still have sunlight. We ambush to cripple and kill. Failing that, retreat to the mouth of the cave and fight them off there." Smoke them out afterwards, with the putrid stench of the Rotberries.

Or, she just saturates that enclosed space with magic and freeze them all to death.

_{@Kazemitsu@King Cosmos@Crusader Lord@Unkown58@Lucius Cypher}

Why Were We Reincarnated as Orcs?!

I'll probably post tomorrow, or after King Cosmos posts, whichever happens sooner.

Expedition to Isekai

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//Night 0 | Location: Nameless Forest - Clearing

_{@OwO@AThousandCurses}
It was not form that determined effect, but effect that guided form. Inventions did not come from matter, but from idea. A desire. And if that was the case, then how necessary was a defined form? Given the proper tool, what need was there for a reasonable cause to generate an effect?

Her fingertips burned, glowing with the light of her core once more. She could feel the energy building, peeling out from her fingernails, as her mind formed the trajectory. With a swing of her hand, Rin drew a line in the night air, one and a half meters in length. An arc, in truth. A crescent, like a moon.

The release was near-instant, a flash of light slicing through the air!

But what was novel for Rin was common for the monsters. The Long-Tailed intercepted, its blade clashing against that energy construct before it exploded, impotent! A failed attack? Nay. She could see it. Her blade had been shattered, but its blade had been chipped, repelled back by the self-same explosion!

And whereas Rin became formless, Shun became Formula One.

She had always been energy personified. Her parents had joked about her heart being an engine before she ever got her moped. Always forward, never back. So long as she wasn’t the one who would get in trouble, there was no reason to stop. Her body burned, from the pain and from the heat, blood steaming out from her multitude of injuries. She had been faster than she ever was, once. And now? She was faster still, to the point that her mind couldn’t even keep up with her actions.

Shun’s head slammed into her adversary in one step, and in the next step, the two reached the depths of the treeline, both of them smashing through the terrain before the sheer force of the consecutive impacts wrenched the two of them apart. It had been so much faster than the excitable girl had thought. So much more forceful! Her legs felt numb, forced beyond even superhuman limits to achieve the effect of a truck slamming into a teenager.

But it had been enough.

The blood that coated her face was not hers, and the beast before her was still stunned, its lower jaw hanging on one hinge. A familiar choice presented itself once more.

Rin was out there. Alone now.

Would Shun finish off this crippled monster, or return to assist her classmate?

_{@baraquiel@Yankee@Vertigo@Cu Chulainn@Nakushita}

This was his weight to bear. The iron hot and burning, but controlled still with a purpose. Masato could not surrender it after all, the responsibility of being the Student Council President, of being a leader, of being a shepherd. Of being someone who had to be better.

Hana lead the way, her pen-sized flashlight carving a swathe through the darkness. Daisuke brought up the rear, filled with an energy that was at once determined and nervous. Masato stayed in the center, the one most capable of responding to any other threads. And though he had tried to take on Yukiko’s burden as well, she ignored him.

No, ignore perhaps may have been too harsh a term here. She looked like she had something to say, but in the end, didn’t say it. A stupid question, perhaps.

Together, the band slipped off sideways, leaving the chaos of battle behind for a trek into the unknown. Seeking safety, in a world that could not guarantee even a sliver of it.

For Ayana, that meant a slow death. Her body was firmer than the ground so she wasn’t crushed by the earth, but that was all. She was suffocating. Her thoughts growing hazy, her struggle depriving her body of more oxygen. Her limbs were numb, blood vessels constricted by the impossible weight. All she could do was hope for the best, but what was there to hope for? She couldn’t even see where her classmates had gone. If they had fought, there were still two hulkphants that were still lumbering about. If they had ran, that meant she was now alone.

She wasn’t the brightest. Wasn’t the strongest either. Back in elementary school, she’d be called a clumsy idiot by other kids, while her teacher made her out to be a troublemaker and her father thought of her as a little disaster. Banned from the kitchen after too many incidents with knives. Sitting out from home economics classes after too many incidents with needles. Banned, for fear that there was something that would happen to her that she couldn’t recover from.

Was this it? Did anyone even know she was here?

Kogen did.

He climbed quickly, hands finding easier purchase around the thick fur of his mount. His legs were too short to wrap around anything, but he could squeeze his thighs together at least, pincer it between the fat around the spine. And with a yank of the reins, the image was complete! The One-Eyed Devil, mounting a mountain of a beast, commanding it to charge at its prone brethren!

That delusion lasted half a second, before the monster stood up on its hindlegs. Turned around.

Fell on its back, straight upon the charred remains of the bus.

He had seen it once with Masato, smashed into the ground by superior strength and mass. He had seen it again with Ayana, flattened into the earth by superior strength and mass. Now? Kogen too experienced it, the weight of an entire body dropping his whole body through charred steel and melted rubber, finishing with an impact that flattened him whole. His hands came away with but loose fur as the monster rose, the force that he took still jarring his brain, and before the Devil could rise once more, the hulkphant’s jaws opened.

Teeth. So much teeth. A tunnel of teeth, each rotating like a nightmare of a cement mixer. Wholly unrecognizable from the mouth of a dog, the mouth of a wolf.

And snapped shut.

The only thing that prevented Kogen from becoming K ogen were two things: his arms, pressed against the upper jaw to prevent it from closing fully. But that too, was a slow death. How long until his arms lost their strength? How long, until he ran out of blood?
How long, until his mind gave in and accepted a death that could at least be quick?

How long, until Asahi couldn’t dodge anymore?

His mind could keep up, but his body couldn’t, and the situation he thrust himself in demanded both. Beneath the hulkphants, he spun and slashed, a pink-colored gale. At times, the fang-dagger tore out tufts of fur and skin. At times, the fang-dagger ripped into fat, leaving raw gashes. At times, the fang-dagger drew blood, scattering like petals.

But they were shallow wounds, compared to the threat of each concussive stomp that Asahi had to dodge. He felt the secondary impact even as he avoided the strike itself, the air rippling against his skin and clothes, the upturned soil scattering into his hair. He couldn’t make space like this, couldn’t get out from beneath the beast. It simply followed him, simply redoubled its efforts to crush him in a single blow, like how one would pursue a rat or a mosquito.

And he was running out of air.

Through his narrowing vision, he could see Kunio pick up Sasuke, carry the unmoving boy away. A spot of relief, perhaps. Could see the rest of the fighting that still had to be done. Kogen’s legs, dangling out from a hulk-phant’s mouth, as that delusional idiot struggled to accomplish something. Ayana’s form, completely gone from beneath a hulk-phant’s body, flattened and suffocating.

And Asahi himself. Each step sending another twinge of pain up his calves. Each swing reminding him how inadequate a dagger was when his foe was so titanic.

A risk needed to be taken.

The forge needed to be fed.