FujiwaraPhoenix

Qlippoth Shift: A Supernatural Action RP About Combating Otherworldy Anomalies

Tachibana Masaru

Nagano Prefecture — Abandoned Mansion

Despite expectations that the enemy might have survived more than a single hit, Masaru found himself ever so slightly disappointed at their complete lack of durability. With Zhao covering the vanguard as he was now, the duration really did boil down to little more than target practice. Arrow after arrow flew true, crippling any ashigaru that had miraculously not been shot somewhere "lethal"—not that they lasted long afterwards, though. Between the flurry of limbs and follow-up attacks, crushing the defensive line was but child's play.

Just as they were beginning to make headway, though, the defensive line that the team had broken through for but a moment seemed to reform in an instant. Despite the lighting in the area being less-than-ideal, though, Masaru could make out more than a few of the phantoms taking aim; with more melee-oriented ones essentially marking the positions of a few barely-concealed rifling, though, it made sense to try and take them out before potshots could start being issues of any sort.

Not that he'd have any chance to, though, as Zhao took the offensive and began to rush down the snipers before he could.

"You're fine without any covering fire?" Masaru chimed in as he shifted his focus back towards the spearmen standing staunchly between them and the rest of the main hallway. "Don't think the guys turtling over there are liable to break formation or anything."

Regardless of his thoughts on the matter, Masaru began to unload volley after volley into the stationary ashigaru, to the point where he began to intentionally move forward to bait stabs before retreating and firing into any openings made as a result.

This wasn't a phalanx, after all; poking the line until it broke wasn't exactly too outlandish if the only things he had to be aware of were linear stabs or stray bullets, and moving unpredictably solved both of those issues easily.

@Psyker Landshark@Raineh Daze

From Realms Beyond — An Isekai Crossover RP (Now Accepting)

Kochiya Sanae

Aventon — Forest Outskirts

"Uh... Huh. Right."

Though Derek might not have been a fool, the explanation that Remilia provided didn't really explain anything to him as much as it tell him to accept that it was monsters that they were dealing with. Probably. The semantics of the situation mattered little in the long run, though, so long as the problem—be they monster, youkai, rahi, or whatever other word these otherworldly travelers might have had for them—was dealt with.

"Well, if we're talking about a general description... I will admit that the size of whatever it is that we're hunting was about... That high and roughly that wide?" the hunter continued, gesturing towards the bottom of the treetops and between a pair of trees roughly four meters apart. "It wasn't a clear look, mind you, so that's a rough estimate... But I can at least trust my eyes if nothing else. Not a hunter for nothing."

With that description and Lewa's assertion to proceed, though, Sanae took a brief moment to think for a bit before pointing in another direction, wherein the trees seemed to be equally scarred by whatever had passed through in that direction.

"It might be a good idea to split up here, then—teams of two, maybe, if we want to be safe? If there are a bunch of these things in the area, it might be a bit too slow to take them out one at a time. Worst comes to worst, we can always just run; no way these monsters are any stronger than those soldiers, right?" the green-haired girl asked—somewhat rhetorically, of course—before starting to head off. Hopefully someone actually able to track monsters would join her; otherwise, it'd come down to relying on her intuition. While that had served her well enough in the past, hopefully she could just follow the vague trail of destruction in front of her and not lose the trail entirely.

Assuming the group split up, though, each of them would come across very similar scenes—namely, the presence of what could only have been described as a massive boar surrounded by decimated trees. None would notice the people that had come seeking them immediately, but it would take little more than a few seconds before they turned and recognized the existence of something yet foreign to them—and likely hostile, to boot.

@VitaVitaAR@Izurich@Lugubrious@EchoWolff

---

Aventon — Hunter's Lodge

Kendrick chose to listen to Anne's word's in silence, but all the while that same expression seemed to remain as it was. Once she had finished speaking her piece, though, the guard spent a few more moments in silence before sighing.

"...I guess I can't blame you for saying something in that situation. Still doesn't sit right with me, but if the alternative was false hope or something..." he mused before shaking his head. "...No, wait, it's a kid we're talking about at the end of the day; there was no way something wouldn't happen. Gods, why's it so much more complicated now of all times?"

After scratching the back of his head and groaning in frustration, Kendrick took a deep breath before finally turning to face Anne again.

"Ugh. Well, in any case, he should still be asleep now, which gives me a bit of time to talk to you about what comes next," he said as he glanced towards Millie. "Those two are orphans now, no two ways about it. I could take them in, and that'd be that. But my gut's telling me that something's up; I don't know why those Raven Heralds came here in the first place, but it's got something to do with them, right? No way Ywain would've made them run if he didn't know something himself, and it's not like he's around to ask any more..."

@Drifting Pollen

From Realms Beyond — An Isekai Crossover RP (Now Accepting)

@Strosivadan: Aye, still open at the moment.

From Realms Beyond — An Isekai Crossover RP (Now Accepting)

Kochiya Sanae

Aventon — Forest Outskirts

With crossed arms and a look of concern rather evident on her face, Sanae glanced around where the group had stopped and shook her head. Up on the peak of Youkai Mountain, beasts rampaging around was an occasional occurrence, but seldom had she seen anything to this extent. More often than not, the tengu or kappa would take it upon themselves to clean matters up before Kanako could even thing of sending her out (or cause bigger problems that would call for her presence to resolve the matter), which meant that her experience on this front was rather limited at best.

Luckily enough, there were those present who did have the skills for just such an occasion, which would inevitably mean that she wouldn't have to make a fool of herself by chasing the wrong trail.

Not that there would really 'be' any wrong trail, though; Remilia (and anyone else with a keen eye for these things) would notice that there were indeed multiple creatures that had passed through the area—and a few minor clashes to boot, if the rare patch of blood or torn fur was any indication of anything.

"Uh... A youkai?" Derek would ask in response to Youmu's inquiry, scratching his head in confusion. "I haven't the foggiest what you might mean by that. Is that a monster of some sort? Because if we're talking monsters and magical creatures... Well, there are probably more than a few deeper into the forest, but they usually don't tend to get close enough for us to have to worry."

@VitaVitaAR@Izurich@Lugubrious@EchoWolff

---

The Skies Above Aventon

With the sky as clear and as blue as it could ever be, Rayne would find no issues flying higher and higher into the sky. Ascending into the heavens above, the halfling would soon be met with a beautiful late-morning vista over the horizon—and a nearly uninterrupted view of the land below.

Aventon itself seemed to be somewhat damaged from the chaos of yesterday, but most of the damage could be repaired in time; there was nothing so devastating so as to force the residents to have to abandon their home outright. Sure, the wounds of battle and the loss of life marred what would otherwise be a picturesque little town, but that much couldn't be helped.

There would be little of note to be seen to the north, where the Heralds had retreated towards; there scarcely seemed to be a road of any sort that way, though the ground seemed level enough to not warrant a need for any. A gaping hole in the northern wall, though, would explain how the Heralds had been able to access Aventon's inner workings. Maybe that was an issue to be handled later in time.

Looking east would provide much of the same visuals, though these lands seemed at least somewhat developed. Fields of grain had only started to grow, it seemed, and by some miracle or another the Heralds had left the area mostly untouched. There was evidence of some robbery of whatever was near the town, but beyond that everything seemed intact enough. Further still would be a river, and one large enough to provide for the needs of the town's food supply.

To the town's south, a long, winding road would stretch out into the distance. This one, though scarcely anything more than worn dirt, would at least indicate the presence of travel to and from the humble frontier town. There wasn't any clear destination from where they were now, which at the very least meant that wherever that road led to was too far away to see even from the skies above.

That ultimately left the west the last, and it was there that the expanse of the forests made itself rather apparent. Trees blanketed the area and only really stopped right where Aventon had situated itself—a strategic choice of some sort, no doubt—but seemed to extend far off into the distance, at which point they seemed to bleed into the ground below a somewhat moderately-sized mountain.

The clearing where the church was positioned—in other words, where the group had all come from—was visible from where Rayne was in the sky, as were a few scattered ruins that she had seen yesterday. They weren't convenient trips by any means, but their distance from the town would at least make return visits doable within reason.

@DracoLunaris

Qlippoth Shift: A Supernatural Action RP About Combating Otherworldy Anomalies

Tachibana Masaru

Nagano Prefecture — Abandoned Mansion

With the sole ranged phantom ashigaru promptly dealt with by none other than Zhao and his fists of death, Masaru moved to follow after his teammate with more aggressive positioning. If their enemy was to take a more defensive posture to use their spears as tools to ward them off—against an archer, no less—then there clearly had to be some sort of misstep in their training.

Well, assuming they had been given any, at least.

As Zhao moved to break through their weapons, Masaru began to fire volley after volley of arrows into the gaps where the martial artist wasn't. If their enemies had been felled with simple shots like those he had fired earlier, then surely he could just turn them into pincushions and achieve the same result in less time... Right?

"Well, trash mobs like these are an... Okay warmup, I guess? Still feels a bit like target practice, which isn't particularly riveting," he remarked as he fired another volley of arrows. "...So if we've got foot soldiers here, maybe we'll find some sturdier stuff deeper in? Wonder how you go past 'armored samurai' in the chain, though, since I assume that's what's up next..."

@Psyker Landshark@Raineh Daze

From Realms Beyond — An Isekai Crossover RP (Now Accepting)

Kochiya Sanae

??? — Hunter's Lodge

Sanae turned to look at the others present who hadn't yet left for the night and was left only mildly surprised at the fact that a majority of them wanted to go hunt down whatever it was in the forest that was leaving the hunters on edge. When that number promptly doubled when the two who had been missing when she had woken up when she had chimed in, the green-haired girl was left in a bit of an odd spot. Naturally, dealing with monsters would have been no different from youkai extermination—a job she had become quite familiar with, but not in this sort of context—but Anne did have a point. But to choose between staying behind or gathering more information about the area...

"Mmm..."

After being lost in her thoughts as she weighed the pros and cons of doing whatever she did, Sanae finally chose to simply choose both options at once. It made sense to her; after all, there were also corpses near the church, which meant that the 'monsters' in question could still appear near there... Which meant that she could accomplish her original goal and help a bit before coming back. "Two birds with one stone" and all that.

"I'll go tag along for a bit, then," she said, stepping forward. "Or, well, I'll join the group to check the area around that church up and help deal with monsters on the side—assuming there are any, of course. I'll head back to the town once my own investigation's done, though, just so we can split the difference."

At the sudden wave of support for an investigation into the nearby woods, though, the hunter who had first mentioned the presence of something odd therein seemed to look surprised for a moment before giving his friend a bit of a smirk.

"Guess we've got the heroes on my side, huh?" he half-joked before raising a hand towards them. "Right, name's Derek; if you wanted to know where we are right now... Well, this is the humble town of Aventon, slapped right on the frontier of the nation of Riltaea. As you, uh, overheard, I saw an uncannily large shadow in the woods earlier today during a hunt. Seemed too dangerous to continue with something that big lumbering around, so I came back early."

There was a bit of a pause before Derek scratched the back of his head before glancing briefly towards his companion, then back towards the rest of the group that had assembled.

"I can show you where it was I saw it, at least. If something that big really is around here, then we're going to have a hell of a time getting any food from the forests here."

---

Aventon — Forest Outskirts

Led by Derek into the forest as they were, the group would swiftly make their way westward. For the most part, nothing seemed too out of the ordinary, but anyone with an eye for nature would feel anything but. Signs of freshly-marked trees, gouged out by something far larger than should have been ordinary, and large amounts of underbrush that looked to have been crushed underfoot in a single motion...

"Here we are," Derek said out loud as he slowed to a stop and looked around. "This is where I saw whatever that thing was, but..."

The more problematic thing wasn't that whatever had marked this place as its own didn't seem to be the only one—not with so many branching paths with clear signs of things passing through every which way.

"My instincts are telling me that something's off. The heck could've caused all this, though...?"

---

Aventon — Hunter's Lodge

As the rest of the group left to go and hunt whatever beast was giving that hunter cause for concern, Kendrick—who by the looks of things seemed rather worn-out—entered the lodge. He had given a passing glance to those who were headed out, but his goal at this point in time was not to speak with them.

No, it only made sense that he wanted to talk to the woman who he had entrusted the pair of children to the night before.

"Miss, uh... Sorry, I don't think I ever got your name," he said to Anne as he walked over to her. "...I saw Alvin run off back to his old place last night. I'm guessing you chose to break the news to him?"

The guard had a complicated expression on his face—an indescribable mix of concern, frustration, and understanding all in one—but he chose not to act on any of those emotions and continued speaking his piece instead.

"Either way... I checked in on him last night after my shift ended. He was still there, thankfully enough—sleeping on the floor and soaking wet, but there. But that's more than enough reason to talk to you now."

It was at this point that Kendrick's expression hardened a little, and a frown made itself rather evident on his face.

"Look, I know I'm not the kid's dad. I can't replace what Ywain's done, and I don't even want to think about how to handle the situation with Millie after she wakes up. I also can't thank you enough for bringing them back here safely—a lot of people here lost their friends and loved ones, and every person alive is a blessing on its own. But would it have been too much to ask to try and keep the news from him until... I don't know, today? Even asking me to do it like you had suggested would have been fine; it's not like I haven't had to do that more than enough times already."

@VitaVitaAR@Izurich@DracoLunaris@Lugubrious@Drifting Pollen@EchoWolff

Pokemon: Dream

Richard Evans

Seasalt Caverns — B2F

Given that his plan hinged upon Luna getting enough experience, it seemed reasonable to just start by defeating every Nacli that they could come across and try to get the Snivy enough experience in battle before heading deeper out onto the trail. The first two were dealt in much of the same way as they had Laurel's Sprigatito—in other words, paralyzing them with Glare, then steadily tackling them down between their own attacks to knock them unconscious. The battles were by no means intricate or intense, but in an enclosed space like the cave there was only so much space that Luna could use to maneuver in.

At the very least, though, there were a few stalagmites that could be used as cover if it came down to it.

After dealing with two Nacli, Luna seemed fairly confident in her ability to take on another. But when the third seemed to be unaffected by her Glare and swung back with a Mud Shot, Richard wasted no time in calling out to her.

"Change of plans! Luna, dodge to the side and Leer! If it tries to come in close, tackle back; if it stays at range, keep dodging and using Leer!"

It was only at the last second that Luna seemed to notice Richard's cry, and after somehow shaking off the shock of their tried-and-true strategy not working, the Grass Snake Pokemon attempted to dive out of the way before mounting a counterattack. While the battle continued on, though, Richard reached into his bag and pulled out an empty Pokeball, readying himself to try and capture their opponent once Luna weakened it enough to do so.

@Rune_Alchemist

Qlippoth Shift: A Supernatural Action RP About Combating Otherworldy Anomalies

Tachibana Masaru

Nagano Prefecture — Abandoned Mansion

"What the heck, you were right?"

Masaru's follow-up to Zhao's quip was quickly followed up by a quick backstep as the Agent brought his bow up to a ready position. Sakura had already retreated using that odd portal magic of hers, and with Zhao taking point and causing chaos on the frontlines it swiftly fell to him to keep the pressure up on the enemies that hadn't yet engaged him.

A quick analysis of the room left Masaru with just enough leeway to start firing without threatening to tag Zhao in the process, and the young man wasted no time in nocking an arrow and firing towards the gaps in the shadowy ashigaru soldiers' helmets. He didn't expect them all to land dead-on, but even exposing the area underneath would make it easy for a follow-up attack to land true.

Not like he could just aim for the body, though; with all that plating, all his arrows were apt to do was bounce off and maybe leave a bit of a dent. Using whatever weird electricity magic his bow had was an option too, of course, but limiting the space that their frontliner could access seemed rather counter-intuitive at best.

@Psyker Landshark@Raineh Daze

Past the Veil

@Sanity43217: Certainly. I've also added this to the OP, but to emphasize it here:

Traditional magic (or, more simply, just magic) is a blanket term used to describe any spell or field of magic that is not directly influenced by some sort of "divine" amplifier. The variety of magic types that this encompasses includes but is not limited to:

• Elemental magic of all varieties
• Status magic, which itself can be split into enhancement and debilitation spells
• Healing and divine magic
• "Life Magic", which is a general-use term for any number of miscellaneous spells generally used for day-to-day convenience (for example, maintaining the temperature of an object for a period of time)

Most traditional spells are single-purpose and are designed to execute one thing in a certain way. While their use cases may be flexible, the manner in which they act upon the world and the results they produce are clearly defined within the parameters of their spells. Changing those parameters would change the spell, and doing so without understanding the mechanics behind the spells (which are generally cast using some form of verbal or physical conduit) could lead to less-than-desirable results.

From Realms Beyond — An Isekai Crossover RP (Now Accepting)

Kochiya Sanae

??? — Hunter's Lodge

Lewa's rather adverse initial reaction to her comment about being controlled caused Sanae to instinctively raise her hands in the air and take a step back from the green machine-not-machine-person-thing. The fact that she had apparently touched on something that was a bit of a sore spot for him was not lost upon her, of course, but it luckily didn't take long for him to recover and explain himself and his origins in turn.

"Oooh... I see, I see," she said, nodding her head at his explanations. "A mechanical hero protecting the jungles of his homeland... I think there's something inherently poetic about that, in a weird way. Regardless, that has to be a large responsibility to bear; the best I ever do is go around solving incidents when not tending to the shrine I live at, and even then that stuff usually doesn't leave who knows how many lives hanging in the balance..."

With that said, though, Sanae quieted down and listened to the others introduce themselves and their situations in turn. Rayne's situation seemed a bit more concerning compared to the rest of them—life and death not functioning sounded like an incident waiting to happen—but it didn't seem like any of them could really get back to what they were doing until this whole summoning mess was resolved regardless. Joker's introduction, however, piqued a bit more of the young woman's interest—not because of how foreign it was, but instead how familiar the last quip he had given felt to her.

"Joker and Arsene... Cards? Like playing cards? And... Arsene... Lupin? Like that old manga?" she asked in turn, cocking her head to the side in curiosity. "Or am I barking up the wrong tree here?"

Though she wanted to poke more into everyone's histories and circumstances, Youmu's and Remilia's accounts of their arrival quickly pulled her back to incident resolution mode. The fact that they had both been brought over after the fact, and well after the rest of them had been summoned to the church here (and fundamentally weakened to boot) was a red flag in her head, and inevitably something to look into sooner rather than later.

"That doesn't sound particularly pleasant," Sanae remarked, grimacing at her acquaintainces' accounts of their arrival before crossing her arms. "Hopefully it isn't anything too bad, but I've got a bad feeling about this if that's how you two arrived here..."

With the situation as it was, though, it seemed that the best the group could do now was spend the rest of the night under a proper roof and resting—and maybe even talking further about what their plan was for the near future beyond waiting for their questions to be answered by the still-absent divinity that had brought them all here.

---

Though he seemed to have been expecting the answer that Anne had given him, Alvin seemed no less torn by what she had said. His father was dead, and had died giving his life for theirs...

"..."

Though he had seemed mature for his age, the young boy had really only done so at the behest of his father—the very same who had the wits to send him and Millie off into the wilds, knowing full well that whatever had come for them would have left them dead (or worse). But though the logical part of his brain had begun to grasp it, his heart refused the evidence outright. He and his sister had been saved from the Heralds, yes, but they had still taken his father all the same. Even so, a miracle had saved him and his sister; who was to say that something couldn't have happened to save his father after the fact?

Despite everything, Alvin—whose fists had clenched tightly into fists—wordlessly broke past Anne and ran outside the lodge and into the streets. Maybe, just maybe, his father would be there, alive and waiting for their return like he had promised.

---

---

The Next Day

With everything that had happened, it wasn't too surprising that Sanae had eventually burned through the last of her energy and passed out on the floor at some point during the night. It was only the feeling of hunger that finally roused her from her slumber—well, that and an uncomfortable rest on the cold wooded floor in her shrine maiden outfit.

Really, it was a miracle that she had fallen asleep to begin with.

Sanae let out a groan of discomfort as she blearily opened her eyes and stretched her arms upwards, and a cursory glance around left the young woman cognizant that the events of the last day had not been a delusion conjured up by her mind. The injured were still laying around, and the people who had awoken were slowly getting back to work trying to make sure that nobody had passed during the night. Remilia's assistance seemed to help a lot more than her own small miracles had, given how much more tangible they seemed to be, but physical repairs could only do so much to keep someone alive and well.

Pushing herself off the ground and stretching her limbs in an attempt to rid herself of the soreness and discomfort of it all, the young woman glanced around before frowning.

"...Hm. Anyone else up?" she asked as she brushed some of the debris off of her dress and glanced around. "Need to figure out where we can get some food to start. I was going to go check out that church again if Millie wasn't awake, but by the looks of things she's still out like a light."

At the same time, though, a few of the hunters off to the side seemed to be discussing matters in hushed tones, close enough to the entrance of the building so as to not alert the injured further in.

"You sure you saw something in the forest? Rain should've washed everything down last night."

"Blood, sure, but we've got corpses all over and no chance to clean up. You'd be crazy to think there aren't any opportunistic monsters who would love a free meal..."

@VitaVitaAR@Izurich@DracoLunaris@Lugubrious@Raineh Daze@Drifting Pollen