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THE WAR FOR MYTHERIA - Isekai Adventure

<Snipped quote by Saiyan>

That reminds me, I never really watched DB but it's a shame Akira Toriyama died.

@Dark Cloud

He lives on in his body of work, forever. RIP

THE WAR FOR MYTHERIA - Isekai Adventure

Auto hit for the next poster! Can't wait to see who gets it.

And I feel bad for the character who's writer goes the turn after that!

THE WAR FOR MYTHERIA - Isekai Adventure

@Jay009

The blade Zigmund tried to stab MacKensie with, snapped in two against the sudden appearance of a stone body. It took a second for the broken blade to turn to water, reform and turn back to steel, although by this time Zigmund was already moving to try and throw a blade at Adam. But he didn't get a chance to see if his blade landed because, another was hot on his tail.

Who is this one? His technique is powerful, polished, ferocious. A tower shield AND claymore? He is no ordinary human.

After feeling the power increase of the weaklings, Zigmund was no longer toying around and started to warm up. He was equal, just barely, to Barracker's offensive. He evaded the claymore, parried where possible, braced and took the shield bash on his shoulder - a price to avoid the shield swipe that might have broken his helmet.

When Zigmund found some space and time, his blades, including the one he'd thrown at Adam, turned to water to flew back to his body. Then he summoned a large, two-handed bardiche - water upgrade-tranformed into Titanrock(a rare material that rivalled orichalcum.)

I can match him now, he edges me attack-frequency but I edge him in attack-speed. They found a competent addition in Valhiem. Power. Experience.

In one moment, his Titanrock Bardiche- CLASH -met equally the Orichalcum Claymore, and Zigmund leaned his head right up to Barracker's face.

"Vampire," he assessed. Then he head-butted Barracker to break their lock.

The final aerial attack from Barracker forced Zigmund to block, bringing him to one knee, holding the claymore from coming down on him.

For the next few moments, Zigmund could not move as he held off Barracker's greatsword. The next attack would automatically land and depending on who and how they took advantage of a free attack, it was a chance to do huge damage.

THE WAR FOR MYTHERIA - Isekai Adventure

@Zapdos@Zool

I've seen this before. The Druid. I know your game.

Zigmund summoned not just a water blade but dual blades of water that turned into steel. With his full power, water-absorbant roots would not be enough.

What!?

And yet as he cut them, he still felt pain. Water blades upgrade-transformed to steel and yet the roots could still absorb his life force. This Druid attack was 3x more powerful than last time. No... 5x more powerful! But it was a mere bit of pain and his blades cut away any root that tried to entangle him, before jumping up, backwards and out of the root growth.

And then in mid air... before he could even land... he was forced to- CLASH! -block.

The Ranger. Fast. Faster than before. Her dagger presses my blade. Not so easily brushed away as before. How is she so strong?

Zigmund and MacKensie were practicly stuck together as gravity brought them to the ground. His head tilted sharply to one side to dodge her close-range shot. And when they landed, Zigmund put more effort in to break her pressure and shove her dagger aside.

Then, in a split-target combination, he attempted to stab her with his 2nd of his dual blades, skipped backward, then turned and hurled one blade at the Druid.

It's been a week. How are they so much stronger?

THE WAR FOR MYTHERIA - Isekai Adventure

@Zool@Loksfjoer@Saiyan@Teyao@Zapdos@Jay009@Dark Cloud

After freeing the Temple of Hades from the grasp of the Drath'tuthan, the Greater Wraith, the combined efforts of each party members' ways and means of dealing with the former cult members brought a considerable sense of hope and relief. James Sirius' announcement was powerful, smart enough to use the high religiosity of Mytherians to get across important points. Adam Phillips' willingness to try to understand how people were feeling, in spite of their atrocities, came across genuinely to the guilty. Fenna Postma's kindness and reassurances, in spite of her tiredness, was felt and appreciated. The one man Zell had bothered to give a stern approach to, was suprsingly empowered.

Most of the former cult members chose not to stay, and left in the night to go home, sticking to the roads and large groups for safety. A quiet had fallen on the temple by a time shortly after midnight, leaving a decent amount of hours for sleep.

But it was not a full sleep, and therefore Second Chance would only regain 70% of their health, and any injuries would heal well, but would not FULLY heal without visiting a hospital that had departments specializing in Source Crystal technology, such as Valhiem's hospital.

Also, any spells that would usually recover each day, would only replenish by +1. However, any gains from the recent Ascension would be fully available.

......................................

___________________________________________________________________

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In the early hours of the morning, just before sunrise...

Zigmund Mugba-Zarak: Elite scout unit of General Saladin's Forces, was stood at the bottom of Temple Hill.

His visor, much like the rest of his armour, was a steel-alloy mix of foriegn technology and Dark Domain Source. Through it, he scanned for Source Crystal users in the area. As he looked up to the summit Temple Hill, there he saw someone looking back.

"The Ranger," he said to himself.

There were two Rangers, he remembered, but while one managed to pester him like an unswattable fly, that was not this one. This was the weakling he had dealt with effortlessly, even almost managing to kill her at one point, if not for the chaos of the battlefield inside The Mazy Hillocks. He'd made a terrible error to confront them in such unpredicatable terrain. But this time would be different.

"I'm coming."

He flew like the wind, needing no steps or steady inclines. Up the hill he went in the virtually straight line, powerful strides, leaps and sprinting. But it wasn't the smallest hill. It took a little time to scale Temple Hill, but once at the top, it was quiet and clear. No distractions. Nowhere to run. Nothing would save them this time.

"Once a party of 9," he recollected to onlookers as he stood, feet apart, arms open in mockery, welcoming an attack. "There are less of you now. And the wizard girl will sadly not be joining you again either. We had an intimate chat on the roads outside Valhiem." Lillianna, presumed dead. At the very least, left to die in a ditch. "I had a lot of fun with her. A shame that her fragile wizard body could not last longer."

Oh how Zigmund would savor this revenge. His ego had been bruised so badly in The Mazy Hillocks. Aurok the Maneater had ruined everything. And he made Lillianna pay dearly. But his pound of flesh would be taken from them all.

"I saw how you survived Aurok. One of you gave your lives. I seem to remember snapping the neck of one of you too. Hmmm... consider those weaklings the lucky ones. Back then...? I was at less than half of my real strength."

"NOW WITNESS THE TRUE POWER OF ZIGMUND MUGBA-ZARAK!"

Within seconds, water droplets formed in the air, making a circle arcing over his head and touching the ground. The droplets grew massive, then transformed into various weapons: Swords, axes, javelins, halberds... all kinds. Then they became water droplets again and flew back into Zigmund's body.

"This is where you all die."

He rushed forward, jumped into the air and summoned a massive battleaxe in the air - first water before turning to solid steel. It was the size of Valhiem's biggest statues.

The attack was unblockable and targeted MacKensie Trydant and anyone within five feet of her. The steel battleaxe came crashing down smashing not just the ground but destroying the temple entrance too. The attack was completely unblockable.

A direct hit to MacKensie and ANYONE within five feet of her would deal incredible damage. Those who managed to dodge would still feel the pain of the explosion of earth and stone that happened from the impact.

As Zigmund landed, he got ready to attack his next target............................

THE WAR FOR MYTHERIA - Isekai Adventure

UPDATES TO LORE TAB

Due to @Loksfjoer, we now have a whole section under Magic detailing the industry of the creation of magic items. So if you want to know just how your future non-ascension, non-sidequest powerboosts are made, it's all on the Lore Tab. Maybe shoot a little thanks to our friend, who already does such great work on RPGuild with her site-wide Writer/Poetry Competitions!

Just a quick note to let everyone know that the list of Valhiem's important NPCs list is growing as our players send in the extra information I needed. I'll also be finding pictures and creating space for important NPCs created by former group members, so their contributions are not lost, and those players can live on in our RP through our use of their shops.

(I know UPDATES would normally be in the Group PMs but I was already here so sue me!)

THE WAR FOR MYTHERIA - Isekai Adventure

@Zool@Loksfjoer@Saiyan@Teyao@Zapdos@Jay009@Dark Cloud

Reginald De Wran, Valhiem's Director of Advanced Magical Development, stood with his hands behind his back upon the hilltop, looking with his perpetually stern gaze onto the epic scene of the city of Valhiem. A city that had been advanced on by a gargantuan military army of The Witch Queen. Such a monumental force of evil. Such numbers. And yet they had set upon the city with very little notice.

It was as The Academy had predicted: The Witch Queen would learn that The WellSprings were malfunctioning and that teleportation between cities was not available. All reinforcements had gone north of the Fortress of Fornost; the most tactically key location that seperated East from West. Any call for aid would likely be met with too late a reply. Doom was lurking for one of Mytheria's most central economic hubs. And the army that had come to Valhiem was clearly not to imprison the city. It had come to wipe it off the map.

She's played her hand well, Reginald thought with disdain. He did not let fear cloud his thoughts. Nor did he let it cloud his concetration on his current task.

"Director Reginald, sir," came a voice of one of his advisors. The gnome, Reginald, had a presence so much more powerful and larger than his actual body. He did not turn from his pose. His advisor would know he was listening. "Every soldier and scout we have sent into The Mazy Hillocks has not returned. We have even lost contact with, the adventurer party, The Flail."

"Useless," Reginald spat. "All of the powerful adventurer parties have been sent north to Fornost, leaving Valhiem full of the Gold and Silver Tier riff-raff. Good help is so hard to find."

"We cannot afford any more losses here, or our academics will be left without a bodyguard."

Now Reginald turned from his hilltop view of Valhiem, noting with grim displeasure as Lizard Cavalry Units of the enemy were riding around the city outskirts to surround the place and make sure that any evacuation of the Valhiem citzenry would not go unpunished. His ice cold gaze fell onto his subordinate. It seemed that they would not find the corpse of the adventurer known as Arthur Baker. Well, at least they had located the other.

"Very well," Reginald ordered sternly. Then looked to the wizard contingent he'd brought along on the expedition. "Lay out the corpse of Clive Michel. We will begin immediately."

It was about this time that one of the wizards was courageous enough to stammer his concerns about what they were about to do.

"Director. Are you sure about this? Ressurection is highly illegal without expception. Punishable by death," he explained. Not that anyone here needed that explaining to them. Much of the Dark Domain Source Spells were illegal or highly regulated. But this was Dark Domain Galactic-Tier Ritual Sorcery. A giant no-no. "We are committing the highest of crimes by going through with this."

The President of the Academy and The High Septum, Areleth, had used their security classification to employ the Code Readers to look into the Wellsprings and figure out who, what, where and how Second Chance had appeared in this universe, and where their path had taken them. It had become their theory that these people who claimed they were from another world had something to do with some kind of drastic measures taken in Capitol City - some kind of top-secret plan that invoked Universal-Tier Ritual magic only written about in the oldest tomes from The Mythic Age. But something must have gone wrong.

And with that theory, and no way to confirm it, due to the Wellsprings limiting communication around Mytheria, Valhiem's top brass had no choice but to take matters into their own hands. Clarissa Shields, Director of Reasearch and Technology would continue to study the mysterious cube that Second Chance had brought to her, and desperately hope to figure it out enough that it might help them in the Witch Queen's coming seige. Reginald, Director of Advanced Magic Development, would try to recover the 'damaged goods.'

But he would not explain himself to a subordinate.

"You are not paid to think or ask questions, Melery." Reginald turned to the other wizards. "Have the spells been prepped and charged?"

"Yes sir," was the answer in unison from all four of the best wizards in his department.

"Then let us begin."

And so, spaced out around the exhumed corpse of Clive Michel, Hero from the Sky... Five wizards, Five for the Quinity, Five to represent the Domains except Dark. Dark would be represented by the corpse. Dark Domain Source would be the conduit for everything.

The ritual began. There was no going back. Without a pardon from the Emperor himself, they would all be trailed and executed for this abominable crime of defying the cycle of Life and Death, defying The Quinity. Defying Source itself.

And Clive Michel would awaken.

@Saiyan@Zapdos

Somewhere miles and miles north of Valhiem, the Diamond Tier famous party, True Grade had set up camp. Chatting, cooking, preparing magical trip wires around the camp so that there would be no need for a watch and all could sleep well.

"So this loudmouth is stood on a table, actually taking credit for killing Aurok the Maneater." The deep voice of Braxus represented his 6'6" massive frame of hulking muscle. "And there are others in the tavern actually confirming his tall tale, saying that the Source Code spoke it true, and they got the reward from the Guild."

"Must've been pretty powerful. I wonder why his party isn't being sent to the frontlines. Maybe it was some low-Platinum party that just got lucky. What did you make of him, Braxxus?"

"I cast identify and I swear, I've seen stronger Vodka's made with pisswater."

Everyone chuckled. Glee John Artorius, the party Druid did too. He was one busy cooking. He was also one of the more thoughtful and less ego-driven in his party. And this didn't add up. Just like someone else, he'd met in Valhiem, who didn't add up either. Adam Phillips, he remembered. How could he forget? It wasn't everyday you bumped into a unatural prodigy who was so unbelievabley talented, it made one question the laws of the universe. "Hey, Braxxus?"

"Yeah?"

"Did you get the name?"

"Umm... yeah. Punk always introduced himself as 'Zell Brooks - tell your friends.'"

Wesphalia laugh was musical. "I kinda like him. Sounds like an asshole," she commented.

"Yeah, that's your type," Glee jeered at his friend. Then back to Braxxus. "But I was talking about the name of the party he was with."

"Oh... ummm... oh yeah - Second Chance."

Glee dropped the ladle into the pot and looked at Braxus. "Really?"

"Why, you know them?"

Glee recovered from his sense of surprise and continued to cook. "Well, gather around children, it's storytime with your favourite Druid."

_____________________________

The legend of Second Chance was just beginning. The heights such a legend would go, had yet to be determined. But considering that Diamond Tier parties - the strongest adventurers in Mytheria - were now telling campfire stories about them... it was clear that Second Chance were something truly special.

THE WAR FOR MYTHERIA - Isekai Adventure

"Post-Cut Clarity." ... ... ...

Feel better soon, brother!

THE WAR FOR MYTHERIA - Isekai Adventure

@TeyaoLooking at the original list of blessings you came up with for all the gods, I am trying to figure out which blessing James got when you rolled the dice. Some of them are so wild! You have me intrigued, sir

THE WAR FOR MYTHERIA - Isekai Adventure

@Zapdos

George was contrite and extremely nervous as he faced Adam. It was maybe that he simply took Adam's awkwardness for some kind of disdain. Or maybe he was just projecting his own self-hatred onto the righteous man who stood strong in front of him. He played with one end of his mustache and kept his gaze lowered for the most part.

“I believe this is yours. You had it when we, uh, met earlier.”

"Ah, uh, yes," he bumbled, then thought of a better idea. "Why don't you keep it, Druid," he said instead. "A gift from me. For freeing us of this nightmare we've been trapped in. For dispelling the darkness that plagued our homes."

He reached out with both hands. One closed Adam's fist around the wand, then the other placed itself on Adam's fist. He bowed his head with gratitude. "The wand is tied to the Air Domain, so it would be best with one of your companions who have an affinity to it. But even if none of you do, I'm sure you can get some use out of it. Or perhaps even sell it for a good price in the city."

George bid Adam farewell and started the journey back to the town of Chelis, a couple of miles north of Temple Hill. Facing Adam was hard enough, but facing his hometown after the things he'd done... the crimes he'd committed... would be the hardest thing he ever had to do in his life.

The wand was expensive and advanced in magical production. Unfortauntely there were none in Second Chance that could explore the various spells that it's maximum potential could produce. However:

Anyone using the wand could at least cast a high-powered Wind Blast which would fire a narrow cone high pressure to knock opponents off their feet. In combination with environments such as spikes or cliff edges, it would yield even better results in combat.

With a small amount of study under a competent teacher, or excessive training, even someone without a Source Crystal might be able to charge the air and create some kind of electrical spell.

Again, without affinity in the Source Domain of Air, the amount of spell charges a person could hope to get out of the wand before it needed recharging would be maybe 10-15. After that, a specialist would be needed to be sought out to 'refill' the wand.