Aetuornos Beta 1-7

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1-7: Subterranean Spider Squashing

"Heey Jesse."
"What?"

"If you wanna learn more about 'human culture'...tell me your email, an' I got a video I can link ya to."
The sheep-girl sighed. "I have already been rickrolled, Kite. Many times."

"Aww." Her disappointment was greatly exaggerated, her shoulders and ears sinking briefly before popping back up to their usual places.

"I also do not trust you with any of my contact information."

"Hey now, that ain't fair!" the fox-girl protested, waving dramatically.
"Not because of your race," Jesse continued. "We met less than thirty minutes ago. I wouldn't trust any of you three with that."

"Fair enough," Aranthra said with a small shrug.

"Well, wha'bout you two?" Kite said. "Y'all wanna share emails?"
"Su—"
"No," the mage interrupted the wolf-girl.
"Whaat, I ain't gonna send ya spam or nothin'. I just wanna have a way to make contact so we can arrange to party up again after this session."
"Ask us again after we fight the spider boss," Aranthra said as they came up to the mouth of the cave. "For now, let's focus on not getting ambushed."

"So like, I hate to ask this now, since I'm pretty sure I can actually see in the dark," Scylla said, "but..do either of you have like, a light spell or something?"
"..Well, I can make fire, but that's not exactly the same," the mage started.
"No worries, I got this," the fox-girl interrupted, pulling out a piece of seal paper and tearing it in half. A glowing orb appeared from the tear, and when she held up a hand with the fingers curled as if holding a ball, it floated to just above her palm. "This is s'posed to last 'bout an hour, but I can hide it when I need to," she explained, closing her fist around the orb—which made its light disappear—then opening her hand again so the light reappeared.

"Great. Now just remember to look up," Aranthra said. "Unless you want a spider falling on your face from above."

The first bit of the mine, a natural cave the sunlight from outside mostly covered, was clear. But then they entered a narrower shaft with a rail running through it, wood holding up the ceiling and long-burnt-out lamps placed periodically around. The darkness here would've been complete without the benefit of Kite's orb of light, but there were no enemies or treasures to speak of just yet. Scylla took the front and Jesse the rear with the casters between them, moving forward in silence and keeping a careful look out for monsters.

Eventually they reached a crossroads, and the wolf-girl's ears twitched as something skittered out from the right side. It was a spider about half her height, and made a kind of "Screee" noise when it saw her, prompting her to move forward and deliver a quick slash, her blade barely a blur between coming out of the sheath and going back in. The big arachnid was cut almost cleanly in two, collapsing immediately, and Scylla tilted her head a bit at it. "..What, that's it? One shot and dead?"

"I reckon it's numbers we need worry about here," Kite said, her own ears turning in one direction and another. "Pretty sure that noise attracted more of 'em, too." Her orb moved to the center of the intersection before sweeping around in a small circle, allowing the less visually gifted members of the party to see groups of spiders coming in from each direction.

"Biggest group's left, you take that," Jesse said, hurrying past the mages to get to the right side; Aranthra was already busy casting a fire enchantment on the party's weapons.

"'Kay." The wolf-girl drew her sword, noticing the fiery glow on the blade, and swept it left and right experimentally for a second. "Sweet."

"Guess I'll hold the center, then," the fox-girl said, moving to do so.

"Actually, I've got it," the mage said, moving to the front. "Check this out." For once she had a geniune grin on her face, and it was...a little scary, really. She then began chanting, clearly a more serious spell than the usual blades and sparkles.

"A'right, guess I'll run interference then." The miko drew her staff (which was also glowing with fire, even though it wasn't very effective as a melee weapon) and prepped a barrier, watching and listening carefully for a good opportunity to use it.

Jesse's group arrived first, and she tried just punching down at the top of the nearest one's skull. This succeeded in crushing it, the body behind collapsing to a heap, but her hand was then covered in a disgusting, sticky substance she dared not look at too closely, instead trying to shake it off as much as possible before the next opponent appeared and think of a takedown that would have a less nauseating end result.

The samurai stepped forward, swinging into the spiders before her and finding each one just as easy to take down as the first had been. This was what her class was made for—quickly dashing from one enemy to another, popping them like so many balloons and dancing gracefully between their claw slashes and snapping fangs with ease.

Then Aranthra finished her spell, violently flinging her staff's end, which seemed to coalesce the flames surrounding it into a melon-sized sphere of pure fire before flinging it forth, sending it careening straight into the congregation of spider-monsters before her. It ignited an explosion of flame, heat, and concussion which destroyed the entire group in an instant, splattering what little was left of them against the walls.

The sheep-girl had a bit more trouble than her companions, kicking back against the spiders, knocking them around, grabbing one by the top and bottom of its head to force its mouth shut and slam it forward onto another—but overall they were coming faster than she could dispatch them, and before long one lunged at her while she was still busy with another. It rammed its head into a barrier courtesy of Kite, and Jesse was able to counter the staggered spider with a slash of her glove-claws to its underside, taking it out.

"Yesss. Fireball," Aranthra nodded, satisfied with the results, and turned to check the situation with the others. Scylla was clearly having no trouble, so she turned to firing some missiles to harass the spiders ganging up on the brawler and give her breathing room to take down a few more of them. Between this and the miko's assistance with barriers, she was able to take down the remaining spiders by about the time the wolf-girl was through with her group, standing far from the intersection with her sword still drawn and slowly panting from the sustained effort of comboing so many enemies in a row.

"Hahff...fff..phew. That was great!" Scylla said, sheathing her blade and backing up toward the group, managing enough presence of mind to watch for any reinforcements. "Feel like I had a workout!"

"I'm sure that's just the start of them," Aranthra said. "Can't wait to try that AOE out in a little less cramped of spaces." Jesse predictably gave her a questioning look. "Oh—area of effect. Like, spalsh damage. Like a big explosion."
"I see," she nodded, still busy wiping her gloves off on her shorts for the moment. "The question is, which direction do we take? Or should we split up—"

"Don't split the party!" the mage interrupted, holding up a hand. "Rule number one. Especially considering that only two of us can actually see in the dark, one of which is in charge of the light."
"Oh..right. So, which way do we go?"

"I don't reckon it really matters much," said the miko, twirling her gohei in her hands a bit. "After all, spiders came from all different directions, so each way's either a dead end they were campin' at, or goes toward the queen."

"Queen?" Scylla said.
"Mother, whatever."
"Maybe we should head left then," the mage suggested. "The largest group came from there, so it's reasonable to guess that path has the most spiders in general. And where would there be more spiders, than the location of the boss that's making them?"

"Good 'nough for me," said the fox-girl.

"Likewise," Jesse agreed. "We should resume our previous formation, as there is now a genuine risk of enemies coming from behind."

The path wasn't entirely straight, going up or down and winding left or right slightly in places. However, it didn't fork again either, and before long a wall came just into view beyond them. "I guess we picked wrong," Aranthra said, but the wolf-girl leaned forward slightly while she spoke and then stood up straight again, her ears popping excitedly vertical at the same time.

"Treasure!" Scylla ran forward, the rest following the remaining few steps to see a stereotypical wooden chest with rusted metal bracing it. "And it's unlocked!"

"It might still be trapped, you know," the mage said. "And here we are without a rogue."
"Oh...yeah." The samurai took a small step back, her ears drooping slightly but her tail still wagging in anticipation. A trapped chest was sure to have better loot than a safe one, after all!
"Ain't no trouble," Kite said, pushing her way to the front of the other three. "You move the quickest, so you open it'n jump back. An' I'll put up a barrier just in case."

Scylla shot a questioning look back at her friend, who shrugged. "That sounds like a good plan to me. You should count out your timing so you don't jump back into the shield, though."

"Okay!"

After squatting briefly to check for any tripwires or pressure plates—and finding none—the wolf-girl walked carefully up to the chest and positioned herself to open it up. "You ready?"
"Uh-huh," the miko said, her staff out. "You count, I gotta chant."
"'Kay, from five—five, four, three, two, one, go!" Scylla threw open the chest and backflipped, after which the familiar hexagons of a barrier appeared between her and the chest. The group waited for a tense moment, but nothing happened.

"Welp," the fox-girl shrugged, dropping her spell. "Sometimes ya win, and sometimes ya win."

"What'sinit!?" No longer fearing a trap, Scylla ran up to investigate the chest's contents.
"Uhh, remember to share," the mage said, coming up next to Kite.

"Mm-hmm~," Scylla sang, her hands already rummaging through the contents.

"Looks like a bunch of ore? I guess that makes sense, for a mine. I'd be way happier with straight-up money, though..."

"Why would someone keep money here?" Jesse asked. "It's infested with monsters. And if weren't, the mine would be in operation, so any miner could stumble right into it and take it."

"It's standard game design for treasure chests to have anything valuable in them, especially including money," Aranthra said patiently. "It's not really about 'who would keep this here' but 'how can we reward the players for going to this spot'...or, 'how can we help resupply the player's needed items', or whatever. Nonetheless, I suspect they wanted semi-believable treasure for this game, so the solution was to have a ton of different crafting materials that can be treated as vendor trash—stuff you don't use, but can sell to any shopkeep for money—if you want, or have even better uses."

"Wouldn't be outta the question for jewels to be hidin' in all that, though," Kite said. During the explanation, Scylla was busy pulling out and sorting the ore into little piles of the three visibly different types in the chest. She now scooped out about a fourth of each pile into her own inventory and stood up, waving the others at the loot.

"Perhaps it would've been more efficient for one person to gather everything, and then split it later?" the sheep-girl said while taking hers.
"Maybe, but then we have to spend time back in town doing that—and maybe arguing over it—instead of just logging off or whatever," Aranthra said. "Besides, nobody wants to be stuck doing all the work of pickng up scattered monster bits while the rest of us just stand around." Jesse nodded, agreeing with this logic.

On their way back to the intersetion, Scylla stopped in her tracks. "Movement up ahead," she said quietly. The miko's light-orb swooped forward enough to briefly make out the shape of several spiders approaching which had yet to notice them, and the mage moved up next to the samurai.

"I got this." After chanting, she threw a fireball forward, and it slammed right into the face of one spider, the resulting explosion taking out the rest of the small group—as confirmed by another fly-by of the light orb. "Quadratic mages," she said confidently, stepping back into position before the party started moving again.

Eventually they returned to the junction, and Scylla—still in the lead—selected a new direction more or less at random. No one raised any objections, and the journey onward from there was similar to the one to the chest for a while. However, eventually the corridor began to widen slightly, and a faint blue light came from up ahead. The light brightened somewhat as they came to a place where the passage opened into a bigger, circular chamber with a single exit right across from their entrance. Here the source of the light became obvious: A big crystal hanging from the ceiling, glowing with a calming blue light.

"Looks like we've found a 'safe place'," Aranthra said. "Boss might be up ahead!"
"Or, maybe we're only halfway," Kite replied. "Either way, good time to take a load off."
"Uhh. I gotta go! Berrrrb," the wolf-girl said, waving before going over to one of the cavern walls and sitting leaning back against it before apparently going straight to sleep.
Jesse watched this, and turned toward the other two with a look of mild confusion.

"The blue crystal indicates this is a 'safe place', where no monsters will show up," the mage said, pointing up at it. "Same idea as a 'save point' in a single-player game: A place to take a break if you need to. So, if someone has to go do something—like a bathroom trip—in the middle of a dungeon, it's ideal to do it here instead of somewhere the party might have to fight without you."
"So, why did she collapse instead of disappearing?"
"'Cause logging out looks like goin' to sleep in the game world," Kite said. "Ya really didn't read any manuals or nothin', huh?" The sheep-girl shrugged in response. "Welp, it's for immersion and stuff. Ya can't do anything to a sleepin' player, good or bad, not even move 'em around," she said, attempting to prod the dozing wolf-girl with her staff; it went right through her as if she were a hologram or a ghost.

"Still, a creative player could do something to the area around someone who's logged out," Aranthra said. "If you're logging out for the day, you're heavily encouraged to go to bed either at your 'home' or an inn. Only certain classes, like healers and nobles, start with a 'home'; anyone else has to buy or build a house, or join a guild who's built themselves a living space, or something. Except I don't think they've implemented noble classes or guilds yet...

"Anyway, aside from the fact that other players can't mess with you in your home or an inn, sleeping in a proper bed like that grants you a perecentage stat bonus for being 'well-rested' that wears off gradually over the first, uhh, five or six hours of play I think? New players start with the bonus, so we're probably still good for now."
"I saw the inn in town," Jesse said. "It didn't appear spacious enough for the player base this game is meant to support..."
"They're bigger on the inside," Aranthra shrugged. "They just make a new open room for each player who rents, a new floor anytime the available floors are full, and delete empty rooms after the renter leaves. It's unrealistic, sure, but trading realism for fun is what most forms of entertaining fiction do anyway. Also, nobody wants to be the housekeeper for a fictional hotel, so everything cleaning itself up just makes sense."

"Ta be clear, though, it ain't one-room-one-person," Kite said, twiddling one of her ears. "Players who wanted ta sleep cheap could just pile as many as fit on a single bed, I bet."

"Inn prices are nowhere near steep enough to justify that," the mage said.

"Done!" Scylla's eyes opened up and she hopped back to her feet. "Everyone else good?" she asked, dusting her hands off on her clothes for a second; the others nodded.
"Is it..jarring going between bodies?" Jesse asked. "I mean—suddenly not having the tail, then having it again?"
"Hmn? No, it feels almost weirdly normal," she shrugged; Aranthra knew this was doubly so with the differences going far beyond just gaining/losing the wolf features. "Like falling asleep and waking up again, but even though I know and feel like my body's different there's no disconnect? I guess the 'first entry acclimates the user' thing is no joke."

"..Good," she nodded, thinking. At some point she'd forgotten she was supposed to be getting feedback from these people. Then again, perhaps the fact that even she was having enough fun to forget that was a positive sign for the developers...

"So, you think the boss is up ahead?" the wolf-girl said, walking up to the chamber's exit.

"It'd be an awful short dungeon if so," Kite remarked.
"Yeah, but it's the tutorial dungeon. We fought some mobs, we got a treasure chest...that pretty much covers it apart from the boss, right?"

"Aww, are ya that eager to be ridda me?" she said, coming up next to the wolf-girl and giving her a slightly pitiful look with her ears folded down.
"Huh? Noo, I like you. I'm just eager to fight something bigger than the wimpy spiders," said Scylla, her own ears drooping a bit at the suggestion. "Yeep!" She jumped slightly when the tip of one of the fox-girl's tail brushed across the base of her own.

"Oh, whoops. Sorry 'bout that," Kite said, taking a small, respectful step away but grinning in a way that made it rather obvious to the others that the touch had been no accident.

"Um, it's fine. Guess I'm not used to how it feels for someone else to touch it, heheh," she giggled nervously, still blushing faintly.

"Anyway, we should go on ahead regardless," Aranthra said. "Please lead the way, our illustrious tank," she added, waving impatiently toward the exit.
"Oh! Right, yeah, sure," Scylla nodded rapidly and took up her position at the front again, heading out of the safe place. The mage glared at the fox-girl, who returned an entirely-too-innocent smile back as she went to follow right behind the samurai.

Jesse just waited for Aranthra to follow and took up the rear again, wanting no part of the entire affair. She could very well have told the two humans that a Kitsune was going to be trouble, but how much trouble Kite had planned was yet to be seen. At least here, nothing she did was going to lead to anyone actually getting hurt, anyway.