Aetuornos Beta 2-3

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2-3: Two Kinds of Guardian

After walking quietly for a moment, Fiori said: "Hey, kinda weird question but uh..are you guys 'human'? Like, eye-ar-ell?"

"'Eye'..?—oh." Noire shook her head. "Werewolf, actually."

"Um, I'm a 'food demon'," Thora said. "Gluttony and..stuff. Forget the technical term for it."
"Ohh, you're a real demon?" She said excitedly. "That's so cool!" There had been no such reaction for the catgirl's reply.

"Eh-heheh...it's, really not as great as you'd think."

"Awwh, but you've gotta be super powerful, right? I mean, people eat food like all the time!"

"Technically, yeah..? But I, don't really have much skill controlling it yet, so it's more like a big blob of magic that just gets in my way more often than it helps."

Noire was not unfamiliar with this kind of conversation: 'Oh, it must be so cool to be a superstrong werewolf who hunts and fights and stuff.' Maybe it was a grass-always-greener thing. On the other hand, Fiori had chosen a demon race for her player character, and much like Thora, it probably represented something of her own desires. Not many people who said that kind of thing to Lance really wanted to catch La Lune's curse for themselves.

Thora was still trying to think up a reply when the rogue evidently passed a perception check. She stopped, holding out an arm in front of the less observant berserker to stop her and pointing ahead with the other hand. "Speaking of giant blobs..."

They had just stepped partway into a clearing, and opposite them, taking up much of its space, was a bunch of translucent, slimy green goop with a big, glowing spherical core floating around roughly in its center. It was amorphous in shape, like a disorganized mound of mud, and it rose halfway up a tree trunk—over Thora's head—at its tallest. She looked it up and down, mumbling "Uh..." and then half-whispering, "Is it too late to turn around leave?"

The monster took this moment to bound toward them, sloshing itself around the surrounding trees as it landed. Fiori hopped back just out of its landing zone, Noire managed to leap high enough up a nearby tree to get above it, and Thora just narrowly dove aside out of its way. "Yep," the catgirl said, nimbly crawling along a branch, clinging to it with her legs to swipe the monster's mass below her a few times with a dagger before swinging up and over to a different tree, avoiding a giant psuedopod that jutted out toward her.

The berserker got to her feet, drawing her giant club. "So, what, I just hit this thing?"

"Trust me, it's taking damage," Noire said—while Fiori sent a rotting fireball into it.

"What if my club gets stuck?"
"Come on, you're stronger than some blob, right?"

"Yeah...yeah, I better be!"

Thora psyched herself up, putting on her berserker aura again, and swung hard into the boss. Her club went all the way through its target with an uncomfortable squishing sound, tearing out a chunk of its mass and throwing it off to one side. She followed through with another two-handed swing in the opposite direction, with much the same effect. However, the broken-off pieces of slime didn't sit idle, instead picking themselves up and beginning to move toward the tall demon-girl.

She backed away from the boss as it came toward her, then noticed them approaching from the sides. "Oh-kaay, I didn't think this could get more gross, but—gyah!" When one of the smaller blobs jumped at her, she batted it away—hardly noticing that the other one was also coming at her. By then, however, Fiori's familiar was next to her, and it sent a jet of dark fire down to melt it away.

Whether the giant blob had a back was debatable, but Noire could tell when she ran up from the side opposite the berserker and did a brief combo of slices with her daggers that she was getting her backstab bonus damage. Now that its attention was almost entirely on Thora, the necromancer got in some slashes too, her scythe wreathed in the same necrotic flame most of her starter spells seemed to be focused around, and was rewarded by several more smaller slimes splitting off of the big one to try to retaliate. She backed off and threw a jet of flame at them all, which continued to be a very effective way to be rid of them.

More psuedopods gooshed out of the monster, one swinging at each party member. Fiori was already mostly out of reach, and just backed up a bit; Noire nimbly dodged, as always; and Thora took it full in the stomach. "Oof!" She staggered back before yelling—"Rrraah!"—and charging forward, getting an enraged counter swing straight through the main mass of the blob, throwing off a big chunk of it which showered the ground to her left with several smaller slimes. From this, the catgirl could see that the boss was actully losing mass as it took damage, which probably meant that in some sense its size was its health. Roth once again dealt with the cast-off slimes, leaving the berserker free to swing into the giant one again—this time an overhead chop with enough force to go all the way through it to the ground, followed by yanking the big club back out of its sticky body and stumbling back a couple of steps from the effort.

The rogue went back to slashing at the blob for backstab damage. The next time it struck part of itself out at her, she stepped under it toward the main mass, slicing a dagger through the thinnist part of the protrusion and causing it to break off and go flying behind her with its remaining momentum. She cartwheeled back, tossing a dagger at the small castoff slime this formed and neatly picking the dagger before moving toward the boss again. "Hmm..."

Thora had a good rhythm going by now with hitting the thing and letting Fiori and Roth take care of the resulting spawn, although she still couldn't do much to dodge its swings and just kept tanking them instead. While her own damage was okay, Noire knew full well she hadn't really picked a DPS class. She decided to do something else instead, leaping up into the trees again and scuttling around like a monkey (or cat, maybe) to get above the berserker's position. When the boss seemed ready to retaliate she clung to a branch with her legs again, swinging her body like a pendulum with the daggers held out at the end, and succeeded in cutting the psuedopod it tried to hit Thora with, resulting in it flying off just in front of her instead of landing a hit. Then she let go of the branch, allowing the momentum to swing her up so she could land on top of a different one.

The big slime made the mistake of trying to go after the rogue next, seeming to be aware that she was responsible for cutting off a piece of it just then, but she easily jumped farther up the tree and out of the reach of its first swing, then back down again, slicing up through the next one with one dagger and comboing that into stabbing the castoff with the other before it could fully form into a smaller slime.

It was looking pretty small by now, only a little shorter but with most of its girth gone. "We almost have it! Thora, prepare to chop again. Fiori, let loose from both sides," Noire advised, jumping over the monster to a tree on the opposite side of it and swinging down to the ground. The necromancer and her familiar went to Thora's left and right, both sending out a jet of flame; the slime pulled itself in to a thinner, taller mass to try and keep as much of itself from rotting away as it could. "Now!"

The spiked club went through the full mass of the beast with an uncomfortable splkt sound, and its shining core pulled back just in time to not be in the weapon's path. That put it right in front of Noire, who struck a dagger straight into it. It seemed this had been the beast's weak point all along, as this did massive damage (plus backstab), sufficient to finish it off, the rest of its mass falling apart into a particularly large puddle of immobile goop.

Thora's aura flickered out now that the battle was over, and she pulled the club upright to examine it, panting softly. "Ff..phew...uck. If this was real, I'd be demanding a shower about now," she said, watching the slime vanish from her weapon before putting it away.

"Are you okay?" Fiori said, coming closer to her. "You took a lotta hits there!"
"H-heh, yeah," the taller demon-girl put a hand behind her head. "Little bruised, but not in much 'pain' still. I'm super tough, I can take it!"

"Nonetheless, I will be greatly relieved once we have someone to undo such damage," the catgirl said, stepping around the monster's remains to join the other two. "At any rate, I observed the forest's edge quite nearby from above just now. Perhaps this was a guardian of sorts, to test us."
"Couldn't they pick a less gross guardian?" Thora complained, "Like a giant bear or something..."

"I'm certain something like that exists," Noire replied with a small nod. "Just poor fortune, I suppose."

"So like, let's get going before another baddie shows up!" the necromancer suggested, pointing in entirely the wrong direction with the end of her scythe.

"Not before we loot," the rogue said, waving toward the spoils. "Do you not also have a soul to claim?"
"Oh, right!" Fiori's wings abruptly spread out from her excitement.

While she did her work, Noire picked through the spoils, neatly organizing them. Most of it seemed possible to split three ways, except... "This appears to be a unique item," she said, holding up the beast's core, which was only slightly cracked where she'd stabbed it a moment ago. "It likely contains some potent magic, fit to enchant one's weapon or armor."

Thora raised an eyebrow. "That thing came from inside the big goopy slime, right? I don't think I want that."
"I'm happy with the soul~," Fiori half-sang. "Check this out!" She waved her scythe forward like a wand, and some bright green gas spewed from the crystal at its tip. "Poisoned air!"
"Don't do that so close to us, then!" the catgirl said, quickly backing away and waving for Thora to do the same.

"Oh..whoopsie."

The rogue cleared her throat. "At any rate. If you are both willing to allow me to keep this—" she said, holding up the core still in her hand, "—it would only be fair for you to take most of the more common spoils for yourselves. If this seems to you an even trade?"

"Well, sure," the berserker said. "You sure seem concerned with fairness for a thief, you know."
"Ahp!" Noire interrupted her at the word 'thief', putting up a hand. "Treasure hunter. And one who knows allies are more valuable than coin."

"Awwh, that's so sweet," Fiori said. "Friendship!" She put her hands out enthusiastically.
The catgirl shook her head. "I didn't quite mean it that way," she said quietly, but let it lie for now.

The poisoned mist having dissipated, they converged on the spoil again and split it between them as agreed. Then, finally, Noire pointed the correct way forward and let Thora take point once again as they proceeded to the edge of the forest. It was easy enough to see the nearest town from there, and the three of them started off that way.

A pair of men came walking up from the opposite direction, one of them a tall guy with a thin tail ending in a tuft, bull horns and a greataxe hanging across his back, and the other wearing some robes that marked him as probably some kind of mage. "Yooo, cuties!" the first said, waving, causing his companion to sigh deeply.

"Greetings to you as well," Noire said, immediately taking the lead in the conversation. "Fellow adventurers, I presume?"
"Totally!"
The mage cleared his throat. "Yes. I'm Ronin, a summoner, and this is Jack."
"Dude, lemme introduce myself. Jack!" the axe-wielder said, putting a thumb to his chest.

"Pleased to make your acquaintance. My name is Noire, and my companions are Fiori and Thora."

"Hi!" the necromancer said, waving cheerfully; Thora briefly put up her hand in a much more halfhearted wave.
"Yoo." Jack grinned goofily at her in possibly a misplaced attempt to flirt, which seemed to annoy Ronin into a full-fledged facepalm.

"If you lot were headed for the town back that way," he said, pointing behind them, "you may as well forget it. There's some sort of barrier erected around it. Possibly a demoni—uh.." he paused, realizing who two-thirds of his audience were, "..some sort of curse on the town or something." Fortunately for him, neither of them really seemed to notice. "It resisted my attempts at dispelling it, and responded to no password I could think of."
"Okaaay..but," Thora scratched her head, "did you try, like, just hitting it?"

The two of them exchanged a look. "Duuuude," Jack said. "Why didn't I think of that?"

"Let's just...see this barrier for ourselves," Noire suggested, starting toward the town. Everyone followed, including the two men after briefly looking at each other.

As they came up toward the town, everything seemed normal, until they were only a few steps away. At this point a frame of glowing, bright-pink hexagons appeared before them as a wall, not more than a couple of inches in front of the catgirl. She stopped right away, but it was easy to imagine how someone less perceptive or agile would've walked into and possibly hit their nose on it. Her ears twitched then, picking up a faint, high-pitched giggling from somewhere a bit forward and to the right—behind a nearby building, she concluded almost immediately.

"Stand back, I got this," Thora said, stepping up to the barrier and taking out her club. Noire took a couple of steps to one side—observing that the barrier didn't even seem to reach this far horizontally—while she drew back and swung, shattering it immediately.

"Duude, I totally coulda done that," Jack said.
"Well, you certainly didn't," his companion replied.

"Pfffheeheehee!" The same voice as before couldn't control its laughter.
"Come out here!" Noire called, "I can hear you, and you can bet you will not successfully outrun me."
The voice's owner stumbled out from behind the building; it was a short, pink-haired foxgirl in some sort of 'shrine maiden' type outfit, with two fluffy tails spreading out behind her. Her eyes were closed, and she shambled along, leaning on a tall staff-looking thing, like she was drunk or half-asleep or something. "Mrr, kitty-cat got me," she mumbled, but didn't sound too unhappy about it.

"Just another player all along," Ronin said, shaking his head. "Wish I'd picked a race with good hearing myself. What is your problem, anyway?"

The fox-girl turned her head partway toward him and just stuck out her tongue. "Pfft."

Ronin sighed. "I guess 'crazy' is a valid personality to roleplay."

The group having approached her, she took a small step toward Thora, looking like she was going to fall over from even that much. "Aww, y'r hurt," she mumbled. "Here y'go, cutie~." Then she lifted the staff, wobbling unsteadily on her feet as she waved it at the tall berserker, producing a faint glow as it healed her.

"Hey, uh, thanks!"
"Yo, I'm hurt too," Jack said, walking closer.
The weird girl stuck her tongue out at him again. "Pffft. Girls only." She wagged her finger, and then actually collapsed forward onto the ground, seemingly putting her staff away in the process since it disappeared at this point. "Mrrh."

Ronin produced a staff of his own and tried to prod at her with it, only for it to go right through her.

"She's a...ghost?" Fiori said, confused.
"No, she just logged out," he said. "Weird."
"Well, hey, at least we got past her!" Jack said. "Let's go check out the blacksmith, dude! See you girls later." He gave them a salute and started running off, his companion sighing and giving the three of them a brief apologetic look before taking off after him.

Noire knelt next to the fox-girl, trying to poke her herself with very similar results. "Such peculiar behavior," she said. "As though she were sleepwalking."

"You think it's, like, something where someone thought they logged off, but didn't all the way, so they're still 'in the game' despite being away from the pod thing?" Fiori said.
"Impossible," the rogue said, standing up again. "The forced meditation spell only applies to the space inside the pod."
"Yeah," Thora agreed, "The crystal running the connection is really low-power, too, on purpose."
"Just uh, roleplaying sleep-walking before logging off then?" she suggested next, shrugging.
"Either way, I doubt we need concern ourselves with her any longer," the rogue said. "Checking out this town's facilities before we go looking for a healer would be wise for us, too."