[Nisha/Invite] A Demented Delivery

[Deleted]

supsicious people are interesting

The world of Elder Tales had proved itself to be a fascinating place for Dusky, although a little warm for his tastes. He rubbed at his paws, covered in the short black fur that covered the rest of his body as he looked around at the bustling Londenium plaza. His ears twitched as he listened to the conversations all around him, his tail flicking whenever he saw something floating on the wind.

Leaves? Wow, pretty detailed for a game. But do they look the same up close?

Wanting to examine them closer, he found himself chasing after them, sometimes leaping into the air and swiping at it like the cat he was. He made sure to pay close attention to his surroundings in front of him, not wanting to bump into anyone or anything as he grabbed at the leafy little buggers. He threw his red scarf around his neck, making sure he wouldn't lose it as he ran after the leaves.

The wind settled down, the leaves now falling to the ground in front of the market stalls ran by the People of the Land. Most were shouting and advertising their wares. Some were selling food, others were selling weapons and equipment, while the last few were pawning their accessories to some adventurers. From the food stall, the smell of cooked meat hit his nose, the savory scent causing the Enchanter's pupils to grow bigger in his yellow eyes as he watched a boar being roasted on a spit. The Lander was an elderly woman, slowly turning the roasted boar on the makeshift rotisserie. She turned towards the Werecat, giving him a toothy smile.

" Well now, what can I get for you, deary? "

He dug around in his pockets, his ears drooping when he realized that he didn't have any gold to purchase anything with. The Lander, seeing the look on his face, pulled out a small wooden crate and set in on the counter's surface.

" It looks like you're a mite short on gold, but I'll make a deal with you. "

She patted the wooden crate she had brought out.

" If you could deliver this to a friend of mine, I'll give you a pocketful of gold, and a hot meal to boot. "

Seeing as how one of Dusky's subclasses was Courier, it seemed like the perfect quest for a blooming adventurer such as himself. He grabbed the box and tucked it underneath his arm.

"You've got yourself a deal. Where's this friend located?"

The elderly Lander pulled out a spare map of the area, drawing an X on a spot located somewhere in the Windsor Greatwoods, sliding the map towards him for him to keep.

I'll have to find a combat buddy first before I go anywhere in the woods...

He waved goodbye to the Lander, looking forward to getting a bit of pocket change and a meal out of all of this. As he left, he could've sworn he heard some sort of weird creepy laugh coming from the old lady.

After getting used to the layout of the city, the Werecat found himself at the entrance to the woods. Setting the box down, he pulled out a piece of board that he managed to find and wrote the following:

Bodyguards Needed 

Will Reward Handsomely

Placing the sign in the ground next to him, he sat on the wooden crate. He looked hopefully at adventurers as they either went into or came back from the woods, wondering what kind of interesting individuals would join him...if any joined at all, of course.

Words: 601| Tags: @dusk Nisha
OOC Notes: --

[Nisha]

Somewhere high up above all the bustling and rustling of the city, Nisha was moving over the roofs, she had started to move around like this, since she really liked to view the people from up above and also because it gave her a weird feeling that felt quite nice somewhere behind her fox ears. Also, whenever she was in the midst of a group of people, her fox ears were not really able to figure out what was going on that easily. In the forest it was much easier, due to her ears she could listen and heard and distinguish sounds in it, but in a city there were just too many to go around. Walking over the roofs was a nice way to forego that kind of thing and also made sure, she did not meet anyone she did not want to meet or had to talk with people where she thought would be not really fitting. But she had never liked to talk to people in cities to begin with, it always seemed too public and too open, who knew who was listening? Also, fun was practically denied in a city since laughter would draw attention like a fire and stares would suppress fun from spreading, everyone having the same stone masks as the rest of them.

Nisha squinted her eyes and tried to make out something down below, it traveled slower and carried something, looked black with a red frame around it and, jumping down one roof onto a lower one, yes, it was indeed one of the cat people. Nisha had not yet met someone like this who had stuck to her mind, so by proxy someone like this was going to draw her attention. Following the cat person around, she saw where it was going to go, out of the city and into the woods, making Nisha wonder if it might be a lander with an interesting quest, after all, a box was carried along while walking, making Nisha´s tail wag in rhythm, curious what it might be. Which made her wonder again as she noticed her tail once more, if the creators of this game had a weird interest in tails as such, since aside from the human races, there were only beast races with furry tails. Really made you question if it had any deeper meaning to it or if they had just decided that reptiles or such were just not adventurer worthy. Jumping down on the street from the roof, landing hard on the plaster, she rubbed her foot while jumping on one leg after the cat person, but the distance became greater with every one of her hopping motions as she scolded herself in her mind for not having crawled down or having jumped on a lower roof still to get down easier. But her curiousity had been too strong and her desire for something interesting too high for her to make many rational thoughts.

Finally she reached the cat person again and saw beside it in the ground a quest sign, well, if that was not picture perfect, she did not know what was. Her tail was wagging in anticipation as she closed in on the werecat and said in a nice tone, while barely being able to look away from the box: "Hi there, I would like to help out if I may, I am a level thirteen samurai, by the way what is in the box?" Nisha asked and pointed at the box, wondering if she would get an answer, but now that she had said so, she also remembered something else. She even relaxed a little and her tail slowed down a little now, smiling she said: "My name is Nisha, it is nice to meet you." After doing so, she extended her hand toward the werecat and wondered if she would ever stop with trying to get people to give her a handshake, so far the records were speaking for themself that this kind of thing was either ignored or not appreciated in this game, wondering if she would break the record, she also used her hand as a kind of distraction from the box to block it out of sight. She really hoped that something interesting and special was in there. "I am sorry for asking such a strange thing, but I am just curious about the box."

Words: 734
Mood: Quite Curious
Music: Adventure starting music
Tags: @dusk
Skills: None

[Deleted]

a locked box is a stupid box

His staring method must have worked, a female Fox Tail Samurai standing before him. And a level thirteen at that! Eager to have found such a capable adventure to help him on his quest, Dusky stood abrubtly from his makeshift seat and took the Samurai's outstretched hand, shaking it heartily.

"Pleased to make your acquaintance, Nisha! My name is Dusky, and as to your earlier question about the box, I know zilch about it."

Although, now that she mentioned it, the unknown contents of the box began to pique the Werecat's curiosity. Hopefully the old saying of "curiosity killed the cat" was one that only affected actual housecats and not the game's anthropomorphized ones. He picked up the box and began to look at from different angles, trying to discern as to where the hatch to open it was located. Pulling at it on each side earned him points for effort, but none for successfully opening it.

Shaking the box didn't help either. He heard something move around in it, but it sounded like whatever it was that was in there was padded very well.

Might be something fragile...

He thought about throwing it to the ground, seeing if the container would bust open and spill its contents, but that would end up costing him his reward. Plus, if it really was something fragile, then it'd be broken along with the crate, so the mystery would still go unsolved. Giving up on trying to pry into the crate and other people's business, he tucked the wooden case back underneath his arm.

"Hm. I guess we won't know what it is until after we deliver it. Now where was that location again..."

All of a sudden, a bright blue beacon popped out of nowhere, his HUD's minimap sporting a bright blue quest icon to indicate his position. Dusky would soon realize that this was one of the perks of being a Courier: you'd never lose sight of your objective. Unfortunately, only he could see it, which was a shame. His new Samurai companion would probably have found the beacon useful as well.

"Alright, are you all set? Ready to take off?"

After hearing her reply, assuming it's one of confirmation, Dusky went ahead and equipped his Starter Staff, a sturdy two-handed staff that was good for both channeling magic and giving irritating people a good whack upside the head. If someone were to receive a face full of Dusky's wooden pole, then they must be really annoying. But then again, this isn't a post about Dusky's wood. This is a post about rambunctious traipsing through the woods.

The werecat Enchanter set off, making sure that the Samurai was close enough to him to defend him should an enemy mob jump out and surprise them. Being a level 1 Enchanter, one glancing blow from a mob would probably end up putting his HP in the red zone, maybe even sending him back to the Abbey if he wasn't careful. Yet despite the impending sense of doom, Dusky walked through the forest, eyes wide with awe as he admired how intrisincally detailed everything was. When Elder Tales was still a game, all the 3D objects were covered in the standard game textures that any triple-A 3D game would have. But now, he could see all the knots and swirls in the bark of trees as he walked pass them.

The grass felt soft underneath his feet (I mean paws), almost like it was a shaggy green carpet instead of vegetation covering the forest's floor. He probably would've rolled around on the grass and curled up in it if a strange, undead creature came stumbling out of the bushes towards the two. Wait, what?

Words: 620 | Tags: @dusk
OOC Notes: It's a zombie, and I don't think it wants to show off its 'Thriller' dance moves.

[Nisha]

Nisha wondered about something, several people had by now already shown that it was possible to roll back progress and level down when other people were involved. Thinking about it, she knew that it was called the teacher system or something along those lines and was so people could learn how to fight and to have monsters not only target the higher leveled player because they produced more aggro. But if she was going to protect Dusky, as he introduced himself, there was not really any reason to do so, right? After all, the whole point would be for him to stay back and let Nisha do the fighting. Seeing how this fit like a glove, she decided to put it on and not lower her level as she agreed with a nod to help Dusky out. As he had shaken and stirred the box after wanting to find out himself most likely, Nisha had followed each movement with anticipation and hope it had not been something fragile or something the like, even though her curiosity was burning high enough for her to matter little about it, maybe she should just give him money to find out what was in there? No, she would have some fun meeting someone rare and new and as it seemed on the same wave length as herself. Waiting for it would also only heighten her expectations and if they would be fulfilled it would be even more awesome, if not, well she would have at least talked with someone nice for a while and that was also fun. Well, it was all fine and dandy as long as they did not get into too high a level area and got their butts handed to them. But knowing the usually gentle and level requirements upholding citizen of this here country, they would not give such a difficult quest to a cute cat... to a werecat like this and expect him to do it.

"Yes, as ready as I will ever be. So, what have you been doing up until now, Dusky?" Nisha asked and put her hands behind her head as she walked alongside the werecute... cat. Nisha´s ears just as was usual when she entered a quiet area slowly were able to discern easier and hear clearer, finally she was out of that stuffy city. She could not wait for everyone to reach that fabled new city that someone had seen. What was it´s name again? Whatever it was, it would mean that at least some people would migrate there, lowering the volume in london a little. Win-Win situations for everyone aside from those in between the two cities and those who had bet on staying in london. Hearing a rustle in the bushes, she did not pay it much heed at first since it was slow and moved like someone taking a casual stroll, but it was coming directly toward them. Noticing the werecat was looking all around and not only with fear in his eyes, Nisha said: "Don´t worry, we will make it, or are you just taking in all the virtual reality? It´s pretty good, right? Does it not make you feel as if we have been really transported to another world?" Nisha was still relaxed, but her hands left the place behind her head and went over to beside her sword and grimoire respectively. She had never even thought about this being real, but in the end, such a thing usually only happened in animes and games, like one of her favorites, dothack. As it stumbled out, Nisha offered a small chuckle at the monster. Well, this was the right side of the scale for her, undead stuff were pretty easy to deal with for her, the dead were something else though.

"Well, let´s see. A zombie, but at least not one of those running ones, those are just silly." Taking her katana out of it´s sheath, she walked over to the zombie and slashed it without any ado with her quickslash giving it a bit more weight. She had not tried to physically kill a zombie before and had wanted to try it out, but just as she thought it did little damage. Time to break out the special, she jumped a few feet back and said: "Ah, best clsoe your eyes, this one is pretty bright." After saying so, she activated her exorcist skill. A bright light was emitted from her hand and soon after shot out like a laser, hitting the zombie square in the middle and burned a hole through it that spread a bit and then caused it to explode. The only downside was the extremely long cooldown of this one. "Okay, that was that, let´s move on and hope there won´t be all that many of these, they can get annoying and dangerous in masses. Ever watched dawn of the dead?" Nisha smiled and walked back to the werecats side.

Words: 826
Mood: Let´s go to open it!
Music: Song
Tags: @dusky
Skills: Iaido, holy banishment

[Deleted]

the graveyard's crazy keeper

Dusky backed up a few feet when he saw the lumbering undead person walk through the bushes, making sure to put enough distance between him and the lethargic walking corpse. Not having anything to offer to combat, he decided he should go ahead and try out the only skill he had at the moment: Astral Bind. Magical chains burst from the ground, ensnaring the zombie in its lengths. It was moving slow enough already, but with the skill in effect, it may as well have been a fish in a barrel. A fish that Nisha promptly shot with her Exorcist-class skill.

At first, Dusky didn't understand the Samurai's request, but when that laser of divine holiness burst from her palm, it all became clear. The werecat shielded his eyes from the brutal blessing of enlightenment, a nasty smell of cooked rotting flesh coming from the gaping wound in the undead assailant. The Enchanter waved his paw in front of his nose, trying to get rid of the smell as the enemy disappeared in a puff of smoke.

That's weird. Normally, it's a bunch of data particley thingies instead of smoke.

The wooden box shook underneath his trembling arm, the battle with a mysterious monster shaking him up more than he thought. He unequipped his staff as he place his other paw on the box, trying to calm himself down. He felt more reassured when the smiling fox tail Samurai resumed her position next to him, feeling more comfortable knowing that some well-suited for combat had his back. After seeing the bright blue pillar of light and getting his bearings straight, the two began to set off towards the specified location.

"Oh, sorry I never got around to answering your questions from before."

He closed his eyes in thought as they walked, trying to recall the questions she asked before Decaying Flesh Man disrupted the flow of the conversation.

"As to what I've been doing, not a whole lot of things. Lately, I've been looking for some hunting parties to tag along with to get my levels up. So I won't die in one hit when venturing somewhere by myself, y'know?"

Then there was the answer to the other question, about how detailed the game was on the other side of the screen.

"It sure does feel like we've been transported to another world. It's all very TRON-like, when you think about it. Did you ever see that movie?"

Possibly one of Dusky's favorites back in the real world. Sure, it may have been cheesy compared to today's standards, but the underlying question that could be found in it had stuck with Dusky for years: Were there other worlds out there? Seeing as how he was currently sucked into the realm of a video game he'd been playing for years, he was gonna answer that with a 'yes'.

The further the pair walked towards their destination, the more eerie and foggy the surrounding area became. Branches hung limply to the ground, as if they were willow trees, the ground becoming more barren with clumps of dead grass here and there.

"Wow, this place is weird. Did we accidentally wander into the swamp or somethi-"

The Werecat, despite being a creature of grace and agility, tripped over a protruding rock, somersaulting as he hit the ground. He dusted off his breeches as he stood back up, noticing a small shack in the distance. The area all around the house was surrounded by dozens of the protruding stones. Tombstones, maybe? The blue pillar seen by the feline Courier shone out of the house, fading away as the Werecat approached the steps leading to the door. Raising a paw to the door, he tentavily knocked on the door, almost jumping when he heard a melodic voice saying "come in" from the other side of the door.

Slowly opening the door wide enough for him to poke his head in, he looked around the small room. It was sparsely furnished, containing only a small table, a chair, a couch, and a cabinet sitting in the corner. The only sources of light were some candles sitting around at various spots. An older woman sat in the chair, draped in a light purple robe, complete with a shawl. She smiled warmly at the werecat as he peeked inside the room with curiosity.

"Please, don't be shy. Come in. Invite your friend inside as well."

He didn't know why, but that last statement bothered Dusky.

How did she know someone else was with me? The door wasn't open wide enough for her to see anyone else...

He opened the door wider, standing inside the room to hold it open for his fox tail companion. He closed the door after she made her way inside and then turned back to the elderly Lander. He held out the box to her, completing the delivery request.

"Oh, why thank you! Here, you two have a seat on the sofa. You must be tired after that long journey!"

Dusky gladly took her up on the offer, glad to get off his aching paws and let them rest up for the journey back. The lady smiled as she saw Dusky's tail flick back and forth as he eyed the box in her hands. The mystery as to what lay inside the box was about to be solved and he was getting excited.

The Lander began to pull and push at various parts on the box, the lid popping open after a couple gestures.

Ah, that explains why we couldn't get it open. It's a puzzle box.

The woman then reached inside and pulled the mystery object out of the box and held it in her palm. Still not being able to see it, Dusky oh-so casually tried to lean over and see what it was. Too late. The lady had already stood up and walked over to her cabinet, adjusting the mystery item around her neck as she looked into her mirror. The lady began to talk to them as she primped and preened herself in front of the mirror.

"You know, it gets so very lonely out here. I often find myself with nothing to do and not a lot of people come out here to visit me."

She turned to look back at them, a glowing necklace strung with what looked like purple rocks now adorned her slender neck.

What are those? Mana fragments?

"But now, thanks to you, I can bring my friends back!"

She began to sound more and more hysteric as she talked.

"Now I'll never be lonely!"

She raised her hands above her, a weird glowing energy emanating from her hands that then suddenly disappeared. A loud, digging noise could be heard above the now crazy woman's laughter. His tail bristled as he heard scratching noises at the door, looking out the window to see hands and bodies emerging from the graves outside.

What kind of Lander is this?! A necromancing Puppetmaster or something?!

Equipping his staff, he went ahead and cast another Astral Bind on the crazy lady, hoping that would be enough to prevent her from calling up any more of her "friends". Cracking noises sounded out from the door as the zombies threw themselves at it, hell-bent on breaking in.

If it comes down to it, we can always use the crazy lady as a human shield to get out of here...

Skills Used: Astral Bind x2

Words: 1238 | Tags: @dusk Nisha
OOC Notes: Suddenly, zombies. And a crazy lady.

[Nisha]

"Tron, huh?" She really liked the movie and even more so the original, but the games to that were mostly stupid and less and less playable the younger they were, instead of the usual getting better with every new title. Nisha had only mumbled it and wondered how she would feel if it was tron like. After all in tron your body was taken apart, practically erased from the real world and put into digital form. Sure, she did not like her real body all too much, but having it seen destroyed was definitely not something she wanted. After all, it had always felt comfortable, or at least most of the time. There was no real need for it to be gone, would have been very unfunny. But she could not really say that out aloud seeing how being turned into a cat was fate so much more weird and interesting if it would be permanent than what Nisha would go through. But as said, she did want to go back to her real body in the end and not be caught in here forever. It would be nice as long as it lasted, but it was certain just like her brother being the same as always that someone would come up with a way to get back. And even though she would not be the first to jump into the portal home, she would definitely not be the last to do so. "Haha, don´t worry, the area around london is usually very solo and beginner friendly, maybe I will show you a nice meadow I trained on once we are done, you can easily level up there with little effort. Full of slimes and groups of boars, they can be a bit annoying, but are easy to avoid if you don´t run into them." Nisha laughed and looked in front of her, oh great, she just had to mention dawn of the dead, right?

Seems like it was one of those quests. That send you to some weird place and then suddenly all hell broke loose and everyone was panicking and the heroes had to calm everyone down, last time she had seen one of these quests in a game, it had been a city overrun by the dead, but really, who in a world with necromancers to go around built their city on top of a graveyard or anywhere with earshot of anything dead? their own fault and so Nisha had taken the dark path and had decided to help the necromancer and burn down the village, got her more gold and some cool equip, also funnier than to hear everyone whine about their problems. They had been less talkative once they had turned into zombies and Nisha had slain them all again and then the necromancer to get even more gold and teh equip from the necromancer himself. Ah, that had been nice. Just thinking about that made Nisha wonder if it would turn out like that and if the werecat would help her hold the torch, poetically and literally speaking. Well, seeing Dusky trip and nearly fall it was pretty clear that the same or worse would happen to Nisha soon enough, but due to careful stepping, she only had to use her tail, which was appreciatively fluffy, once to soften a landing. Wiping the dirt from it they seemed to have reached their destination as dusky stopped in front of a house. Nisha looked around and wondered why the hell anyone would build anything on top of a graveyard in a fantasy setting, they had to know their own lore, right? It was not like skeletons and such roaming was a new thing or even all that rare, but people still opted to live on such grounds. If it was the real decision of a person it would be more than sigh worthy, but Nisha sighed at the programmers decision for such overused themes instead. Listening to the sudden voice, Nisha said: "Well, this is going south fast, I don´t know if you should go in... Just as I thought."

Seeing as she was talking to air, dusky had already gone in, she knew that she had to follow the treasure box, he was holding her the door open and Nisha smiled and nodded at him in tanks, even though she wondered if he knew too were this would go. If only to see what was in the box though, she would wait at least that long. If she had to run while carrying dusky, she would damn well do so as long as she finally found out what was in the box, sating her now sun bright curiosity as stars sparkled in her mind with ideas what kind of godly item they coul have gotten here, aside from some necromantic gear or old lady perfume. And she was not surprised that there had been some trick to open it. Landers these days had to keep the adventures away from opening these things one way or another or any curious idiot might just look and take note of whatever was carried around, maybe even just claiming it and leaving the lander hanging, it was not like they could take on an adventurer, so they had to be smarter. She had denied herself sitting on the couch since comfortableness was the number one enemy when it came to bolting and running away, she knew from experience and was not shy to say so if she would have been asked if she was a coward, if there was a battle, she knew she could not win, she would rather run or turn instead of dying on it. She leaned against the wall at the side of the couch and waited to see what was in the damned box now, seeing as it was finally open, too bad there was about as much lighting in the hut as there was light in the abyss, she could barely make out the faces of everyone and everything beyond that was pretty much dark. And here we go, she thought as the crazy old bat suddenly got an item out and equipped it while looking away from them, Nisha tilted her head to see if she could see more, but rolled her eyes at what she saw.

Sheesh, even the overused references she said were kind of funny for how cheesy they were. 'so lonely', huh? Well, duh, if she lived in a graveyard. "Well, it was nice meeting you and all that stuff, but... Ah, goddangit, could you not at least monologue a little first or whatever, this seems a bit too hasty, don´t you agree dusky, ah well." Nisha said as she heard the rumbling from the outside facepalmed herself and looked with the one eye not covered with her palm to the werecat before wondering what to do now. They were trapped in a house in a graveyard with some crazy old lady, who they had brought some kinda amplifier so she could summon hundreds over hundreds of creatures. It was definitely not a situation that was very profitable or usable for them, actually it was plain horrible, if they could not indeed use the old bat as a shield, but that thought was probably out there, since Nisha doubted she would even do them any good as a meat shield. "Don´t bother with her, if she summoned this many, she controls maybe ten or so of them and the others would just rip us and her apart, first chance they get. though actually, wait a second." Nisha walked over to the astral bound old lady, smiled and whacked her over the head so hard, Nisha´s own hand hurt and the old lady crumpled to the ground unconscious. "At least no new ones this way and I guess you would not want me to kill her, right? Could you get that thing back in the box for now, please?" Nisha walked up to the door, opened it after activating her skill again to banish dark and undead creatures, opened the door, shot into the writhing mass in front of the door, no clue how many of them hit by it and closed the door again. "Well, guess we won´t be escaping this way. Wait for morning or try to look for fire..." Nisha said while using the couch to strengthen the door against zombie attacks. Her skill could only shoot every ten seconds and that was at least a few seconds too many for them to just run around and try to escape from god knew how many of these things. At least they were somewhat safe in the shack for now, right?

Words: 1456
Mood: Goddangit
Music: Song
Tags: @dusk
Skills: Holy Banishment

[Deleted]

high-tailin' it out of there

So the crazy lady wanted zombie friends. Probably not the kind friend to offer a lot in the way of helpful advice, but damn good listeners (that is, if they could hear anything other than the sound of their own moaning and groaning).

Speaking of groaning, the door was beginning to make some creaking sounds as it strained underneath the force of the zombies trying to make their way inside. Nisha was currently holding them back by pushing against the door, but the by the sounds it was making, it probably wouldn't hold out for much longer. He heard Nisha say something about putting the necklace back in the box, to which he nodded and walked over to Crazy Lady. He grabbed a shirt out of the cabinet and used it to tie the livid woman's hands behind her back after removing the necklace from her person.

He stuffed the necklace back into the box, hoping that maybe whatever spell had been cast would cease once placed back into the confines of its wooden prison. No dice. The pushy zombies were still insistant on making it inside, scratching and pounding harder at the door. The only other way out was the window set into the side of the house, which just might be their shining ray of hope out of this nightmare. He heard Nisha voice her question of whether they should try waiting this out until morning or find a source of fire to toast 'em with. Dusky replied as he pushed the cabinet over towards the door as a secondary precaution.

"There's no way the door's gonna hold out until morning, and there's nothing we can use in here to start a fire with."

After shoving the cabinet next to the door, he pointed backwards at the window behind him.

"How 'bout going through the window? As long as we don't trip and fall over the gravestones, we could probably high-tail it out of here."

As much as he hated the idea of running from a possibly large source of EXP, Dusky saw no other option but to flee the fight. Being a level 1 Enchanter meant that he could offer nothing in the way of combat, and a horde of zombies was probably too much for a level 13 Samurai to handle all by herself. They'd both end up at the Abbey before a zombie could let out a stereotypical 'Braaaaaains.'

Should the Fox Tail consent to the Werecat's idea, Dusky would open the window and leap out of it with his cat-like grace, casting a couple Astral Binds on the faster moving zombies that made their way towards the two adventurers.

Words: 445 | Tags: @dusk Nisha
OOC Notes: --

[Nisha]

Nisha felt the door bending under her fingers, sheesh, maybe she should have taken some more sturdy looking character. Maybe a huge guy with armor so thick you could barely see more than the eyes and maybe not even that, though it always left Nisha wondering how they could even see anything at all. Those tiny slits must be weird to look through and even though they most likely gave a good defense, it would get whoever nowhere if they could not see their enemy, just like the zombies in front of the door, all they saw was a blinding light from time to time and their buddies falling prey to a laser slowly dimishing their ranks. But much too slow since more were still digging their way out of their graves and trying to reach the air to move around sluggishly and join in with their brothers and sisters screams and thoughts of living flesh becoming one of them. Weird how they had such weird ties in between each other, after all if they just wanted flesh, there was enough on most of these zombies to go around, but they did not even look at each other when bumping into another zombie and just shambled on endlessly. Eternally even, would they at some point reach london and wreak havoc there and it would be Nisha´s and dusky´s fault?

That would definitely not be funny or good, even if no one else knew that it had been them, Nisha knew that she would feel at least somewhat guilty for ruining everyone´s fun. But what could she do? There were way too many for Nisha to take care of alone and Dusky was not an exorcist to begin with, sure he could hold the zombies down, but not much else. If they did not get any support or found a better defense position they would undoubtedly perish in this hour and wake up some time later in the abbey in london. Given that Dusky had put his soul there to revive after dying, otherwise he would end up somewhere different and Nisha would feel even worse because she had not been able to protect him from having such a harrowing experience that he would most likely not like this game as much anymore. After all, which kind of lander would give a quest like this to a level one? They could not know that someone higher leveled would show up and help, or was it Nisha´s fault to begin with that the quest had taken such a turn? Argh, thinking about it would not help them and Dusky was right fleeing was their only option for now. And the window really seemed to be the one space they had to escape somewhat out of the way and as he pushed the wooden object closer to her Nisha fired off another laser and helped him push it against the door with her other, they had to move fast now, since for just a few seconds the zombies would be kind of stunned by her laser and then break through the door. Looking at the witch crazy old hag which had brought them all that trouble, Nisha did not feel any pity as she turned around to Dusky and said: "Let´s go, you got the amulet? Don´t think we should leave it here with the zombies, not that one of them picks it up by accident." Taking her eyes off the hag, thinking that she would soon get embraced by as many zombie friends as she could wish for, she saw that Dusky was already over by the window had opened it and was in the process of jumping out with a spell at the ready. Grinning at the bravery of the werecat, she jumped out after him and slashed a zombie into two waiting for them right outside the window who had been bound by the chain and jumped on the next gravestone she could reach trying to figure out a safe way out of the sea of undead bodies, but luckily for the two of them, most were concentrated at the door to the hut.

A cold shower ran down her spine as she saw how many there were and Nisha knew they had not survived until morning, heck most likely not even another five minutes. But then just as she fired a beam of light at another undead trying to sneak up on the werecat, she heard horses and screams from the forest. What was going on now? The horses broke through the trees standing close to the graveyard and beams just like teh ones Nisha had sent out to kill zombies were shot out of a few hands, while others just slashed away at the horde and created chaos. Totally confused what was going on, Nisha quickly got her quest menu into sight and saw that the quest objective had changed, their first objective had a red failed behind it, but a second point had opened up just below it as a subquest, that read: 'Hand the amulet to lander lord exorcist Marven.' "Who the hell is Marven?" Nisha asked out aloud slashing one more zombie that had come close and saw the the people on the horses were doing a bang up job of taking care of the zombies, but only because they still had momentum, but they were slowing down. It woudl come down to a battle of attrition it seemed and if Nisha and Dusky would not help it would most likely end badly for the riders and exorcists. "What do you think, should we help? At least our odds are better now and maybe one of those is this marven guy." Saying this, she felt how something hit her in the back and saw that a zombie had fallen into her, falling, she stuck her sword into the zombie she was falling into and rolled over it and come up, standing on top of it, seeing that she was surrounded by three, two zombies after she shot a laser right after the cooldown ended at it. Activating her lightning armor, she began to pull out her sword, hoping that Dusky had a good idea or something, while she tried to pull her sword out, weakening one more of the zombies by using her grimoire and whittling it down into red, these were at least really level one creatures.

Words: 1073
Mood: Whoops, my sword
Music: Surrounded by darkness
Tags: @dusk
Skills: Denkousekka, holy banishment

[Deleted]

safety in numbers

Dusky fired off another Astral Bind on a random zombie, thanking Nisha after she blasted a member of the undead trying to go ninja on the Werecat's ass.

"Thanks, Nisha. Saved my tail...heh, literally."

His tail waved around a bit as he said the last part of his bad pun. At that moment, a notification popped up in his [Active Quests] tab:

'Failed to prevent the Necromancing Lander from calling support.'

The bright red text flashing at him from his HUD ebbed with the desparing color of failure. It may as well have "you suck." Dusky's ears flattened in annoyance, visibly upset that he managed to already failed an objective for a quest. He would've let out a stream of swears that would leave a sailor blushing, but then all of a sudden, a couple Landers burst onto the scene astride their majestic mounts.

The Landers themselves were all garbed in white, wearing what looked like a combination of priestly garments and Buddhist monk robes, their Holy Banishment lasers emanating from their palms as they began to deep-fry some of the zombie forces. Dusky was so distracted by the sudden emergence of the third party that he almost didn't see the new quest objective pop up on his quests tab.

'Hand the amulet to lander lord exorcist Marven.'

The hell? Which one of these guys was the leader of this merry band of priestly exorcists?

Probably the most gawdily dressed one, sporting enough gold chains to make Mr. T green with envy. Each chain seemed to sport a mark of some sort of holy symbol.

What's the deal? Does each zombie have it's own unique religious system that it follows or somethin'?

A quick glance at their stats showed that most of the other exorcist Landers were in the level ranges 5-7, the leader being a solid level 10. The zombies began to thin out around, making it a little easier to move around thanks to the new arrivals. However, the zombies were beginning to rally themselves, two of them managing to pull one of the Landers from his horse. A blast of light from the Lander vaporized one of them, but the other one was getting ready to feast on the fallen prey, his jaw hanging lazily as he began to lower himself to feed.

Aw, hell no.

Once again, Astral Bind performed its job well, binding the zombie in place as the other exorcists rushed in to save their comrade. The NPC who had fallen grabbed ahold of Dusky's arm in a gesture of gratitude.

"You have my thanks, Sir Cat! Please, how can I ever repay you for your deed?"

Pulling the box out from under his arm, he handed to the gushing exorcist.

"If you could see that this is delivered to someone named Lord Marven, that'd be great."

The Lander nodded and mounted his horse, riding back towards the rest of his group. Zombies now began to run at the Enchanter, who in turn began to head in the direction of the Lander group. He looked around for Nisha as he ran, hoping he wasn't too far from her position.

"SAFETY IN NUMBERS" was his mantra as he chased after the exorcist's horse.

Words: 538 | Tags: @dusk Nisha
OOC Notes: Nice addition of the Lander group, btw. ^^

[Nisha]

Her lightning armor was stipped off her with the next hit from the zombie standing around her, but at least he did not get to her health points, until he bit into her again and took a small chunk of it with it. Nisha in the meantime was still straining to get her sword out of the zombie that she had pierced with it, to halt her fall. But the two seconds she needed to get it out after it exploded into digital bits, another zombie had already appeared and taken the place of the zombie she had blasted away with her grimoire and was chewing on her side. Sticking her katana right away from the dead... really dead one into the undead one, she activated izunagiri and created a wave of wind that ploughed through several undead and got her a small way toward the exorcsists and Dusky who had run off to help one of those who had fallen down, handing over the package to the one he had rescued, but that lander was definitely not safe yet, several zombies were trying to get to him as soon as he touched the amulet box. Nisha sigehd and shot a laser of holy energy at the first zombie, jumped on the next , standing on it while it crumbled to the front, grabbed the exorcist and said while jumping away from the horde: "Hold on, I will get you a bit of air, and protect that one with your life." Nisha landed and threw the exorcist further toward the forest and turned, running back with her increased movement speed and slid below the zombies to get right back into the midst of battle, shooting the holy laser once more as soon as it finished the cooldown and cut a half dead undead now dead zombie in half and prepared her next attack.

It had a friggin long animation time and due to this she was buried under zombies who had now finally taken to the aggro she was emitting and jumped on her. Nisha saw her life slowly receding with every bite, but she knew the next attack would be pretty devastating to the zombie horde, even though in all it would be a little drop in the desert. Nisha´s scream of: "SHINING GOLDEN FINGER! UP YOURS!" Was muffled as another zombie jumped on top of the pile and Nisha released her attack. At first it was just a golden light shining through the zombie, but suddenly a wave erupted from below the zombies and send them flying and their digital pixels scurrying to all sides. Nisha slashed at another zombie that was hanging on her back and walked into the three meters that had been cleared out by the golden wave of energy that had come from her sword. Looking at the situation, several more people had jumped off their horses now, not wanting to be buried under them if the zombies managed to bring down the horses and the bright lights coming from them if anything had gotten ever brighter. Nisha had not known there were lander exorcists like this too, but she was intrigued to find out more about them, if only to see if they had anything they could teach Nisha. Nisha could not see Dusky, but due to his dark fur, that was nothing she thought too much of, but she sure hoped he was alright. Slashing another zombie who had come into her kill zone, she destroyed it with a magical bolt to the face. "Dusky, you alright?" Nisha asked loudly and wondering if she had really lost him in the mass swirling around, even though they had definitely become less and less over time, but there were still at least two dozen or so around, so an end was visible and expectable anytime soon. Using her free iaido strike on another zombie to press it back into the mass surrounding the exorcsists, she shot a laser at it.

Words: 666
Mood: Slowly getting exhausted
Music: Song
Skills: Iaido, seinarushinken, izunagiri
Tags: @dusk

[Deleted]

the light at the end of the tunnel

Dusky watched the following scene in a mild state of terror, feeling somewhat terrified as he saw Nisha dive back into the fray of zombies. The only thing he could see in the swirling midst of blades and rotted flesh was her description box, the HP meter slowly falling as more and more zombies added themselves onto the dogpile.

Why oh why didn't I at least learn an offensive spell?!

He cast Astral Bind on a couple more of the zombies, making sure his presence didn't draw too much aggro from the group. Otherwise, he may as well be a cat covered in steak sauce thrown into a bag full of starving dogs. One of the zombies had managed to get a little too close for comfort, Dusky smacking it repeatedly with his flimsy Starter Staff. It wasn't very effective, as the member of the undead insisted on coming back, even when its head was knocked clean off.

Despite seeing many beheadings in movies and video games, actually seeing it in person was enough for him to clap a paw to his mouth. He hoped that he could keep down whatever acted as barf in this game as he breathed deeply through his nose. More of the zombies were beginning to notice him and began to stumble/run towards him, but then they all erupted into showers of sparks and charred bits of flesh, leaving about a dozen or so remaining. Dusky looked behind him to see the group of exorcists, firing their lasers of holiness at every demonic heathen that came their way.

All of a sudden, a giant blast of light burst from the zombie pile the fox tail samurai was buried under. All of them were vaporized from the sheer brilliance of the Shining Gold Finger that Nisha had unleashed. The werecat ran over to her, smacking any of the charred and/or severed zombies that still had strength to move.

He replied to the fox tail when she asked him if he was alright.

"I'm fine, just a couple scratches. But you look like you could use a good healing potion, so let's get you back to those guys to see if they've got a healer hidden somewhere."

He walked closely next to Nisha, just in case she ended up fainting or collapsing from all the energy she expended in her fight with the living dead.

Words: 398 | Tags: @dusk Nisha
OOC Notes: --

[Nisha]

Nisha was breathing heavily as she stumbled along, looking at her health and mana reserves, she knew she would not be able to do this kind of a crazy stunt again. Actually it had been pretty cool seeing all the zombies crawl over her, sure, normally such a sight would be sickening to most, but Nisha had just thought how great the graphics and realism was, it had reminded her of that one time she had nearly been buried under snow. One second she was trying to build an iglo about as high as herself and the moment she crawled into the iglo it had come down crashing on her. There was pure whiteness, the kind you only get to see if you stare at white light too long and then look somewhere else. It had been about the same, just with disfigured faces and rotting bodies all over her. Nisha really needed to find a way to make sure she could avoid this damage all together or at least found a way to maximize her damage output in exchange for the awful long time of three seconds she always had to just stand around and wait for her to go through all the figures. Sighing, she heard Dusky answer her call and was really relieved to hear of him. If her first bodyguard mission in this character ended with the one she had to protect dying...

Well, it would just simply not do. But he was right as well, she had no choice but to foresake the fight for a while and evade battling close combat, the only reach the zombies had. Shooting a holy laser at a zombie stumbling too close, she said: "Yeah, let´s go over and see if we can find someone who can heal our wounds, good idea." While walking over, she saw two lander on the ground, one not moving at all and the other moaning, bending down, she reached for his collar and began to pull him with her. He was just heavy enough to slow her down to zombie level and Nisha for a second thought she would have to let go of the wounded exorcist and abandon him to the writhing mass of zombies behind her, as she heard a voice booming over the battlefield, reciting a prayer loudly which was unnaturally loud and echoing over the battlefield. Looking around, she saw the white light, just like her holy banishment skill, but much more brighter and shiny, it seemed to slowly penetrate the masses making them look transparent and only one figure remained with the box stretched up above his head and chanting. Nisha right away knew that that had to be marven due to the sound the system made when a quest had been fulfilled and there just before her screen went white the quest to give marven the amulet was fulfilled. Smiling, Nisha went to the ground as she felt the warmth of the holiness wash over her and burn all zombies resurrected through the amulet. Sprawled on all fours, Nisha felt like resting her eyes just a moment, but suddenly felt another warmness. That of a healing spell washing over her and most likely dusky as well. Sitting up, she saw all the exorcists rushing over the field helping to bury the corpses and collecting and healing their own people.

"Ah, that was fun, right dusky? Good job by the way, let´s do this some time again." Nisha said chuckling and looked around to see if he was still there, that her hand was still around the collar of the exorcist she had dragged with her, a few feet behind her zombies were crispy black and in front of her marven was slowly walking up to them making comments to his people with a face that Nisha did not know what he would say to her. After all, they were kinda responsible for this mess even though it would have happened sooner or later anyway, but also had helped destroy all the zombies. Nisha did not feel like dealing with him and fell back on her back to fall back on the plan to let dusky handle him, agreeing with herself to just listen in on the conversation until she was fully healed, finally letting go of the collar of the exorcist who began to rummage under her grasp.

Words: 731
Music: funky
Mood: Sleepy
Tags: @dusk
Skills: Holy banishment