[Open] Slime Slaughter

[Rayleigh]

A gooey adventure

Dull Slime hunting             

"Hope it can take a few hits…" Rayleigh said to himself with dismay in his voice, prodding the chainmail vest he wore, testing its strength with his fingers. It at least looked heavier than it actually was but under close inspections many of the metal ringlets looked rusted, worn and ready to break apart. Some were even split and just hanging on by the pieces around them, or missing entirely.

Today would be Rayleigh's first time experiencing combat since the change. Till now he had not even been out of London. This isn't to say he wasn't kept busy, in fact this combat trip was somewhat of a holiday. Initially after the catastrophe he spent some time getting acclimated but quickly found himself interacting with other confused adventurers. He found himself splitting his time between information gathering and sharing, trying to find out as much about the world as he could. Many false rumours had begun spreading through the population. Rayleigh couldn't decide if these were the result of malicious intent or unfortunate misunderstandings. What he could he would test himself.

Using skills without the interface for example was one such piece of information that he had managed to confirm, and even practice. He was luckily enough to be able to see another Adventurer use skills without the interface so it was just a matter of getting the system to kick in for him. For fold step he activated the ability through the interface a few times to learn its movement and then mimicking it. Sigilmaking however he had yet to use without the interface, and as far as he knew alchemy, unlike cooking, had no potential for use other than through the interface. More research would be needed for both.

Alas, today for the first time in a while he would not spend his time in the London. It felt like he was finally actually starting his life again. Simply talking to people day in day out had started to become mundane, and with very few actually taking action, not much new information was coming through. He had finally taken a stand to break out of that stale life, kicking himself into gear to start 'doing'. Thus how he found himself trekking through the Windsor Greatwood valley. He had heard many it was a good place to start training as there was a platitude of locations containing weaker mobs.

He had never thought about his equipment until now. He only had the starter set of chainmail armour and two katanas, all of which looked to be pretty poor quality but easy enough to use.
"Defiantly gotta work on getting some real equipment." He tried to remember if he had met anyone able to produce equipment, but hadn't really made any actual friends just yet. The rut he had been in had defiantly affected his mental state, and he hoped to get back to his old self by breaking out of the mundane.

The path was easy enough to follow. It looked wide enough that even a car or horse and cart could pass through, but judging by the many foot tracks only adventurers passed through here recently. The unique flower grove was quite the sight to see from what he had gleaned from London's chatter and he imagined many of these tracks were heading straight for that. Rayleigh however was hoping to find any old area with mobs in it to train in.

CODED BY DUCKIE OF GS

[Deleted]

ASHEN HP: 100% MP: 100%

"I am in the only place that I want to be, though we know that it ends eventually, but it's all right 'cause right now, we're frozen"

"Just what did you get yourself into," Ashen muttered to herself... himself. It was still disorienting, and there wasn't much that Ashen could do about it. The body he was now inhabiting was much smaller than his own and so he kept trying to take too big of steps at times, causing him to trip over often. Moving around previously looking for his friend Anna's character hadn't turned up any results either and Ashen sighed deeply, before shaking his head and making his way further out into the field. There wasn't much left for him to do. He'd looked all over the town, tripping and everything, and had found no trace of Anna. That didn't leave him many options and tripping his way around town didn't sound like a good idea to Ashen.

Cautiously stepping out and making sure to keep his pathfinder skill toggled on as much as possible, Ashen progressed down a path. There didn't seem to be any quest markers in this whole fiasco, which left grinding to level up. Not the ideal, but it was early game, it shouldn't be that hard. He'd heard talk of the difficulties of the interface and it made him glad that he'd started off with the passive skill Iaido. He'd get plenty of time to acclimate to the combat system without having to worry about getting entangled in skill menus. If he was playing his old Shaman things would be different. Or would they? After all it was a ranged caster, and he'd been doing some raiding so he had a good idea of the timing and locations of his abilities. Surely it couldn't be too difficult, could it? Either way the strawberry blonde fox-tail made their way along the path, tail swishing and ears flicking forward at the sound of another player ahead of him.

At least Ashen assumed it was another player. Continuing up the path confirmed it. Probably a swashbuckler judging by the chain vest and the dual weapons they were carrying. It didn't take much to see that they were a low-level character like Ashen was. "Yo!" the Fox Tail called out, raising a hand and waving, stepping up the pace to a jog to catch up with the other adventurer. The increased pace of course did exactly what was expected with the body's unfamiliar balance and rather than slowing down and standing near Rayleigh, Ashen ended up sliding on their face to a halt in front of the swashbuckler. "Ow ow ow," Ashen muttered, picking themself up off the ground and brushing dirt out of her hair and ears. Undeterred, he turned his head up to the other player. "Hey, you looking to fight some mobs?"

OOC NOTES: Sliding my way in here, if ya don't mind.
WORD COUNT: 451

Made by Sifr of GS, Synesthesia and Adoxography.

[Rayleigh]

Witty post title of funny

Distracted by thoughts of his gear, Rayleigh did not hear the Fox-Tail approach from behind. He had instead occupied himself holding one of his two weapons, the remaining on his left hip. Toying with it a bit as he walked he had discovered its light weight made it easy to work with, but its blunt edge had him worried he would be more bashing targets, not cutting them.



"Maybe it'll cut slimes alr-" Mid thought he was cut off by the surprise callout from behind. To his surprise the one charging up to him was an innocent looking Fox-Tail blonde. Something was off about her gate through, her run did not look natural at all, as if it was being forced or something. His suspicions about it not being the natural body size of the user was quickly confirmed as they tumbled ahead of Rayleigh, kicking up a bit of dust as they went.



"Ahoy! Careful little one!" He chuckled. Rayleigh was lucky, while visually Rayleigh looked nothing like Jerikoh, physically they both were similar. This also meant he well over a foot taller than the clumsy Fox-Tail.



"Hey, you looking to fight some mobs?" Questioned the Fox-Tail.

"Oh yeah little one, guessing you’re here for the same?" The big grin he was known for spread across his face. Even with one weapon drawn Rayleigh appeared completely unthreatening. His friendly smile and bright eyes just made him look almost innocent despite his size and appearance.



"Haven't got a hold of your body just yet, boy?" He teased lightly. The run just did not look like that of a girls, so he took a stab in the dark and guessed the players real gender. Through what was real here? Rayleigh had his doubts they would ever return to their 'real' world, meaning this Fox-Tail in front of him may have to live their life out as a female. It was all too complicated to discuss with a stranger on first meeting so Rayleigh decided to drop it for now, and kept things jovial.



"I'm Rayleigh." He stated with a friendly voice, sticking his right hand out for a handshake.

CODED BY DUCKIE OF GS

[Deleted]

ASHEN HP: 100% MP: 100%

"I am in the only place that I want to be, though we know that it ends eventually, but it's all right 'cause right now, we're frozen"

There wasn't really any graceful recovery from her entrance, so Ashen sheepishly pulled herself up while patting down the leggings of her armor, removing the dust and dirt in little tiny clouds. It was a beginner set so it wasn't like he was terribly attached to it. There was bound to be lots of equipment that were going to be a lot better further down the road, and Ashen was planning to go down plenty of roads in this game. Everyone on the server was going to have to move themselves along at somepoint or just stay at level one and never leave town. While Alex had transfered servers and made Ashen to be with a very close friend, in the end he was planning on doing raids. Being trapped in the game may be a deterrant... but only for a while. Eventually Ashen would be high-level and these problems a thing of the past.

Which of course meant that he'd have to start small and start grinding. Since he hadn't found Anna's character anywhere in London, there wasn't much else for Ashen to do and any action was better than no action at all. "Yeah. We don't know what to expect, but there's no way to handle the unexpected if everyone sticks around at level one."

Ashen felt her face heat up a bit at the comments of not getting used to the body. Alex couldn't disagree with that, but did Ashen really look that boyish? Taking a glance down and giving the chestplate a bit of a pat he did sigh. The starter platemail was fairly bulky and the 'normal' clothes that Ashen had were pretty much concealed under the armor except for the sleeves. It wasn't like Ashen was particularly stacked anyways so it was a reasonable thing and Alex saw no reason to really point out that the character was female, even if he wasn't.

"Yeah, somethin' like that," Ashen said sheepishly, scratching the hair behind her left ear. Rayleigh finally gave her a name and extended a hand out for a handshake. Taking the offered hand in his own, Ashen returned the handshake and introduced themself as well. "Ashen." With introductions out of the way Ashen returned attention to the surroundings. Opening a menu and making sure that Pathfinding was toggled on. It'd help a lot in terms of spotting and identifying mobs. "I'm not familiar with the area around here, but I've played Elder Tale before all this," Ashen motioned at the wilderness all around them that smelled, looked, sounded, and felt real. "I've got Pathfinding as a subclass so we should have a fairly easy time figuring out where mobs are."

OOC NOTES: i got nuthin
WORD COUNT: 448

Made by Sifr of GS, Synesthesia and Adoxography.

[Rayleigh]

With the introductions out of the way, Rayleigh was impressed by how forward his fellow adventurer was, getting right into business.

"Sounds like you want to party up then?" He made sure to not make it sound like an accusation but rather a humours invite. Raising his hand in front of him, Rayleigh lightly used just his pointer finger to apply pressure to what seemed like the air, resulting in the interface appearing for him. He had familiarised himself with the interface and quickly moved to the party section. Repeating the process to open he menu but this time in the direction of Ashen he was able to open a sub-menu and invite the Fox-Tail to a party.

"Pathfinder ey? Should come in handy. Don't know this area myself was hoping to just find a good place to train at, heard there were some good slime spawn areas to be had."

After adjusting his two swords on his hips into a more comfortable position Rayleigh turned to continue walking in the direction he previously was. He expected Ashen wanted to get a move on as well so did not bother to ask if he was ready to move out, instead just hoped he would keep up. While walking he continued to talk.

"My sub is Sigilmaker, hopefully I can test it out a bit once we find some slimes. Only can do one sigil at the moment but it is a nice stat buff to whatever stat you want. Oh! By the way I'm a Swashbuckler, and judging by your getup you are a guardian or samurai? No shield so probably Samurai right?"

Rayleigh took a few moments to think about their party formation. While the slimes shouldn't give them any trouble, having a plan of attack would never be a bad thing. Not being too confident with his combat abilities, and both of them being melee he hoped he would not get in Ashen's way.

CODED BY DUCKIE OF GS

[Deleted]

ASHEN HP: 100% MP: 100%

"I am in the only place that I want to be, though we know that it ends eventually, but it's all right 'cause right now, we're frozen"

Ashen gave a smile and her ears twitched on their own. "Sure, partying'd work out best." The Fox-Tail had to admit that they weren't sure if the world still operated but it looked like it still worked the way it used to with the menus. Things like that made it hard to think of this world as anything more than a game though the sensations ranging from the scent of the field to the touch of the cloth on Ashen's skin promoted the exact opposite idea. Reaching out a hand to open their own menus, Ashen scrolled down and accepted the party invite from Rayleigh.

"Aaaand done! Yeah, I'm a bit glad I got Pathfinder really. I'm not at all familiar with the UK's geography so this is bound to help some." Ashen took a look around. No slimes in sight or brought to Ashen's attention through the subclass's toggled ability, but mobs, especially slimes, didn't tend to go alone so if they did find an area with slimes there would be plenty to go around. Ashen idly wondered if there was any difference in the respawn rates either. Already the difference in time was clear. Time passed like it did in the real world rather than going through a full day/night cycle in 2 hours like the game had previously. There'd been no news on changing that for Novasphere Pioneers either. It was all much too confusing, so Ashen would prefer to keep to subjects they could keep straight.

"Yeah, I'm a samurai. Was looking to pick up something tankier than the last character I played." Ashen gave a shrug and scratched the back of her head idly. Previously Alex had played a Shaman on the American servers, so he knew a fair amount about positioning and its importance, but currently there were only two of them. Since Samurai was a much better tank than a swasbuckler would pretty much ever be, Ashen's job would be to get aggro.

"It shouldn't be too difficult to kill slimes, especially in a beginner area, but just in case let me hit first. I didn't start with any active skills so most of my threat generation will come from the first hit." Ashen gave another shrug. "I know it doesn't seem like much of a strategy, but slimes aren't exactly raid bosses, right?"

Ashen leaned back and resumed walking along, looking from side to side and watching for slimes. From the way the beginner areas had been laid out on the American servers, small mobs like that tended to be near but not on roads, so it probably wouldn't be too much trouble when they eventually did find the slimes.

OOC NOTES: nothin much
WORD COUNT: 448

Made by Sifr of GS, Synesthesia and Adoxography.

[Okami]

Twitch, twitch.

Twitch

Slowly raising her head above the log threshold, curious brown ears twitching, Okami leered down at her target. A single, harmless stag beetle, taking a rest on the lodged wood surface. She'd been watching this particular insect for what she assumed to be the better part of the hour. The Fox-Tail had been curious to how the creature acted, or how she'd assume it acted. She'd seen bugs in games before, swerving through the air and crawling across the ground in set patterns. Fast about it too. but this little one was slow and edgy, not making any moves while she was there. Did it think Okami a predator? Probably. Was she? Most definitely.

"You're so cute~" Most girls wouldn't think this tiny, slim black bug was adorable in any fashion. They had no taste, she'd say! Truly the most adorable of creatures were a part of natures marvels! The natural life that sprung from the well-spring of...springyness!

Okay that was terrible.

"Hmm, don't have a bottle to catch you." Okami frown. Could she even catch it? Did it need air or food to live? Was it simply zeros and ones following it's autonomous programming to keep looking 'real'? Ooh, what research she could do just by observing this little guy!...If only he'd move. Which he wasn't.

Okami huffed, turning away from the insect, crossing her arms "Humph, It's not like I wanted to observer you or anything." She glanced back at the bug, one eye creaked open. The spot was empty, and to her horror, the bug had made a break for it into the bushes while it's stalker had been distracted with her own thoughts. Okami's ears drooped down in disappointment, "Fuuu, he ran away..."

But almost immediately perked back up, ears twitching. The very distinct sound of people stumbling through bush was heard and Okami's face split into a cat like grin. She darted off, traversing her way through the trees and tall-grass, tail swiveling behind her in glee. And when she finally got to her destination, the sorcerer poked her head out of the grass-covering, grinning at the other adventurers. "Hi! You two doing something fun?"

Twitch, twitch.

---

Word Count: 365
OOC Notes: Fox-tails ahoy!