Aykroyd's Got Nothing On Us [Mentor/Invite]

[Sunny]

Sunny grasped her shoulder momentarily , the pain akin to burning., but she couldn't stay settled for long. The Black Essence was right there, an arm-length in front of her. She blinked –fingers grasping for more ammo- and Valerie appeared at her side, attacking the bogy with a series of quick and smooth slashes. The Ritualist offered her teammate a grateful nod as the dancing Swashbuckler drew the ghost’s battle-rage away from Sunny. With its back to her now, she proceeded to fire another bullet into its phantom body, observing the HP bar once more for some sort of progress.

She could only watch as Valerie took a similar hit. The Brazilian’s lips curved into a displeased frown. The battle had to come to a draw soon. Luckily, it didn't look like it’d last much longer; the team’s combined attacks were whittling away at the monster’s life points. Sunny saw red and started to relax a bit. One more hit with her holy magic ought to do the trick, but it was still mid-cooldown.

Suddenly, a double-team of shockwaves overtook the area around the Black Essence, followed by a quick strike from the Monk. The monster’s life-force bubbled and then faded into the air. Sunny sighed, relieved but still feeling jumpy from the damage she’d taken. She glimpsed at Valerie to see how she’d fared from the attack she’d taken and then glanced over at Shuwen when asked about the cool-down.

“Two,” she answered as she tested her shoulder. Pain flared. It probably wouldn't fade completely until her HP bar was healed. “Good to know we can take one down without Holy Banishment.” She folded her arms beneath her chest and checked out her teammates’ hit points. “Takes a while, though. We’ll have to be mindful of our HP if we run up against those guys again.”

---

words: 307

Valerie
Shuwen

[Valerie]

When the monster’s health thinned and turned red, Valerie smiled darkly. Finally. Almost done. The girl thought to herself as she launched herself back toward the monster. The Swashbuckler repeatedly slashed at the final black orb before leaping back as it begun to head towards her. Valerie thrusted her right dagger in front of her and gripped the handle tightly, activating [Straights], causing a golden light stretch out in front of her, piercing the monster from afar. The girl frowned slightly, knowing she probably drew too much aggro to herself from the multiple attacks she made. So she continued to back up until she was at close to one of the walls of the room. Thankfully, Shuwen jumped in and used tow area of effect attacks, followed by another attack that made the remaining Black Essence disappeared.


Then the Monk asked Sunny a question. He was wondering when her Exorcist cooldown ended. The other Swashbuckler answered, saying there were two seconds before the cooldown was finished. She commented about how she felt about being able to defeat one of the Darkness monsters without the Exorcist skill. The dark haired girl nodded in agreement. If was a relief to Valerie to know that physical attacks could kill the monsters. “Yeah, it’s gonna be a real pain if there will be more than four of them.” Valerie said after the ritualist’s last comment, frowning at the thought. Valerie quietly sheathed her weapons before walking back to join the rest of her party. The girl turned to Shuwen and tilted her head slightly. “Now what?” She asked quietly.



Words: 265

[Shuwen]

Words: 507

“Two seconds? Hnnn.” He would have liked to have shaved more time off the battle. Considering how many times he’d used a skill, he wasn’t quite sure cutting the battle by only that much time was enough to satisfy himself. Then again, he probably ought to consider himself lucky it didn’t extend the length of the battle. Still, that’s a cause for concern. They’d taken a fair amount of damage during the fight, and other then passive regeneration, which was extremely slow, they didn’t have many options in regard to how to get it back. I guess it’s a good time to use that.

Shuwen first opened his skill list and toggled on the Picnic skill, then pulled a hamburger out of his inventory, triggering the chef skill. It caused a duplicate of the food item to appear in the hands of every party member. Everything about it was replicated in the duplicates, including its taste and restorative properties. “Sorry it’s not that great, but it should recover some HP.” The hamburger was a low-leveled food item, so it’s restorative properties were relatively small, but their levels weren’t so far above it as to make it’s benefits negligible. The only potential issue was whether the two girls were willing to eat fast food. Without a healer, recovery items were their own real option for restoring HP more quickly.

To be honest though, Shuwen was more worried about his MP. In order to keep up his damage output, he’d used skills quite a few times during the fight against the black essences, mostly area of effect attacks. Monks have a very small MP pool, and even though their skills weren’t particularly costly, he’d used them quite a bit. He’d have to be more careful in the next fight or risk being unable to use any more skills.

Valerie asked what they were going to do next. That surprised Shuwen for two reasons. First, because Valerie was actually looking to him for guidance. And second, because he thought it was kind of obvious. “Well, I guess we should continue going through the house. We probably have to kill everything here, and as annoying as that fight was, I doubt that’s all we have to deal with here.” From there, they continued to search the first floor of the house, going through the rooms they hadn’t yet gone through. At one point, they would come across a lone Black Essence hiding in one of the back rooms, however, it would probably be fairly easy to deal with thanks to Sunny’s Holy Banishment skill.

“That seems to be it for the first floor. I guess we should head up to the second.” Shuwen commented when they reached the lobby. “If there’s a boss, it’s probably somewhere up above. Let’s hope that whatever it is, it isn’t physical resistant, yes?” Grimacing, he started climbing extravagant stairs. He kept trying to look over the end of the steps to see what was ahead, but they were angled wrong for that to be possible.

[Sunny]

Painted lips curled into a cringe.

Sunny didn't even want to think about what would happen if they found another batch of those things. She wasn't so sure they’d be able to make it out without someone taking a trip back to the Cathedral. It was a better alternative to dying –to make that very clear- but nothing short of annoying, to say the least.

Shuwen’s fiddling drew her attention. When food appeared before her, Sunny uncrossed her arms to catch the burger, took a moment to orient herself to the idea of eating, and then began to chow-down. The flavor wasn’t up to snuff –it kind of reminded her of cafeteria food back at the school- but it was more than an even trade for the HP recovery. Thus, she made sure to finish the whole thing, wanting every bit back that she could get from the food. When she was done, the Ritualist pat her belly, felt her shoulder for any indication of a wound, and was happy to feel no pain whatsoever. “Ah, thanks!” She was grinning again, evidently very happy with the results.

When Valerie looked to Shuwen for their next move, Sunny waited for his response, assuming they’d just keep combing through the house for more monsters, but maybe he had another idea or perhaps a strategy of some sort. When he suggested they keep searching, the Swashbuckler nodded in agreement.

For a while, she was convinced they had cleared-out the first level, but then a Black Essence made its appearance. Gun poised for attack, she anticipated the appearance of more, but as it became clear that it was alone, Sunny assaulted it with Holy Banishment and a series of gunshots. As the Black Essence faded, their next order of business was to try the next level. When Shuwen mentioned the possibility of a boss existing up the stairs, Sunny momentarily glanced at Valerie before glimpsing at the stairwell.

“Definitely,” she responded. “Is everyone ready?”

---

words: 330

Valerie
@shuwen

[Valerie]

Then the Monk handed each party member a hamburger that would help recover some health that was lost from the fight. The Swashbuckler’s deep violet eyes sparkled happily at the sight of food, especially when she spotted the meat in between to pieces of bread. She quickly dug in and nommed on the hamburger, humming quietly in delight. The health that she had lost from the fight was not too much and would most likely comeback in a bit of time, but they did have that much time and needed to clear it as fast as they could. Or that was what Valerie wanted. Normally, the Dancer would have simple foods for meals, never spending more than needed on it. However, hamburgers were not on the top of her “To-Eat List” since it had two pieces of bread that surrounded a lone meat patty.

She quickly finished her food and was waiting quietly for the others. That was when Shuwen answered her question, letting her know that they were going to continue going through the house. She wasn’t surprised by the answer, but for the entire time, the moment she entered the mansion, she was just blindly following the Exorcist and Monk. Then he stated that they were pretty much done with the first floor and should head to the next, the one above them, which may or may not have a boss. Hopefully it was not physical resistant, which Sunny agreed with vocally before asking if everyone was ready. The brown haired Swashbuckler nodded in response, before heading up the stairs along with Shuwen, still following the higher leveled male mindlessly.

Words: 272
Shuwen Sunny

[Shuwen]

Words: 262

Sunny and Valerie ate the hamburger with surprisingly little complaint. Sunny looked a bit apprehensive upon eating it, but not dissatisfied. Perhaps the benefit of partially restored HP outweighed the cost of eating third rate food? That was probably the main reason.

The second floor initially appeared deserted. There was nothing waiting for them at the top of the stairs. The rooms on the second floor seemed to consist of the living quarters of the house’s owners. Large bedrooms with ruined furniture were the main feature of the house’s second floor. Most of the furniture was well on it’s way to rotting out of existence, however, there were a few signs that something had been chewing on it. “Pests maybe? With the humans gone, I guess it’s no surprise that something else might move in. Do either of you have any idea what it might be?”

Regardless of whether any of them actually knew the answer or not, they’d end up finding out fairly soon. Once they all turned away from the furniture they’d been looking at, a grey hand with long claws instead of nails slashed across the back of Shuwen’s knees, knocking him to his knees with a cry. The claw was quickly followed by the head of it’s owner, a level 3 ratman, which leered at them as it rolled to it’s feet a short distance away from them. Two more ratmen would appear from a nearby doorway on the opposite side, in what was apparently an attempt to flank them. “Well that answers that question.” The Monk growled.

[Sunny]

Valerie seemed to be reverting to her more quiet self. Sunny had to wonder if it wasn’t just a comfortable place for her to be or if the girl was bothered by the latest fight. Perhaps she was just being focused, which was never a bad thing. The Ritualist herself tended to fall into a more sullen state when things looked hairy, moments ago being a prime example. For neither good nor ill, her Swashbuckler companion was on co-pilot, taking Shuwen’s word for everything they were worth. Not that Sunny could blame her. So far, he seemed to be leading the party well enough. She wasn’t exactly sure at what point he’d become the go-to-guy for the quest, but the Brazilian sure wasn’t complaining. Stick with whatever works.

With no objections nor pauses to check inventory, the party made their way up the flight of stairs to find absolutely nothing waiting for them at the top. That was admittedly a disappointment, kind of anticlimactic, if you will; however, the longer the party scanned the area, the more wonderfully apparent that they weren’t entirely alone it became. The black Brazilian grit her teeth; a single eyebrow quivering at the frightening possibility. Back home, her family had had more than enough problems with rats for Sunny to recognize their handy work whenever she saw it, not that it ever helped her cozy-up to their existence. The idea that they could fight back here instead of stupidly die in a mouse trap . . . didn’t make matters easier on the mind.

“Iii’ve got an idea. . .” She remarked with a scratch of her head. I realllly hope I’m wrong, though. Please let me be wrong. “They must be huge.” She gulped, trying to hide her fears, but then Shuwen had to go and squeal again, eliciting a yelp from Sunny, who leapt backwards and stumbled over the arm of the love-seat she’d been examining. She gained ground quickly enough, peering over the arm and evaluating the situation with a feeling of dread draping over her shoulders.

I hate being right sometimes, she thought with a grimace, cocking her gun but having trouble deciding which one she wanted to massacre first.

---

words: 369

Shuwen
Valerie

[Valerie]

The small Swashbuckler followed the Monk wordlessly as her eyes scanned the upper level of the mansion. Like the houses at that time, the time before she was mysteriously drawn into the game Elder Tale, bedrooms and other living quarters were up stairs, although this house would still be considered a mansion to Valerie. Shuwen had seemed to spot something in the wreckage, vocally considering the possibility of pests. The Dancer shrugged her shoulders slightly at his comment. Maybe there were rodent monsters, but if that was the case, at least they shouldn’t be physical damage resistant. If they were, the Swashbuckler would purposely walk into a wall and bang her head on the wall repeatedly, hoping that she was just dreaming. Because facepalming simply isn’t enough. She thought to herself in mild amusement. Many things amused the girl, it didn’t matter whether it was cruel, painful, or actually funny, and she would laugh.

As the begun to move on from that room, with Sunny saying a few words, a cry reached Valerie’s ears, making the girl jump slightly in fright as she whirled around to look for the source of the cry. Her purple orbs filled with worry when the saw Shuwen on his knees with a grey claw slightly behind him. It was clear that the claw was the reason for her party member being on his knees and for the sudden cry that startled the girl, tensing up greatly. Valerie’s hands quickly landed on the hilt of her weapons as she pulled them out and sinks down into a position to fight. Her eyes scanned the area once more and spotted two other ratman hybrids in the door way of a different doorway, flanking the first hybrid creature that had attacked Shuwen.

The Swashbuckler backed up a bit, but slowly approached Shuwen’s side to make sure the other was alright. “You okay?” She asked quickly, keeping her eyes on the monsters, her weapons poised to attack. Turning to face Sunny, she asked another question. “Should we do area attacks before narrowing down on a specific monster?” She asked the group, being uncharacteristically talkative at the moment. The first monster was only a level 3 and would definitely not be too hard to take down after the physical resistant Black Essences.


Words: 383
Shuwen Sunny

[Shuwen]

Words: 560

Sunny seemed to have some idea of what had kind of pests they had on their hands, but didn’t specify before said pests made their entrance, only mentioning that they must be quite large. Shuwen didn’t have much of an idea of what she was talking about before the ratmen revealed themselves.

Valerie turned towards Sunny to ask her (or both of them) to ask about tactics. Shuwen had an idea or two, but she only seemed to be asking Sunny, not him. He wasn’t entirely sure how she’d react if he suddenly just gave her orders out of the blue. She’d listened to him before, but that was under aggravating circumstances, doing so arbitrarily could likely be met with hostility. Best to keep my mouth shut for now, she’s not stupid, she’ll come up with something on her own. With that in mind, he turned and engaged the nearest Ratman.

The Ratman’s build was vaguely humanoid, which was a great comfort to him, but not quite. It’s “arms” (which were probably really it’s front paws) were proportionally larger and thicker then human’s arms, probably because they needed to carry a large portion of the ratman’s body weight when it was down on all fours. It was also very short, barely measuring up to Shuwen’s stomach. That made the situation feel rather off to him; Shuwen was rather short by human standards, and was used to fighting people that were larger then him. For that premise to be reversed made him feel a little awkward. Alright, I’ll probably have to use low and downward strikes if I want to hit him. Talk about weird. He just hoped the rat wouldn’t be able to capitalize on that enough to predict his moves.

Shuwen started with a low front kick. The rat put it’s arms together in a cross arm block, but the difference in their respective sizes and weights caused it to get blown back into the dresser. It didn’t take a lot of damage, but it was still obviously bothered about the difference in weight class. The rat scampered to one side, obviously intent on dodging rather then blocking now. He responded with a sweeping low kick but the rat countered with a jump and did something akin to a palm strike with his claws and struck his hip. Shuwen winced has his lower body took another hit, but wasn’t in so much pain that he couldn’t capitalize on the situation; the ratman’s body was in mid air, which would make dodging neigh-impossible for it. He grabbed it by the head and threw it towards the next nearest ratman, which was likely engaged with one of the Swashbucklers. They collided, causing them both to go down in a heap.

“I’ve got this, let me draw their agro.” He told the two girls, who likely also noticed that they were vulnerable. The two ratmen quickly recovered and started to stand back up, but not before Shuwen lifted his leg and stomped down on them, dealing significant damage to both of the ratmen. As they separated, they both started to go after Shuwen, leaving the one who’d origionally been fighting it a free shot at it. The Monk, meanwhile, finished off the ratman he’d been fighting with a low round kick, causing it to dissolve into anima as it’s HP bottomed out.

[Sunny]

Sunny was in no condition to be calling orders. She absolutely abhorred rats. As far as she was concerned, the party could just start hacking and slashing their way through the mutants, not strategy needed. She kept her perch on the love seat, grimacing at the thought of there being even more of these . . .these. . .rats crawling around the house.Rather than answer Valerie right away, the Ritualist observed, studying the bout between the Monk and the ratman with a mixture of intrigue and disgust, mostly disgust actually. It was the queerest thing she’d seen to-date, but bearing in-mind that Sunny had only just recently reintroduced herself to the game, that probably wasn’t saying much.

When he knocked the ratmen with initiative back and into his packmates (?) –not that she cared much about what you’d call a gang of rats- the Swashbuckler woke-up from her grossed-out daze, nodding as Shuwen proceeded with his strategy in going after the other pair of ratmen. Go ahead! Be her ever-loving guest and take them all out. She won’t be offended. With one down, the other two remained. Sunny glanced at Valerie to see what she planned to do. “Let’s just finish this as quickly as possible, okay?” She didn’t want to aim for the same one and end up kill-stealing. Her Swashbuckler teammate would not appreciate that, as she’d proven before. Whichever one she chose to target, Sunny would cock her gun at the other, intending to use Magnum Shot.

Gun shot sounded throughout the room, a bullet slicing through its furred target. The force threw the ratmen into the wall, tacking-on extra damage that the skill alone couldn’t deal. The monster didn’t stay down long at all, pushing itself up and targeting the Ritualist. It made a beeline. Sunny bristled in place and then hopped off the couch, taking steps back while aiming individual bullets at the monster. Intelligent by design, the ratman started to zig-zag to avoid the shots. The Brazilian, realizing this, stopped shooting and high-tailed it around the room. “Gah! Somebody stop this thing!!”

---

words: 348

Valerie
Shuwen

[Valerie]

No one seemed to answer her question and Shuwen aimed a low kick at the monster in front of him, but was blocked by the shorter creature that raised its front limbs to block the attack but not the knock back and flew back into the furniture behind it. The Monk continued attacking the rats, which attempted to dodge the incoming rain of attacks the Adventurer poured onto them. Her fellow Swashbuckler seemed to be slightly dazed and mildly disgusted from the rats. The blue haired male told his two party members that he was going to draw the monsters aggro.


Sunny nodded at Shuwen’s words then turned to Valerie, who simply nodded curtly in response to her words. The brown haired Swashbuckler was not one to enjoy dragging out fights. Time was precious and time was money, she wasn’t going to waste it just for amusement, though a slow fight is never amusing to her. The girl would often become bored when fighting monsters that were easy kills and fast. She would enjoy a challenge but kept it within the reasonable, never accepting a quest that would never end in her favour. Everything she did was for a purpose, for herself. It could either be to gain something, experience or gold, or to help someone she cared about.


Valerie went for the monster on the right side, darting over and around it, circling until she was behind the creature. The Swashbuckler slashed her twin daggers down on the monster’s back before darting in front and using [Viper Raise] on the hybrid’s forearms, leaving a cut in both arms that dripped blood. The monster in front of her seemed to panic slightly when it spotted a red liquid dripping from the wound on its arms, and the Swashbuckler quickly dropped to the ground, holding her arms out at her side, the blades of her weapons pointed outward. Valerie activated [Shuffle Windmill] and rose up as she made 4 quick rotations in front of the monster. When the skill was finished, she hopped back, out of the monster’s claw range and thrusted her left dagger forward, gripping the handle tightly, activating [Straights] on her left weapon.


Out of the corner of her eye, she had seen the other Swashbuckler go for the other ratman hybrid. After firing a few shots, the monster had managed to get into close combat range, which benefited the monster but placed a disadvantage onto Sunny, being a ranged fighter. The girl had screamed out for help as she ran around the room, running from the pursuing monster. Valerie had grimaced, conflicted whether to turn her back on her current target, giving it a chance to target her, but help out Sunny, or keep fighting the monster in front of her and wait until Shuwen goes over to help the other girl. However, she couldn’t come to a conclusion because midway, the monster she had attacked had made its way toward Valerie and attempted to swipe its claws at the small Swashbuckler’s left shoulder. The girl’s breath caught as she turned quickly to narrowly dodge its claws and the tips scraped her shoulder lightly, leaving pale red marks. Glancing quickly at her lowered health bar, Valerie knew that she couldn’t afford risking more of it to attempt to save another. It would be overall benefit more if she were to quickly take out the rat monsters. Refocusing her attention onto the monster in front of her, the girl lowered herself back into a position, ready to spring at the incoming monster.



Words: 594
(OOC: Sorry for the wait)

[Shuwen]

Words: 409

Unfortunately, it didn’t look like Sunny was handling the fight very well. She seemed to have an issue regarding rats, and it was effecting her ability to fight. Fortunately, she snapped out of it once he started giving instructions. Once he finished one of them off, she seemed to get even more in gear, saying they’d best finish them off quickly. Heh, she must really want this fight over and done with. She shot the second one with a ranged skill that inflicted knockback, but it seemed the rat wised up and started moving in a zig zag to avoid her attacks. I’d best do something about that one. Valerie engaged the remaining ratman. Unlike Sunny, she seemed to be doing fine against it by herself, so the Monk figured it was best to leave her be for the time being.

It didn’t take him long to come to a decision. As he had already finished off his own opponent, now would be a great time to team up with one of the other party members to speed the defeat of a second monster. He could help either Sunny or Valerie finish their current opponent off. However, while Valerie was currently deeply engaged in a fight with her own opponent, Sunny was on the run trying to keep her distance by running around the room, Now would be a great time to blindside the ratman going after Sunny. She definitely needed some front-line assistance to keep the creature off of her, and said creature was entirely focused on her at the moment; it probably wouldn’t notice him until it was too late. Shuwen hit it from the side; due to it’s zig-zagging motion, hitting it from the front as Sunny was forced to do wasn’t very easy, but doing so from the side was much easier. The Ratman reacted fairly well; spinning it’s body to reduce knockback and turning it into momentum for a sweeping claw attack that managed to score several scratches on the leg he’d kicked with. Dang it, didn’t retract fast enough. He followed up with a backhand to the side of the monster’s jaw. As Sunny had already dealt it a significant amount of damage, it’s HP was pretty close to zero. As Sunny had probably reloaded by that point, he jumped back and gave her enough room to take the shot, also getting out of range for the ratman’s inevitable counterattack to make contact.

[Sunny]

Battle was a flurry of moves and attacks that Sunny wasn’t even going to bother to mind in the now. All she cared about was exterminating these rats and moving on. Perhaps there was irony to be found in the situation -someone being afraid of rats but not drooling, brain-munching zombies- but at the moment, all that mattered was escaping this . . .this. . .thing’s rabies-dripping mawl. She was doing a pretty fine job of that right now, hopping over furniture with the speed and agility of a hurdle-runner, or –more accurately- a volleyball player.

At one point, She’d made her way back to the loveseat, preparing to dive behind it or –at the very least- use one of the fluffy pillows as a shield, haha. She was taking that great leap when she registered the sounds of a struggle from just behind her. From behind her sanctioned shield, Sunny caught sight of two things. One being Valerie taking a hit from the Ratman she’d been battling and the other being Shuwen getting caught in a fight with the monster that had been chasing her. Her wide, ochre-eyes blinked at the collective injuries her teammates had taken, something that nagged her since she’d spent most of the fight running gutless around the room while the Monk and Swashbuckler were taking hits.

Hrm. . .Courage renewed -mostly because she was huddled behind a piece of furniture and no longer the target of the monster’s aggro-, Sunny reloaded her gun, aimed, and fired a most vengeful shot at the Ratman, knocking its remaining HP to zero. “Are you guys okay?”

---

words: 269

Valerie
Shuwen

[Valerie]

Being a hybrid monster, it had half the intelligence of a human, but Valerie was fully human and was drawn into the current world of a game she had previously played. She had the intelligence that the People of the Land have never known, knowledge of two different worlds and bore the title of an Adventurer in the current world she lived in. The ratman seemed elated when it had managed to hit her and Valerie just growled inwardly and tightened her grip on her weapons before springing toward the monster. The girl stopped right in front of the hybrid and lifted her right leg and smashed her foot down onto the monster’s paw and placed most of her weight onto it, not allowing it to move. It was bound to break free after about a few seconds of struggling and cause the semi-intelligent monster to panic slightly, causing it to raise its paws in defense. Taking advantage of the close proximity of the monster, the girl slammed both her daggers into the paws, passing through, and pinned them to the ratman’s torso and pulled her blades downward, through the hybrid’s paws, causing it to squeak loudly in pain and angry.

When she withdrew her daggers, there were two shallow wounds on the front of the monster’s torso and the human rat hybrid’s paws were cut. The monster started to reach out to grab the attacking Adventurer, but the girl simply jumped back, releasing the monster’s foot. Valerie mental applauded herself for using Viper Raise earlier, because if she had not, she would currently either be in the grasp of the monster, or slashed right in the chest by its bloody claws. The ratman had reached out to grab the girl, but found nothing and stumbled forward. The Swashbuckler stepped back a bit and lifted her leg to bring it down, heel onto the back of the monster’s head, bringing the monster’s face to the ground. Mercilessly, the girl grinned darkly and stepped on the monster’s head and then onto its back to relocate her feet to rest on the monster’s neck and back. Dropping down, the girl sat down on her ankles and slashed her dagger down onto the monster’s back, tracing its spinal cord, and then horizontally across the base of its neck. Valerie watched its health bar empty and the monster disappeared into colorful rainbow bubbles. 

The girl dropped to the ground as the body below her disappeared, landing with a soft thump that was loud in the silence. Valerie stood up and searched the room for her fellow party members and jumped slightly when she heard a gunshot and whirled around, seeing Sunny behind a piece of furniture and Shuwen was standing near a body of a dead ratman. She sheathed her daggers and walked over to join the rest of her party members. Quickly checking her party members’ stats, she sighed softly in relief. They should be okay in a bit if they rest or had something to eat that heals a bit. When her fellow Swashbuckler asked if they were alright, Valerie nodded and a smile twitched slightly on her face before huffing softly and settling for a soft smile as she waited for the Monk’s next words.

Words: 544
Shuwen Sunny

[Shuwen]

Words: 401

Even thought the rat man was almost finished, he’d jumped back with the expectation that Sunny would take the shot and finish it off. She didn’t fire right away; apparently her fear of the rats had gotten to her. Shu’s brow crinkled in irritation when he realized it. Seeing there was now a gap between them, the rat crouched and sprang, closing the distance the Monk had created and made a swipe at him. He dodged by sidestepping and was trying to decide what type of counter to follow up with when the Swashbuckler apparently regained her senses and shot it, finishing the monster off. Thank you. He thought, feeling somewhat exasperated at her hesitation. “Yes, I’m fine.”

Valerie seemed to have finished off her own opponent, so the fight was effectively over. Shuwen checked their stats. Their HP wasn’t as high as he’d like, but their MP was even noticeably lower. I’d better do something about that. Shuwen went through his inventory and retrieved a Doughnut Hole a level 30 dessert that restore MP, once again using the Picnic skill to create and distribute duplicates to his party members. Since the dessert was significantly higher then their current levels, it would probably restore each of their MP gauges to maximum.

With the fight over, the other two turned towards him, apparently waiting for him to say something. Even Valerie, which was something of a surprise to him. Okay… “I guess we should keep clearing out the area?” He suggested hesitantly. As he spoke, he started walking towards the next room, but before he could reach it, something happened to the mansion. The room, despite being already poorly illuminated, became even darker and more ominous. Suddenly, they heard a large inhuman roar from the general direction of the entrance hall.

“I think we’ve woken up the boss.” Shu commented wryly. “That explains why the lobby was so big and empty; the boss must have appeared there once we wiped out all the mooks.” He scratched his head. “So what do you two want to do. Wait here for our health to recover, or meet it in the lobby?” He was pretty sure the lobby was the intended battleground at which they were supposed to fight it, but if they waited, who knew if it would stay there. Whatever the boss was, it might come looking for them now that was active.

[Sunny]

The fight was over, but Sunny was still feeling timid about coming out from behind the couch. Ochre-shaded eyes thoroughly examined the room, searching for some trace of a remaining enemy. When not a rat tail or tooth was spotted, the Ritualist stepped out of the sanctity of her cushiony shield and reunited with her Valerie and Shuwen. She was starting to loosen up again, one final and deep breath cleaning her out of whatever heebie-jeebies she had left in her body.

I’m cool- I’m cool. It’s all good. Now that they were in the clear, the Brazilian was starting to feel silly about the way she’d reacted to the Ratmen. Thankfully, no one brought it up to her; she wasn’t sure how she would have explained herself had either of them chosen to ask her about it. Hey, though! A lot of people were afraid of rats. They were disease-ridden vermin that carried the infamous Black Plague with them at one time in history, so ‘scuse her for having prejudice against them!

Calm down, girl. No one’s bothering you about it.

“Excellent,” she responded to her teammates’ progress. Checking them out, they’d both sustained some injury, but it wasn’t anything that a little time couldn’t heal. MP was restored by way of sugary Doughnut Holes. Sunny downed one happily and then wiped her hands of gooey frosting, waiting to continue their excursion through the mansion. As Shuwen made his way to the doorway, an indescribable presence swept through the atmosphere, playing with the lighting, and heralding its coming with a roar that sent chills up and down Sunny’s spine. She bounced back quickly, grinning wildly at her teammates. “Oh yeaaah. This should be good!” The Ratman fight was just a memory now. Excitement built.

“Let’s let our HP heal completely first, though. S’now telling what could be down there.” She didn’t particularly care what was waiting for them, so long as it wasn’t another rat or a Black Essence.

---

words: 330
Shuwen
Valerie

[Valerie]

After Shuwen’s reply, Valerie nodded in response, acknowledging his answer and quite glad that their small party seemed to be doing alright so far. The Swashbuckler watched the male briefly glance at his party members, his eyes went a bit above their heads, to when Valerie assumed was where their stats were. Checking them quickly in a similar fashion Valerie had previously, the Monk, on the other hand, was not too happy with the results he found and opened up his menu and dug through it a bit, bringing out a Doughnut Hole dessert and using a skill, that was unknown to Valerie, to duplicate the item and passed them out to the two Swashbucklers. The brown haired girl gratefully accepted it, nomming on it quietly. It was not often the girl would purchase sweets, as much as she did love them, her love for meat was much greater than satisfying her sweet tooth.


As silence settled over the group again, the Monk seemed to be surprised that both level one Swashbucklers were staring at him for further instructions. It would have been quite normal, thinking logically, that the two lower leveled female players would look to the higher leveled male player for instructions on how to go about the quest. It was not that Valerie was sexist or anything, but rather the two females looking for instructions from a more experienced male was completely normal. And if one of the two Swashbucklers decided to take the lead, Valerie wouldn’t trust their judgement, even if it was herself, simply because they were much less experienced than the level 30+ player.


Shuwen began to speak and seemed to overcome whatever it was that stopped him from automatically leading the party. He suggested to keep moving through the mansion and started walking toward the exit of their current room, making their way into the next with Valerie close to his heels. As the continued to approach the entrance to the other room, everything became darker and colder, sending spikes through Valerie’s spine. She tensed up as a loud roar sounded from the hall. Being in an abandoned mansion was very quiet, and the sudden loud roar and shaken her, causing her neck to twitch a bit. She hated sudden loud sounds; they made her jumps slightly sometimes, and cause her sensitive ears to ring. Out of the corner of her eyes, she saw Sunny had the opposite reaction from her and was seemingly bouncing up and down on the spot, excited by the sound of the roar. The Dancer sighed softly at the other female. It was not that Valerie was not excited by the thought of a boss, but rather her nerves were too sensitive at the moment. Another loud sound and she would snap, not faint, but snap at everything around her, becoming a grouchy old woman… That or a very sadistic girl. Either way, Valerie was not excited about it.


Shuwen seemed to have also recognized that the roar was most likely from a boss, connecting the dots from before, giving a reason for that lack of monsters nearby. He gave the two girls an option of whether to go and fight the monster right away in the lobby, or to wait a bit for their health to recover. Sunny had supported the choice of staying a bit before attacking, which to Valerie smiled softly to herself, thankful that the other Swashbuckler hadn’t lost her head over the excitement of the idea of a boss coming up. The Dancer nodded in agreement and looked around the room. None of the remaining furniture looked appealing enough for her to sit down on it. Most of them were dusty and breaking down from the nibbling of the rats, so the girl settled with sitting down on the ground. She eyed the wall carefully with her deep violet eyes, wondering if she would sit by the wall and lean against it, but shook her head and sat down where she was and stretched out her legs, and then the rest of her body, a habit that she had developed as a dancer in the real world, stretching whenever and wherever she could.



Words: 700
Shuwen Sunny

[Shuwen]

Words: 422

Both of them indicated that they’d rather rest a little bit and recover HP before moving on to face the boss. To be honest, Shuwen had gotten pretty hyped up over the fact it was apparently the final fight, and was a little disappointed by their decision. However, it made sense, so he didn’t complain.

Generally speaking, if one had no other way of recovering health in a game, relying on out of combat regeneration was not a bad idea. The only downside was that it took time, which was sometimes a limited resource, and tried the players’ patience. However, there was something important that all three of them had neglected to think about; it wasn’t a game any more.

They heard the roaring noise several more times, until it finally stopped. Shuwen could think of several possible reasons for this, most likely, the boss simply got tired of roaring at them and went back to sleep, or whatever it did when it wasn’t preparing to fight, however, the truth was quite different.

If one of them happened to have the Hearing Aptitude active, they might hear it coming. A soft crunching sound as bony feet carried it down the hallway. If they were particularly sensitive to such things, they might notice a small chill in the air as it neared them. But if they noticed neither of those things, they’d probably notice a skeleton swing around the door-frame leading from the hallway.

SPOILER: Click to show

{Spoiler}{Spoiler}{Spoiler - Click here to view}

It might have once been a part of something alive, but whatever things it had gone through had changed it greatly. The skull was warped and twisted into a grotesque expression. The bones had been infused with enough dark power to make them turn black. A soft, malevolent glow emitted from it’s empty eye sockets, and it’s fingers had curved and stiffened into the shape of cruel hooks.

The interface called it a “Miasmic Bonewalker” It was only level five, but had a “strong” ranking, indicating it would be a somewhat tougher fight then the previous ones, even if it was alone. That said, Shuwen was a bit puzzled by that. Aren’t bosses supposed to be stronger then this? The monster looked impressive, but it’s level and rank were nothing special, especially for a boss monster. Maybe it was only a sub or warm up boss?

“Feed it some beam Sunny.” Shuwen suggested. Just in case, he cast the Holy Aura priest skill on Sunny, who was probably going to be their main source of damage in the upcoming fight.

[Sunny]

Sunny’s opinion on their next move wasn’t opposed by her teammates. As a matter of fact, Valerie took it upon herself to actually sit on the floor to rest. The Ritualist definitely saw the appeal in that. In fact, up until now, she wasn’t fully aware of just how out-of-shape she was. What was that idiom? Something about feet barking or something? Ah well! She’d remember it some other time. For now, she considered following Valerie’s example and parking it right there on the dusted floor. In real life, she was an avid fan of volleyball and stayed pretty healthy. After being stuck in a game and just not having the heart to do anything at all, her body had gotten used to the sedentary lifestyle. It sure wasn’t being shy about letting her know what it thought of all this ghost-hunting business.

So Sunny squatted on the ground, sighing as the action slightly relieved her aching leg muscles.

The relief of rest didn’t last long, though. The roaring below grew quiet. No big deal about that, Sunny didn’t think, but there was something in the air that didn’t feel quite right. She wasn’t the paranoid type, but the Swashbuckler suddenly felt very. . .unsettled. She couldn’t quite pin-point the reason for it until the reason practically waltzed into the room with the Adventurers. Sunny jolted from her perch, studying the creature’s stats as she felt for her guns and gauged her own.

Oh yeaaah! Here we go!

The Ritualist nodded at the Monk’s proposal –“Aye-aye, Cap’n”- , grinning wildly as an Aura glowed softly about her. She was curious to the effects of such a skill but would have to remember to ask later. Right now, she had a little something for the skeleton. Holy Banishment was fired.

---

words: 299
Shuwen
Valerie

[Valerie]

The Dancer was resting contently on the ground when Sunny also lowered to the ground, squatting and sighing as they all rested for a bit. The girl’s dark violet eyes sparkled with amusement at the other girl. It was normal that most level one players would be at least a bit tired after a fight, not to mention that the ranged fighter had been running away from a monster a few minutes ago. Valerie’s mind began to wander as the roaring from the hall called out to them, a dangerous invitation to the Adventurers’ supposed death. The girl simply sighed, inwardly groaning and cursing the monster. Someone’s impatient to die. The girl thought darkly, the idea of dying in this fight never occurring to her. The girl had mentally calculated the odds for their possible fight. Most of the monsters they have encountered were maximum level 5 monsters and with Shuwen having his level lowered which could easily be changed back to his normal level if things went bad, assuming that the trio could not handle it without Shuwen being at his normal level.

As the roaring stopped, a small grin twitched on Valerie’s face which she hid by ducking her head and letting her hair veil her face from her other companions. The room dropped a few degrees as skeleton came into view from the hall. The monster went by the name of Miasmic Bone Walker, a level five monster, the supposed boss of this quest. If it was, Valerie wasn’t too impressed. She liked the idea of a giant rat monster, but that could probably be bad for her fellow Swashbuckler who had froze up a bit when she spotted the ratmen. The Dancer shrugged inwardly and hopped to her feet, her hands drawing out her twin daggers. Better that everyone can fight this monster, than have it my way and only have two fully functioning members in the party. Valerie reasoned with herself before she scanned over the monster.

The Miasmic Bonewalker was almost a mix of the skeletons they and fought at the entrance and a Black Essence. With black bones, the monster almost disappeared into the shadows, but the dark glow that the monster radiated prevented it from being completely hidden. At cruel and maniacal expression was on the face of the skeleton, reminding her of a monster she had previously encountered in Snowdonia, Avon with a level 43 female Heretic. The monster bore the name of Malicious Snowman and was a level 45 monster. It was a drastic difference compared to a Jolly Snowman which was a happy, small snowman. It was similar to how the Miasmic Bonewalker was a twisted and more dangerous version of the skeletons in the yard.

Anyhow, back to the fight at hand. The girl darted to stand beside the Monk but on the other side of Sunny, almost like they were guarding the ranged Swashbuckler from the monster, but gave the girl enough space to fight and shoot. The Dancer gripped her weapons tightly and lowered herself a bit toward ground, steadying herself for either to defend or spring toward the monster. She watched the Monk has a spell on the Exorcist, causing the girl to glow. Probably a spell that enhances attacks or defence. Either way, it is probably for the best way to go about this. The girl thought to herself, nodding to herself as she realized what he had done. The Swashbuckler shot a beam of light toward the monster and Valerie carefully watched the Miasmic Bonewalker’s health bar, hoping that it would go down enough that only a second use of that skill will be needed. During the previous fight with the Black Essences, the cooldown time for that skill was painfully long, approximately 10 seconds, give or take. Valerie bit her lip and watched the Monk out of the corner of her eye. If he made a move to attack, so would she.


Words: 660
Shuwen Sunny