Hunting Dinner [People who said they wanted to]

[Jane]

Jane edge carefully through the underbrush as she approached her target, her Silent Move ability stopping even the bushes she brushed against ever so slightly from making any noise. It was moments like this that the little guardian wished she had the invisibility skill her subclass gave to go along side this, but for now she just had to stick to the shadows and try her best to avoid the sight of the lower level mobs as she approached . Her target - a Pitted Boar that has brought its young to the forest to eat. The younger ones didn't drop nearly as much material as she wanted so the guardian figured her best bet was to sneak past the weaker mobs and go straight for the prize. Either she was going to get something worth enough money that she could sell it for dinner tonight, or she would come home with some meat someone else could cook.



It was just a little further along, all the chibi guardian had to do was get to the top of this hill, where the parent was, and taunt it away from its children to avoid a great big bundle of aggro. It shouldn't be too hard to pull off, most things around here were lower level, so she'd be able to deal with them even if that happened, but she was here to get food, not fight all these boar. Step by step, slowly moving in her heavy armour, Jane would soon reach the crest of the hill, now only needing to edge her way down the opposite side where the mobs weren't spawning. Some sort of ranged weapon would probably do wonders here, but all she had were her skills, mainly the taunt, and her spear.



Once in position Jane would release a taunting shout, saying something about the quality of the boar's brain and tusks being equal, then braced herself behind her shield. If all went to plan, she would soon have a large boar charging her way, only to charge right into the wall of defence she had set up to deflect it. Of course, things never did seem to go to plan in the end, so while Jane was waiting for the tusks for brains to appear, she was absentmindedly wondering what would go wrong this time.


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[Deleted]

Cherry held a strong fondness for the forest, especially those found in video games. The imaginations of those responsible for designing the environments of video games almost always far surpassed anything nature could pull off. Giant trees aplenty, flowers radiating beauty in a perpetual bloom, and even a few plant-based wildlife (alongside your typical forest critters) made the forests of so many movies and video games far more appealing than those found in the real world. The Windsor Greatwood found inside Elder Tale was no different. As an added bonus to boot, she actually got to explore this one for real.

Doing just that, Cherylene--or rather, Princess Lollipop, as she was known here--had found herself near a small clearing currently occupied by a large boar and her young. She knew that a lot of the monsters in the forest were hostile if provoked--some being just plain hostile--so she decided to stay back a bit and simply watch them. Given her low level and that fact that she was using a healing and support class, she knew that if she caught the attention of the mother boar, she wouldn't stand a chance should it decide that protecting her young was necessary. She knew the forest could be dangerous, but found it much to compelling to go out and explore to stay in the safety of Londinium for too long. Besides, she didn't really mind hanging back and watching. The little boars were far too cute to harm anyway, real or not.

As she squatted down in the underbrush, her scythe lain across her knees and her elbows braced upon it, she barely noticed a bit of movement in the brush across the clearing. She would have missed it had she not been staring at a baby boar standing just perfect for it put the brush right in her line of sight. She figured it was just another boar that had wondered into the brush to find a bug or some fallen forest fruit, deciding to ignore it when the mother boar suddenly moved toward the brush. It moved in a way that seemed more alert than she had seen it before, though it didn't seem riled up or angry. It peered cautiously into the brush, just as Cherry now did, but its attention seemed to waver every now and then, as if it was deciding that everything was a normal as it had been five seconds ago.

An assumption by both Cherry and the boar that was about to be proven wrong.

Words: 425
#AAF9FD

[Deleted]

Long strands of blonde dangled down between the branches and leaves, wavering gently in the slight breeze. The source of the golden locks was just barely visible, a few feet up in the air, resting on a perfectly shaped tree branch. The small woman yawned, her hand reaching up to cover her mouth as she did. Displayed in front of her were several screens with pictures and lists which she appeared to be reviewing. One page appeared to be recipes of sorts, with the necessary items and quantities listed out in neat lines whereas the other seemed to be her current inventory. Green eyes flipped back and forth between the two, noting the differences. As she neared the end of her list, a quiet rustle beneath her caught her attention. Curious, she peered down between the green foliage. It wasn't an area where high leveled monsters were known to spawn so she wasn't all that concerned, but it was still best to keep an eye on the surroundings, just in case. She pushed aside a small branch to get a better view. Beneath her, staring intently at something, was a girl. She had light blue hair and was wearing the basic gear of a new player. She followed her stare, seeing a small family of boar grazing nearby. The mother boar seemed occupied in something as well but she couldn't quite see what.

From behind the blue haired girl there was another shifting of the brush. Artemisia's emerald eyes moved from the girl to the area behind her, squinting to get a better look. The branches shifted again and a snout briefly peeked out, sniffing heavily at the air. Catching the scent of the girl only a half dozen feet away, it prepared to charge, the nose dipping down slightly. The girl beneath her did not react to the obvious threat behind her. Artemisia was neither an acrobat or any other class which allowed her increased agility but, she acted on impulse, barely even thinking her movements through. The branch she was resting on was not that far up off the ground. Twisting her small body, Artemisia stretched herself down towards the ground, her thighs tightly wrapping around the branch to support herself. With her attention off of them, the displays she had been reviewing earlier poofed into non-existence.

The Sorceress arms wrapped around the girls frame, hooking under her arms, and yanked her up just before the larger boar bolted through. Its hooves pounded over the ground exactly where the inexperienced adventurer had been kneeling. It continued on into the clearing, where it stopped and looked around, confused and angry. If she had to guess, this would be the father to the young in the clearing. Dangling there upside down, her blonde pigtails reaching almost the whole way to the forest floor, Artemisia held the girl a few feet off the ground. “Um, hi...” She said a bit awkwardly, the two girls faces quite close together. Surely this girl had not expected to be suddenly hoisted off the ground. As Artemisia was about to explain that she was not assaulting, but saving her, something unfortunate happened... the grip her legs had on the tree branch loosened. Artemisia lifted her chin to try and see while attempting to hold on but her class simply wasn't intended for this.

Only a moment later, her grip completely came loose. As best as she could, Artemisia twisted her frame, pulling the younger girl over top of her so she would take the small impact from falling. The blondes back smacked into the forest floor with a loud thump, several dead and fallen leaves fluttering away from the impact. A second force pushed down on her, causing the air to rush out of her lungs for a moment. If they hadn't seen her before, the adult boars certainly knew where she was now. Immediately following the impact there was a soft, warm pressure against her lips. Feeling slightly dazed, Artemisia slowly opened her eyes. She could feel the weight of the girl on her stomach and chest but she had not expected this to happen... such a thing didn't actually happen did it? Artemisia's face tinted a light pink as her eyes, slightly crossed to look down, took in the sight of her lips locked with this girl she had just met. Somehow, she wasn't sure if she had helped any or simply embarrassed herself in her attempt to be cool. “Are you okay?” She asked, clearing her throat awkwardly once she had turned her face to the side.

--
Notes: Okay, like I said I was going to take a little bit of a liberty here. Let me know if you have any problems with it. I didn't explain it well but basically Artemisia hung down upside out of the tree and scooped Princess up so the boar would charge right underneath her. And then they fell with Artemisia trying to make it so Princess would land on top of her.
Words: 765
Tags: @pollipop, Jane

[Jane]

So far so good, Jane seemed to be making progress without downfall. The mother boar was approaching, the piglets were ignoring her and all seemed well in Janetown. So why was she convinced something was going down? The little guardian edged back slowly once the boar was onto her, the taunt in effect and her wanting to avoid attracting any more attention, until she had flatter, stable footing. Then, boar still closing the distance with a charge, she planted her shield in front of her and braced her spear, ready to accept the charge. It was a fun little tactic that Cedric had picked up from his time as a DM, planting a spear or other pole arm before a charging opponent meant their own momentum increased the damage they would take when they inevitably impaled themselves. It wasn't used that often, but then again how many good things in most games were missed because of people's desire to minmax?

As expected the plan worked. The boar, so enraged by her taunt, didn't even think about the situation it was charging into and took a solid spear to the head, followed by a resounding clang as its head hit Jane's shield. Sadly, and Jane should have known this from some books Cedric had read before, boars had thick skulls, and even a boar in a game like this seemed to follow that logic. Her attack left a sharp cut in its forehead, the spearhead doing that much, but it didn't penetrate the skull or do anything effective like that. It did do a nice chunk of the boars hitpoints however, and that was good enough.

As soon as her arm stopped throbbing from the reverberating hit the board did to her shield, Jane would slam it forward, performing a Shield Smash right to the face, stopping the boar's follow-up attack and making it stagger. This was followed by a few more sharp jabs with her spear, aiming for its unprotected side and ribs, trying to slip through its natural muscle and fatty defences to pierce its heart. It didn't exactly worked as planned, but it did whittle away at the boar's health some more. Jane grinned to herself, hoping that it would be a few more hits, with minimal damage to herself, before she'd have her dinner.

Of course, that's when something had to happen. Though it was far away, Jane was listening to the world around her with her Hearing Aptitude skill, in an effort to avoid being ganked by other mobs, and it let her pick up on the sound of someone falling. There was a slight sound of human language too, though she was hearing more of the blood pumping in her ears over any actual words. There was also the sound of another boar, which made her want to turn and immediately approach. If it was a newbie, running head first into that horde of wild animals, they'd probably need a hand. But that would leave her food unmolested, and her belly unfilled.

Turning her head between the current boar and the sounds, Jane decided she'd have to go with both. Edging away from the boar, but not enough to drop aggro (or make her want to drop her shield) Jane sent another taunt its way just to make sure it didn't leave, then started dashing that way, hoping not to have to swoop in at the last second to save some poor person that was in danger. It would take her a few moments to arrive on the scene, boar still on her tail, leaving Jane half a second to take it in before she had to turn around again and stop her charging dinner from harming her. A few more jabs at the eyes/side and the boar would almost be dead, but Jane was a little too distracted by the people she'd found to focus on the job at hand.

"I hope I'm not inter- ugh, -upting!"

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[Deleted]

Cherry continued to watch things unfold in the clearing, still hidden behind her little bush as she looked on. The mother boar continued to edge cautiously toward the opposite bush, its full attention focused solely on the potential task of protecting her young. Cherry was almost as certain as the boar was that something or someone occupied that bush, and she waited with bated breath for whatever was coming next. In fact, her own attention was just as focused on the scene before her as the boar's was on her own task.

Of course, forgetting one's surroundings in an unfamiliar environment was never a rewarding circumstance. Without any sort of warning, Cherry was suddenly hoisted up into the air. She cried out as surprise quickly evolved into fear, not knowing what was happening nor what was going to happen to her in the near future. Was she being attacked, kidnapped? This question did not go unanswered for long, however. Just as she was being hoisted off of the ground, she heard the thump of hooves beneath her. She looked down in time to see a large boar come rushing out of the bush behind where she had just been crouched down. She had not been aware of this other boar, which looked a fair bit larger and fiercer than the mother boar she had been watching. Her thoughts began to process, and it didn't take her long to realize that whatever had just happened to her, it may well have just saved her life.

She eventually raised her eyes, staring into the face of another girl, who only offered an uncertain greeting. Cherry found herself dangling a few feet above the forest floor, the other girl's arms hooked under hers as she held her aloft. Their faces were rather close together and Cherry soon felt a bit embarrassed. She felt herself turning read as she tried to return a greeting in this awkward situation. "Oh...h-hello...?"

It was at least clear to Cherry now that this girl had just saved her from potentially gruesome attack by a rather mean-looking boar. She was grateful for the help, but just as she was about to express this, she felt her body weight shift. It seemed gravity was deciding to rear its ugly head as the girl who had saved her slipped free from the tree, causing them both to tumble to the ground. Cherry cried out, but the other girl was quick in her thinking. She felt herself being wrapped up in this girl's arms just before they crashed onto the forest floor. She felt her full weight collide into the other girl, sandwiching her between herself and the leafy underbrush. She heard the leaves crunch and flutter around them, some of them falling into her back and into her hair. She also heard the girl beneath her exhale hard as Cherry fell atop her. What happened next, however, was completely outside her reasonable expectations. As they collided with the ground, her body pressed into the other girl's, her face also collided with hers, causing her lips to press against hers. It was by some miracle their heads didn't smash together, but she almost wished it had. She wasn't sure if Adventurers could lose consciousness from a blunt force blow to the head, but she certainly wished that very thing had happened.

Cherry's eyes widened as she took in what had just happened, pulling her face away from the girl's quickly and looking away. Her face turned beet red as the girl asked if she was okay, seeing in the corner of her eye that she too had looked away, probably just as embarrassed. Cherry stammered over her words as she tried to reply. "I'm f-f-f-fine!" She was barely able to get the words out, finally deciding she should probably remove herself from atop this other girl, lest anyone get any weird ideas. Not that she thought anyone was looki---

Oh no...

She had completely forgotten about what she had been doing previously. Her mind went back to the mother boar and her interest in the bush on the other side of the clearing. Just as she began considering the possibility that another adventurer may have just seen this little incident, she heard the shuffling of feet and the grunts of a very agitated boar. Hearing the voice of someone else entirely, she looked up to see another girl, spear and shield in hand, asking if she had been "interrupting" anything. She stared at the girl, face still beet red, and nearly assumed the fetal position.

Welp. That was it. Her life was over. Time to find the off switch.

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Jane @sugarygiggles

[Deleted]

The young Druid, although the Sorcerer was yet unaware of her name or any other personal information, processed what had happened quite quickly, taking only a moment for it to sink in that she had just become quite intimate with a random Adventurer in the forest. It was Artemisia's first kiss since coming to this world and she had to assume it was most likely this girls, as well. From the corner of her eye, as her head was still turned to look more at the ground than the girl, she could just barely see the blue haired girls face turning a bright shade of red. Stuttering and scrambling for her words, she managed after a little effort to reply that she was fine and uninjured, to which Artemisia felt a bit of relief. Unfortunately, she couldn't say the same for herself. Her green eyes moved to the top left corner of her vision where an HP and MP bar permanently displayed her status. She wrinkled her nose slightly at what she saw – a chunk of her health was missing. Her class was not known for being all that sturdy and typically was referring to as “squishy”. She didn't have much health compared to other, more tanky classes and the health she did have was quickly depleted from even the smallest things. At least she had a ton of mana and long range attacks. There was a tiny number indicting her slow but steady health regen. It would take some time before it fully replenished without the aid of a spell or potion but she wasn't low enough to feel she was in any immediate danger.

Setting aside, for a moment, her diminished health bar status, she felt the weight of the girl on top of her shifting as she apparently decided to remove herself from atop the higher leveled Sorcerer. With the weight lifted, air returned to the girls lungs and filled her body with a fresh wave of oxygen. For a moment, she wondered if she even needed to breathe – she had never tested it herself but she had assumed it was necessary, she was alive in this world... so far as she knew, at least. She coughed once, feeling a twinge as her lungs expanded inside her bruised torso. Her back was definitely going to be stiff for the rest of the day. Behind her, she heard a crunch, much too heavy to be that of the boar she had just saved the Druid from, followed by the sniffling and snarling of said creature. Her fox ears twitched and swiveled back as a new voice entered the scene. The blonde propped herself up on her elbows before quickly jumping to her feet. She already didn't look very cool after falling out of the tree, she didn't want to worry this girl by making her think she was injured, even if she was. Artemisia took her fingers and pulled them through her long golden locks, fanning out each of her pigtails in a dramatic fashion. “Ah, no, you didn't interrupt anything. Just a little failed practice in seeing if I could unlock the Acrobat subclass for myself,” She said with a smile, attempting to smooth over the incident. “Although perhaps I would be better suited pursuing the Courtesan occupation?” Artemisia mused, glancing back at the humanoid tomato still curled up on the forest floor. She was covered in leaves and seemingly experiencing some sort of denial or trauma from what had happened. “... Or maybe not?” She laughed at herself and shook her head. “I suppose I'll stick to what I'm good at,”

She pointed her staff, which she had just recalled from her Inventory, behind the second girl to arrive on the scene, another blonde. “Orb of Lava!” She channeled the mana necessary to cast her spell and, after a moment, a small fireball shot out of the end of her staff, hurling towards the boar which was preparing to charge again. It bounced from the almost defeated boar to the one with full health, quickly depleting the firsts HP to zero and knocking a sizable chunk off the second. The second was the male boar, which she had pulled the girl away from earlier and it was a bit higher in level than the female, which was now dispersing into little bubbles, off to be re-spawned at some later point, she figured. A chunk of boar meat appeared in her inventory as her prize for delivering the final blow to the creature. “I'll let you have the other one, since I believe you were also hunting the creature,” She said to the Guardian, turning her attention back to the Druid who was still crumpled up on the floor.

The blonde knelt down on the dirt in front of the girl, although she kept a small distance between them. For a moment, her own cheeks threatened to glow again as she recalled the soft sensation of this girls lips against her own. Swallowing forcefully, she managed to keep her embarrassment in check. “I'm sorry if I startled you,” She said soothingly, “My name is Artemisia, what's your name?” Perhaps if they weren't strangers to each other, the incident would be less awkward for both of them. “I really don't mean you any harm, though. Will you let me apologize by making you dinner with this boar meat I just got? It's best when you cook it right away, after all,” She offered another smile. "Um, you've got some leaves in your hair, by the way..." She didn't think it would be a good idea to just reach out and pick them out, given that it was very likely this girl was afraid of her now.

--
Notes: : ) Dinners on Artemisia, haha.
Words: 957
Tags: Jane, @pollipop

[Jane]

Jane couldn't think of anything to do than frown at the whole situation unfolding before her, clearly that taller girl was taking it a lot worse than the blond, who seemed to hop up from it as though this was all part of her regular day to day, she even when so far as a hair flick, which would probably give the wrong image to someone more impressionable. The little guardian's eyes slid between each girl, noting the very different demeanours expressed as each was taking to the situation at hand, before slowly nodding to herself in a mysterious way that probably looked like she was judging someone. "Well, okay then. I'll just..."

Deciding to turn her back on the situation and get back to actually feeding herself for once, Jane raised her spear to finally finish the hunt, only for a sudden fiery spell to go flying past her head, barrelling into the beat and destroying it before she even had a chance. "But my... dinner." Jane lamented, staring blankly into the bubbles that was once the creature she was hunting. "I worked so hard for it. I was so close... Now what will I eat?"

Luckily the answer was right next to her, the other boar squealing in distress at its lost mate, before attempting to start a charge at the Sorcerer for its revenge. "Stupid pig, you're ugly and covered in warts!" Jane taunted half heatedly, distracting and luring the beast over to her so she could wack it with her shield and whittle the remainder of its health down with her spear, before it too finally disappeared into a cloud of experience and gold, her meal ticket finally appearing for her after all. It only took an extra half a minute or so, but it was still annoying!

Finally waddling over to the other girls, one of which was still as bright as a beet, she slammed her shield down indignantly and sighed. "If you're capable of cooking then I hope that offer extends to me too. I guess it's my fault for not finishing what I was in the middle of, but it's still annoying." She announced, easing her gauntlets off each of her hands for comfort before popping them away so they weren't a distraction before pulling out her newly obtained meat and giving it a once over to try and figure out how good a cut it was. "I'm Jane by the way, who's your girlfriend?" she asked offhandedly, half wanting to be mean and half expecting it to turn out to be true.

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