Training can be a drag... [Open]{Mentor}

[Titus]

Breath in, breath out. Slicing smoothly with the katana in his left hand in front of himself, aiming to bisect an imaginary opponent. Breath in, breath out. The crystal ball whirled about his body, being directed by little twitches from his right hand. His eyes snapped about as his simulated opponents swept about him. With a blink of magic he appeared a few feet from his prior position, high in the air from a jump. Slicing down towards the ground with his sword, a wave of air flying from his blade, crashing into the ground beneath him, sending up a blast of dust. Landing smoothly Titus snaps his head up, the simulated opponents not being fully dead just yet. Diving forwards he swings his sword home, the crystal ball spinning about him coming about to smack his opponent to the ground. With the final slash the opponent dispels from his mind. With a huff he sheathes his blade, the crystal ball stowing into his inventory with a snap.

"Warm up, complete."


Shaking his head a touch to clear it he leans back at an angle, cracking his back to relieve some imaginary stress. It was an odd habit he had to admit, in this world the only pain he felt was in combat, otherwise it wasn't often to feel pain in other situations. He had been curious at the start, the only thing he had learned from watching other players die was that you couldn't. Well you could die in a manner, though you would soon respawn as if nothing had happened back at the cathedral. The amount of health and mana that he lost during combat did effect him in an interesting fashion though. Such as his mana being low, he would actually experience shortness of breath, as well as overall exhaustion. And the lower his health bar got, the more pain and aches he would feel across his body. So he had taken to doing this before combat, a warm up so to speak. An exercise that would remind him of how his body could move in this world. Everything was different... he had made the transition rather badly till he came to terms with it. When the apocalypse had occurred he was at first enamored with the idea of this new reality. Unfortunately he went through some kind of depression, not feeling the need to do anything, even though this world was everything he had hoped it could be. It wasn't till literally a person of the land took pity on him, literally forcing him to be helpful and move about. Titus worked in town as a bar tend, and slowly he came back to life. Seeing the people happy and adventuring before him everyday, learning their stories and names it made him... happy. Gradually he himself started to venture out of town, finally having the courage to be himself, to be free in this new world. Now sitting down just outside of town on a bench, a small sign next to his head where he lay across the bench.


"Looking for someone that wants to grind Lvl 1 - 5 mobs, am a newb, you have been warned."


Sleeping quietly next to the sign, Titus enjoyed the warm sun that washed across him, making his nap all the more pleasant.

Word Count: 553

[Luiniel]

With Halloween fast approaching things were starting to become quite interesting around Londinium. Not only were many adventurers in high spirits due to the festivities, there were also reports of some pretty nasty monsters outside the gates. Normally the newbie zone was a safe haven where they could train; yet even at low levels some of these creatures had some pretty devastating skills. It seemed like it almost required a party to even walk outside of the door these days. Gathering her gear, she made sure to re-equip everything she had removed only an hour early when she decided to take a break from slaying.

From where she normally hung out it was only a short walk towards the gates of town. Yet on her normal walk today she would find that something interesting awaited her on the path way. Lately she had been alone; everyone in the guild was either inactive or scattered to lands that she had no idea how to reach on her own. It was a frustrating feeling to be so utterly cut off and have no idea what to do on your own. 

As she walked past a small section of benches, she almost missed it. It wasn't exactly attention grabbing to see a sleeping person outside in this game. Many people seemed to take a nap in odd places at their own risk. Coming to a halt, the blonde samurai wandered on over when she noticed that he had a sign floating next to him.

Looking for someone that wants to grind Lvl 1 - 5 mobs, am a newb, you have been warned.

Luiniel didn't even have to consider what she was going to do next as she was so bored. Taking one of the katana's off of her belt, she gently prodded the sleeping magi with the end of it. Of course it made her feel like some sort of barbarian but she had no other method of waking him so she went with what she knew.

"Excuse me. Do you need a hand still?" she asked while she prodded.

347

[Titus]

Titus snoozed as Luiniel walked up to him, the warm sun and the cool breeze mixed to keep him in his deep nap. A prodding from an unknown source caused Titus to stir, with a small huff he shifted slightly as if to avoid the prodding sword. As he shifted, his sleepy mind not taking into account his whereabouts Titus fell from the bench with the thump as he rolled over.

"Gahh!!!"

With a yell Titus clutched his head, which had impacted the ground first as he fell, rubbing at the bump he was sure was already forming. Squinting his eyes as he looked up at the prodding person his vision readjusting to the sun. As Luiniel came into focus Titus blinked his eyes a few more times before being fully awake.

"Dang. What's up with waking up somebody like that eh?"

Pushing himself back to standing Titus dusted himself off, swipe his hand at the small floating sign that had been hanging next to him. With a huff he took another look at Luiniel, a bit miffed still but happy to finally be disturbed by someone.

"Well I am guessing you saw the sign and have at least some interest, that is unless you merely enjoy waking up sleepy adventures at your convenience?"

A small grin appearing on his face as he spoke and holding out a hand to shake he stood there, the other hand behind his head a bit bashfully. The afternoon sun glinted off the sword at his side as well as shading his face a bit. It was a nice a day as any that one could hope for in October.

"In any event I'm Titus! You are?"

Word Count: 283

[Luiniel]

After prodding him for several moments she began to believe he would never wake up. That was until there was literally an explosion of movement from him as he was startled awake. Lu watched with mild amusement, a smirk present on her lips as he sat bolt upright and looked around for whatever was messing with him. Crossing her arms, she stared him down for a moment as if she was trying to look through him to his core. There was a serious look in her eyes, that was until she burst into laughter.

"That's why it is not a good idea to take a nap in public." she teased. As he sat up he made room for her to sit down which she did without asking for an invite. With a sigh she leaned back and listened to the man talk, he seemed like an alright person. His reaction to be startled awake was much nicer than her own would have been but she was quite okay with that. 

"I did see your sign. Seems you're looking for a bit of help and what good timing too! There are some pretty nasty monsters out there due to the event going on." she said in a matter of fact tone. "You're probably going to want a hand killing them. You do however get some special items if you kill enough." she added, wagging her finger happily.

That was when she realized she had been a bit rude in forgetting to give him her name. "Oh, yeah, right. You can call me Lu. Rest of my names up top." she said pointing to the spot in the interface where it would say Luiniel. The rest of her information was left on public so he would be able to view her guild and the level of her main class. She hid her other classes as they were so low it was quite an embarrassment to a player like her.

"Are you waiting for others or do you want to chance it with the two of us? I'm alright with a duo." she said.

351

[Titus]

Titus almost laughed for a moment, before managing to stifle the action quickly. He realized how funny of a question of someones name was in this world, with their info hovering next to them all the time and all. It was probably just due to habit he guessed, even after being in this world for a while he still had many habits from his old reality. Glancing up at her info tag as she spoke, it flickered as it changed settings.. odd perhaps she modded it, in any event reading her level as well as class revealed to him that she was a much more experienced player then him. He wondered if all the old normalizers from the game applied in this new Elder Tale as well. In any event this should be fun to finally find someone to grind some mobs with.

"Good to meet you Lu, and I didn't know there was an event an event going on, I am guessing it is for Halloween?"

Looking at the golden brown leaves that had replaced the green colors of summer it reminded him of home, but that was another story. Rising from the bench with a smile and a nod he turned to look at her, motioning for her to come.


"Duo works for me if that is fine, I really just want to get out in the field and get to work. I really should be hard leveling as it is, so your help would be much appreciated."

Looking down the path that led away from the town entrance where they were, out to the field zones. He would need to start in the lowest level zone, though he wondered if Lu would mind. Her level was a lot higher than his own, perhaps this would be harder than he thought.

"Well Lu, where should we start then? I can probs handle level one to five, or maybe a touch higher. But level twenty plus mobs will be a bit much for me right now. If you know a good starting zone could you point it out for me?"


Word count: 351

[Luiniel]

The samurai nodded slowly in reply to his question. He caught on quick enough, most seemed to have no idea what day it was. Standing along side the guy, she placed her katana parallel to the other on her hip and dusted herself off. Truth be told it had been a long while since she even drew her blade to fight anything. It was probably like riding a bike in this world; when you made the right movement the system aided. Still she worried about her tactics more so than her sword arm.

"Don't worry about the levels. I'm here more for the kill credit than anything. If you kill enough of these monsters you get a reward." she said with a grin. Plus she did not mind helping lower level players even if she would not admit that to anyone else who asked. It might have seemed from time to time she was lazy and uninterested but truth be told she just never found that one thing that motivated her to act.

Scurrying to catch up to him, she fell into step beside him as she thought about what they might find out there. "I know for a fact that some of the monsters have ridiculously low activation times for the skills. There is one in particular that can rapid fire throwing knives." she said. Of course she mentioned this without realizing that he was new and that information might be a bit overwhelming.

"Of course I can soak the hits so long as we are quick in bringing them down. That shouldn't be a problem for a sorcerer no matter what level." she added. She would do her best to cover him and make sure he did not experience the cold hard floor of the cathedral. Lu had already been there once and she had no desire to ever return to the land of the dead in Elder Tale.

"I'll work with five. You just scout them out and drag them back to us. They will ignore me even if I stand on top of them at this point." she added. Opening up the interface she tabbed through her skills really fast as a refresher course. "Once you have their focus, they will come for you. When they get close I will activate my challenge and taunt them on to me." she stated.

395

[Malakath Grimm]

Malakath entered where apparently a sorcerer was making a shambles of training with a samurai and sat down. Looking carefully at them he arrived just as they were talking about going to a low level zone. Malakath knew that he needed to grind if he wanted to level up at all and he was about to say something before the samurai and the sorcerer began to walk and talk towards the mob zones.

Malakath ran briefly to catch up with them and then stopped shy of bumping into the samurai with a bit of a sliding motion. Looking at them both a bit sheepishly he said "L-Look, I'm Malakath, no one seems to like heretics very much but I was wondering if you two would let me come with you? Sorry it just seems that no one wants to be friends with me yet". Malakath stood there prodding his indexes together awaiting an answer, assuming they even turned around, since he closed his eyes thinking he was gonna hit the girl and then was looking at the floor the whole time.
"I'm only level 1 and I only have one pure offense spell but I can immobilize and heal too. Also I know it's not really appropriate for me to suggest but wouldn't it be easier for both of you if you lower your level to 10 if you are going to a low level zone. Since mobs ignore you if you are too high for them to fight normally?"

The words he spoke were true but again he had a problem where he had a lot of tactical thoughts running through his head but also a bit of a motormouth. As well as being very shy towards anyone who would actually hold a conversation with him. At least early on. But once you got to know him he was generally alright. Standing there nervous and sheepishly. A heretic with a level of 1 was prodding his fingers together and awaiting an answer. The silence creating to him what felt like a void of emptiness as if nobody would ever want to associate with him.

Word Count: 355

[Titus]

"Then worry I shall not."

A small smile on his face as he spoke, this was going to be fun, though it would be his first time facing an opponent in this world. He had been staying in town, not willing to leave it, but eventually he had started training outside in order to grow more used to it. Now finally actually heading out was really quite awesome, Lu looked like she would be more than enough help as well... but the cathedral. He had never died in this world, at least not yet. Coming out of his thoughts as he heard her speaking about various mobs outside the city.

"I think the blade throwing ones would be the brier weasels, they can be a pain from what I remember. In any event that sounds good to me, I'll go drag a few and then we can go from there.... Uh... hi! Perfect Malakath right, nice. Lu Malakath, Malakath Lu. You can heal right, so you support her here while I drag a group to you. Nice, k one sec.

With a running start he jumps up to the low branches of a nearby tree, scaling it smoothly till he disappeared into the branches above. Poking his head up above the tree top, hanging on with one hand as he looked about. They had just arrived in the fields zone so this was a good as place as any to get a feel for the surroundings. You hear his voice calling out from the leaves of the tree above you.

"I can see a few boars as well as a brier and maybe a snake spread out ahead of us. Brier being the closest at forty meters, boars then snake the furthest at around sixty. I'll start with the snake and drag them all in!"

Tapping into his inventory Titus' crystal ball appeared in his right hand, tossing it into the air he set it floating about his body. Drawing his sword with his left and laying it across his shoulder as he took stock of the situation. With a grin he leapt off the top of the tree, flying/falling forwards towards the brier weasel(lvl.8), sprinting past the animal he saw its icon go from passive to aggro. Its red eyes following him before it snapped into pursuit. With leaps and jumps, dodging trees and the boars(lvl.5/6) next they aggrod as well, reaching the snake(lvl.5), he vaulted over its poison strike, smacking it on the head with his sword for a few points of damage. Lu and Malakath were now back a ways from him, and he had the group of mobs standing between him and them. With a laugh he sprints at the group, the brier weasel snapping its tail up sending spikes flying at him. The boars charged as the snake shot a poison burst.

"Hahaha!"

Enchanting his weapon with fragarach arms as he sprinted into the attacks, his body seemed to blink away, before reappearing a few meters behind the mobs, sending the blade of wind into their backs. Chunking their health as they all turned to follow him, now with some distance between them Titus sprinted like his life depended on it... funny, it did. Back towards Lu and Malakath, interesting name, calling out as he ran, glancing at his mana bar, noticing how it was already down a third.

"Incoming, I brought you guys presents!"

Arriving at her location where he thought she would be, bursting through the brush into a tumble landing behind her and Mal. The group of mobs close behind, unbeknownst to him another two brier weasels(lvl.9/8) had aggrod with the group. Leaving Lu now facing two boars(lvl.5/6) a snake(lvl.5) and three brier weasels(lvl.8/9/8), Titus taking a breather for a moment, trying to recover his mana asap. Looking at his statuses again revealed that his health bar was down by a quarter, guess he hadn't come out unscratched.

"Your turn now mates. Give me one second and I'll get right back in there."

Word count: 684
Order: Titus, Lu, Mal
Mentor bonus:1.25x (Luiniel) - will add bonus at end -

[Luiniel]

Before she could even reply to Titus the sound of foot steps came rushing upon them quick. Another adventurer showed up just as they were on their way out. There was a moment of hesitation as she looked him over, she figured out what it was instantly. Lu had already been at the mercy of NPC heretics before; in fact it was one of the first things to ever actually kill her. There was one in her guild that they were trying to save from the miasma but even him she did not trust.

Outwardly she kept her composure as she bowed to the newcomer. "Hello, Malakath. If you're going to be tagging along please be careful, I know some of your abilities tend to overtake your self control if you push yourself too far." she said. Or perhaps he was not anywhere near that point yet but she knew the class to be a double edged sword in this world. 

Lu would do her best to keep her apprehension in check, even going as far as to take his suggestion. They would receive more of the experience if she was closer to their level. Opening the interface once more she dropped her level. By the time she looked up from doing that Titus had long since run off to do exactly what she had told him to do. The only problem with that now was that things were about to get a hell of a lot more complicated.

As she finished a couple of boars came charging through the brush when Titus did. Not only boars came however as a snake and several briar weasels were in tow. Despite the over pull on his part the samurai did not seem to be frightened at all even if two of them almost matched her new level. So long as they were all careful they would make it out of this alive. Drawing her katana from it's saya, she moved in front of Titus and activated.. oh no she didn't have it anymore!

As combat was upon them she realized that she no longer knew samurai's challenge which was her only means of taunting the mobs. She would just have to do a ton of damage to them really quickly so that they didn't focus the others. That much she knew she could do at the very least. Activating [Ace Move: Denkosekka (Lightspeed)], lightning began to crackle around her body as she felt her base movement spread increase.

Chain one had begun with that ability and so now she was on to step two. Raising her blade above her head, she started to whirl the katana at rapid speeds as the wind around them started to twist violently. With each rotation it started to pull harder and harder until all of the mobs were grouped up in front of her. The skill [Ace Move: Mawarufuusen (Whirlpool Spin)] was a very useful trick to have in these situations.

Now came the final step in her combo, the ability that would give her a mighty threat lead. Holding her katana out before her, a blue aura started to swirl about it rapidly as if she was gathering energy. As she moved the blade over head, the blue aura followed until it solidified over the blade. This was the final chain in the combo she had started, [Ace Move: Seinaru Shinken (Divinity Slash)]. As the mobs focused her and hit her a few times, it would be a bad choice on their part.

There was a mighty crash as her sword fell to the ground and unleashed the energy. A bright golden light came forth in a focused shockwave attack in front of them. Due to her level, the attack would leave the levels 5's barely hanging on in the health department, the same for the level 6. The brial weasels however only lost just under a quarter of their life while her HP also dropped about 20%. 

As far as combos went that was all she had in her for the moment that would help this much. Samurai had deadly combos but the cooldown on the skills were quite lengthy. Hitting on of the boars now with an auto attack, art of the draw would boost it's power and finish it off. 

"I need a few moments for some cooldowns to do that again! Let's burn them and try to keep them busy!" she called to the rest of the team.

748

[Malakath Grimm]

Malakath grinned at the current scenario. He wasn't insane but the plan insanely worked. He quickly scanned the battleground. His scholar subclass sadly filling his screen with some sort of dithering about none of them having any weaknesses but it was the health thresh holds he was waiting on.

When the first level 5 boar was near death he removed his grimoire and said simply "Ashes to ashes little pig". Upon which a small white laserbeam shot from the open pages and through the boar. Causing it to whine and then disappear. The second boar couldn't be downed by his grimoire with the scribe passive however he had something else for that.

He turned to the second bull and rose his hand saying as ink like tendrils began to form a baseball sized ball of miasma he said aloud "[Miasma Bullet]!!" This fired the inky black ball at the boar and disappeared into it's eye, small drips of darkness fell from the socket as it also slumped.

He then looked around once more and asessed the situation. 5 Briar weasels, 2 unharmed and 3 with around 80% health left. As well as a snake that appeared to be lurking but was rapidly closing. It had camoflage but hadn't reactivated since Titus aggro'd the thing yet which was a relief. "[Shackles of the Sentenced]" With those words a long coil of chain shot out from his hand and began coiling around the snake ironically like a snake before anchoring itself to the ground. "Titus. I Need to focus on healing out tank. If you can get some of the pressure off from those briars and their ranged atacks the snake is immobile for 5 seconds."

Finally as he checked his cooldowns he saw he had one ability to use left and pointed a hand at the Samurai "Sorry but I'm giving you a little corruption. Also Health so don't worry please... [Tainted Charity]!" Due to her lower level her health rose much more than it should. About 22% by the look of it... But She was wary about corruption and he wasn't quite sure of it's effects himself. So he left it at the one and continued the fight.

"Look people! Don't try and fight something too high for you. Titus we need to take each weasel one at a time while Li tanks it. This is the safest and most efficient way to go considering our levels. Ok?". He didn't know if they liked having a tactician but he needed to be sadly. Since there were so many enemies it wasn't just a case of throwing things until they die, there were methods to this. "Li. Your damage divided between less targets will increase I believe. You could most likely strike these three for 30% of their health threshold. I will sustain you until then!". 

Malakath knew that Li could handle these easily at her higher level but he also knew that if Li was higher she could do damage but gain no threat leaving us to the mercy of the monsters. This was the most powerful this team could be given it's current restrictions of level. She would need to help us achieve something much higher. More to her level if we were to go further on in this new world.

Word Count 552

[Titus]

"Gotcha Mal."

He had been taking a breather behind Lu, and she had stepped up wonderfully to handle the mobs. Nearly one shotting the lower level boars, but the weasels were still very healthy, as well as the two unharmed ones in the back. Mal had dealt with the snake for now, they would mop it up after the bigger fish were dead. Yanking his sword from the ground where he had planted it he listens as Malakath goes over the plan. Titus had nothing wrong with someone calling out tactics, even preferred it to them just milling about. With a leap he sailed over Lu's head hitting the ground in front of the three 80% brier weasels.

"Fragarach Arms!"

Slashing his katana in front of the three of them the blade of wind sliced outwards, cutting into each of the three. Dropping each of their health bars respectively by another 25% leaving them around fifty. Then things went wrong, he had not predicted the level of aggro he would gain from chunking them each that much. Their aggro levels switched so fast he nearly was caught flat footed, the wave of flying spikes tore through the air towards him. Jumping to dodge was mostly successful but a smattering of spikes still caught him in the side, knocking the air out of him as he fell to the ground. He still had a job to do, being able to fire off spells more rapidly, slicing through the air at the group a second time another blade of wind ripped into two of them dropping them to about 25%. The third evaded, and another storm of spikes flew through the air, with a blink he disappeared, reappearing back by Lu and Malakath. Gritting his teeth through the pain of the hits he took a look at his health bar, just the few spikes that had hit him had dropped him to 20% health.

"I screwed up, haven't done this before, you're gonna need to take aggro again Lu! Hope your cooldowns are up!"

His mana bar was dangerously low, only 30% remained. Even though he could use so many spells in quick succession it cost him. Especially when he was at such a low level, dang he needed to be stronger. With no health or mana pots it would be up to Malakath to keep them healthy. Rising from the ground he glanced over his cooldowns, his spells were quickly coming back up, but another check at his mana poll told him at best he could blink as well as use Fragarach Arms one more time each. This was getting touchy, his eyes flicked about the area, hopefully nothing else showed up while they were dealing with this group.

"Call it out Mal! What's next?"

Slamming his sword point down in the ground as he rested, confident that Lu would be able to reaggro the group, giving him enough time to recover. This was it, the Elder Tale he remembered, the Elder Tale he had loved, and could feel himself falling in love with it again. His health was low, and dying was a possibility. Dying... he wondered what it was like in this world, hopefully he wouldn't find out today.

Word Count: 540

[Luiniel]

It seemed her attack hit home doing as much damage as she hoped for. Divinity slash was a pretty nice ability considering it had zero penalty aside from the activation time it took to use it. No matter how many enemies stood before her, the damage was not lessened. The sounds of combat rung out into the clearing as she parried the strikes of briar weasels. It was no small task either as they moved quite quickly. Despite their speed however she was able to counter with her own movement speed. 

So wrapped up in the battle was she that she barely heard what was going on. Something about not fighting things too high for you. Yet her gear was strong enough to allow her to hold out despite her level being dropped to ten. Right as she finished her own onslaught it seemed that Titus was ready to engage his own combo. Unfortunately the power of his abilities combined with Malakath's were enough to almost pull off of her.

"It's no problem, just be careful."she called out to the rest of her party. Though the only thing she truly had a problem with is the corruption she was about to receive from the heal coming her way. She braced herself for it as she felt it wash over her. Her health went up but it made her feel weird, a repulsive feeling due to her past experiences. "They're not but I have a few other abilities." she said.

As one of the briar weasels closed in, she activated [Ace Move: Kabuto-wari (Helm Splitter)] to deal an impressive amount of damage to her enemy. Once more she started the samurai chain of abilities that would cement her threat once more. Quickly after that she would use [Ace Move: Shunsen (Flashwave)] to cleave the incoming enemies and prevent them from being able to directly assault her. 

To finish the chain, she would end with [Ace Move: Tsurugi Bunshin (Blade Mirage)] which made several copies of herself. Lu would end it all with a few auto attacks just to ensure that she held all the threat she could for them. Her health dropped by another 10% or so but it was nothing she couldn't handle. 

"Don't worry about the threat, I have enough abilities to keep the threat generation rolling in. Let's consider finishing these up though." she said with a laugh. She was thoroughly enjoying herself in the moment.

409

[Malakath Grimm]

Malakath smiled as she kept up the threat generation. She seemed to be able to keep going for some time in spite of everything that was goon on around her ad in truth her sword styling was rather elegant and beautiful to behold. Probably due to the fact that she holds more control over her blade with two hands than that of the ally behind him.

Malakath placed a hand on Titus' shoulder and said lowly "Brace yourself friend. [Tainted Charity] he smiled as the healing wave washed over Titus but it only took him back up to 50% health to which Malakath frowned, squeezed his shoulder ad thanks to the spell having no cool down he said softly "[Tainted Charity]" once more. 4 points of corruption flowed into Titus, while not much if he has never been subjected to it before he would hear the whispers coming from the back of the mind.

Malakath looked at his MP and saw that because all og his spell so were moderate effect, low mana he was on about half. He pointed an open page at the briar weasel that was head racked and shot a small beam atit, which due to his Passover Aden to hunky the Walthamstow over rouglhly 5% then went for the other arm being raised "[Miasma Bullet!].

Slightly miscalculating. The Brair weasel was left with a pittance of health left and he took some thorns from its drawn aggro since his agility was too low. "Titus! Run, basic attack weakest! Fragrarch arms the rest, you won't generate that much hate and blink back here! You'll leave them weak enough for our samurai to finish then we just have a snake to deal with!".

Looking up to wear the snake should be. Malakath noticed it had gone from soght. No damage had been done and it engaged camoflage. "Snake is gone guys. We need to deal with these briars then back to back! The snake can come from anywhere and since your abilities don't reach that far Li I'll imagine I think one should hide Titus".

Final ovservations.
Malakath Grimm: 70% health
50% mana
Li: 60% health
Most abilities on cooldown
Titus: 80% health
30% mana
Enemies: Snake 100% health ( hidden)
5 briar weasels (1 @ 1% health, 3 at 30% 1 at 50%)

Outcome, hard fought victory.

Malakaths math knowledge was often near perfect however at times he was off by a few degrees. This was often his downfall but he wouldn't allow it to be the downfall of his friends also.

Word count: 427

[Titus]

Lu took over the mob group easily, quickly generating hate from them, allowing Titus to rest. Feeling a hand on his shoulder he twisted his head a bit to see Mal there, feeling a warm sense flow over his body he watched his health bar regenerate smoothly. The second wave of healing brought something different, the same warm feeling was there but something was hidden within it. Even as Malakath yelled out instructions it was almost as if he was hearing him over soft rustling. Whispers trailed into his mind, words that he couldn't comprehend, almost like something was draping itself over his mind as he was healed.

"What the....?"

Snapping back to reality Titus moved quickly, dodging past Luiniel he sped towards the weakest of the weasels. Slicing through it as he passed, its body glowed and then burst into light as well as a few coins. Skidding to a halt he swept his sword forwards again.

"Fragarach Arms!"

The blade of wind tore free of his sword, slicing into the last three weasels, chunking 25% of each of their remaining health bars. As he went through these motions Titus had been noticing another odd phenomenon, whenever he cast spells the tattoos on his body felt like there were coming alive... odd. Snapping out of his thoughts Titus rolled to the side, dodging a small return of spikes. It was obvious this time that he hadn't gained as much hate as before. But remaining the closest one to the weasels for much longer would change that. Leaping back and away from the three remaining weasels he blinked backwards mid leap, landing back next to Lu.

"I'll leave you to take care of them, Malakath easy with the healing, I have a corruption addition to my status. Just be careful with how many you add."

They nearly had this group cleaned up, Titus could see how they could do this better in the future. He was going to level like crazy to say the least, and get strong enough to actually be more of help in the group. He felt like this race and class had potential, but that he wouldn't feel it till he got more skills and some specific gear. But those were thoughts for another moment, right now it was time to grind these damn mobs and avoid going to the cathedral.

Word Count: 395

[Luiniel]

For a low level zone the battle sure was starting to become hard fought. Even with the enemy on deaths door step, she too was beat quite heavily. It had been a while since she saw her health go down anywhere near half so it came as a shock that it would happen here at all outside Londinium. A smirk spread across her face as she watched briar weasels dance back and forth as if they were waiting for some sort of signal to attack the trio. Sometimes the monsters here made absolutely no sense like they did when this was just a game.

Taking the slightly lull in combat, Luiniel re-sheathed her blade. Resting her hand on it, she lowered into a stance that would allow her to access her ability to quickly draw it. She still had threat on the enemy and so she was going to use her position to take care of it with a quick counter attack. It felt sort of like all of the anime she had watched back home.

As the mobs closed in, she gently slid the blade forward, unlocking it slightly from it's sheath. Only when they closed in and leapt did she spring into action once more. Drawing her sword, she gained a damage boost from the moment she drew it until the next swing landed. It did not take long for the weapon to find it's mark however as the steel bit the weasels flesh. "One down." she said with a short laugh. 

With one down, the others enraged and charged her. Luiniel dodged their basic attack by rolling out of the way and she stood out of her roll she would hack into another one. She would repeat these actions several times, chipping away at the weasel who's health sat at thirty percent. The other one was mostly ignored save for dodging it's attacks when she was able.

"Just jump in when you can. Watch for the claws." she said as she panted. It sucked that now she could feel the effects of all the combat. She missed being the eye in the sky who gave the avatar the commands. All she needed was about six more seconds and she could launch into her combo once more.

379

[Malakath Grimm]

Malakath nodded at Titus' request and then moved forward. Problem was that Luiniel was taking a beating "one more time shouldn't cause anything awful ... [Tainted Charity]". The miasma would envelop her and begin to close the wounds as her corruption counter rose to 4. He still wasn't sure if it effected different people in different ways but it was certainly odd for him having to learn exactly how frightening it was to people. Ultimately he was only doing this because she needed it but nevertheless it was strange being a healer no one wanted to have around.

He then turned his attention to the remaining two brier weasel and saw the one on low health was indeed far enough for him to miasma bullet and grimoire to death. So he got up off one knee and moved toward it. Shooting it with his grimoire, again by focusing power through it and a white laser coming out of the pages. Again the heretic raised his free hand and yelled "[Miasma Bullet!]" The actual brier wolf disintegrated into a black puddle due to it being killed with dark energies and he Looked hard at Titus "Get behind the brier weasel Titus, i'll make sure it wont bother you! [Shackles of the sentenced] he cried as he launched a chain that wrapped around the Brier weasel. Immobilising it in place for the next five seconds "Go Titus!" Malakath yelled ad he expected the sorcerer to attack the near full Brier Weasel. If both him and Luiniel would attack this brier weasel as fast as they could in the back. It's likely that the critical chance would increase and the damage would be higher.

There was still the issue of the snake though. It was still not visible. Probably trying to find the weakest link. To which Malakath just found out as a snake uncloaked and bit him hard in the leg, luckily his character had a high constitution to wane off the poison debuff because if that went into his system he would've needed to gain at least 8 corruption fighting off the poison damage. Kicking the snake away in the opposite direction he ran forwards, towards the immobilised Brier weasel and said "Lay into the Weasel, everyone NOW!!!"

Word Count: --- | Total Word count ---

[Titus]

Titus' eyes flicked across the situation, he was pretty healthy now thanks to Malakath. The voices in his head still whispered in the background as he looked over their statuses. It was a rather interesting effect due to being around a heretic.... curious, he wondered what benefits he could gain from working with a heretic class sorcerer. Sweeping up his sword he sliced it front of his body towards the three weasels that Lu had chipped down below thirty percent, allowing the blade of wind to smash two of the remaining four into particles and coins. Lu had been doing all the heavy lifting for this group, reminding him about how important it was to have someone that could tank in the group. He should at least be able to clean up when she asked him to, his eyes snapped back to Malakath as he heard him call out. His eyes catching sight of the snake biting Mal as he jumped away towards the group. With only two weasels left before them it was time to clean up with Lu, one was at 30% the other still at 50%. He had generated some hate from attacking but the blow had killed the ones he had generated the hate from. Diving into melee combat he sliced back and forth between the two remaining weasels, glad that his acrobatics carried him free from their counter attacks. Making sure to drag them closer together as he waited for Lu to make her move. Her burst damage he thought should be able to easily deal with these two as long as they were close to each other.

"You're up Lu! Mal I'll stick close to you till while she handles these last ones. That snake could be waiting for another moment to attack."

Looking over his information granted him important information, his mana was gone, well at least it was to low for him to be able to use skills for a while. His passive regen was good for his class but it would take a minute or two till it would be high enough for him to be able to combo.

"Tch..."

This had been a good start to his time in the zones, but it was also teaching him quickly what it meant to fight. The feeling of the sweat on his brow, the danger from fighting, the thrill of killing. It was exhilarating to say the least... this world was full of new sensations and experiences. So much potential, so many people, Titus nearly laughed from the odd mix of emotions and dark whispers in his mind. It was insane in a fashion he supposed, this was a game that was now the reality. Something he had only thought happened in anime or manga was now his life.

"Hahaha! This is great!"

Jumping forward to join in combat next to Lu, deflecting a few spikes with his sword. His crystal ball swirling about him, pinging as spikes bounced off it. This was it, and it was wonderful.

Word Count: 506

[Luiniel]

It was a small matter for her to get to the one weasel who was chained up in the back. The mobs she was previously engaged with were either coins now or a pile of dark goo on the ground. She was a bit cautious about the second one, though for now she didn't have time to ponder the effects of a heretic. Wiping her blade out to her side, she rotated on the spot and charged the shackled weasel with all of her speed.

This battle had gone on long enough, she was ending it now so that they could focus on the stealth mob. Once she was in melee range, Lu brought her sword over head with both hands and brought it down upon the weasel. Helm splitter did a high amount of damage even for being a chain one ability. Not letting it end there she immediately moved into chain two; vacuum slash. By now the weasel fell about twenty percent with the combined force of Lu and Titus. 

Now for the coupe de grace, raising blade over head she would gather the mana required to unleash a devastating blow once more. Divinity slash was more than enough power to end the final briar weasel, the poor thing being shackled and unable to run. As the golden flash exploded before her, bubbles and coins rained from the sky as it's body faded. That only left one more problem to deal with.

While she was fighting the weasel, she noticed the snake try to hit Malakath. Body swirling in lightning, she moved towards him while at the same time sheathing her sword once more. "Are you alright?" she asked, knowing full well that a snake in this zone was usually poisonous. "Should we withdraw or try and draw the snake out?" she asked. She was not unsure, she simply wanted the opinion of her teammates. 

"The poison can be quite nasty if you're not on top of it." she said.

332

[Titus]

"No worries, this'll be a nice clean up."

He had had plenty of time to rest up as Lu handled the final weasels. Jumping up above the group he looked down at the ground about them as he fell back down. There it was the snakes camouflage from the cover at eye level was reduced as Titus went above it, revealing the snake slithering about the group. With two quick swipes from his sword he sends two blades of wind flying down into it. Falling down on top of it with his sword point down to finish it. A shattering noise sounded as its body broke into particles, leaving some coins behind in its place.

"Well then, this has been quite the start. How about this, lets all collect drops in the area and then meet up in town."

Leaning down himself as he picked up a drop from the snake, looking over at his party mates. It had been a bit of a toss together in the moment kind of thing, but it had been fun. Lu knew what she was doing and could handle these large groups nearly by herself, and Mal always had his eye on what was going on and could call out a plan. Meanwhile Titus just threw around some damage in the background, with a sigh he dropped the gold into his inventory. Walking about the clearing to pick up some of the other drops, perhaps he could sell these for some extra gold. He made sure to only grab about a third of the drops there, it was only right to be fair in this world to your team. With a wave he trotted back towards town, it was time to do some upgrades to his gear.

"This is a good start in more than one way I guess... and I didn't die. A good start indeed."

Arriving back at town he quickly went among the stalls, selling and bartering for a better price making sure to get a feel for the NPC's in town. It was weird though, his conversations felt rather normal, as if he was talking to normal people... odd.

Word Count: 360

Out of Character: Gonna end this here, another thread will be put up soon to continue some interactions in town.