Big Black Hornets [Solo | Celestial Arms II Part V]

[Icyferno]

Status: Healthy / Rested

~

The light faded in but a moment, allowing him to vision of his surroundings once more. He wondered why the teleportation stuff kept doing that. So rude. His surroundings were much brighter than they were before, so obviously he and his band of Adventurers were once again transported to yet another area which the Pebble of Philsophy very dearly wanted them to traverse. At least it did not charge transport fees.

He blinked his eyes several times to get the blur out of his eyes, which, in hindsight, may not have done much anyway. He did not even seem to be in control of his body, as he felt the eyelids closing and opening far too slow for his liking. His body felt strange in a way he could not describe, and felt wrongly proportioned everywhere. He seemed... lighter somehow.

His vision cleared with the passing of time, and he was finally able to observe his surroundings, though his body remained uncontrollable. He was greeted by a view of a luxurious medieval town, a bustling center of commerce dotted with men and women dressed in fine cloths. No doubt he was in the wealthy people area. A water fountain, working on principles probably considered advanced by their standards, stood directly in front of him, the clear waters no doubt coming from a purified source hidden elsewhere. All in all, a prospering, wealthy Lander city which would most likely stand above Londinium economically if not for the technology Adventurers brought in.

He pondered over where the others were though. Unable to move his hand, he could not open his menu to summon Skuggi to him directly. It was as if he were cut off from all his menus, and was just a regular citizen of this city.

The body he was occupying shifted, taking steps forward to whatever destination it had in mind. He noted his dainty hands, the slight swell on his chest, and the long silken robes flowing down his body, covering thin legs. There could only be one explanation for all the unknown feelings which threatened to overwhelm his senses.

He was in the body of a girl.

~

Word count: 360
Total word count (Swashbuckler): 360 x 1.1 = 396
Notes: Post 1 of 4 for part 5 of Celestial Arms II Questline.

[Icyferno]

Status: Healthy / Rested

~

Long, straight black hair which extended past his - or was it her now? - neck, tickling said neck as he, or rather she, moved down the path. There was, theorectically, no 'he' - 'he' was unable to control any movements, and was forced to see, smell, touch, taste, and hear whatever the girl whose body he was currently trapped in could. He briefly wondered if he would be able to see inside a public female bath filled with pretty girls. Might not be so bad then, considering he would be able to enter a place no male could ever hope of entering, though he supposed an [Appearance Change Potion] would fix that problem for him.

However, he felt that the Pebble would not bring him here for no particular reason. Unless it goofed up. Then yes, perhaps there was no particular reason he was here, and he would be stuck here till the girl grew old and died, and with some luck, he might be able to return to his original Adventurer body instead of fading away like a regular Person of the Land. He wondered if he would slowly gain control of her body, if that was the case. Then again, given he was literally in a race against time, he did not have the luxury of just sitting around and waiting for things to happen. He struggled mentally against the shackles which prevented him from controlling the body to no avail as the girl forged ahead to who knows where, seemingly undisturbed by the mental struggle going on in her head.

He wondered if he could pull off a skill. He took in a deep mental breath, then shouted with his mental voice, "Auto Attack!" A basic Adventurer skill, it would cause the body to launch an attack with anything it had, including fists. If he could still launch commands from here, then perhaps he could quickly gain control and move off to find the others.

But nothing happened.

Groaning in frustration and reeling with the sudden mental strain, he felt his mind weaken. He did not want to consider this, but what if he was a prisoner in this body, and would slowly fade into the depths of the abyss? No. No! He would not let that happen. There was a city to save. He had never seen the city landscape before him: A wealthy medieval city. He had also never seen the city he was supposed to save. It did not take a genius to put two and two together to realize that this was most likely the city he was tasked to save, before it fell to whatever force besieged it. He did not know how much earlier he was brought into the past: The destruction could begin in a week, a day, a minute, or even the next second. If he could control her heart, it would be palpitating rapidly now, but alas, it beat on in a slow monotone as the girl took in the sights of the people near the fountain.

Wait a minute, why was the girl scanning the crowds? Was she a guard? Did not look like it, not with that linen outfit. Was she on a date? Perhaps. But he was not ready to kiss a male though, so it would be awkward as heck.

As he was mulling over things, a woman in her late twenties approached her. The person in question was likely a guard: Defined limbs bound by a tight metal outfit, a sword at her waist and a shield strapped to her left arm. There were no Adventurers around, last he checked, so definitely some sort of medieval guard before the implementation of those monstrous armored knights.

The two greeted each other, and he heard the voice of her body for the first time: A gentle string of sounds coming together to form a harmonious sentence. It was clear that these two were friends, and he was kind of wrong with his earlier assumption: The girl whose body he currently occupied was a guard as well, albeit a mage, explaining the robes. He did not see a staff anywhere though, but perhaps that was simply out of his vision. It was not as if he could identify every strange feeling he had right now.

Anyway, words were exchanged, of particular note was that some strange energy was detected yesterday, and continued through today, growing in intensity. There were likely two conclusions.

One, that his transfer here required a buildup of energy foreign to their systems. Two, that the event he was meant to stop was coming.

And as if to assauge his fears of her having a boyfriend and to confirm the worst of his nightmares, the ground abruptly shook violently, forcing her and her companion to the ground as they struggled for their balance.

With a popping sound, a dark chasm ripped open a space just ahead, on the other end of the square the fountain resided in. That was all the confirmation he needed to know that he was too late to prevent the occurence.

~

Word count: 850
Total word count (Swashbuckler): ( 360 + 850 ) x 1.1 = 1331
Notes: Post 2 of 4 for part 5 of Celestial Arms II Questline.

[Icyferno]

Status: Healthy / Rested

~

The dark portal opened up in the middle of nowhere, floating just a meter above the ground. It was circular in shape, with a radius of around another meter. The people of the city were confused, looking at the portal in a mixture of fear and curiosity as the rumblings of the earth subsided. The once noisy, bustling area was deathly silent, save the sound of metal boots falling on stone as guards moved to form a circle around the two dimensional circle.

Her friend went on ahead of her, she herself quickly following behind. She whipped out a wand from her side, answering his question of where a mage person could have kept her weapon. Of course, a wand might be lower in power, but was probably faster to use. He was willing to bet that she trained to cast without a wand as well, in the event she gets disarmed. Guards tend to meet sticky situations, and when something major like this cropped up, they were the first to die.

Except, he realized, this time, he was one of them. Suddenly, things did not look so well for him. And judging by the fact that no one could locate the city of Lune, it was probaly destroyed here, leaving behind remnants for people from the other towns to find and share their discoveries based on old maps of the region.

As the guards got into position, he heard a faint buzz. It grew in intensity as time went on, and as silence blanketed the crowds, the buzzing grew louder. He could see the fearful look on some of the guards' faces, while her friend was shouting to the People of the Land to get away.

And then it happened.

Out of the black chasm, something erupted. That thing was a pitch black hornet, its wings buzzing angrily as it rushed out of the portal and towards the nearest guard. The guard readied his shield, letting it slam into the solid slab of metal. The hornet's stinger pierced through the shield, nearly hitting the guard who paniced and tried to shake it off as the other guards rushed in to cut down the hornet while it was still stuck.

Or at least, that was the plan.

Out of the dark portal, the buzzing sound suddenly spiked in intensity as a wave of similar hornets appeared, each one level fifty. The guards were, on average, level twenty three, meaning that they was no way they were going to win, as they lacked both superiority in level and numbers. While there were a dozen guards gathered here, they were outnumber three to one, and it seemed like more was on the way from inside the portal.

Screams and shouts could be heard behind her as some of the hornets chose to assault the civilians foolish enough to gather round as she launched fireball after fireball at passing hornets. Ducking and weaving her way through the thicket of hornets to reach three guards that had their backs to each other, valiantly fending off hornet stings by angling their shields to prevent the stingers from going through. She would probably lose if she did not get behind the cover to safely cast spells, and those guards seemed to be the best choice at the moment.

And it would have been a solid plan too, had the three guards, which included the female guard she was talking to, was converged upon by a dozen hornets, and all that was left were three corpses with poison coursing through their veins.

This was the first time he had actually seen a Person of the Land die. Unlike Adventurers, they did not disappear, their corpses were simply... there. He would puke, but he had no control over her. But the way things were going, she was going to end up just like her friend who got skewered.

~

Word count: 650
Total word count (Swashbuckler): ( 360 + 850 + 650 ) x 1.1 = 2046
Notes: Post 3 of 4 for part 5 of Celestial Arms II Questline.

[Icyferno]

Status: Healthy / Rested

~

Upon seeing the corpse of her friend, she began to panic, rushing to the corpse's side to confirm what she saw. There was no denying it, though. The status bar was gone, and that meant a dead Person of the Land. He was more worried about her current actions, as he assumed that he would feel the same pain she felt if she got stabbed by one of those nasty looking stingers, and he had no wish to test that hypothesis.

Her vision was blurred with tears as she crouched over her now dead friend, which was probably a good idea because it would make the hornets think she was already dead, if she was lucky. All of the other guards that were present when the portal spewed out the first hornet were dead, and the hornets were openly attacking civilians as more guards came from other parts of town, the screams of the dying piercing the air too often for his liking.

The portal was releasing fewer hornets now, but that did not mean that there were no hornets left. She stood up, trembling in fear or anger he could not tell.

The hornets noticed her and swarmed on her location, intend on giving them both a very painful injection filled with a dosage of deadly venom which would make the snakes in Savill Flower Grove green with envy. Basically, they did not want to get hit with that.

With a wave of her wand, she conjured a mana shield, which instantly cracked upon first impact with the hornets' stingers. She immediately launched into a wave of fireball attacks, striking down hornets while maintaining her shield and moving from place to place in a desperate bid to find cover. As a mage, there was one weakness: Running out of mana, and he doubted she had enough mana to fight them off.

It was only a matter of time before the shield of magic she crafted gave way, her magical reserves depleted too quickly.

Then the pain came.

A hornet plunged its stinger straight through her chest, and a burning sensation went through both of them as the venom seared itself directly into her heart, a few other hornets did the same, poking holes in the girl's body, her screams mirroring his mental onces as the pain surged, and he felt that his body had been set on fire, cursed for eternal immolatioin in the depths of Hel-

And then all sensation faded, and he felt the warm air of the cavern on his skin, ragged breaths coming from all around him. It seems he was not the only one who took a nice, long trip into the doomed past.

~

Word count: 450
Total word count (Swashbuckler): ( 360 + 850 + 650 + 450 ) x 1.1 = 2541
Notes: Post 4 of 4 for part 5 of Celestial Arms II Questline.