Fantasy Whence Myths Walked, Legends Will Follow

[Vacuum]

Norm
Gorian's Tower - First Floor
No direct mentions or interactions
Open

Bloody loud up there

Norman thought to himself. He was sitting in a chair in the lower room of the tower attending the meeting. No need to crowd the upstairs area any more than it is.
Nobody seemed to like his name suggestion of "The circus troupe" but it was more of a joke anyway
Lot of bloody freaks up there though. Norman knew the adventuring buisness was going to be odd, but he had barely started and he was already in a group of oddities.

Might as well have a wait 'til a decisions made on what to do then

Norman mused, kicking his feet up onto the oak table in front of him. If no descision was made soon, he would throw his own suggestions into the mix.

Spoiler: Narration

 

[Fable]

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Spoiler: Inventory

Weapons/Armor

• Sabre-like Sword
• Duel blades for dual-wielding as backup weapons.
• Hidden blades in wrist guards (Assassin's Cred Ripoff)
• Leather/Cloth armor

Items & Personal Belongings:

• Adventurer's License
• Bag of Holding
• Holds her things
• Gold
• Extra clothing
• Survival items (bedroll, etc)
• Thieve's tools

[/div][/div][div class=flex][div class=text][div class=header]Kai'né[/div]
[div class=tags]Location: | Interaction: OPEN / Birdsie | Nearby/Mentioned: _Line 213 Noble Scion SoftSmile BackSet Axel The Englishman Kylesar1 GamerKitty205 Rage Hanarei CerpinTaxt Blackrose7 simj26 Reinhardt CactusJuice Kloudy EquinoxLeonidas Birdsie [/div]
Kai'né yawned openly as she made her way over to the tower set as the 'meeting' spot for this new adventuring party being formed. Generally it wasn't in her interest to group up in such a manner as she preferred going solo, but you could only get so far in this way. Bigger, badder, more brutal foes beyond her abilities would require assistance until she was strong enough to handle them on her own. She'd just happened to come across the poster and decided to give this newly formed group a shot. If she didn't care for the people there she could always just leave and wouldn't lose anything but time. She could also try to lift a few things off those who showed up making it actually worth her time if the opportunity arose.

She was running late, but that was fine with her. She'd get a better chance to see all those who had also found the poster of interest. As she went up the tower and to the meeting room she could hear voices carried. At first they were hard to decipher and she could only hear the tones of their voices, but as she reached the door she could hear them much more clearly now and debating over a completely stupid subject; party name. She rolled her eyes to herself and waited a bit longer outside, being the nosy person that she was. She would rather take a read of the room before she entered if it was an option.

After a short period of time she casually walked in as though she wasn't late to the meeting, her tail casually swaying behind her. As she entered a dark haired elf appeared to be leaving, she reached out to halt him, "Care to save me a headache of asking someone else for a summary of the meeting notes." Her tone was light and there was a small playful smile on her lips and amused eyes.

(I know there is a timeskip soon, but would rather have her appear now than pop up randomly later. I also just copied Birdsie's tag since she is walking into the room and open for interaction. Also if you can't see the image I am sorry, imgur is being evil and I am using a temporary holder.)[/div][/div][/div]

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[Birdsie]

Eridan | Gorion's Wand | _Line 213 Noble Scion SoftSmile BackSet Axel The Englishman @Kylesar1 GamerKitty205 Rage Hanarei CerpinTaxt Blackrose7 simj26 Reinhardt CactusJuice Kloudy EquinoxLeonidas Fable

A woman halted him to ask him to summarize today's events. With his ill-fated morning and terrible noon, Eridan rose his eyebrows and slowly turned his gaze at the woman, bearing that same, broken smile he did when announcing his leave.

Crassly, he informed her, "I believe you will find it to your joy to find out this ship has sailed and there's no stopping it until it rams the port. How inexpressibly unfortunate that I will be its doomed navigator." He gave the woman a hearty pat on the shoulder and walked past her, leaving her in a room full of plucky, misfit lunatics.

Eridan made his way downstairs, trying to cope with his suffering on the way down. Would this be an adventure? Yes, it would, beyond his mortal expectations. But not all adventures are fun and games. This would be less the 'exploring a forest clearing' kind of adventure and more of an 'injecting your veins with illegal fey narcotics' kind of adventure. These people clearly lost their marbles a long, long time ago and now Eridan was in the thick of it.

Unless he walked away.

Standing in the middle of the ground floor, people passed by him, oblivious to his inner turmoil. He recomposed himself, wrapped one arm around his midriff and used it as a frame for his elbow, as he clutched his chin in contemplation.

Eridan looked to the right, where the exit was.

Then he looked to the left, with the reception desk.

***​

Eridan finished writing down everything, then sighed and walked back up.

He walked into the room, the door to which was long-since destroyed by the undead behemoth. Eridan laid down a paper in the middle of the table, then sat down in his spot, relaxing. He explained shortly after, "Everyone has to sign it. If you're illiterate, ask someone else to do it for you."

He closed his eyes, placed his feet on the table, and tried to ignore the rabble that would follow.

NEXT CHAPTER COMING SOON!

 

[Birdsie]

_Line 213 Noble Scion SoftSmile BackSet Axel The Englishman Kylesar1 GamerKitty205 Rage Hanarei CerpinTaxt Blackrose7 simj26 Reinhardt CactusJuice Kloudy EquinoxLeonidas Fable

Adventurers are like individual organs.

You have the party tank, who acts as the skin and muscle of the party; soaking up all the damage and slightly helping in motor function. But he is useless without the healer, who is the bone and heart, providing a framework for practically everything and pumping blood which is necessary for the party to operate on any level; if the blood stops going, then the lights go out soon after.

The simile is messy and breaks down quickly if you dwell too long on it, but it works. The mage or fighter are, in a certain way, the digestive system. Less in taking the material and converting it, and more in the way of being the source of energy which is used to punch things.

Alas, the brain.

Perhaps being the party's conscience and rational thought wouldn't be bad if your entire body didn't suffer from severe cancer.

Despite his contradictory desire, Eridan seemed to have been the unfortunate victim of being the brain, at least for now. The party as a whole was uninterested in intricate bureaucracy and selecting quests mostly came down to giving him insistent suggestions.

"Honestly, what a pain..." Eridan cursed quietly, looking at the corkboard with quests. Everything was noob-level.

And while the statement that they were a new party of rookie adventurers held true, their sheer numerical value suggested that the body they created together was like a mutated super-human with redundancy organs for redundancy organs, with some organs capable of fulfilling several roles at once.

He could take several quests, yes, that was an option. But the Adventurer's Guild might have complaints about hogging all of them.

Eridan took the biggest, plumpest extermination quest he could get. A wizard wants three mutated poison slimes captured for research and the rest exterminated for security. He also wants the adventurers to find out who is creating these monsters and if possible, put an end to his shenanigans.

A quick look at the price-tag unveiled the pay for this contract was five-thousand gold pieces. Divided by the entire party, that would amount to around three-hundred for each person. That was a lot of money; not a fortune, perhaps, but a lot.

The curious eyes of his comrades washing over him from behind didn't help, but he made the choice.

He turned to the reception desk. "We accept this quest."

***​

And lo, they walked.

Across a small, calm countryside community. A vast and verdant expanse, the land was a patchwork of autumn-hued fields, dotted with homes, veined with snaking roads and rivers.

Then, the path forked and led them through woods. The leaves quickly grew to form a dark green blanket overhead, disrupting the sun's incandescence.

And then, it seemed like they had arrived near the location where their targets were spreading, judging from a head-sized blob of purple jello slowly slithering across the ground. But something was stuck inside of it, frozen. The slime was very slowly absorbing what seemed to be the body of what was once probably a raccoon, half-melted by digestive acids.

It grew as it consumed. Gradually, with pace, but it grew and it would keep growing, until its abilities to move and lure in prey were hampered by its size. Then, it would split in two, smaller parts, independent of each other. And the cycle would begin again. Its lack of a brain compounded this process. Its 'mind' was alien, primitive, encoded in its body unlike the cognizance of humanoids.

It wasn't creative. It couldn't be. It was incapable of abstract thought, or even thought as we understand it. More like an automaton, which only has two commands programmed into it: to survive and to devour.

In addition, it was different from normal slimes in its hunting method. Normal slimes simply bashed their bodies against a helpless target to weaken it, then enveloped it with their bodies and digested. These poison slimes were more dangerous and far more effective as far as predators went. Their touch was poisonous to a living organism; glancing skin contact with the slime's body meant, at the very least, a strong fever and temporary muscle weakness.

It moved slowly, but not as slowly as one may believe slimes to be. In a dormant state, when not seeking food, it moved at a snail's pace, but it could rapidly speed up to slither almost as fast as a human jogs when it attacked.

Speaking of which, the slime pounced in the party's direction.

Eridan stepped back thrice, behind the likes of DOOM and Solana, expecting them to take care of the poisonous little monster.

 

[Kloudy]

Calm Shikō
(Unknown Woods - Combating Slimes)

But it was the monk who stepped forward.

Moving swiftly with lightning fast reactions, Calm shifted between Eridan and the attacking slime. Having expected reasonable resistance from the slimes due to the quest's level, he was already prepared and had immediately adopted one of his martial arts stances: Jūken. Centre of weight grounded slightly low with bent knees, one palm facing the slime and the other freely open facing down to the side, Calm waited for the slime to fling itself in his direction and quickly spun on the spot and essentially 'pushed' his palm at the slime.

Upon making contact with the creature's gelatinous surface, magic-users would be able to sense or even see a faint cyan energy known as 'Ki-Energy' passing through his palm and into the slime. Almost instantly the slime exploded, blobs of gel dispersing in all directions but the party and Calm's. The remains of the racoon showered down in the grass along with chunks of now-still purple slime.

Turning to Eridan, he bowed his head slightly for a brief second before turning it to glance further into the forest, "I believe there will be many more nearby." While his show of skill and power had been impressive, it was likely the other thought recklessness of him. After all, they couldn't have known about his resistance to poison and the quest had been very explicit in the slimes' toxicity. He mentally shrugged it off; if they wanted to know, they'd ask. He didn't feel any type of illness so he decided not to worry about it.

As he gazed off into the trees, he spotted two more purple forms crawling across the forest floor at a snail's pace. Calm was familiar with insects that moved in similar ways: deceptively slowly yet swiftly deadly when necessary. There was even a martial arts style for it, but Calm hadn't learnt it yet.

Looking back to the party, he pointed along with his usual neutral expression to indicate the slimes.

"There."

Birdsie @theparty

 

[Kylesar1]

Selena Foster
Woods​

Selena stepped forward after the monk destroyed the slime. "I can take on a couple. Slimes are easy work." She confronted the two slimes. She got on all fours and growled deeply, her tail standing straight up and her hair bristling. Her eyes turned red and narrowed. She then barked, which sounded like it was mixed with an explosion. The powerful bark unleashed a sonic blast towards the two slimes. The sound wave condensed between the slimes and exploded, releasing slime goo in the direction of fire (away from the group.)

Selena's role within the group was a definite offensive support role. She was skilled in magic, though not as skilled as someone dedicated to the art. She was skilled with a blade, but not as skilled as trained knight. She could heal, but it was very very slow and only one person at a time. Unlike the monk, Selena didn't even let the slimes get close, preferring to just destroy them before they become an actual threat. If touching them could potentially kill them, destroy them before they could get anywhere near them. "Unless the slimes have a core to destroy, this shouldn't be all that hard. I say we evaporate the slime though to prevent it from reforming." As a whole, slimes were very resistant to fire if not immune. In smaller quantities though, it could evaporate the slime. It was like water. A little would evaporate, but a lot would extinguish the flame.

 

[EquinoxLeonidas]

Seyren Menathil
Location: Forest, Questing
Interactions: Birdsie , @party members

"That I can do," Seyren said as he raised a hand and started chanting, a swirl of black and green energy spiraling outwards from him. "This will not hurt, I promise," Seyren told his fellow adventurers as the spell coalesced into a temporary mist. An arcane sigil started forming on each member's hands, the etching lines crawling like vines and forming around a sigil that is Seyren's own mark. Unlike most spellcasters, Seyren has no experience, if at all, fighting in a group, and hence his spells were not adapted to isolate allies easily. The only temporary fix he has for now is to imbune his allies with his mark that prevents them from being affected by his spells.

Now with his allies "protected" against his own spells, Seyren can go wild. Taking a step forward past Selena, Seyren swung his spear-staff, shifting the weighted end of his staff to slam into a pouncing smile, smashing right into it. Twirling it, Seyren whipped it around and stabbed the slime with the spear end. Piercing weapons would do nothing against something like this, Seyren knows that for sure. But he was not hoping to impale it. With his free hand, Seyren weaved a spell quickly, his mouth moving in a rapid blur of unintelligible words before he chanted, "Rot magic, Shroud of Decay!". As soon as the words left his jaw, a storm of black and green energy swirled around the party, causing the biological cellular structure of the slime he had attacked and the destroyed bits his allies had left to rapidly decompose. The slime that he had impaled was quickly climbing onto the staff, only to quickly shrivel backwards as the wound started to sputter and smoke, and its form quickly lost its cohesiveness. The slime eventually eroded into nothing more than water, and the leftover parts of the slimes that his allies had bested dissolved away into mere water, seeping into the earth harmlessly. The shroud of energy that Seyren had summoned swirled on, his allies protected by the glowing sigil he had marked them with.

"Nothing more than mere digestive juices, and return to the earth it shall," Seyren mused as the shroud dissipates, leaving nothing left of the current slimes except wet earth and a lingering mist of stinking rot gases, only other thing out of the ordinary was the half-digested carcass of a raccoon and some bits and pieces of bones from previous preys of the slime. If Seyren were to fit the role in his team, he's the magical supporter. His offensive magicks take time to finish off larger creatures, and his only option of healing spell is at least versatile enough to also remove poison and diseases. But he's a lich, and the fear of death does not haunt him as it does to his allies.

But their job is not done. Seyren could still feel the magical properties of the poisonous slimes heading to another location. "I can detect another group of slimes heading to our left. We'd best not dwadle, lest they continue to proliferate," he said, giving his staff a quick swing, the moisture in the staff flicked off.

 

[Noble Scion]

Solana Riviera
Woods

Spoiler: appearance

"Slimes are a bit... Weak for us, aren't they? But no matter, I, Solana Riviera, daughter of the sun, shall complete such a venial task!" Solana grinned with a jokingly over-exaggerated amount of elegance as they journeyed ever onwards for what seemed to be a lifetime, yet despite the little knight's diminutive size, and the burden of heavy equipment, the sun-warden seemed to simply maintain that chirpy, cheery attitude of hers that hadn't been seen until they'd left the town, as though simply being away from the sun was depressing, which, in her eyes, it was to some extent.

The girl had fallen into stride somewhere near the front of the group, yet remaining behind Eridan who seemed to have become the party's designated leader, despite no votes for such a post having been made. "Maybe It's that elf charisma I've heard about?" The blond pondered , helmet off, resting in her arms, as she basked in the divine radiance of the one she worshipped, pig-tails floating briskly in the wind, shining with enough optimism to rival the sun itself, while her body simply relaxed as her first true trip away from home began, a grin smitten upon her face for all to see, blissful, despite all the treachery that would oppose their merry band of adventurers.

Suddenly, the 'leader' of the group leapt back, earning a swift turn of the head from the young noble to see, firstly, who had jumped behind her, and secondly, what they had jumped away from, and to her surprise, it was a small, roughly head-sized ball of purple goo, which to her was reason enough for her to chuckle, and that she did. There was just something strangely funny about seeing one of her peers running away from such a minor creature, even if it was poisonous, yet before she could deal with the problem, the monk elected to 'push' the slime, resulting in a rather messy splatter all over the road ahead. "I thought it was a bad idea to touch poisonous things with your skin.. Also ew." The girl mumbled awkwardly, scratching at her face gently with one of her gloved fingers before the monk explained the idea of there being more around the general area, while the half-devoured carcass of the racoon caused the girl to unwillingly shiver with disgust. "Well I thought that was a given.. The little balls don't roll particularly quickly" she scoffed, laughing at the idea that the slimes flying through the forest at incredible speeds, what did earn a surprised look from Solana, was when he pinpointed a couple more of them, just out of view.

Next, the kitsune stepped forward and swiftly dealt with the two that the monk had since pointed out for them, which brought to life the question of "Maybe we have a bit too many people for such a small mission?" As all the problems seemed to immediately be dealt with by their large number of people. At this rate, Solana wouldn't need to do anything. "Evaporate the slime? That seems a little unnecessary from what I've read about them.." Sol pitched, but her voice was suddenly drowned out by a rather horrific smell, causing her, and a few others from what she could see, to start gagging. going so far to even make her eyes begin watering. The source of which was a rather unpleasant mage that had cast such a spell. It had worked, but the means by which it had done so were revolting! Solana said nothing, despite wanting to protest against such disgusting methods, but merely prayed to the sun that he wouldn't do that again, choosing not to vocalise such thoughts so as to not hurt her ally's feelings.​

 

[Kloudy]

Calm Shikō
(Unknown Woods - Combating Slimes)

The monk nodded curtly to the sun-knight before turning to observe their kitsune warrior sound-blasting two slimes to shreds, his body hairs standing on end from the explosive bark that caused slight discomfort to his sensitive hearing. Bending down, he adjusted the leather straps that ran up his calves to further alleviate the discomfort of the heavy weights beneath. Calm, in response to the sun-knight, pressed his fingers into a meditative position and softly closed his eyes in order to focus his mind.

“The Ascended Ones mandate the prolonged continuation of our worship by elevating our survivability. My training demands a tolerance to most poisons - these creatures pose no threat to my flesh.”

And thus they now knew he was indeed one of those infamous monks with the uncanny ability to ignore poisonous attacks. His brief meditation was cut short as he sensed the presence of a unique type of magic being cast, prompting the monk to open his eyes and glance to the rot mage impassively. Immediately a glowing rune began to flash on the other party members’ hands and, due to his natural magical resistance, Calm had the choice of actually accepting this rune if he so wanted. He was quite familiar with rune magic considering he used it himself, so Calm recognised it to be some sort of protective seal. Unsure why it was necessary, the monk decided to accept it anyway; clearly the rot mage had a plan. This plan was made evident a moment later as a large green storm of decay magic built up and began to swirl about them, reducing the remains of the slimes.

While he observed others gagging at the stench produced, Calm simply focused his senses to ignore the foul smell through sheer willpower and thanked the Ascended for their enlightening teachings through rigorous training. While his smell was far more acutely tuned than most, he was blessed in his mastery over choosing what he could smell, to a degree. Fortunately so, as he assumed the others were not particularly enjoying the rot mage’s ‘supportive’ spell. It was a rather unorthodox choice of action and, in Calm’s opinion, questionable in relevance to the slimes’ ability to reform, but he didn’t say anything on the matter.

Using his selective smell, Calm discovered the presence of yet another purple slime rather intelligently hiding within a nearby bush. He supposed it was waiting to pounce on any straying unaware party members that came nearby. Moving with seemingly no clear target, the monk walked towards the bush in a calm stride. But a moment before he completely reached the trap bush, the purple slime shot forth as if slung from a sling. It flew with its deceptive speed just in time fly right under Calm. Despite the slime striking at head height, Calm had flipped directly upwards from his stroll to position himself directly above the flying slime in a display of impressive acrobatics. The slime hadn’t even known what hit it. Thrusting his palm down in a decisive manner from his airbourne position, Calm passed enough ki energy into the top of the flying purple mass to splatter it all across the ground below.

Gracefully landing with knees bent into a crouch, Calm stood to his full height properly - the whole motion seemingly well-practised and robust in execution. Bringing his hands together again, the monk couldn’t help but wonder, as he turned to face the group once more then moving to walk back, if this quest was more an opportunity to showcase their abilities and test their teamwork as a unit than to actually solve their benefactor’s problems. The rot mage seemed to possess potent if quite uncontrolled magic power, and the kitsune had her transforming physical prowess as a front liner. Of course, Calm had demonstrated himself as a versatile yet sturdy front liner as well. Perhaps it would prove useful to decide upon sub-groups for the party to split up into so as to play each member’s strengths off each other to cover their weaknesses. Calm wasn’t much of a tactician or strategist though, so he resolved to mention his idea later to Eridan, the elf man that had apparently been unanimously elected leader through unspoken rule.

Birdsie Noble Scion EquinoxLeonidas Kylesar1 @partymembers