[h3]PixieSlime Party[/h3]
"Shh! Fight!" Trent growled out as Asura seemed to treat the battle too casually. Now certainly wasn't the time for conversation, from the human's point of view. The Squire closed in on the webbed-down undead and held his sword high as he planted his feet. The blade began to glow red: "CLEAVE!"

The Hob Bones's Stone Knife once again clattered against Trent's shield. This attack was slower than his other strikes, but the enemy couldn't move away this time. Trent's core tightened, his hips torqued. His shoulder and arm pulled the sword down, while gravity assisted its fall. This was a pure power stroke, plain and simple. The blade bit into the top of the creature's skull--and kept going! The Hob Bones's cranium split, its brainpan shattered, its teeth flew every which way. Its collarbone cracked in two, its sternum broke down the middle, and still the blade drove deeper. The edge shaved the spine, and finally bit through the ridge of the hips. Even when the sword's momentum halted against this final, thick bone, Trent wrenched it free of the enemy with enough force that the rest of the pelvis came apart like a wishbone at Thanksgiving.

What little was left of the skeletal creature clattered to the stone floor. A dull, throbbing purple light hovered around the remains for just a moment, before black mist seemed to seep out of the creature and into the dirt.

"The miasma means the body is unusable!" Trent shouted through labored breathing. "Remember what Master said!"

But before Trent had even destroyed his target, Asura had continued to attack the Necroslime. He found that Ardur's Shield buff did not stop an attack before it reached him, as the undead slime's acid struck his face directly. It burned, but the red slime could tell that its damage had to be reduced somewhat. The reason he could tell this? The moment he tried to eat this necrotic, corrosive substance, it began to burn much worse. 

Still, he managed to shapeshift one of his tendrils into a blade, and struck down at his target in a way coincedentally very similar to Trent's own attack. The Necroslime screeched again as it was sawn literally in half, and its rotting innards spilled all over the ground. In the process the bile drenched Asura's outstretched limb, again sending signals of pain through his gelatinous mass. His HP and defenses were quite developed, but could he afford to keep taking damage like this?

As Mother Slime rolled off the Skeleblin she had just flattened into the earth, the creature shakily rose from the ground once more. One of its legs was starting to collapse, one arm had shattered entirely below the elbow, and its ribs were cracked all over. Even one of these injuries would have debilitated a living creature and ended the fight. But it seemed these Undead wouldn't stop until they were destroyed completely in some fashion, which Ardur accomplished with a powerful dive kick. Aided by his faster flight speed and gravity, his foot slammed through the Skeleblin's skull and shattered its sternum as he continued beyond, landing and sliding some distance on the ground. The buff pixie almost felt like striking some pose or shouting a finishing move's name, like one of those Masked Heroes on children's TV.

It seemed everyone had ended this encounter rather quickly, but as the group came back together Trent seemed just as wary as always.

"The first group just rushed in, and this one tried to ambush us." He pointed at the trenches the skeletons had come from. "Were there any other intelligent creatures like yourselves left here? You said the first Boss died?"

Having eliminated all enemies at the Goblin Bonfire, where would the group head now...?
[hr]
[h3]Deep Forest[/h3]
[quote=System:Femus]
You used Magic Analysis II!
---Great Elder Mystic Kao Tree---
This Kao Tree has drawn from a rich source of Mana for many years, as well as from the ambient environment. It is likely the oldest and most powerful of all plant-life in the area, and at this stage of growth excess Mana is shunted into the surroundings. However, more energy than is strictly needed for the tree's own growth is being used. Certain creatures may be drawn to this energy, as the excess may cause the growth of magic-restoring plants or infuse surrounding materials.

You used Monster Analysis I!
---Pixie---
Pixies are a tiny humanoid Fey-type Monster. While somewhat intelligent, they lack empathy towards one another even compared to beasts like Goblins. Capable of flight and healing magic, but not physically strong or skilled enough to fight or use weapons well.

Skill Gain: Suppress Presence I (0.8 > 1.0)!
Using your magical power, you subtly mask your presence from the senses of others around you. By comparison, it's a similar ability to those shy people who seem to disappear at the corner of the crowd's vision as they hover in the corner.
[/quote]

As Femus tried to make himself as inconspicuous as possible and observed the Great Kao in detail, he indeed saw that it was slowly recovering the damage he had done to it. However, without his mana being fed to it, the regeneration came to an even slower crawl. For now, a layer of slap had covered the opening in the bark, and was beginning to harden around the edges. But, the shudder in the tree's boughs had stopped...

His observations gave him some new information, since his Magic Analysis had leveled up and he hadn't yet used his Monster Analysis on a Pixie before. And it turned out, as he tried to keep these other beings from noticing him, that one of his developing skills ticked over yet again. But, when he focused his attention on Nira instead, he soon realized that she was under attack!

The Pixie in question panicked, darting away from the Slime on instinct. Luckily its lunge missed her, thanks to the natural advantage of flight. Knowing only one thing to do, Nira desperately reached for that crackle of magical power and let her lips spill something akin to a chant. The brightest imitation of a Mana Orb yet--distinguished from the real thing only by its size--burst forth from her palms and rocketed into the green blob! It squealed as the magical energy sank into its membrane...but it hadn't been killed yet. It tried to stretch its bulk upward to no effect, as Nira rose up until she was sure it couldn't get to her...or so she thought! With an angry burble, the Slime stopped trying to lengthen its entire body and instead extended a single pseudopod. Despite moving clumsily, it managed to get this tendril long enough to lash at the pixie like a thick whip--!
[hr]
[h3]Farmstead (Miiba)[/h3]
As of yet unaware of what was happening outside, Miiba settled down with the rest of the family as Lear once again opened that big tome. She had been drifting off the previous night before she heard where he stopped, but it seemed that he had reached the end of a chapter or section, and now skipped over a few bits...

"Let's see...for tonight, how about...Ah, I always liked this one." The farmer put his finger down on the page and cleared his throat. "Does anyone here remember the story of the Foreign Knight?"

"Ooh, ooh, me!" Reuben, eager as always, thrust his hand up. "He was from, uh, Yammy-jam! And his name was Itchy!"

"[i]Yamajima[/i], you mean." Mira chided gently, ruffling the boy's hair. "And it's pronounced, Ishin."

"He was the first person from another continent to land on the Five Kingdom's shores since the end of the Frontier Era." Clarice spoke up. "And the first swordmaster to teach the use of a katana outside of Yamajima."

"Right. And he was a Hero, too." Lear settled back as his rocking chair creaked. "Some people think there's a relation of some kind between Heroes from Otherworlds and Yamajima, because for some reason a whole lot of them favor the katana. But as far as we know, Ishin wasn't one of those." Then he looked at Miiba. "But, Miiba, if any of this starts sounding familiar to you, speak up, alright?" 

And so the farmer began a tale of a man with strange, yet handsome features who one day appeared on the distant horizon, drifting to shore in a single small boat. When he landed on the beach, some local fisherman tried to speak to him, but found they could not decipher his language. One of the men, being a mean-hearted sort, took the foreigner's taciturn nature for rudeness and tried to strike him--only to immediately lose his hand as the long, single edged blade leapt out of its sheath too fast for the eye to track. What followed was a journey in which this "Ishin" demonstrated many qualities of a heroic and honorable warrior, making it clear the tale was meant to inspire a certain mindset as well as relate a historical account of this one Hero's great impact, and how it shook both the Five Kingdoms and his homeland...

Outside the window, there was another small flash of light...and Geir still hadn't come back...