BrokenPromise

Kurai Majokko: Tsundere Gekido

"Love me, love me, say that you love me."

— Suki Oyama

The cotton swab demons (WTF?) tried to clean the blood off of Oros, but it was not easy to do. Even if they ignored how difficult blood was to clean off of someone from a purely philosophical perspective, the witch's blood seemed thick and gel-like. The swab demons could no easier soak it up than they could tire rubber or a pillow. Given that Oros always had a hairpin jammed through her skull, perhaps bleeding out was not an issue for the girl. That said, there was absolutely something wrong with her right now, and Evil Eye had to keep on trying.

Oros did respond to Evil Eye’s words, but nothing she babbled out could be understood. But the schemer had gotten the blood witch to make contact with her at last. Her head perked up like a dog that just heard its name called, and she locked eyes with Evil Eye. After staring for a moment, she clenched her teeth.

"You!"

Tentacles raced up the front of Evil Eye’s dress and coiled around her shoulders and neck. The dinosaur skull started to close around Oros’s face as a tendril obscured Evil Eye’s eyes. Being covered like this made her feel… at peace. Or as at peace as one could. Then not a moment later, the tentacles went slack and fell off of Evil Eye.

"Ah! Eyeball!" Oros smiled, with her dino mask nowhere to be seen. "You can’t scare me like that! I thought you were someone else for a second." Her smile wore away as she looked around. "Ah, whoever beat me up did quite a number on me." It didn’t take her long before she spotted Tsubomi. "Oh, uh, one second, Eyeball. We can talk later." The armless, legless girl surfed her own blood up to Tsubomi’s side. She had just enough height to float her head onto Tsubomi’s stomach. "Sunshine! Are you okay?" A bloody tendril started poking her in the ribs. She placed the side of her head over her heart. "Ahh geez! Don’t make me give you mouth to mouth."

"What kind of person are you really, Hizuki?"

— Willow

Nocnitsa had managed to separate the dark and light girls, but seemed content to leave Willow and the remaining two fighting. Understandably, she had no idea what Willow was scheming either, and as soon as the violin player turned her head, it was a gambit that was totally unnecessary with the mysterious woman showing up.

"Ah…" Willow turned to Nocnitsa and grinned. "She will deny you, harlot! For she is under my spell and helping me deal with these small fries as you call them. For the fries are merely a complementary treat to the despair burger I’m cooking right now." Willow then looked back at Hizuki. "No, my brave interloper! There is no need for you to recover-" Did she just dead name Tsubomi? Was that going to be a problem later? Was it already a problem that she wasn’t transformed? This was so confusing. "...That girl. You can continue to fight on behalf of the club you love so much, fufufufufufufufufufu!"

Morganite sighed. Both the shield she was standing on and the one Pearl had retreated to lowered to the ground. "Aight den. Et’s trade. Me for ‘er."

Willow stopped playing. "Excuse me?"

The pink haired tike folded her arms. "Give ‘er to us, and ya get me."

Pearl shivered. "M-Morganite!"

"We ain’t got a choice. I can’t fite Hizuki. If somethin' were ta happen ta ‘er, it would make ma feel queasy." With a look of determination that rarely graced her face, Morganite stepped closer to Nocnitsa.

"I see…" Willow’s smile only grew wider. She gestured towards Pearl. "Go on, Hizuki. Return to your people. I’m sure you’ll be back in my clutches before long."

Or she'd return of her own will, more likely.

South Town Scuffle: Two Wolves (Terry Bogard VS Broken Promise)

Wow. I know we agreed to a pretty lax posting routine, but that was probably not worth the wait, kek!

I probably could have written a combo up or something, but without seeing how Terry reacts to pain, I figured there was a pretty high likelihood that Mika wouldn't get it all off. This is assuming her attack here even lands. That, and it's probably okay to have a few short posts here and there when we get to situations like this where positioning is hard to keep track of.

South Town Scuffle: Two Wolves (Terry Bogard VS Broken Promise)

"My opponent is trying to talk to me through meme quotes, what should I do?"

Just ignore him and meme as usual. Also let’s leave off the area banner to make more room for our post.

"Okay, but I don’t think we’ll need it…"

-Mika Fang

▶︎• ၊၊||၊|။||||။‌‌‌၊|• 2:58
_{Deus Machina Demonbane – Crazy Dance of the Devil}

MP: 10/10
Swan Gauge: 0%

He still wasn’t taking her seriously, but that would be to his detriment in the end. Mika was far more interested in saying what she needed to say with her blades than with her mouth. That’s how they did it in Pax Septimus. Her brow became more crossed as the seconds ticked by.

Every fighter knew they were at their most dangerous when they were attacking, but at their most vulnerable when they attacked. If an attack didn’t land, it was often an opening that a fighter could exploit. The blond had understood this, anticipated the attack, and side stepped. This was something that Mika fully expected to happen. That, or for him to attempt to attack her with something while she approached. But that was why she had opted to go for a stab. Since she was holding both of her blades in a reverse grip, this put him nearly in arms reach of her. That, and such a simple stab didn’t leave her at that much of a disadvantage if she missed. In fact, it left her with quite a few options. As she started to pull back her arm, she watched the man’s shoulders and hips for a tell. Was he going to throw a punch, or a kick? Or maybe he was going to cast a melody? His shoulders bobbed as he brought his back foot forward. His hip over his leading leg was starting to rise. A lunging front kick. Not what she would have chosen to do, but it wasn’t a bad move.

Against a different opponent.

But there seemed to be an error in causality. It wasn’t clear before, but Mika had stabbed with her left (leading) arm. When the blond man evaded, which way did he sidestep?

He sidestepped to her right and kicked towards her inside

As her left arm came back, she repositioned her rear (right) leg and swiped her dagger in front of herself. Kicks could pop off pretty fast, but with her opponent so close, it was not difficult to brush his knee to the side when he went to kick her. If he chose to kick, it would miss the mark completely. With his attack deflected, it was her turn to attack again.

"No god has ever helped me." She stepped forward with her right leg, and drove her right fist towards his chest. "Maybe you want to pray to yours?"

He sidestepped to her left and kicked towards her outside

As her left arm came back, so did her left leg. Kicks could pop off pretty fast, but with her opponent so close, it was not difficult to brush his knee to the side when he went to kick her. If he chose to kick, it would miss the mark completely. With his attack deflected, it was her turn to attack again.

"No god has ever helped me." She drove her right fist towards his chest. "Maybe you want to pray to yours?"

Mahz's Dev Journal

@Mahz Yes, and it actually supports a smaller file size while allowing for more colors, more complex transparency, etc.

Yet here's an animated banner I uploaded before the change, and here's the exact same banner uploaded after the change.

An Idiot's Dungeon Union

"Ssssslip and sssslide."

-Salbjörg of the Deep

Salbjörg did not run far. Her intent was not to retreat, merely to pull away so that the others could do some of the heavy lifting. She might have been a powerful, beautiful monster, but that was all the more reason to share the work so that her perfect features didn’t get marred. Oh, and the broken rib made it hard to enjoy moving around. But she did come back to the threshold of the door and looked back inside with anyone who was nearby.

She only caught the tail end of Zogi’s dance, but it was enough time for her to remember what she had left in the other room. That’s right, it was the napping goblin. At least her choice to stay behind had bought Salbjörg the necessary time to escape. Then Zogi, perhaps feeling heroic for whatever reason, decided to dive on the boy just as the sword was coming for the little goblin girl. That was a good thing, but then why did he get trapped under the boy’s boot and obliterated like that? It seemed like the boy had gotten stronger because of his "sacrifice" too. How pointless.

But Muste was up next! Surely he had a brilliant idea to save the goblin girl. If they lost both goblins she would need to use the rats to stay warm, and that wasn't the most ideal. At least Zoppy looked cute if you swaddled her body in something. But after the squid man cast his spell, the only thing he managed to do was make the floor slippery before departing. The boy managed to hit his head, but so what? Her chest warmer was still in there and even harder to get to now!

Then the oracle hovered out there. Surely they would show these cowards and weaklings how it was done. His attacks didn’t seem particularly effective, but at least he didn’t run off like squid face after casting a single spell. More importantly, it seemed like he had cast some sort of suffocation spell on him, if his difficulty to speak was anything to go by. And he took so many attacks from the boy without as much as flinching. To top it all off, he disarmed him. Yes, Salbjörg understood now. She was looking at a ten. Certainly nothing below a nine.

And then… Was Zoppy seriously going to sell the boy’s weapon back to him?

This would not do.

While she was powerful enough to take what she needed by force, it wouldn’t hurt to play nice here. The less that goblin struggled, the better. The crystal in the other room had dropped off a few objects, which was yet another brilliant move on the Oracle’s part. The shiniest among them was a blue crystal, which Sal picked up without as much as a word. Of course it was cold to the touch, but that didn’t matter right now. She hurried back to the other room where the boy was drawing closer to the goblin girl.

"But -hic- that’s my -hic- sword…" He groaned.

"But... Diz iz Zoppy'z choppy fing!"

Salbjörg wasn’t about to let the boy regain his weapon, by force or any other means. The floor was still slick, so she got a running start and slid on her side. "Choppy thing!" She exclaimed before tossing the mana crystal to Zoppy. With the goblin’s greed sated, she picked up the sword as she slid by.

"Wa-hic-" The boy realized he didn’t have time to spare. He reached into the pouch at his side and pulled out a shiny river pebble. He had planned to show it to his sister back home, but he needed a weapon now. So he tossed it to the goblin before grabbing the lucky bird by the neck.

"Dankz!" she said before hugging her new shinyz.

The snake woman slid all the way to the wall before planting her feet on it. Opposite of her, she could see the boy had done the same. it Seemed they were about to engage in some good old fashioned jousting. It shouldn’t be too hard. He didn’t have any more of her bone needles to pluck her with, and his wooden sword had been reduced to a low quality plush toy. Which was probably still dangerous, but couldn’t have been as powerful as a wooden sword. R-right?

They both kicked off at the same time. Her arms were naturally longer than the boys, and so it was easy for her to swat his forehead before they got too close. He groaned and swung his lucky bird, but it missed entirely due to them both spinning out of control. They jousted like this a few times, but each time Salbjörg was able to score a hit on him without suffering any retaliation. She chuckled to herself before they jousted again. This time the boy parried the wooden blade with the soft body of the bird and slammed it into Salbjörg’s side. It probably wasn’t a super hard hit, but it was right where her rib had cracked and that didn’t feel very nice. For the next round of jousting, Salbjörg knew she needed to change her strategy. She really hard off the wall and swung her legs in front of herself. The boy tried to block with the soft bird toy, but her elevated heels easily stomped the toy into his face, and they both slid away from each other.

Unbeknown to Salbjörg, something had been laid behind her.

*SQUISH*

…

It appeared that Salbjörg had slipped into some sticky goo. Of course she had been focusing pretty intently on the boy, but why was this part of the floor sticky? Everything was so slick and slippery! And this spot was grippy? Oh, and it was all in her hair too! She had been sliding so fast that she managed to stick everything from her shoulders down to her legs. She had managed to throw out her arms to keep the back of her head off the floor, but now her arms were stuck too! She tried pulling and, while it would be possible for her to escape, her fractured rib was going to make this an agonizing experience.

The boy sighed. "This is -hic- boring. There’s gotta be -hic- something more interesting deeper -hic- in."

"Wait!" She called out. "You, um…"

"Y-hic-es?"

"You Um, you…"

"...-hic-?"

"You-"

In that instant, Salbjörg’s body was covered in a cloak of smoke. It didn’t take long to thin out, and when it did, the snake lady wasn’t there anymore. Instead there was a refined young lady. She had some of the traits of the weird snake lady, but she was human! Rather than being a giant, she was of average height, looked petite, and didn’t have any of the other menacing traits like her elongated pupils. She was even smiling.

"You saved me!" The woman smiled, and her perfect teeth somehow caught the diffused light of the dungeon and sparkled.

"I-hic-did?"

"Well yea!" Even her voice sounded chipper and energetic now. "I don’t know how, but whatever you slid me into over here seems to have cured me! I’m back to my old self!"

"Really!"

What a fool. "Yea! So you should use those big strong arms and pull me out now!"

"A-hic-nd?"

And? "Um, oh! You want a reward, huh?" She giggled. "Well, how about you pull me free. Aaaaaaand, I'll give you a kiss!" She cupped her lips and started smooching the air. All boys dreamed of becoming men, and what better way to show off your masculinity by kissing the fairest of the fair?

But the boy only groaned, turned away from her, and started to crawl towards the other room. "Girls -hic- are so gross." Salbjörg instantly reverted back to her true form and began thrashing in place, shouting obscenities. Between her speech impediment and the pain ripping up and down her side, she couldn’t form words that monster or human could understand.

Kurai Majokko: Tsundere Gekido

"I formally retract my previous statement."

— Willow

The situation was about to fall into chaos, but not in ways that Willow could have foreseen. Surely her fellow club members didn’t need to be told explicitly what her plan was. She couldn’t say it herself as a matter of principle. Who would answer the call of a beckoning cat that always lied?

Things started to go south before Willow even stopped yapping. Was she trying to talk to the goat girl. "What are you talking about? She stole my phone to play Wuthering Waves! I’m not going to stand for having chinese anticheats running on my phone! How else was I supposed to react?" Her lips were pulled into a snarl once she realized what she was doing. "Now here’s a real question, HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO REACT TO THIS!?!?!"

Black Gate rolled off the back of the steed, bouncing along the road. A normal human would need medical attention, but the goat girl managed to rise to her feet. Even with so many wounds, she stumbled towards the back allies.

"SON OF A BI-"

Willow had not released Hizuki, and her armor flaking off hadn’t addicted her grip at all. But she was going wherever the light girl was flying. "Hizuki! I need to trade you for Acid Drop’s safety! They think I kicked your ass STOP RUINING EVERYTHING!"

But Willow didn’t have the means to stop Hizuki’s flight, and she flew straight towards. Speed was not important, because even if Hizuki wasn’t moving as fast as she could, Pearl was flying towards her plenty fast. Rather than fire, she stumbled backwards and nearly fell off the back of the shield. Hizuki’s spear closed the distance. But it stopped just an inch away from her nose. Not only that, but Pearl didn’t fall off the back of the shield.

Standing between the two was Morganite. While Pearl’s heels were off the side of the shield, her arm was firmly in Morganite's grip. Morganite’s other hand was on Hizuki’s spear, and had slowed it down just enough to stop it from hitting its target. Her second shield floated up behind Pearl, and she allowed the girl to sink to her knees on the trailing shield.

"Hizuki! Iz me!" Morganite patted her chest. "Iz ya friend Morganite! Ya remember me, ‘ight? All da poinaz and miseria slayin’ we did?" It wasn’t that much, but it was more than she had done with anyone else. She must have noticed some surprise in Hizuki’s face, because she started to look concerned. "Are ya okay? We’z da good guyz. Wez here ta make sure everyone getz outa dis okay."

"Hahahahahaha!" Willow had planted her legs on the far side of the shield, and was madly playing on her violin. "Talk to her all you want, ‘heroes,’ but she’s under the effect of my music! She fights for me and no one else!"

Morganite growled. "We gotz ta save Hizuki!" She attempted to pull Hizuki into a hug and wrestle her weapon away from her.

Pearl nodded, then her shield shifted so that she had a better vantage point of Willow. She fired another lazer, this time cutting the cat girl’s ear clean off. "Oh, well, looks like I’ve become Beethoven, now."

"Urge to kill… Rising."

— Dazzling Diamond

Naturally, things weren’t any less chaotic around Tsubomi.

It looked like Topaz might turn the poor girl into a ritualistic sacrifice. Though with her hands high above her head, Nyxia saw an opportunity to slice them off. A cruel attack, but one directed at someone who she deeply hated. But if there’s one thing that they teach you in school, it’s that a frog’s tongue is plenty fast. In an attempt to delay Topaz and save her from losing her hands, she was pulled back before Nyxia could slice her through. There was a darkened line on the back of her wrist where she had started to cut through.

Now was not the time to play twenty questions, but the frog girl deserved some acknowledgement for keeping her hands intact. "My arrows can’t hurt people, darlin." As if to demonstrate, she stabbed her arm. The wound on her wrist started to close. "My arrows are filled with positive emotions. Love and happiness ain’t ever killed nobody."

In the right situation, it was a devastating weapon however. Miseria were constructs of negative emotions, as were the familiars of dark girls. Dark girls themselves were fueled by negative emotions, so they likely impaired them in some way.

Something Evil Eye would soon discover.

There were only two arrows stuck in Oros, and they were not hard to remove. As soon as Evil Eye gripped the shaft, they turned into gold flakes and fell to the ground. There was no wound left behind, so if the head of the arrow needed to be removed, she would need to make an incision and try to dig it out. But given that the arrows faded into nothing on touch, it wasn’t clear if she would even find anything.

"Heyyyyyyy therrrrrrrre." Oros tipped her head up, and her hair spilled to either side of her face. She had the same stupid grin on her face that time she kissed Evil eye while also having her mind taken over by her influence. Only her eyes were really wet, and not with blood. "I’m glaaaaaad you decided to come over to my house tonight. We got stuff for smores, yup." She laid her head down. "Hot pockets and pizza bites. We just need to microwave them, babe. Then we got soda for days." Her eyes were running over with tears. "Ahhh, things would have gone better on a do over. I should have just invited you after school." She was still for all of two seconds before immediately ugly crying.

Shatterscape was up to pitch, and Diamond was ready to play ball. The umpire seemed to have passed out, but was waking up. Their power had been untested, but shatterscape approached with the certainty that at least one of her sisters would be there to offer backup. Given her proximity to Tsubomi, there would be no getting between Diamond and the dark girl she was "protecting." Not without the aggressive power to back up her charge. But in a battle with so many people on every front, and with (almost) no one paying attention to anything but their own selfish goals, Hotaru was left without her much needed backup. She pitched her claw, but the batter didn’t strike out.

The batter’s bat had grown in size. The end had turned into a giant corn dog for extra reach. She caught Hotaru’s waist and flung her through the air. The deep fried treat broke apart and littered the ground with saturated fats. It wasn’t quite a home run, as Hotaru’s claws didn’t make her too aerodynamic. But it was an opportunity for Earthshaker to slip by.

She had passed the batter and she had passed the frog, and now she was closing in on the cupid. Kaeru was there, but was she even paying attention to the dark girl charging up from behind her? Diamond was also chasing Earthshaker now. Topaz had just been cut by a lazer, and was rather attuned to what was going on downfield of her. She scrambled back to her feet and prepared an arrow.

Finally, Boleite showed up. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to know things were getting crazy. But as frantic as the scene was, she could spot the pissed off prune of a magical girl with a giant deathray. That didn’t seem like the sort of thing you just let walk around. So when she saw her laser focus was on Topaz, she took aim herself. The front of her cannon powered up instantly, and she fired.

It was a frantic scene to be sure. The sort of fight that could carry on for days if not weeks. If only there was some goth mommy to fall into the area and prevent that from happening…

Symphony on High

"Placeholder!"

"Text!"

— Finnegan Vanhorn & Mika Fang

Despite the banner not featuring Marrie, she’s just as important to all this as everyone else. So this time, her part is coming first!

Binky only had enough time to flash a smile. Before she could say anything else, Her eyes went wide as Klava and Marrie’s steel met.

*clank*

Klava’s arm trembled. Marrie’s technique seemed to be working, even if her face showed a complete lack of faith in her own skill.

"There’s the quick and the dead, and as you can see, I’m plenty quick." She brought her foot up. "And for the record, I’m not an enemy or ally, I’m a professional." She kicked Marrie square in the chest just as she blurted out something about gravity. Did anyone even have gravity melodies? or is this like Tsubomi talk where she was being cryptic?

Klava’s weapon was free, and a followup was possible, but she didn’t take the opportunity. She shot off down the hall with Binky only having enough time to point her gun at her. Firing was risky, especially with Marrie on the other side of her target. "We need to wrap this up soon." Not long after she said that, the sound of ice shattering came down the hall. Sofron was free, but he was most certainly out of mana now.

"I-I need an opening!" Mika looked over her shoulder. She was quite far away from everyone else, and both the mech and Elroy were bearing down on them.

Binky nodded at Raven, and they switched places. While a normal gun could run out of ammo, an esper’s weapon could fire so long as they stayed transformed. The only issue was that her pistol wasn’t up to the task of suppressing a tommy gun.

"Okay, Marrie, right?" She fired down the hall, mostly to keep the goons at bay. "There’s two espers in there, right? We need to take them out." She loaded her gun. "I think I can take out the one guy, it sounded like he needed help. But that other one is too quick for me. I can offer you support if you need it." She fired a few more times. "I don’t think we have much time to plan, so if you want to say something, say it now."

Binky looked between the miko, Mika, and the chaos Ashley was charging into. Mika hadn’t moved from her spot, and it seemed like the mind controlled twin had been detained enough to not be a huge threat, so long as Cerise could watch over her sister. But having Mika around would be useful. She just seemed a little scared at the moment. With a sigh, Binky stepped forward.

"Cerberus! Here!"

Binky had put it off long enough. She sprinted towards the demon as she transformed into Dr Feelgood. The demon attempted to reach over the mech and swipe at orion, but Binky’s saw denied it purchase. She leapt over the mech as Orion slid under it. She was on her own now.

Her techno wand crackled to life as she fired on last shot at the underside of the mech. Certainly with the wrap job the demon was doing, it couldn’t possibly cover such an area with wall peelings. And she was right. It was fully exposed and likely the last chance for a clean shot.

Her wand fired.

She held her breath.

A beat passes. And then, the mech started to crumble into pieces above the Knight of Tomorrow. They had finally done it. The mech was out of commission, at last. But Ashley should probably get moving before she gets crushed under a bunch of scrap metal. Her adversaries certainly had the same idea. Still clinging onto Morning, the Timekeeper had no recourse but to eject himself out of the collapsing machine, landing on the floor with a roll and a coughing fit. "Fuck-!"

Meanwhile, the demon was falling backwards through the wall in the building. It broke apart around Elroy, and one of his outstretched hands pulled Binky through with him. As soon as they disappeared below the edge of the opening, Boteg soared down after them.

"Shit is getting crazy in here." MDF added. "Okay boy, you got this. I still have plenty of reinforcements. You just need to, uh, protect me."

"G-Got it." Finn strained out, healing himself up as much as he could and quickly stumbling to his feet. He needed to do something about Ashley soon, before the entire building ended up destroyed with everyone still in it, at this rate. Distance first though.

"You got this, Timekeeper! You are the shit, you are the shit, you are the shiiiiiiit!"

---

Oros, are you okay? Are you okay Oros?"

— Bookman

Endless eclipse patiently waited its turn to speak. Once Himiko had said per piece, it began to fill her mind with knowledge.

"They say we have two ears because we’re supposed to listen twice as much as we speak." Veronica shrugged her shoulders. "Though I feel in your case, there’s just a straight channel that bypasses your brain." She set down her cup and placed a hand on the edge of the table. "I’d have preferred to save my strength for the others, but I get it. You want to talk big, but don’t have the nerve to make the first move. Then allow me…"

By that point, Endless Eclipse had finished its job.

Endless Eclipse stirs…

34 | Female| G.E.M.I.N.I | Smooth Criminal
Nameless | Unique | Arcane | Improvisation
Living Doll | Best Friend
Hammerspace | Darkness | Cradle

DAMAGE: Above Average | SPEED: Above Average | SENTINEL: Above Average

PHYSICAL: Low | ARCANE: Above Average | CHAOS: Above Average

Improvisation: Veronica does not have an instrument. Instead, anything she touches becomes her instrument. She can use up to two instruments at once. Improvisation only works on the last two objects Veronica touched, and does not work on other instruments or creatures such as espers, humans, and monsters. She can remove this effect from an object at will.

Best Friend: Veronica is a living doll, made out of stuff more durable than a normal human. She has no vitals to speak of, and does not need to breathe, circulate blood, eat, or anything else that is essential to a human’s survival. She can move her limbs even if her body has been sliced and diced, and can only be truly killed if her head is crushed in. All damage and crowd control effects inflicted on Veronica are half as effective as they should be.

Cradle: Veronica’s magic is based around summoning things from an infinitely vast space that holds anything she puts into it. This gives Veronica’s melodies some unique traits based on the object(s) used for the melody.

All of Veronica’s melodies are tied to items in the cradle. Once the melodies run their course, the item used for the melody "remains in play" even after her melody has expired. She can also put items in her cradle by touching them. This causes the object to disappear into the cradle and for Veronica to recover mana depending on the size of the item pulled into her hammerspace. Veronica can only put things in her hammerspace that she can reliably pick up and use, and cannot use items as melodies if they would recover more mana than the melody costs.

Smooth Criminal: Veronica does not move through time at a consistent speed. Sometimes she jumps forward a second or so, like an old cassette tape. She can store up to three of these skips at once, which start to recharge after they are depleted. Her skips only affect her own personal time and do not affect melodies after she has cast them or objects no longer in her possession. Because it is her personal time that is being accelerated rather than her movements, shenanigans such as super jumps, super punches, super throws, teleportation, or other memes from spontaneous acceleration do not actually work.

Note: Some information has been removed to bring the information in line with a rank A reveal note.

Unfortunately, Himiko would not be able to act on her newly acquired knowledge before being struck by…

[ ♫ ]

…The table.

It moved suddenly and without warning. One moment the table was a foot away from Himiko’s chest, in the time it took to blink it had slammed into her. Not only that, but the table had been charged with a potent melody, as Himiko’s ribcage erupted violently. She couldn’t assess the damage though, as the upper half of her torso had been thrown over the back of her chair. Meanwhile, the chair containing her legs and lower torso rocked backwards until her knees touched the table. It didn’t tip any further backwards. The esper had been totally bisected by a single attack.

"O-Owos!"

Magical Dream Princess moved to try and heal the dying esper. Veronica, while extending her pinky, lifted her cup off of the table so that she could hurl the saucer beneath it at the girl. Pink pounder threw himself in front of the incoming attack and deflected the saucer with his crooked sword. Rather than shattering, it bounced off his sword with a loud clang. Next came the cup, that he also deflected.

"You’d better leave-"

The table, on the other hand, was swung at him. It was far too much for his abused sword to handle, and he ended up toppling over sideways. The table faded away in a sea of sparkles before Veronica hopped to her feet. She grabbed the chair she had been sitting in and rushed towards the pastel princess and her patient.

But she had enough time to touch the wound. Miraculously, both halves of Himiko’s body stitched themselves together. "That took up a wot of my mana…" But she wouldn’t have long to sulk. She raised her wand just in time to brace an incoming chair swing and was knocked into the pounder’s arms.

Before Himiko could react, Veronica shoved her foot under the chair and kicked it upwards, flipping Himiko over. Then she caught the devil's back chair in her other hand.

This was going to be an uphill fight.

Symphony on High

@flat lovenote After the current event runs its course, this leg of the RP will be over and we'll be going on a bit of a hiatus. It wouldn't be the ideal time to make a character sheet, since I'll be overhauling quite a few things. But I do appreciate the interest.

Suppose I'll set us to full as to not confuse future players. That one's on me.

An Idiot's Dungeon Union

"Fear me, you insectsssss."

-Salbjörg of the Deep

"I doubt you would forget your own name." And if Sal could read minds, she would probably disagree with going for a shorter version of that name. The only way she could see someone doing that would be if the name was being written. In particular, with a device that made writing special characters a pain in the rear. Like if you had some runestones with letters on them, and touching the runestones with the letter on them caused them to appear on a magical glass tablet. That would be the only case she could see for someone shortening their name. But she couldn’t read minds, so none of this actually happened.

Sal had not been sure what to make of Schnupfen. It wasn’t clear if his comment regarding names was aimed at Muste exclusively or Sal as well. If he had intended to include her, and why wouldn’t you try, then he was openly rejecting her suggestion. Such defiant behavior was uncouth. The alternative was he chose not to acknowledge her suggestion. Neither of those were particularly flattering, but she did appreciate that Schnupfen had the common sense to back away from everyone before making such rude remarks. Should this factor into how she rated him? She was unsure.

The antics of the goblins were observed, but none of it appeared to interest Sal. She raised an eyebrow once their exchange came to an end. At the very least, she felt confident in her original assessment on the furry assistant. While her form paled in comparison to more majestic creatures (like herself) she was dutiful if nothing else. She had earned her secretary title if nothing else.

But the Oracle was about to steal the show. While clearly not as attractive as Sal, it exuded power and authority. Sal was good at keeping her emotions in check and gave no outward hints that she was impressed. But on the inside she was deeply fascinated by what all the grandstanding would lead to. Her mouth unhinged slightly as he invoked the lord’s judgment on the goblin, and Sal felt the punishment was sufficient for the crime. It wasn’t until the massive creature thrust its ethereal fingers at everyone who had given a name that her cool exterior began to crack. Her mouth opened further, her chest swelled when "four" was called out and the divine finger was pointing straight into her soul. She found herself holding her breath as a single dice was rolled across the floor. Shortly afterwards, a name had been decided. While it hadn’t been the one she had chosen, it was difficult to argue with the results. Time was short, there was no time to debate, and the dice did not play favorites. Perhaps her name was too good for Kleine. Maybe she was only a six. But if there was someone in this room that was a ten, it might be the Oracle.

"Kleine the Illusion…" Salbjörg appreciated that the name was trivial for her to pronounce if nothing else. Next came more understanding, but not the time to reflect on it. Schnupfen had something of a meltdown and began shouting orders, or maybe suggestions. Entertaining any of that was far beneath her, as she had another, far more pressing problem to deal with.

Even though Salbjörg had pulled herself off of the cold floor, her body wasn’t getting warmer. After considering it for a moment, the reason for this became obvious. Her body wasn’t generating its own heat. She rubbed her hands together to build friction, but that wasn’t going to be enough.

"Hmmm…" Sal’s eyes locked onto Zoppy. She reached for the goblin and picked her up with one hand. The sleeping green skin was emitting heat, and didn’t look like she was going to protest too much if she was moved slightly. Salbjörg cradled her other arm and placed Zoppy in it, gently leaning her head on her cleavage. Yes, this seemed to be working. She could feel her bones sucking up the goblin’s heat and found the current arrangement agreeable.

Once she was set up, she looked back at the screen to see what was going on. It seemed like Schnupfen, in addition to being whiney and rude, was also kind of useless against such a weak intruder. Her initial assessment of him had been too high. He was a solid three.

"Do whatever you like." She told the others with a dismissive wave of her hand. "I’ll be back before long." And then Sal went to meet their opposition, heat blanket in tow.

…

…

…

Maybe she should have asked for directions, but Salbjörg found the path ahead to be simple enough to navigate. Any time she entered a new room, there was always exactly one entrance to another room ahead of her, which made locating her prey that much easier. It was disappointing the threat was so weak, but that just presented an opportunity to experiment. In particular, Sal wanted to demonstrate her presentation.

She could see him now. A silhouette that looked similar to what Kleine had shown them. Immediately she changed how she walked. Her hips swung wide, her steps were firm and slow. The sound of each step would carry into the next room, and it was having the desired effect. The boy had stopped his advance and held out his sword, quivering just a bit in his shaky hand. Sal was looking straight over his head where a worthy adventurer’s eyes might be. When she stepped past the threshold of the passageway, she cast out her hand, and fragments of her bone placard circled around her. Their clicking and clacking filled the room with noise. Her eyes swiftly dropped to the boy, causing him to hop backwards. He swallowed hard. A ghost was intangible, but there was no doubt that this monster could hurt the boy if she wanted to.

And boy was a very apt descriptor for the intruder, as they were a child. He wore the simple clothes of a commoner. Dirty whites and patchwork brown covered his outfit. He had a small pouch on one hip, and a sword in the other. Or perhaps calling it a club would be more accurate, as it was a wooden sword. The boy wore no armor, and one of his leather shoes had pulled apart enough to reveal his toes. Despite his disheveled appearance, the boy had bright, golden hair that tumbled down his shoulders. He was no higher than a seven now, but over time his beauty could mature. Sal grinned, which further unsettled the boy.

"You’re awfully loud." She flicked her tongue. "And you look lossssssst." The intention was to scare, so Salbjörg did not mind sounding the part of a monster. "Do you want to go back home?"

"I-I’m not lost! Why does everyone say that? I-I’m just-"

"Sssssscared?" Sal "assisted" him. Her smile only widened.

"I… just don’t understand why you’re cradling a goblin?" Her eyes flicked down to the goblin she was cradling against her chest. "Like, is that your baby? Did you adopt it? Is that something monsters do?"

With a long, tired groan, the snake woman raised her head. "You asssssk too many quessssstionssssss. Let me fix that."

The bone fragments converged into a single chaotic mass, which formed into a bowl when she took hold of it. The boy shifted on his feet as she moved the bowl to her lips. Sal bit down and her fangs deployed a stream of thick, green fluid. The bowl then folded in on itself. At first it seemed malleable like wet clay, but then it started to snap and shatter with each fragment coated in her venom. Then with the flick of her hand, the bone mass turned into several dozen needles, which soared towards their target from every direction. The boy winced, raised his sword, but many of them slipped past his defences. And then he let out a blood curdling shout.

"Owch!"

Despite most of the bone needles hitting their mark, few of them managed to peirce his skin. After the attack, he pulled one of them out of his neck and examined it. "Was that it?"

Salbjörg groaned again, but this time she bared her teeth. "That was jussssst to ssssssssoften you up!"

Running in high heels is hard, but the upside to having ridiculously long legs is that you don’t have to move them that fast to cover a lot of distance. She stomped her way over to the boy, but he didn’t look as intimidated as he did a moment ago. His wooden sword came up just as she attempted to stomp him into the ground. But no matter how much she leaned into her foot, the child’s arms didn’t so much as buckle under the pressure. They just stared at each other with a steely gaze. Then with an annoyed sigh, the child shoved her and she tumbled onto her back. This damn, cold floor again. At least she had something warm to hold onto this time.

Actually, two things.

She rolled Zoppy onto the floor before lunging at the boy. She was able to grab a hold of his shirt and pull at him, but he wouldn’t budge from his spot. It was as if she was wrestling with a pillar, and was only capable of pulling herself around her target. The boy was starting to look more irritated than anything else as the giant snake woman climbed all over him. She tried to choke him out, dislocate his arm, but none of it was very effective. Eventually the boy pulled one of the bone needles out of his neck and thrust it between Salbjörg’s ribs.

"Graahhhhh!"

She immediately let go of the boy and fell to the ground. She rolled from side to side to try and dissipate the pain, and finally managed to pull the bone pin out of her torso. What was this boy? Was he the chosen one? Some long lost hero? He couldn’t have been normal. She didn’t have much more time to think about it before he swung his sword down at her. Sal managed to pull herself out of the way before it slammed into the ground. Even if it didn’t have much effect on the stone floor, Sal had an idea such an attack would have broken her leg. In fact, she was pretty sure that the simple stab wound she received shattered one of her ribs. At least she assumed that was why breathing and moving was painful now.

"Reinforcementssssss!" Salbjörg called out as she stumbled back the way she came. They just had to delay him long enough. Her poison would take care of him before long. Yes, she had done enough. The others could try pulling their weight now. She had practically finished him off for them.

…

Had she taken something into the last room with her? She couldn’t remember, but the dungeon was starting to feel a lot colder now that she didn’t have it…

An Idiot's Dungeon Union

"We need to name you too!?"