ERode

Expedition to Isekai

Nine guests each time, but there's like, only seven players here. Literally who are the rest of y'all lmao.

Expedition to Isekai

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//Day 0 | Location: Nameless Forest - Clearing

Rin was a gawky girl. Scrawny, even. Flat too. Short.

Her mass offered nothing for gravity to work with, and the impact she made had no physical effect. Her feet struck the back of the wolfbear’s neck and she stood there awkwardly, before successive movements from the beast threw her off.

Emotionally however?

It was enough to get the job done.

The hammer impacted the beast’s elbow with force enough that the flesh itself rippled. Twisting to the other side, Kogen finally broke free, sliding off and away from the beast’s pin. Its jaws opened still, biting down, but he craned his neck to the side, catching it with his shoulder. Left shoulder, unarmed shoulder. Pinpricks of pain squeezed down, his bloody running hot. It didn’t stop him, though, from driving the claw of the hammer into the monster’s neck.

He saw it, then.

It was impossible to make out before, but in such desperate times, in such dire straits, with all his might leveraged, Kogen could see it. See the monster’s body stiffen upon contact with the claw. See space itself distort, as if rejecting the interaction of such materials. There was some interference here. Something that stalled him.

Claws reached out, swiping towards him.

And Masato was there to catch it, exposing his bloodied back towards Kogen as he wrestled with the limb, pinned it against his armpit and his chest. Buying time, more than enough time now for the eyepatch-wearing idiot to force through this resistance. The claw bent beneath the pressure. The handle warped from his grip. He struggled as best as he could, before finally finding the purchase he needed. Through fur, through skin, through fat, stainless steel pierced the veins and then ripped downwards, tearing open the monster’s throat.

It struggled still, baptizing the two boys in steaming blood, acrid blood, black blood. They held on tight, joined soon by Rin herself, holding the monster as it raged in its death throes.

Until it stopped.

Until it was over.

The three of them laid atop the beast they had slain. Rin, still dazed from her experience with flight. Kogen, sporting an ugly bruise and a set of fang marks on his shoulder. Masato, his pants and shirt ruined and his body like a scratching post.

It had to be over.

But it wasn’t yet over.

…

He could feel his guts press up against his shirt. Could feel the stiff fur of the wolfbear poke into those tender, fleshy ropes. Blood ran thick in his mouth, the iron stench coating his world. But Duncan had its back and he clung on nonetheless. An elbow drop that sent the beast into the ground, then long arms wrapping around, trying desperately to squeeze the life out of the monster.

And would you look at that? He was stronger than he thought. Stronger than he felt.

His thoughts were scattering, the red of his vision turning white. Lightheadedness, like that time against that powerhouse school from Saitama, the one where he spent the entire match trying to break free from his mark. His mind was slipping, but his body held on, even as hooked claws dug into his arms.

Even as the wolfbear, possessing superior mass, rolled over, and Duncan felt that oppressive pain crush every part of his body. He too was suffocating. Strong enough to strangle, not strong enough to snap.

And then, he felt an impact.

Felt Asahi’s impact.

The pink-haired youth, so talkative, so charming, had no more words now. The charred stick snapped against the force of the stone, caught between a rock and a hard place. Even now, the monster struggled; it was nigh impossible to aim for an eye when emotions ran so hot. But he still had the stone. The second impact sounded, fractures forming over his weapon’s surface.

More. More. More. Brutal and unforgiving, Asahi raged against everything that he had experienced, everything that was still left to be experienced. Stone turned to dust in his hand, and his hand became a fist that pounded the monster’s skull.

Blood mixed with dust. Sweat with saliva. How long was twenty seconds under a pin? How long was twenty seconds in an exchange?
Finally, Duncan could feel the body above him grow limp.

Finally, Asahi could see the body beneath him grow limp.

Finally, they could rest.

…

By all accounts, it shouldn’t have worked.

But if there could be one miracle, there could be another, and Ayana was really feeling it this time!

A rancid taste filled her tongue, like biting into an unwashed towel, but she had committed to her move and by God she was going to see it through. Her back arched, her spine protested, her lungs could hardly get any air at all! But a wolfbear’s body wasn’t designed with limbs that could easily reach behind its back either, and with only a yelp of surprise, its head smashed into the floor, through the floor, and then…through the bus itself.

The bus had always been an old thing after all. It should have been decommissioned and replaced a decade ago, in truth. And now, weakened by the blaze, damaged by the impacts of wolfbear and Shun? It didn’t stand a chance and broke in half, Ayana and the wolfbear tumbling through sooty pipes and gears, warped steel and foam.

It was a good thing then, that Shun prioritized getting Yuudai out first. It was impossible to tell at a glance whether or not he was alive, but if nothing else, it looked like his head was still in place and his heart hadn’t been punctured. Humans could die so easily though. They could die just from a bad fall.

Shun threw him anyways and he hit the grassy field, rolling twice before coming face-flat to a stop.

And by the time she turned once more, hurling an iron pipe through the air, the situation was already too chaotic to score a hit. The pipe embedded itself into a pile of burning scrap, inches away from Ayana’s own face, while the wolfbear scrambled up, breaking out and away from the bus. Its eyes, watering from the smoke, swiveled about in six separate directions to ascertain the situation at a glance, before it growled and sprinted away.

Trying to escape.

But would they let this end, just like that?

Blades of Iron Roses: An Anime-Inspired Knight RP

_{@HereComesTheSnow}

The hero lived up to his legend, decayed and disgraced as he was.

An apex of humanity from a bygone era, one that possessed strength enough to one-handedly hurl Gerard towards her with such force that she hardly had time to think. Time, diluting further. Air, bursting through her veins. Heart, racing double-time.

She jumped back.

Two hands opened, weapons dropped as the knight’s form slammed against her own. The lioness found purchase in that moment, one hand grasping his collar, the other his belt. What was the point of training if she couldn’t do it in real-time? What was the point of mastery if she could not apply it beyond its usage? What was the point of study if that did not expand her options?

When the plainsfolk of Velt besieged fortresses of stone, the scarcity of wood in their homelands called for solutions of another sort. In the absence of trebuchets and catapults, the strongmen of that era would grasp great slings loaded with boulders, spinning them round and round to building up momentum. Would release at the peak that their bodies could bear, sending stone to strike fortifications two hundred paces away.

They called it a hammer throw.

One foot landed, a pivot finding purchase against stone. Her body twisted, forcing Gerard’s body away from her own. Shoulders stood strong, fingers gripped like a vice. Lightning sparked, both in her mind and out her mind. Second foot landed, granting more stability now, keeping her balance. With the initial force of Erich’s own throw, there was no need for a full rotation. All she had to do was add her own strength to existing momentum, use her own strength to resist the building inertia, and!

The barrier shattered.

The Captain disengaged.

Serenity released.

And Gerard flew, a boulder to test a fortress.

Decibitus

---

~1444 | PARIS | FASHION SHOW VENUE

---

Bolts of arcane power sang through the flickering light and shadow of the venue, striking with aplomb before Edward delivering a killing blow with his Scythe. Twas with the fury of the storm itself that his staff smashed through the last of the wisp's defenses, vines and petals charring to ash before the tip of the staff cracked open the skull of the child inside. No blood, no cry. Only a muted stare from a pair of pitch-black eyes.

And then, unraveling. Fibers unmade, threads unspooled. The entire body of the predator-plant peeling away into a myriad of ethereal lines. The lines twisted together once more, wrapping into itself over and over again, spinning with the speed of a mechanical loom. Histories and egos stripped away, form and substance flattened to a single color, the life that made the wisp, the life that made the child before the wisp, it all became of nothing once more.

A ball of yarn, rolling to a stop by Edward's foot. To be processed at the Kiln once all this was over.

And though all this was not yet over, one could certainly forgive the necromantic aspirant for wanting to bask a little in his own victory. After all, he, not Lucian, not Vera, had single-handedly taken down a triple-phantom-infused wisp! And without doing the disgusting amount of collateral damage that Amelia did either!

It was good to be a God of Undeath!

...

It was bad to be Lucian.

Ribs cracked, abs crushed, the former model picked up his pool cue once more, ready to take a hefty swing at the dragon. But the nature of luck was that what went up must go down, and while in most cases, misfortune would rebound upon someone else, in this case?

Half-stumbling, half-charging, half-swinging, his foot slipped upon the pool balls he had scattered just four minutes prior and Lucian found himself face-down, ass-up. Thankfully free from concussions owing to the hardiness of his face, he nevertheless cut a sad image, one that was of no use to Vera and no harm to the dragon.

But Vera herself had found her tempo now. The world was pulling away from her as she continued to prioritize, continued to categorize. The fire alarm turned mute. The civilians were mere shadows. Celeste was a concern for another time. Edward's gloating earned no thoughts. All there was was her sword and the dragon, the prototypical tale of heroes and the monsters they had to slay. Everything else, after all, was just a backdrop.

Spectral sparks scattered from the deflectional parry of her longsword, bone chipping as the blade guided it away. With the momentum of that movement, the swordswoman transitioned into a cut that aimed to behead the beast while its head was extended. It sliced into the dragon's upper jaw instead, shorning off what ought to have been its nose before digging into its lower teeth. If the beast had been alive, there would be hot blood, roars of pain.

But it was just bones, animated and possessed with fury.

It drew its jaw back, more teeth shattering as it pinned Vera's blade inside what remained of its mouth. It would not be something she could free easily. Not be something she could free on time.

For within its ribcage, spectral flames coiled once more, rushing up the channel of its neckbones and bursting out the gaps of its ruined face! It was a shotgun blast, rendered in a blaze, and if Vera did not defend, she would be sent flying back, perhaps suffering the same fate that Lucian had just extricated himself from.

But if she did not defend, she could attack.

Sleepless Nights\\ Iron Cages

Used the remaining action from the last round to have Yasu pre-emptively advance.

Then used one action this round for Yasu to slice the whip in half, using its own force against it. Reserving two actions to do further shitfuckery afterwards.

Sleepless Nights\\ Iron Cages

"Whoop, there you are!"

Yasu caught Niid as he was knocked back into her, holding the cybernetically and chemically enhanced boy by his hips as she spun around, a dancer swinging her partner. A moment later, he found his feet on the ground and found Yasu advancing further.

Visions of death were commonplace, and the scepter of death itself was even more so. Factories would grind their workers to bone meal. The underworld was chocked full of corpses that would never move on. Every day, Fixers arrived to replace the Fixers that left. Every night, a light turned off was a life taken swift. Gun retorts and the sigh of a knife. Spatial rupturings and the whispers of the mind. A few seconds ago, it had been that green finger, hidden in the shadows cast by the projector. Now, it was the ringleader, arm cocked back and rippling with muscles that had not been there a moment before.

Visions of death simply indicated the Boundary of Death.

And the best Fixers learned to walk right on that edge.

The cross burned bright within her odd-eye, showing her the myriad Yasus who made the same choice as herself. As one, they launched themselves forwards. As one, they gripped their sword. As one, they swung out, the beloved blade swirling with their own lifeforce. All for the purpose of slicing that whip in half.

Coins spun in the heavens above, but she never worried about the result once she set it into motion.

Whether heads or tails, whether success or fail, Yasu remained fearless.

Because live or die, Yasu always survived.

Persona ~ Alone at Sea (PERSONA WITH A BOAT 𓊝)

There was a lot Verity could say, of course.

She could go on about how this must be a world that was way more fantastical than expected, if monsters such as the frog could appear and then disappear like the mist. She could talk about the necessities of gathering food and water and shelter, as the nights would definitely be a killer when all they had was swimwear. She could mention that 'Persona' was a weird word to use to invoke magical monsters. If Maive's Persona was full of hot air and Daniel's Persona was the incarnation of death, what exactly did that say about the two of them?

Probably that they were both fucked up human beings. Not that Verity cared enough to think any further than that.

Except even that was what she would consider an extraneous thought, when she noticed one of the weaker boys crawl over the spring and then crawled in.

Disappearing, just like that.

"Ah. That makes no fucking sense."

But it'd explain where Victor went. Where Sofia went. Was the internal logic here 'saltwater foreign, freshwater home' because humans could only drink freshwater? Because humans depended on freshwater sources to found civilization? If she left now, could she ever return again? If she left now, could she return, but this time with everything she needed to truly explore? Across the ocean, within the islands, searching for new springs and new beasts?

Well, no matter.

"Peace."

It took ten seconds for Verity to walk into the spring.

It took an eternity before she could walk out of the toilet.

Blades of Iron Roses: An Anime-Inspired Knight RP

_{@PigeonOfAstora@HereComesTheSnow@VitaVitaAR@Rune_Alchemist@Conscripts}

A moment before it was too late, Serenity realized her misjudgment. The strong shadows cast by the lightning witch’s spellwork made her gauge the height of the ceiling incorrectly; there was no room to leap over the ancient knight, and it was only with some fortune that the shockwave of his sword swing struck before his sword did. A blast of force sent her back, slamming into an unfortunate undead. She rolled with the impact, her mace driving a hole through the skull of another.

Skull fragments scattered against the floor, matching the tempo of the crunching of nuts, the arrival of Sir Steffen. Help and harm came in equal measure, and that battle axe could do what she could not.

“Ignore the demon and the witch. Break the barrier. Save the girl.”

Fanilly’s blade pierced into the gaps of Erich’s armor, Gerard putting his everything to disarm the Demonbreaker’s sword. The shield arm was left unchecked though, and Serenity could spare no more time catching Steffen up to speed.

She too ran, a golden shadow amidst the disorderly hordes. Shooting to Erich’s other side, Serenity brought back her mace and swung for the stained legend’s skull, following up one beat later with a second swing from her hatchet. Two blows in sequence, to keep the shield occupied long enough for Gerard to finish or to crack open his head Erich would expose his flank in order to protect his ewpon. Either was good, and neither was fine. Because if Sir Steffen was there, then soon Sir Fleuri and Sir Vier would arrive too, and the tides of battle truly would shift.

In the absence of proper gear and optimal conditions, in the absence of heroes and paladins, numbers alone would still make the difference.

Fire Emblem: Crestfallen

_@Ambra

While other students may have had the chance to have gotten acquainted with each other on the way there, Andrion had arrived at the monastery long before the others had. There were formalities to be performed, after all. Names to pay his respects to, as a child of the Church. He had spent the last month sequestered within the Irinduil Monastery, tempered by his austere surroundings and the natural beauty of the mountain it was built upon. Perhaps the priests and nuns thought him more pliable in isolation, figured that some time away from the Lower City would be enough to work the guttertrash out of him.

Turning a blind eye to the fact that he had lived in a Church-affiliated orphanage. Ignorant to the fact that he found the pleasures of the flesh to be the same sort of pleasure one could derive through appreciation of untamed majesty and the satisfaction of simple chores. Humans were of flesh and blood. All that they did, so long as it was rooted in their body, was natural, was good.

Still, when the month had passed and others of the Officers Academy began trickling in, Andrion had to confess: he wasn't so impressed. The girls, especially the ones that were set to be house leaders, were almost remarkably unremarkable, with proportions that were almost mannish! How could they, with ample opportunity for exercise and the diet that only wealth could provide them, end up with such disappointing figures? Why, the Francette girl had hips that were undoubtedly narrower than her shoulders! And the men too looked more like children than, well, men. Even the grimmest, most serious looking of them seemed to have forgotten to get a haircut for the last three years and now, every one of them seemed to sport the sort of vagabond-spikes one would expect out of a highwayman. Or a prostitute.

Maybe foppishness and androgyny was the natural state of even the finest military talents amongst the nobility though. Or maybe they figured that following in the footsteps of the archbishop and the professors would gain them some sort of advantage. Andrion wouldn't pretend he understood it.

Oh, but he did understand expressions and whispers, the sniggering slyness of a blue-blooded waif.

"What's this, House Leader?" Andrion's voice, unlike Sherry's, echoed against the walls of the garden. "The tour's hardly started, and you're already gushing over our venerable Archbishop's fine looks?"

Sleepless Nights\\ Iron Cages

How many coins do we have per clash?