Otis accepted Ultana’s violence gracefully, his head snapping forwards from the hearty thwack before rolling back into place. His head rotated to face the redheaded magical martial artist, a blank-eyed stare directed towards her. Lorelai’s hair, which was curiously light for something so long, tickled him as well as she hopped in to grab the newcomer’s hand. It smelled of sunflowers, her hair, Otis’s nose twitched at how closely it resembled the fumes of a busy kitchen…a smell that only became more potent when she untied it and a gale force wind blasted her voluminous hair backwards. Strange company brought forth by strange winds, hm? When the wind settled, Otis calmly grasped Lorelai’s hair, picked out the leaves and twigs caught in it during that miniaturized windstorm, and then braided it quickly, looping the end through a hole within the braid to circumvent the need for another tie. After a second’s worth of consideration, he pulled a pin out from one of his pouches and slide it into the lower end of the braid and through the folds of the back of Lorelai’s clothing. It wasn’t a permanent job, but it would be bothersome to others if a foreigner’s hair started smacking everyone everywhere at the simplest swing of the head.
Wiping his oily hands on his pants, Otis’s attention turned back onto the newcomer, wondering if Ultana was going to smack her head any time during that rambling. Didn’t seem like she would though, and it didn’t seem like Seirin was going to answer any questions too. Which he wasn’t particularly against, but the lack of acknowledgement bothered him. He would have to interrogate that emotion at a later point. Was it because she ignored his questions and segued immediately into the same sort of conversation and interest that most foreigners expressed regarding Arcanis? Was it because her voice just reminded him of how hard it was to find small game meat in Japanese butcher shops? Hrm.
He stepped to the side of Lorelai, and spoke up again.
“You speak a lot. You also answered nothing. I will repeat myself, with questions recategorized for easier understanding. Who are the Kaganomiyas? Are you in trouble right now, or will you be in trouble after? Are you of such importance that assassins will go after you, now that you are away from your escorts? Do you have money on you right now? Do you know this place well? Do you know any places for pinicking nearby? You were at the conference; were you there because of your duties, or your self-interest?” The strigidae’s tone was more measured this time around, but his gaze remained eerily sharp and unblinking. His head tilted slightly. “A change of clothing would be better at avoiding pursuers than a change in hairstyle. One's attire is often more unique than one's natural coloration.”
Yurei were ultimately just ghosts, and honestly, what could be so scary about something that already died once? With fists of fury and feet of furry, what violent retaliation launched by the specters roaming the chaotic warehouse ended up being almost totally ineffective. After all, what Devil Hunter couldn’t deal with fodder youkai? Outside of the singular citizen that was still alive, there were no other elements to worry about, after all. Hell, if it was just a group of yurei, they could probably just drop a bomb, blame it on a gas pipe explosion, and call it a night.
But if things were ever so simple, the entirety of the DHA wouldn’t be descending upon a warehouse, just for the sake of a single girl, would it?
No, beyond the schoolgirl ghosts, beyond the hobo-demon’s hand, beyond the definitely-not-noticed crow, there was a far greater evil lurking in the depths of the warehouse! The earth rumbled, concrete floor cracking and shattering as the walls themselves quaked at His advent! Roots as black as the devil’s own sin burst out from the ruptured ground, tentacle-like vines swirling and entwining to form the internal framework of a fifteen meter tall monstrosity. Fearsome and menacing with a head formed of a deformed pumpkin, he roared out with a big “ROAAAAAAAAARHGGHHHHHHHHH!” as his tree-trunk arms flailed with fury.
“YOU DARE DISTURB MY SLUMBER!” the treant continued roaring, the vividly-colored mushrooms on his back pulsating and proliferating until it covered his whole body like a porcupine. "DEVIL HUNTERS! I SHALL FERTILIZE MYSELF WITH YOUR BLOOD AND GUTSSSSSSSSS!”
And with a swing of his mighty oak, the treant grasped onto the catwalk populated by so many of those fleshy, irritating, non-hibernating humanoids and wrenched it free of the walls to hurl that entire length of twisted metal towards the motorcycling, gasoline-igniting, spear-thrusting, anime-color-haired hunter.
It was certainly on like an oven now!
…
Once again, Hanafusa Shika found themselves distracted just as things were getting good. Alas, the weight of karma upon the unjust soul. With a practiced smile, the white-haired individual set their puppet to auto, and greeted their latest customer.
“Hello, welcome to Eternally Yours. We’ve got a special on preserved Peace Lilies tonight, guaranteed to brighten up your rooms during these long winter nights!”
The suited man, humorless and bespectacled, coughed. “Rosemary, hydrangea, and amaryllis.”
Shika’s head tilted slightly. “Those don’t coordinate well. Would you like a recommendation?”
The man shrugged. “No. The old man’s got strange tastes.”
The corpse flower’s smile became toothy. “Roger dodger.”
All it took was a single slip-up. Donovan misunderstanding the monster’s intent. Isidore himself being a step too late. By the time he kicked the flower-corpse away, Augusta was already bleeding, her own flesh rent by a floral blade. It went deep. Deep enough to slice her side open, deep enough that he could see, through the blood that coated everything, the purples and yellows of her internal organs, spilling out further fluids.
For a moment, he considered whether to put her out of her misery now.
But that thought lasted for only a moment. In the absence of modern conveniences and technology, they had nature-surpassing abilities, energies that could be molded into something more. The flame died from his sword, and he nodded in Donovan’s direction. “Jostling her will aggravate the wound,” Isidore spoke, taking the vanguard. “Don’t run; I’ll buy the time we need, if I must.”
How much longer could the flower demon restrain that giant? How much more fire could he spill from his blood? He clenched his left fist, fingernails digging into the open wound, pain clearing his indecision. Augusta had been useful, and he had already buried his fair share of useful people in his last life. With a goddess's blessings constituting his body and every natural advantage conferred unto him, Isidore resolved to do better.
The swordsman sought the surface, as two titans wrestled above.
Raime continued to burn. The poison had not yet faded from his system, but he was no longer hindered by it either. Arrow after arrow flew towards the raging centipede woman, some hitting their mark, others scattering against the dense carapace. Life continued to ebb out of his wounded body, another 17 HP lost as his organs rioted against his continued physical exertion. But he would continue on, bowstring bloodied by his skinless fingers.
Ari continued as well, quick thinking surpassing the quick movements of her overwhelming quarry. Her strength wasn’t enough to send her skywards, possessing only the might of a single adult human, but the lunging head of the centipede provided a stepping stone that the catgirl kicked off of to get her up to the bare canopies of the grove. Her foot ached, that exchange having cost her 4 HP, but Ari still lived, and shrouded as she was in the mist, perhaps she was even hidden from the monster now?
The pertinent thing to do would be to stay where she was, wait until the monster was slain by the others.
Ari was insane though.
Links of chain rattled around her as she plummeted again, centrifugal force building up as the weighted end of her weapon gained more and more speed. Fragile as she was, weak as she was, even slow as she was, the centipede woman’s long torso could only follow in the same direction as her head, and Ari landed a blow with such force that the carapace caved inwards, the weighted end stuck inside the shell. Moments later, she hit the body as well, shoulder striking the writhing mass before Ari bounced off. It wasn’t a killing blow, and it may not have even been a significant one, but she had made her mark on the monster.
That made all the difference for Amulak.
A mage’s movements were insufficient for dodging a monster of this size and speed, especially with no frontliners to stall such a creature, but Ari’s blow had caused a twitch in the centipede woman’s body, a twitch that echoed up all the way into her face. Half her face smashed into Amulak’s body, overgrown teeth scraping against bone plating, and the mage ricocheted off two different trees from the impact, but he had avoided the worst case scenario: joining Lugh inside her mouth. Combined with his armor’s effect, the cloaked mage came away from it with only 72 HP lost, and plenty of time to cast his spell. Once again, his veins filled with an electrical impulse. Once again, the spear drove itself into flesh, cracking into bone. But this time, from scorch mark of the magical spear, a sword sprouted.
Lugh was still alive and kicking.
Teeth continued to grind into his flesh, tearing chunks off as they sheared meat off his bones. Even with reduced pain on, it was agonizing, like having some jackass with long nails continuously scratching at him from every direction. The only benefit of this was that the mouth of the monster was dark; Lugh couldn’t see enough to gross him the hell out, and the adrenaline was kicking in now. He was a warrior, he was a tank, and even the loss of another 88 HP from the centipede woman’s mastication couldn’t stop him! His borrowed kodachi found plenty of targets within, and soon, hot fumes spilled out from the inside of her mouth, joining the dizzying aroma of her saliva. It was a carnal festival of violence and hunger, both beasts seeking to tear the other apart, but a sudden shaft of light lit up the darkness, and Lugh thrust through, piercing flesh and puncturing bone to break out of the centipede woman’s face.
An ear-splitting screech echoed out, and she raised her body twenty meters skywards in fury, intent on burying Lugh head-first into the dirt, the inertia making a mess out of his ability to think.
But outside, Raime, Amulak, and Ari could all see it.
The crackling of electricity, the condensing of dark clouds, the glint of steel that poked out from the monster’s face.
Lightning fell, and the thunder that followed silenced the monster’s death throes as she struck the ground, her carbonized body already reforming into loot. From the vespers of her demise, Lugh stood. Chewed up, but alive, with something new on him.
A bracelet of crystallized lightning, and the thunderhead that followed it.
Type Arms, First Stage +5% HP, +5% MP, +5% SP, +5% STR, +5% END, +5% AGI, +5% DEX, +5% LCK A silver-blue bracelet on the left wrist, from which a crackling thunderhead exudes out from. The thunderhead is affected, but not dispersed, by the wind.
Sanctity of Fulmination
Passive. Zeus can absorb a certain amount of Equipment, Accessories, and Consummables. Consummables absorbed by Zeus can stack infinitely, so long as they are the same type. After doing so, Zeus is able to transform into any of the Equipment that it has absorbed, possessing these traits, regardless of the form taken:
- Traits that fulfill special conditions that absorbed equipment would fulfill, such as spellcasting implements. - Stat increases taken from the highest bonuses offered by the absorbed items, per individual stat. - All effects possessed by the absorbed equipments and accessories. - The ability to verbally invoke the effects of any absorbed consummables.
Transformation is instantaneous, but can be slowed intentionally for dramatic purpose, in which case it occurs initially as an object being drawn out from the thundercloud, and with every instance afterwards as a bolt of lightning bursting before reforming. At First Stage, Zeus can absorb 3 Items.
@Psyker Landshark@Cu Chulainn@Searat@GreenGoat Catching up with the oni, the two Immortals continued their journey through the Thunderstruck Grove, the relative silence broken by chatter in a foreign language, the screams of players and monsters alike, the echoing thunder, and the occasional snapping of a twig underfoot. It was hard to figure out in what direction the oni were actually heading; many of the turns they took looked pointless or redundant, simply erasing the progress they made before, but the blue oni looked confident in his trail-blazing, and the strange group hadn’t been attacked yet by any others. Was this a safe trail? Or did monsters in the Thunderstruck Grove have an unspoken understanding to not fight against each other? Certainly, Ames and Magpie couldn’t recall before any instances of other monsters in the Pearl Bloom River or Goldspun Fields attacking each other, but then again, maybe they just hadn’t observed monsters in their natural environment for all that long?
After what seemed like an hour, or perhaps just a couple of minutes, they found themselves in front of a large tree, gnarled roots bulging out of the barren earth. The blue oni crouched down, his voice low as he whispered an incantation. Moments later, the roots pushed upwards, raising the tree five meters into the air and unveiling a tunnel that lead into the earth. An otherworldly blue light pulsated at the bottom of the tunnel, and the onis walked in, ducking their heads slightly at the entrance of the subterranean system. Magpie and Ames followed after, and were hit immediately by the strong smell of roasting meats, pungent sweat, aromatic smoke, and bitter alcohol. Behind them, the tree settled down once more, groaning as its roots rearranged itself.
Now, there was no escape.
They continued down the tunnel, feet padding against a moss-woven carpet, until it opened up into a large cavern from which smaller tunnels could be seen. Braziers of blue flame lit up the interior, while countless hides, tanned, cured, then dyed, coated the walls and the ceiling. Dof onis ranging from red to blue to purple were laying about, some attending to tasks, others just content to relax. Three pudgy oni children, their horns still just nubs, wrestled each other in a ring of sand, making dramatic noises that sounded like facsimiles of kappa-speech. An absolute unit of an oni, spherical in shape and girth, singlehandedly managed a wok that looked to be twenty meters in diameter. A thick, bloody soup bubbled merrily, bones occasionally resurfacing as it boiled. Neither Immortal could tell if any of them were human though. Off to one side, a pair of female oni, both purple and pregnant, leaned against one of the alcoves, whispering to each other and shooting glances at the strange intruders. When a toddler oni started waddling in the Immortals’ direction, they pulled him back, ushering the young lad back into the smaller room. Their presence certainly drew attention, and some more negative than others; that scar-faced oni with a broken horn gave them a hell of a stink-eye when they first emerged.
The trio didn’t mind the attention though. They practically hurled the chunks of bear at the chef-oni, the blue leader turning to encourage the Immortals to follow again, this time to the back of the room, where, upon a throne of bones, a sinewy purple oni sat, smoking from an ornate pipe. It was difficult, at a glance to tell the age of the monster, but his hair was jet black, streaked with silver dust and pinned back with various colorful beads, while spiderweb tattoos ordained his body almost completely. The loincloth he wore was a startling white, at odds with the dirt-smeared, soot-covered décor of the rest of the cavern, and he gazed thoughtfully at the two immortals while the blue oni explained in that curious, emphatic speech of their’s.
Finally, the purple oni breathed out, and in a rasping voice, spoke, “So. You dance.” @Yankee@OwO Bone shattered with consecutive blows, the brutal cleaver chipping away at the stump that remained. Klein continued his grim, single-minded task, removing more and more of the stump, desecrating more and more of the skeleton within. Surely, it would be over soon? The tree itself had been uprooted, while the stump was being torn to bits.
But it wasn’t over. His SP continued to fall with every exertion of his body, and he continued to pull out chunks of wood. His vision darkened, the density of the woven cage blotting out what sparse light broke out from the all-encompassing mist. In moments, Klein was in total darkness, even the distant sound of thunder now muted within this cage.
And with the cage complete, the roots closed in, dirt shifting as they twisted together, unseen tendrils of wood grappling onto the mountain man’s body. Only a few at first, but growing at a rapid pace as the damp wood slipped around his sweat-slick form. All the while, his body grew more and more sluggish, the juxtaposition between what he willed and what he did growing greater and greater, his eyes struggling to stay open within the smothering darkness.
Klein was being swallowed whole.
Klein was to be the next man inside this tree. @Shovel
Feel like you could probably tone them up, if ya want.
On the topic of demon cannibalization, it's rather inefficient and unfulfilling. Depending on the type of demon you are though you can be a coward and have them just sip incremental bits of blood or something. Think that's reserved for weak ghost-types though.
Otis didn’t understand why the others dragged him into the group, not when he hadn’t really spoken to any of them at all. He wasn’t lonely, nor was he particularly bored, and the strigidae would have been perfectly content with zoning out in a relatively nice-looking temple while he mentally reviewed all that he had learned. Well, that wasn’t to say that he couldn’t just do his review in a group instead of by himself. While Helena discussed tea and Rodrick discussed smells, Otis craned his head backwards, letting his eyes fall into the depths of the sky. The heat of the day was comfortable, and the buzzing of the insects enjoyable. The tantos he had forged and inscribed at the Kirizanto Forge weighed heavily against his shoulders, the pleasant heft of time well-spent. Maybe he’ll get Rodrick or Helena to test them out later. It had always been his intent to utilize the inscriptions in his bullet crafting, but if Otis was going to make a bunch of weapons in the meantime, he may as well make them good.
Who knew, maybe his gun will get a blade one day.
Such thoughts would have to be entertained at a later time though. Sensing a disturbance behind him, Otis turned his head all the way around, seeing the girl that summarily used their group to evade capture by suspicious individuals in suits and shades. Kaganomiya Seirin, was it? His horrifically twisted head tilted to the side at the name, but he couldn’t place it. She had to be some famous person’s daughter though, if she was forced to sit on the stage of the conference without actually being allowed to speak. His eyebrows raised up slightly, before saying, rather flatly, “We need someone to take pictures for the group. Join us and stop diving into other groups. That’s what Japanese people find rude.” Maybe it was strange, an otherworlder like him lecturing a native like her on cultures and all, but Otis was never one to linger…
“We’re mostly Arcanis though, so it’s fine. What’s the Kaganomiya family? Do you know any locals’ secret sites? Got money on you? What can you do? Are you in trouble? Will you be in trouble? There a place for pinicking nearby? Would assassins go after you if you’re unprotected? You need a better disguise. A moustache will help.”
…but perhaps that was a problem, in and of itself.
To confirm then, the modernization of these methods only improves the efficiency of the enchanter, yes? The DHA hasn't actually gotten to the point yet where they have enchanters capable of producing supernatural effects that are totally separate from the ancient texts?
Yankee
Altered Tundra
Alisdragon911
stone
VitaVitaAR
Animal
LanaStorm
Ohm
Haha
Shovel
