For better or worse, it seemed like they were invited to the home of the oni. They didn’t seem to be hostile to the duo. Wary, yes. In all fairness, who wouldn’t be wary of them? Immortals were violent murder-hobos that saw living beings as piles of XP. Riens weren’t much better. Mags didn’t quite make eye contact with any of the oni. She’d rather be the sideshow than get ganked for looking at an oni’s wife the wrong way. She did walk with some bravado, though. Her dance from early never really stopped. It just transitioned to walking dances.
When she passed the chef oni, Mags quickly handed it off to him. She didn’t exactly know what force she could yeet the meat at the chef. She hadn’t limit-tested her strength yet and she didn’t want to accidentally aggro every single oni in existence over some meat.
Finally, they stood before what Mags presumed was the chief oni. Judging by his unique appearance, he was definitely a fight that Mags couldn’t win.
Probably. Wouldn’t know unless she tried, but her gamer instincts were telling her to not try to game on him. The question was, was what he said a command or a statement?
Well, it didn’t matter. Mags instantly turned to Ames.
“Remember how to party rock?” She asked, already ready to shuffle.
Ames was momentarily stunned that the chieftain spoke English. Or common or whatever. Human translated language. It pleased him to think that with at least one oni that could communicate directly to them, that maybe he could learn the oni language in kind! ...buuuut that wasn't really immediately important at the moment.
"That's an old one, but... yeah I'm pretty sure I remember it," Ames replied, scratching the back of his head. Much the same as his companion, Ames entered the hidden den with respectfulness, trying not to marvel too hard at all the oni and their cultural things gathered there. Every little comment, even in their foreign monstrous language, perked the redhead's ears and he'd turn in someone's direction only to pass his eyes quickly over, returning to the back of their guide until they stood in front of the chieftain.
And with the sheer virility of someone who would sing that they’re sexy and they know it,
Mags began to shuffle with the as much gusto as she could. With pursed lips, a whistle that imitated the backing electronic samples that were so iconic to the dance came out of her mouth. Her partner was right beside her, picking the pace up as the steps came back to him. Jeez, talk about vintage, Ames was pretty sure neither he nor Mags were even born when this dance came out. Still, good moves were good moves. It was easy to keep pace when Mags was whistling the haphazard tune, and the bells still strapped to Ames’ ankles filled in with the slap of their feet against the ground.
Throughout the entire display, which was varying degrees of interesting and cringeworthy, the spiderweb-marked oni did not so much as twitch, even if the three other onis swayed and bobbed to what fragmented beats Magpie and Ames formed through their movements and their whistling. At the end of it, with both Immortals soaked with sweat, only a single word left his mouth.
“Why?”With a huff and a puff in her breath, Mags was caught in a rare moment of introspection. Why did this entire dance arc of her gaming career begin? It was something about wanting to see if they were friendly. Though, saying that she decided to dance like a moron because she wanted to see if they’d attack her in response might not have been the smartest thing to say. Who knew, maybe the oni chieftain respected honesty above all else.
But Mags was a bit blustered from the chieftain. Really just killed her vibe.
“Seemed like a good idea at the time, really.” She said as she scratched her head, a slight blush rising as she glanced at the ground.
"Uh... I mean, don't you all dance too? " Ames asked, following up on Mags' comment and himself feeling thrown off by the chieftain's question. He caught his breath quickly and stood up straight, puffing his chest out in a meager display of pride before the oni.
"So I guess... why not?"“Kuru-Chiba’s Grave is where the weak become meat. Your kind slay ours. Our kind hunts yours.” The oni turned his head to the side, one hand turning palm-up. The shadows bent, before another oni, clad head to toe in bandages smeared with calligraphy, emerged, placing a bone pipe, smoldering with something that smelled of almonds, into the hand. He dismissed the servant, and smoked from the pipe.
“You choose here to dance, though you’ve no qualms with slaughter elsewhere.”He breathed out the nutty smoke, and for a moment, the two Immortals could see the cloud shift, from kappas to goblins to wolves, before dispersing into the aether.
“Why?”Mags didn’t quite expect this to lead to an actual moment of introspection. Really, why did she treat the oni different? Well, the kappa attacked her first. The fight against the martial frog made her think that there was more to encounters than just murder-for-XP. Though, she was still very indifferent to the entire murder thing. It was just a game, after all.
“I kinda like the dadbods..”Ames hadn't heard what his friend mumbled, which might have saved her some embarrassment in the long run. He thought about what kind of answer the oni leader was really looking for. 'We didn't know you guys would be cool' didn't seem to be that strong of a reason and, like Mags, Ames didn't think 'it was the set up for an attack' would fly either.
Waaaaait a second, he thought, was this one of those really upfront moral choices that used to be popular in games a few years back? The kind that admonished the player for playing the game? Wasn't killing monsters the best way to level up in games like this anyway? ...it was fair to consider, but after a moment Ames thought it probably wasn't. It was still early on in their CaCo game time, but he was reminded that the game's selling point was how realistic it was. So they probably really didn't need to go around killing everything, and if they did those things they killed would probably be upset.
...then again he did really want to level up.
"...I guess we didn't know there was another way?" Ames said slowly, chewing on his own words.
"It's like, fighting stuff is normal for us humans and it can be kind of fun honestly. But it was fun dancing against your tribesmen too. If you could get stronger just making friends instead that would be cool."Another long moment, another narrowing of the eyes, before the leader of the onis removed the pipe from his lips. He did not speak a word as he turned it around, then offered it first to Magpie, then to Ames.
Mags was not going to turn down the chance of ripping a fat toke. After all, she spent hours inefficiently grinding to figure out apothecary stuff the day before. Getting the chance to light up some magic hindsight stuff? No way in hell she was going to miss that.
So she took a puff from the pipe.
The pipe tasted of rotten wood, mixed with the faint flavor of alcohol and a stronger stench of burnt mushrooms, a combination disgusting enough that Magpie almost gagged on it. Whether through personal experience with recreational drugs or just a desire not to look like a loser, however, the brawler held on, heaving in a lungful of it and feeling the smoke settle into her veins.
Around her, the world began to darken, tinged in a light blue that blurred the edges of whatever she saw. Numbness settled into the tips of her fingers, and her spine felt electric, oversensitive to the fabric rested against it. As her gaze turned up to see the oni remove the pipe from her hands, however, Magpie could see shadows lingering behind him. Countless individual shadows, humanoid in shape but unclear in form, clinging onto his sinewy form. It was like looking into the depths of an oceanic trench, a darkness that swallowed your mind whole. Others in the room too held such strange darkness, including Ames, but only the oni leader had it in such density, such concentration.
And as the buzz faded, Magpie’s vision returned to normal.
Mags didn’t really learn anything from doing that. If she had to hazard a guess as to what she saw, it would be their power levels. She didn’t really think too hard about it considering how she had to try incredibly hard to not vomit everywhere and look like a dweebus. All she could really do is look at Ames. She didn’t say anything, but the expression on her face told the red-headed warrior everything.
Don’t do it. It’s like huffing a tree’s ass.Ames looked between Mags and the oni chieftain, eyeing the pipe apprehensively. Magpie was uncharacteristically quiet after the huff of... well, whatever was in the pipe, and the look on her face read clear regret, if just for the taste.
"Um." Ames smiled widely, unsure. Would refusing enrage the chief? If possible Ames wanted to keep these nebulous friendly relationships going. At the very least he wanted to leave the oni's den alive. He had a lot of shit to do today in the game after all.
"A... peace pipe?" Ames tried asking a more subtle inquiry as to just what it was, gingerly taking the pipe but not indulging just yet.
“Heightens one’s awareness, briefly.”"Oh!" Well, that didn't sound that bad. The face Mags was making didn't bode well, but Ames could probably survive a sour taste in exchange for "heightened awareness." He put the pipe to his lips and inhaled.
And immediately choked.
It must have gone down the wrong pipe, or he must have done it incorrectly, or he simply did not have the same fortitude as Magpie, or perhaps he was simply inexperienced with this whole drug-smoking thing, but Ames didn’t even last one second before his body twitched, spasmed, and coughed out the rotten-wood-smoke. What buzz might have been felt was overwritten by sheer disgust instead, and the pipe fell out of his hand as he wretched forwards, lungs heaving out with violent force.
The purple oni caught the pipe before it struck the ground, and gave Ames a look that mixed disappointment and amusement.
“Try again?”Wheezing and eyes watering, Ames harshly nodded his head. The red head hadn't smoked a day in his life (well except that one time last semester... but it was just a trial run!), and didn't really plan to start, but one: this was a videogame. Two: he really couldn't stand that hint of disappointment in the chief's eyes. It irked him more than being laughed at ever could. To impress the cool demon philosophical dudes he'd have to take another drag of that disgusting concoction.
"Goddamnit," he hissed weakly. It was seriously gross. Ames reached out for the pipe again, cutting a quick glance to Mags fishing for sympathy.
Mags could only look at her with frigidity. She told the red-head so.
Really should've listened to her, yuck, Ames thought, but he also felt it was probably worth it. With the rancid taste already lingering in his mouth, the second try wasn't as bad. Ames felt the hairs on his skin stand on end, every little sensation amplified once the smoke entered his body. The blue tinted visions of shadows haunting everyone in the room reached Ames the same way they had Magpie, and they faded away just as quickly.
"Wow, that was..." Totally disgusting. "Um, strong." Ames blinked away the last of his darkened vision, rubbing his eyes briefly.
"That was heightened sense? What was with the shadow people?"“I am,” the purple oni said, reclining once more against his throne,
“a spirit-seer. All under the heavens, excepting the foreigners, grow strong through no other manner than the vanquishment of others. Through battle, we make the might of others our own.”The three oni who had initially led Magpie and Ames here were slowly slinking off now; whatever weight the conversation had was lost on them.
“That is to say, there is no other way. Knowing this, what does your future look like?”Spirit-seer. That sounds cool. Ames listened to the chieftain, and from what it sounded like... the oni was just reconfirming what the warrior already thought was true - that you basically had to keep defeating enemies to get stronger. Ames could feel himself deflating a little bit. All that mystery and nasty smoking just to hear
that come from the head oni's mouth. Still, it occurred to Ames that the chieftain wasn't exactly shaming the humans for killing earlier as he'd previously thought, but that he was genuinely confused as to why the hell they'd decided to follow through with a non-aggressive approach that time. It kind of made Ames feel like the whole experience was going right over his head. His face colored lightly.
”I don’t know, I’m kinda stupid.” Mags frankly said. If that was a vague threat, then her head would probably be popped like a grape in a minute. No real point in fighting it. If those shadows were dead people, then they were thoroughly outmatched.
"Come on, you're not stupid, just headstrong," Ames said. Magpie could be a genius so long as it came to better serving herself, or so Ames thought. The red head looked back towards the chieftain, meeting the oni's eyes. He didn't exactly know what his future held per se, but he did have a goal in mind.
"Being able to talk with you was cool, but I'm not gonna stop fighting stuff. Like you said, it's the only way to get stronger, so... in my future, I'll become a strong and cool magic knight." Yup, his goal was really as simple as that, for now anyway.
"And I want to learn a bunch of stuff about the world, like species languages and cultures!" The purple oni nodded, his inhuman expression unreadable.
“Was it only you two who followed?””Probably, yea.” Mags replied, her hands almost shielding her eyes from Ames’ sunny disposition.
”Unless you count the shadow people that surround us, apparently.”“Then I will leave them to you.”Rising from his throne, he raised his right leg up into the air and stomped downwards, an action that caused the entire tribe to stand up straight. A guttural roar sounded out, and immediately, the cavern became a flurry of motion, horned oni of all shapes and sizes grabbing what valuables and consumables were available. The chef oni, in an impressive display of might and endurance, raised his massive pot of stew over his heat, apparently unbothered by the searing hot bottom of the cookware. The three hunter onis that had initially invited Magpie and Ames over were bundling up weaponry and essentials as well, while the mothers were similarly in a frenetic hurry, herding up children and leading them off into smaller tunnels.
And as for their leader? With a murmured incantation, the skeletal throne clattered to life, unearthing its true form: the reanimated skeleton of a giant, three-headed snake. Stepping up and claiming his place upon the central head, the purple oni looked down at the two, as the cavern quickly became less and less ornamented.
“Our kind dance together as a part of a mating ritual,” he spoke, flashing, for the first time, a toothy grin.
“Though there are many other tribes within Kuru-Chiba’s Grave, if you wish to speak again to me and mine, approach an oni and ask after ‘Rashasta’.”Above, the booming of some arcane force resounded, causing dust to fall from the ground.
“Bring good food, good drink, and good stories. And if you wish to take my strength as well, then prepare to wager your own.”Oh. So that explained a lot. No wonder the dad-bodied oni hunters were so interested in strange humans dancing like that. It was one hell of a culture shock that sent Mags to a crouching position, her hands covering her blushed face. She almost engaged in ERP. Wild.
Still, after the throne revealed its true form, Mags couldn’t help but announce how fucking cool he was.
”God, he’s so fucking cool. He’s so fucking cool!”"Can't argue with that," Ames said. He was taking the whole mating ritual reveal a lot easier than Mags. Poor girl was developing a serious crush, but Ames wasn't one to judge. He committed the chieftain's name, Rashasta, to memory and watched the tribe go about cleaning house. Their efficiency was impressive, and Rashasta's parting words were equally so, but...
"Uh, wait, what do you mean ’them’?"
Yankee
Altered Tundra
Alisdragon911
stone
VitaVitaAR
Animal
LanaStorm
Ohm
Haha
Shovel
