Raineh Daze

Another Life in a Fantasy World (Invite Only)

Hikari

"Oh… yes, that sounds… troublesome," Hikari noted after a pause. It sounded big. And while it could just be an intimidating-yet-ultimately-harmless starter monster… she didn't have anything to possibly defend herself with. It didn't appear that the other two did, either? Unless they wished to stay and fight with their bare hands. It was entirely possible that they had reincarnated with some amazing martial arts proficiency, or magical abilities.

She just had a strong suspicion that should could get much smaller. Quite the opposite of a fighting ability.

"Perhaps we should run? In the other direction?"

The Elder Scrolls VI: Sentinel

Fighter's Guild

Getting into the city proper was once again an interesting experience. That a minotaur wanted to enter and had identification of any sort was staggering, yet it still had the guards clutching their weapons just in case. Yet with the fame of the Arena still percolating to the major trade hubs—and two knights, no matter the foreignness of their order, to both vouch for and keep an eye on the obvious threat—there was surprisingly little pain when it came to entering the city.

Despite Hammerfell's separation from Imperial institutions, along with their own decline over the Fourth Era, the Fighter's Guild had managed to weather the change, transitioning into a strictly local institution. The Alik'r hadn't really gotten safer over the years, especially with the coastline being of even more vital interest, and there were always going to be problems with the wildlife anywhere in Tamriel. And sure enough, the local branch was as bustling as would be expected from the provincial headquarters.

Not that the guildmaster was available to meet with them; that was delegated to a sharp-looking Redguard woman whose hands never seemed to stray far from her swords. Given the disparity in armour and strength between herself and the arriving party, it seemed only fair.

"So… what, you all want to join up at once? We're not in the business of contracting our jobs out."

---

Market

Getting through the gates for the wizards, on the other hand, took a bit longer. On the one hand, there was the general distrust of mages, but even more than that was the obligatory "can we make sure you're not a Thalmor spy?" directed towards Keirthanil. Or maybe it was just general bickering dragging it out.

Nonetheless, they, too, were allowed in, free to roam the city. As expected, magical services were on the limited side. Apothecaries were plentiful, nobody was going to deny the utility of a good remedy, but the more overtly arcane was limited to a single enchanter squeezed next to a much busier smithy, and – down in the market by the docks – a bored-looking Argonian flicking through a worn book. At least, they were probably offering magical services, between the faded robes, the awning covering another chair, and the paper-strewn desk that was resolutely not blowing away in the sea breeze.

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

Miina Malina

Staggering to her feet, Miina levelled a determined glare against Leviathan. Yes, her ribs were aching far far too much to just be bruising, and she couldn't heal it and maybe throw up some sort of last second barrier, so she'd just have to ignore it for a little longer because being crushed was much worse. Magical protection or physical, if only she had some experience with this sort of attack—

Cid!

Whatever hopeful feelings blossomed with the nice old priest's timeline intervention (and hey, that was Eve again! She still wanted to look at that tail some more) were promptly quashed. They'd been fed the wrong ritual? Why? What was wrong with just explaining, why did everyone always feel the need to be as confusing as possible!

This was why she needed her brother back. There were lots of reasons to want it, but he'd been the one that actually understood what the others had been saying, when they were trying to set her up for something – especially when they'd been meeting with any other groups and she couldn't fall back on familiarity – or when they just wanted to take advantage of having a mage around when she would just help if they weren't so damn circuitous about it. Every single time she went anywhere, it was always people like this! Mob bosses, Ciradyl – as nice as she was, and at least she came along after, – and now even this stupid grovemaster!

At least she could start healing now, and Rudolf's interjection gave her time to realise that, the Mystral pressing her free hand to her chest before it pierced anything important. It would have been smart to think about what she was saying, not just leap into it, but she was sick of this always happening, and now she was tired, and sore, and soaking wet, and this was supposed to be someone they could trust.

"F-F-Fuck you! Cid's nice! He's saved us twice!" Miina shouted, "You just tried to get us killed! Nobody cares about your stupid religious arguments! They're not important! Not now!"

Oh, and she knew this type too, bringing a big force with them when they said sorry. That was what what's-his-face did back in Costa del Sol, and when she said no, he'd started going on about tying up loose ends, and Isolde had proper soldiers. It was unlikely they could take them all, but if she was pointing a sword, nobody would expect anything, so she might be able to at least make the important one pay. Better make it something explosive, just in case she moved…

"F—"

Another Life in a Fantasy World (Invite Only)

Hikari

"Hm, so we've all been reincarnated? At least this won't be a lonely isekai." Hikari wondered… after being put down from the hug. Now, wasn't that an odd situation? Nobody was likely to have been able to just pick her up and do something like that before this, and quite certainly nobody had tried since she was a child.

Now that everybody had stood up, she could see that, indeed, it was more than being a cute fox girl that had changed in her death. Ah, this was going to be an inconvenience later, wasn't it? Still, if she was a fox, and had nine tails, there must surely be the potential for shapeshifting so she could get a more adult body for when it would be useful. Until then, maybe she should just try and get something to dissuade weirdos.

"I'm Abe Hikari. Ah… I don't suppose either of you know how to navigate? I only left Tokyo for a few business meetings…"

Another Life in a Fantasy World (Invite Only)

Hikari

… huh. This was… hmm, she didn't remember taking a trip to Aokigahara? Even then, it wasn't the sort of place where you just went and fell asleep in the forest. No, wait, she'd been on a trip across the sea – hang on, that didn't make sense, either. Flight paths went north, there wouldn't have been some huge forest to land in after a crash… at least, she didn't think so? Was this Canada?

As she thought, Hikari's tails swished.

…

Tails? Now, that was definitely something that didn't come with a crashed plane. It was kind of hard to count but reaching a and around made it a bit easier and… yup, nine tails. Huh, that was neat, and it explained why her ears felt so much twitchier. Not, looking down, the maid dress, but there were worse things to be stuck in.

She guessed this was one of those isekai scenarios, then. Although, it would've been nice to be dropped off somewhere more inhabited? She didn't feel like she had many useful skills for being in some dilapidated forest building with… some man wearing a coat, and a lady with surprisingly pretty hair. Ah, which one to wake up first?

The lady was a bit closer. Right, just give her a gentle push. "Excuse me, ma'am, you can't sleep here."

@Pyromania99 @FujiwaraPhoenix

Fate/Illuminate Histoire

Caster

"You misunderstand me, Master. While I would love to instruct you in the finest of Rome's cuisine, from the simplest to the most intricate preparation, I simply mean that I need not fear fighting on a full or empty stomach. The existence of a Servant has its own benefits," the Servant replied, unable to mask the pout at being admonished like a child over her wording. So uncalled for, to poke her like that!

"Yes, of course, soon we will enter into glorious battle! Ah, I look forward to seeing who was called. A chance to meet fellow heroes is a rare thing indeed, even if there must have been some amongst my associates." That transformed into a dark look for a second.

---

"Of course someone already broke the rules…" the overseer said with a sigh, accepting the packet and then looking through the photos, then pocketing the envelope, "It was too much to hope for more than plausible deniability, I suppose."

The woman took a drink from her can, eyes drifting the ceiling, "If you're quick, you might be able to go through the kitchen and out. The church has a small graveyard, and the path through it rejoins the main one a bit further down. If you're slow, the chatterbox might get you."

No indication of which one that was. Though, their appearances should make it obvious.

The Elder Scrolls IV: Cyrodiil

The bow goes off with a distinct creak, the old wood in the skeleton's hand visibly straining – but the shot is wildly off course, at least if you were the target. There's a slight chance that Lanessa would be hit but… no, the shimmering ward she off-handedly tosses up as she pokes in one corner of the cave completely negates the arrow, the projectile dropping harmlessly to the ground. That leaves the archer completely defenceless to being carved apart, the fine sword cleaving through with only the slightest hint of resistance. It doesn't take much for it to collapse utterly, and the pair you rushed through show a similar degree of threat.

That only leaves, as it turns out, a single undead in this portion of the cave, at first nearly indistinguishable from the half-prepared bodies laid out on slabs of rock or tables. A zombie so rotted that its race is barely determinate, its legs wasted away just to stumps.

Not much of a threat.

"Of course a necromancer would fall in with such a foul cult…" the mage says bitterly, waving you over. The alcove contains a small statuette of something vaguely crocodilian, surrounded with trinkets, various herbs and fungi, even a few fragments of unfamiliar crystal. All surrounded by a steadily brightening magical circle. "Molag Bal. Prince of Murder. Lord of Corruption. The Dunmer Tribunal referred to him as the King of Rape on occasion, aptly. As a Daedric Prince, his sphere is domination and enslavement, and as the creator of vampires, he unsurprisingly enjoys some popularity amongst necromancers."

She clenches her fist, and the circle erupts into a pillar of blinding flame, burning brightly for several long seconds before dying out and leaving only a glowing pile of slag. "I say this as a warning. The Princes are not as blindly evil as the Imperial Cult would have you believe, but his followers come close. The Dark One's sphere is wholly inimical to civilisation or even joy, and his plots have been as much a threat to the world as anything else.

"Now, come; the cave's necromancer awaits. I'm sure she's expecting us, her remaining creations await."

Lanessa points to a small curtain, a passage into another room.

Blades of Iron Roses: An Anime-Inspired Knight RP

Tyaethe

Oh. That was… hmm, interesting, and not just because her pillow falling out from under her was strangely disconcerting. Good on those guys to have found a way in while the rest of them went to deal with the gate guard. But this was also bad news, as now they were entirely within a fae realm. That meant… right, she did have seniority and experience, she couldn't just wait for someone else to get to the point. Even if that meant dealing with a fairy queen…

And, as the captain had already found out, there was very little that the realm's ruler couldn't do if she wanted it. The restrictions of normal magic meant so little in a place like this, and it wasn't like any of them had special protection. Well, maybe she had a little, as one of Reon's devoted and her own mana, but that wouldn't be enough to pick an aggressive stance without preparation.

"It was just a big snake," Tyaethe said with a shrug, pushing past the other knights so that the Moonlit Queen would actually see her, eyes closed. "Doesn't matter if it regenerates, without any sort of support, it's not that special. I've killed a dozen things like it and it doesn't hold a candle to a dragon."

She opened one eye. "Besides, your guardian wasn't the one that let us in, was it? Isn't that more important than some replaceable construct?"

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

Miina Malina

… damn it. They'd pierced the barrier with everyone, just about, but the attacks hadn't brought it down. And it didn't seem likely that anyone that had been involved in breaking the barrier would be able to pull off the same feat immediately after. That left… well, quite a lot of them, really, but it was still more ways to stab or explosives. And while there'd been so much testament to the effectiveness of stabbing, at heart Miina couldn't really say that the Skaelan focus on technological warfare seemed… optimal.

At least, not when your enemies stopped being conveniently limited to rather familiar limits. Unless they had some secret way to make bullets more than what they were? That—

This wasn't the time to get distracted. Think, Miina… her best attack against a single opponent normally would just be to stab them and then work on the ice. It was, in a lot of respects, ideal given her mediocre talent: she couldn't pump out a stronger spell, so just make the way the ice worked far more effective than normal. Tossing it at people was basically just elemental stabbing, which was a blunt instrument. Freezing someone solid was undoubtedly deadly… yet even more blunt, hard to pull off, and just overall intensive. Plus, it was very upsetting when whoever you were trying to freeze just shrugged it off. No, she'd just concluded that if you took the same amount of ice but guided how it crystallised in someone's blood, in their chest cavity… all those things that helped with healing and working out why there was an injury? It could do so much more damage as it specifically shredded everything important.

But that was useless against Leviathan. Even if there wasn't the central conceit of trying to weaponise the Eidolon's own element against it, it was simply too big. Where even on a giant magical serpent would constitute a vulnerable point, anyway? No, she couldn't just pull off that trick. Fire… eugh, Leviathan was the opposite of combustible, she couldn't think of any way to apply the same principle. No, she needed to maximise damage by lightning.

Except lightning wasn't nice. It could sort of be controlled, the Mystral guessed, but it was all so eager and fast to leap that it was barely worth it, guiding it from one target to the next was one thing but trying to contain it and keep pouring on more… it was an interesting thought, but not practical here. Not by raw control. Could she exploit it? It always wanted to escape, taking the easy path… play with it too much in a jungle and you really started to know that.

She had an idea.

"C-Cover me!" Well, maybe someone could? It was unlikely, even by the standards they'd displayed so far this was… stupid. But she needed to not be killed before attempting her idea.

Jumping onto the swiping tail was definitely the stupidest thing she'd done. Sure, it got her close. Sure, she was armoured. Sure, it wasn't a direct hit. But it was still momentum, and an impact, and breathing was now a lot harder. But that wasn't important, she had one hand on Leviathan, and the other was braced to pierce the beast's scales just a little.

In one hand, she held a protection against lightning. And in the other, her sword crackled. And now—thrust.

As was its wont, the thunder spell surged forwards, seeking to scorch as it went and just ground itself. But Miina couldn't be allowing that, could she? If she could just direct the defence to that part of the great beast, the magic would have to rampage elsewhere, and if she could steadily block that off too, and keep both going, it could only intensify as it jumped around and around, the magical lightning looking for its escape—

How long could she keep this up? Moments, if she was dislodged. Or pancaked, but being so focused on magic at least meant forgetting her own mortality. Maybe seconds, if she was lucky, and her request was heard. But it would have to be enough to help, wouldn't it?

Another Life in a Fantasy World (Invite Only)

Fox

• Name: Abe Hikari. It's her original name, and she sees no reason to swap it.
• Age: Mentally, Hikari is definitely in her 30's. Physically, it could go either way: she looks like a nine year old, but there's enough to go on to suggest she's actually been reincarnated at the grand old age of over 900. She's a bit all over the place.
• Gender: Female.
• Race: Kitsune. It has racial abilities, but she doesn't know how to use any of them.
• Appearance: Fluffiness without compare.
• Personality: Hikari has a polite and agreeable demeanour. Do you need something done? Well, she's happy to be of assistance, as long as it's within her ability and job scope. This betrays a lot of the rest of Hikari's attitude, even after dying and being reincarnated... well, she can't help but think of herself as an employee working for her long-term prospects.
  She seems quite able to take the absurdity of this reincarnation in stride; this sort of lowest common denominator writing was a guilty pleasure in her limited free time, and it's nice to enjoy it from a first-person perspective. It certainly lends her an air of unflappability in all things, which fits her new role quite perfectly.
  Besides, even if she dies again and nobody has access to resurrection, she's already got some great times out of this, why complain?
• History: Hikari's life before reincarnation was about as dull as could be imagined: a studious and education-focused childhood with little time for doing things just for fun, followed by an equally boring university education before getting a tedious office job as a normal salaryman... no time for relationships, of course, nor as many hobbies as one would have liked. Trashy isekai setups? Oh, they took little enough time and thought that they were easy to follow, but...
  All of this in service to one goal: securing a safe and long-term career, with prospects of advancement to management and a cushy retirement when the time came. Or, at least, some time clawed back from socialising with co-workers and networking so that there was the potential for a family, as annoying as that often felt.
  This eventually lead to a promotion and Hikari was thrilled to be selected for an overseas meeting. this was the best opportunity to advance and--well, spending one's last moments obsessing over a prepared powerpoint presentation wasn't exactly the ideal way to go.
  Of course, this came with the opportunity for reincarnation! Not that Hikari remembers the process, or quite why this has lead to being a tiny little foxgirl, but that's not objectionable. Why her new cheat is so... what it is? Oh, she can guess, but really, past Hikari? Why had you argued so strongly for something that would give you that nice cushy job you wanted, with good accommodations and...
  Well, at least she's cute now.
• Cheat: Perfect and Elegant Maid: When it comes to the art of being a maid, nobody can be more suited or a faster learner than Hikari. For a start, this has granted her instant proficiency across a whole suite of domestic skills, from cleaning to cooking to managing a household staff. No more instant ramen for her! If it's been invented anywhere here yet, of course.
  There's a lot of semantics intrinsic in this, of course. While at a baseline it just gives Hikari a surprising level of aptitude for learning how to use supportive magic or knifework, if she were to find a proper employer... well, anticipating and fulfilling their needs would give her a lot more avenues for growth, depending on who they are.
  
  • Skill Name: Shapeshift: Fox.
  • Skill Description: The only racial skill that Hikari has any immediate access to, it's the ability to transform into a fox. Either a perfectly normal fox with a single tail, or one keeping her full magnificent array. She can speak in either case.
• Other: Was once on the kendo team. Not terribly useful, if she goes into knives instead.