The Irish Tree

Aether Saga: A Hero's Unlikely Journey (The Irish Tree and Xaltwind)

Gram would hum, considering Mammonie's words. "I can see why you'd be upset. I wasn't as hurt as I let on, by the way. If it were down to me and Vani, we could defeat that thing with a fair bit of effort. But I figured that I would see if a tense situation would prove you were the real deal." Gram would crack her neck, relaxing a bit. "I apologize for having to fool you and Vani. Anyways, the reason you should have faith in our side of the conflict is because that Cherubim hated your guts. They hate all Demons, really. So, since you've already defeated one, you're high on the Divine Purge's list of targets."

Sitting up, Gram would drop her air of superiority as she looked Mammonie in the eyes, before saying: "I'll give you everything within my power. My title, land, wealth...even my life by the end of this if you would wish it. I may be a necromancer, but even I cherish life in this world."

A cold wind was blowing outside, not reaching the duo but screaming at the mouth of the cave. The storm wasn't letting up anytime soon. Gram would sink back down to lie down, clutching her side. "...I will say...there were many that were against summoning a hero to our realm. So if you wish to blame anyone for your being here, that someone would be me," she confessed, closing her eyes.

Mammonie was under no obligation to help Gram at all...but either way, it seemed more of those beings would come for her.

Guild of Renta-Experts [[CANCELLED]]

Alice was caught up once again in the whirlwind that was Brandy's excitement. hurriedly, she was trying to stop Brandy from bugging the lady, since judging from her intense aura and razor sharp presence, she was dangerous in her own way. W-What if she cut Brandy down for being a noob trying to talk to her!? "I-I don't know her, she might be on assignment form another branch. Brandy, wait!" Alice said, realizing how futile it was as Brandy approached the Revenant Ranger before them.

Her greeting didn't seem to stir the woman, beyond the most slight movement so that she could look Brandy in the eyes. If looks could kill, Brandy would be smited where she stood from that singular eye staring at her, the cold, hardened eyes of a killer taking her in...

...or at least, that's how the ranger saw herself. "...Okay, deep breath...no lung function, but deep breath. Just another fellow awesome adventurer at this guild. Just act natural, and everything will go just fine..." the Ranger's thoughts resounded in her own mind, before she leaned against the counter, flipping her bangs aloofly. "A pleasure to make your acquaintances, Brandy and Al. I hail from parts unknown, a whirlwind of chaos come to descend upon the land. Though I've only started my journey as an adventurer, know that someday my name shall ring across all lands as a herald of destruction!" she would say, raising a gauntlet covered hand to point directly at Brandy and Alice.

"I am the Duchess of Destruction, Sofia Lenkov~!" she proclaimed proudly, taking her free hand and poising it over her face, covering her already covered eye hidden by her bangs. "As for my raiments...crafted by none other than your's truly. I'd never trust another to handle my protectKCHION!" she would proclaim proudly, leaning back again before slipping and falling on her back, tripping over her own cape as she repositioned her feet. Staring blankly up at Brandy and Alice, she would blink after a moment, before hurriedly clearing her throat and poising her cheek in the palm of her own hand, leaning like a maiden awaiting a painting in her image. "I-I merely thought it best to...inspect the condition of the floor. Very sturdy. A fine floor, indeed."

"...Ohhhhh my god oh my GOD! THEY SAW ME JUST EAT SHIT! They saw me fall like a moron! Why does this always happen why why why why why why why why!?" Sofia's internal monologue continued, all the while a small amount of cold sweat started becoming visible on her face. She was beyond nervous.

Alice had seen everything, and walked over to offer her hand. "Well, if you're a fresh adventurer, you can count on me for advice. I'm Alice, and this is Brandy like she said. She started just yesterday, so..."

Sofia would hold Alice's hand with both of her's, visible eye shimmering as she said: "My profoundest thanks, fair lady Alice! I would be delighted to undertake your tutelage to...to...erm...adventure. Properly!"

"That's great! First though, we need to get some paperwork filled out. Buuut...since Kariin's not here, you might need to wait."

A quick motion, and Sofia was once again on her feet, standing before Alice and Brandy with a smile on her face. "Rest assured, I would not fail to be a most worthy ally to your adventures. No dragon shall match our fury, and no hell can contain our boiling blood!"

Alice clapped her hands together and smiled. "Great to hear...but...most of our jobs are like...missing pets and picking crops."

A long silence would fill the room as the revenant's enthusiasm waned at hearing that. "I-I see...but, the simple folk are always in need! It is only natural our duties begin at hearth and home!"

Guild of Renta-Experts [[CANCELLED]]

"Sure thing," Alice said in response to Kariin's request for some coffee. Turning on her alchemical furnace and rummaging through the guild shelves quickly for their preferred beans. After all, it wasn't the first time an alchemist brewed coffee. A bit of hot water, some alchemical do-dads, and bam, a pot of coffee was being brewed while Alice peeked at the job board.

It looked like a lot of slim pickings for jobs, mostly just errands that people needed doing...and, that cat rescue was a no-go. It wasn't that Alice hated cats...it was that cats hated Alice. She'd probably only scare the cat more. Kariin would have to wait for her coffee it seemed as she was called into the guild office, and as such Alice would be left to greet Alice with her usual energy.

Alice didn't mind having her hands grabbed, not possessing paws...thankfully. That would make her work difficult. "Ehhh...yeah, that only happens during a full moon. And yeah, silver isn't my look. Was looking over the quests, and made some coffee. Was supposed to be Kariin's, but she'll have some when she gets back. Want some?"

As soon as Alice offered her coffee, the door of the guild would swing open, a figure entering that Alice hadn't seen before...nor anyone at the guild. Her garb was black as night, contrasting with the deathly pallor of her skin and hair. A single orange eye looked out at the guild, her other obscured behind her bangs. A sinister looking bow was hung across her back, a quiver at her hip possessing similarly edgy arrows. She...looked like the real deal. Like, an actual adventurer that did more than picking apples.

Approaching with confidence, the undead woman would stand before the guild desk and awkwardly stand there waiting, unmoving.

Alice blinked a few times. "...Think she's here to finish a quest? Her weapon looks awesome..."

Aether Saga: A Hero's Unlikely Journey (The Irish Tree and Xaltwind)

Vani was amazed at the power that Mammonie had displayed, and kept looking her weapon. "So...a golem spoke into your mind and your weapon manifested? Sounds divine in nature to me...but I don't know of any Golem Gods." Vani was lost in thought as they walked along, brought back to reality by Mammonie's attempts at explaining how a gun worked. "Oh, so its like one of those Magilocks that I've seen people carrying around. ...If that's how powerful one can get, I can definitely see the appeal. You took that thing out in an instant!"

Then came the question of Gram's well-being, to which Vani would reply with: "She'll be just fine. Gram's tougher to kill than most anyone I know. Plus, I've been healing her as we walked. One big benefit of being a Paladin is healing people just by touching them for a while. As for me...aches and bruises, but I'll live. If I took a direct hit like Gram did though, I'd imagine you'd have a holey paladin instead of a holy one." Lame joke aside, Vani at least seemed to be alright, and as a small curvature of rock and snow came into sight, he picked up the pace. "As for what that thing was...it was...I guess you could say an ascended angel. They're like, beings that used to serve the Goddess Divine before she went mad, and followed her into madness. They don't show up often but they take an army to defeat usually. Oh, there! That's the cave we used."

Inside, the smooth inner walls of the cave were dark and chilly, but it was a far cry from the frozen waste outside. Vani's light spell would make it easy to move around, and he would set Gram down with a length of cloth atop her, freshly unfurled from his traveling supplies. A bunch of burnt up firewood was sitting in the middle of the cave but looked useless as could be. Vani would crack his neck before turning to the cave entrance. "I'll go get some firewood, and then we can cook up some of these rations I brought. We won't be here long; Gram can conjure her chariot again once she wakes up, and we'll be back to civilization in no time. I'll be back," the paladin would say, marching out into the cold to get wood for a fire.

Mammonie would be left alone with Gram, who's breathing was stabilizing now that she was laying down. If she focused hard enough, she could see the bar representing Gram's vitality slowly climbing back up...but there was also a portion beyond it. A deathly slate gray far beyond her bar, as if she had negative HP.

"I thought he'd never leave," Gram said, rolling onto her side suddenly and looked at Mammonie. "You pass."

Goblin Slayer: Newblood (CANCELLED)

Steppe Archer had to agree...kicking that thing had been a huge mistake. But at least Big Red wasn't all that hurt. And, as he said, stuff wouldn't seep past his scales and cause an infection. "I agree on finishing this up quickly. I wonder if that thing ate all the rats and roaches itself or not. That'd be convenient for us," she said aloud while trying to peek down some of the corridors. "I've never seen anything like that either."

"I think we should head back. Something like that, that seemed to move on instinct alone, it probably ate just about everything in these tunnels and got that big. As nice as it'd be to call it a day claiming its kills, we don't have any proof that anything on the quest died. If you want, I could scout ahead on the next tunnel, and run back if there's any trouble." Steppe Archer was all for continuing since their Lizard Fighter claimed to be good to go, even in poopoo water. She was a bit worried that there might be more of those things, but as long as they kept an eye and ear out, they'd be able to run if things got tough.

Infactorium: A New 4Xpansion (Overlord RP) [DISCONTINUED]

"Vat 37...check. Vat 38...check," Levia listed off, holding a clipboard in her larger set of hands while the more human-like ones scratched off check marks with a pen. The various slime breeds that had been produced by Levia via a lot of "poof-poof", a lot of "smoosh", and just a pinch of "bing bing wahoo" with touching slimes together, she'd have a veritable assembly line of slimes going to and from the other parts of the guild. Their main purpose was transporting goods, recycling useless materials that Tungsten couldn't do anything with, and anything that someone bossed them around to do. They'd even made special slime tubes for specific non-acidic messenger slimes to slip through, carrying mail when message scrolls would be too expensive.

"Aaaaaand Vat 45. Done~" she said, dropping her clipboard right onto a cyan colored slime that absorbed it happily, leaping into a tube to carry it to the proper channels. Falling back, Levia was caught by a large noxious green slime, the likes of which squished under her weight and formed into the shape of a chair. Crossing her legs and taking her hat off with her tail, Levia would take a drag of a poisonous cigarette, blowing the residual smoke up into the ceiling. It felt nice to be needed, but man...slime breeding was hard. And boring. It wasn't breaking stuff down herself...and the slimes were the ones doing all the running around. Flicking some of her cigarette's sulfurous ash into a nearby metallic-colored slime, she would take another drag right after. "...I wanna do something for everyone," she mused, sinking further into her slime chair.

She'd get up, finish her cigarette, then go to her semi-new private bathing chamber which consisted of a bunch of rejected slimes, their corrosive properties either too weak or too strong for usage. But, for someone too strong to be dissolved, there wasn't a better way to get clean. Levia would dunk herself in, clothes and all, and swim around for a bit, ponder the meaning of life, and wonder how Faetalis was doing. Then, she'd emerge, bored again, and take another cigarette from her pack. "...Papa's an idiot. Made me for one freakin' thing and then nobody needs that thing...and now these slimes are doing all my work for me..."

Then, a realization hit her. ...If they were doing all her work...did that mean taking a day off wasn't such a bad thing? Paralyzed by the realization that she had a modicum of freedom, a smidgeon of restraint broken...Levia was terrified. She needed advice from someone professional...someone that knew how to do their work and love it no matter what. She needed to talk to Mae.

The halls of Infactorium were repaired and maintained with that Bauxite they'd excavated, and Levia was careful not to damage it, or create a type of slime that would recklessly eat through it. In the same manner, the dragoness chimera was cautious as she walked at a brisk pace. The Gorging Trough was her destination, as she wanted to know how Mae kept finding joy in her work when, as far as Levia knew, she could leave it to her Maneaters for most things. Gammaton and Tungsten had mostly mindless minions that needed commands, but the Maneaters had will, personality, everything that everyone else had. With delicacy as her focus, the dragoness would sneak into the trough with enough effort in being sneaky that one would be forgiven for thinking she was there to steal some food. Easier said then done though with [Stealth Sneak] active.

She needed ideas, for what to do for everyone, what to do for herself, and what to do for their leader who was off by herself. Something nice for her to return to.

Aether Saga: A Hero's Unlikely Journey (The Irish Tree and Xaltwind)

BANG

High density, limitless caliber, and enough force to punch through an entire fortress slammed into the spawnling of divinity, a large hole piercing its chest and slicing two of the rings around it cleanly in half. The infantile figure would vomit a strange golden ichor, most likely its blood, before a second shot finished it. The rest of the shots would break apart the remaining ring, huge chunks of it disintegrating upon contact with the arcane bullets. All too easily, it fell as if it hadn't just completely annihilator the two she'd just met. Slumped on the ground, the figure's remaining ring crashed down beside it, its body and rings fading into golden particles as the mouths on the rings cried out.

"Lady...Divine..."
"Demon...spawn..."
"The War...must renew..."

The voice was faint and weak, before it sputtered out entirely with one last sound of a groan. Each and every bit of the thing dissolved, leaving behind nothing but a faint stain of gold upon the snow.

Vani stared in disbelief, now carrying Gram in his arms as he approached Mammonie. "Holy Lyriel...that was amazing!" he said, grinning at the woman before him. "And here I thought you weren't capable of fighting. How'd you do that? I've seen some weapons like that before, but you were firing it way faster. And you pulled it out of nowhere!"

Vani would clear his throat, before shaking his head, knocking off a bit of snow that had come to rest upon his head. "Sorry, that's...that all can wait. For now, we have to get to shelter before we freeze in our boots. Lady Gram's out cold, so we're going to have to go on foot. But we made camp a short ways east of here, in a cave. I can at least get a fire going while we recover."

Mammonie would feel that, with the battle's conclusion, "something" was happening within her body. It was a strange feeling, almost similar to the after-effect of a light exercise. It was almost like her body was acclimating itself from that kill, readying to continue. Almost like exercise.

There was no convenient gauge for it, but she imagined that despite being max level in the game she'd come from, she had just "gained experience" in some way.

Vani would begin moving, his left hand upon Gram's back continuing to glow as he salved her wounds. "...Crap, sorry, I completely forgot to ask but...you're not hurt, are you?" Vani's question was one of concern and bewilderment as he looked Mammonie up and down...and a bit more up in the middle. Again. Then, he'd shake his head and turn around, marching on.

Guild of Renta-Experts [[CANCELLED]]

Alice had been given the kindly offer of shelter a few days ago by a local farmer, with the minor caveat of just helping a bit with the morning chores to repay him. She was a working girl at heart, and the least she could do was milk some cows and feed the chickens for him. After washing up and getting dressed in her alchemist's robe, Alice would depart for the guild. Last night was a little crazy, so she hoped that Brandy wouldn't suddenly be afraid of her after getting a night's sleep to think about how Alice had gone on a bandit ball-busting rampage.

"Good morning, Kariin," Alice would say as she took a seat by the guild's board, tail wagging as she browed over the usual dull jobs for the town. It was somewhat sleepy work, but she figured she could bear with doing it for a bit longer until Brandy was fully fledged. ...Thinking about that term, Alice wondered if she herself was even full-fledged, considering just yesterday she screwed up walking a dog, but...she could still fight! She bet if she got a big enough bottle, she could make a Dragonbreaker bomb no problem!

Reassuring herself that she wasn't already washed out as a novice, Alice was simply passing her time waiting for Brandy, peeking over what kind of requests were coming in today. Hopefully, some big money would roll in and let her order some premium ingredients for her experiments.

Infactorium: A New 4Xpansion (Overlord RP) [DISCONTINUED]

I'm all for a timeskip.

Aether Saga: A Hero's Unlikely Journey (The Irish Tree and Xaltwind)

Parsing...
Parsing...
Parsing...
Access established. Interdimensional Link reupped. Accessing Inventory.

A small, robotic sounding voice would resound in Mammonie's mind, while the infant angel weathered the snowballs being thrown at it, which, admittedly, weren't doing nothing. It was drawing its ire more and more...and now it was shooting another laser. As expected, honestly. The beam would collide directly with Mammonie, inflicting the first true hint of pain she'd experienced in the new world she'd found herself in.

It was like...the feeling of being shocked, except it was all concentrated and circling over and over again on her abdomen, the continual beam of light trying to eat away at the demon's body, but only seeming to hurt her, not injure her in any capacity. All the while, a distinct feeling was coming to Mammonie's hand...

The itchy trigger finger that would summon her way of fighting.

Vani was struggling to make his way over, raising his shield into the air while looking at Mammonie. "Fulgur Shield!" he would shout, a bubble of lightning surrounding Mammonie, breaking the beam and giving her enough breathing room to process what she could do...or rather, what her body's instincts were telling her to do.

Gram was now unconscious in the snow, barely alive thanks to Vani's minor healing powers. But she was fading fast.