Sebastia Ria
Sebastia was wandering, her armor and weapons were resting in the Core Room. Cloud runs past her, and goes to watch the Smith. She seems to like that area, perhaps because the grass is soft, and the sound of metal being casted can be rather satisfying. Sebastia just walks around, thinking about what to do, until she sees Imai running to the house. No seeing anyone else running, she follows, though not running herself. She enters as Imai exits the basement, frowning heavily. She watches her leave, then enters the basement to find Luné and a woman she doesn’t know laying down on the floor. “My Lady? Is something the matter?” She begins going down the stairs, only for the two to sit up in roughly the same way. Luné shakes her head, “No, we’re okay, Sebastia. We just had a weird encounter is all.” Sebastia tilts her head, noting the slightly open mouth on the woman, whose face is hidden aside from that. Luné smiles softly, “Seriously, Sebastia. We’re fine. Just something supernatural happened, and no one got hurt or anything. Was just freaky.” Sebastia nods in response, not happy with the answer, but okay with it.
As she turns around to leave, she hears the woman speak, “Wait, you are the Level 100 Swordmaster? I thought you would be a Dracan or maybe an Elf.” Sebastia looks at her, then says, “What, a Human cannot be a Swordmaster? What’s wrong with that?” The woman shakes her head, then says, “Nothing, just, I never thought a Human would surpass level 75. Let alone reach 100. How did you do it?” Sebastia shakes her head, “I just did what I was meant to do. I served my charge faithfully, and sacrificed myself for the greater good.” The woman tilts her head at that, “What do you mean you sacrificed yourself?” Luné speaks, “Do you remember Carcere Fabricator, and how I said it was upgraded?” The woman looks at Luné, “Yes?” Luné points at Sebastia, “She was the first to be summoned with the new button I got. I believe Carcere Fabricator can take things from other worlds, including people.” The woman looks between the two, then stands up quickly, running over to Sebastia, she grabs Sebastia’s hand, and speaks, “Tell me all about your experience being summoned! What did you see!? Where were you beforehand!? Did anything particular happen!?” Sebastia is startled by this, and feels awkward, “Uh. I don’t really remember anything from the Summoning. All I know is that I was within the East Tower, eternally fighting against the god of war. I had sacrificed my life to save Grandia from certain destruction. Then I was here, able to start again with a charge that is far less important than the goddess of the sky.” The woman turns and starts dragging Sebastia over, “Interesting, interesting! Tell me about your world!”
Sebastia, though a bit uncomfortable, remembers the time Enna had dragged her away to talk about Grandia and what it was like. She smiles softly, no longer fighting the woman’s pulling, and walks with her, sitting down, she speaks, “My Lady? Do you mind seeing if you can summon something alcoholic?” Luné thinks for a second, then says, “I could try. It's probably under misc.” She then opens Carcere Fabricator, and presses the “Misc Summons” using her own mana, expending only 5 it seemed. A white light appears, and it turns green as a bottle of what Sebastia recognizes as Altanan Wine, but is just straight up Vodka with a weird label on it’s bottle. “Ooo. Altanan Wine. I haven’t had that in a long time.” She then points at Luné, “No drinking. You’re underage.” She then looks at the woman as she hears Luné let out an audible noise of disappointment. The woman nods, “I am the Hero of the last Human generation. I am old enough to drink.” Sebastia nods in return, saying, “I will have to take your word for it. I’m bad at guessing ages, unless they’re still in their teens.” The woman nods, “Young people are just easy to spot.” Sebastia nods in agreement, as Luné says, “But, Sebastia, you’re not even that much older than me.” Sebastia smirks, and answers with a small chuckle, “I definitely fucking feel like it. Try leading a battalion of simple guards against an undead horde bearing down on the capital city. You’ll feel older too after that.”
Sebastia looks at the woman, “So, introductions first. You already know my name, what’s yours?” The woman does a small bow while sitting, saying, “I am the Priestess Isabell Jordan.” Sebastia nods to Isabell, and then says, “Well Isabell. Happy to meet you. What’s your faith?” Isabell produces a golden and silver charm, “Material.” Sebastia pulls out her own emblem, similar in construction, but steel and bronze, “Material as well. However, far less devout.” Isabell nods in response, understanding that not everyone is the same as her in faith. Sebastia smiles, “It's nice to see this land has at least one pantheon I recognize.” Isabell smiles, and says, “It looks like it may be a constant.” Sebastia shrugs, “Who knows. Now, let's get on with the story. I’ll start from the day I met Enna.” She begins pouring herself some Vodka, “It all began as my caravan was headed for a town in the north of Grandia. At the north of Grandia, sits a large cliff, across the entire peninsula. There are only a few ways up, and the closest was there. I was just doing guard duty, when we were attacked by bandits. I recognized the emblem on them, and flashed my own. They stopped attacking, because Hendricks’ not a bad guy, especially for those he calls friends. How did I make friends with a bandit while being a soldier? Defectors. That’s how. But Hendricks’ didn’t defect because he was swayed, he just always was like that. I asked the men where Hendricks was, and they told me he was up by the North Tower. Which I found odd. The Shades tend to attack anything nearing the towers. Something was wrong, so I split off, and went up-”
Codex
While the Luné is busy, the Codex will play! Codex slides her view around, looking for things to work on. She goes to the Void Oracle’s Room, and looks at its progress. Realizing it's about done, she looks around for the closest sprites, and looks through them, finding only one going to the room. She then goes to look at the construction of the library area. She smiles at the progress, as a Bear and Wolf work together to plant a log into the ground. She then turns her attention to the Sawmill, which was done a bit ago, and has a Sprite go there as well. They will need planks for the construction and repairs to the house. She has the Smith start making nails instead of just ingots, though she wants it to mix tin and copper first, to see what happens. She watches the process, and smiles at the bronze that is made. She orders the Smith to make nails out of the two bronze bars that were made from the mixing of two ores.
Then she slides away again, looking around for more things to do, and starts a construction of her own. A path with rocks in the ground to make it easier to know where to walk. She has a few wolves go out of the dungeon to find rocks and bring them back, meanwhile, another wolf is digging out small holes for rocks to go. Sliding around more, she finds nothing to do. And gets slightly depressed. Then she decides to try something fun that she did once while waiting, and focuses extremely hard on the Sprite going to the Sawmill, and keeps focusing. Soon she realizes she is the Sprite, and quickly starts going to the Sawmill, happy to get to do something that isn’t just sitting around being bored. Idle hands turn to dust, as she says!
Koto Youngthorne
“Miyoshi, let's explore the woods a bit.” Miyoshi looks a little concerned about that idea, but Koto’s excited to do so. Not far, but enough that they won’t see the house. No need for Cloud or Sebastia, they can take care of themselves just a little away from the dungeon. “They don’t need to know, we’ll be out, and then right back in.” He grins, and Miyoshi relents, following her elder brother, as they walk to the edge of the territory. Entering the woods, they walk around for a bit, enjoying the woods. Koto was ecstatic to explore the area properly, especially with Miyoshi at his side. As they walk, he hears Miyoshi talk in her quiet voice, “Noise.” Noticing his sister’s worry, he begins to hide behind a tree, watching quietly, listening as well. He notices the sound of clinking.
As they stay silent, they hear more and more clinking, all heading towards the Dungeon. Poking his head out slightly to get a look at what that noise is, he sees a group of skeletons, and hides quickly. He whispers to Miyoshi, “We need to warn everyone.” The sound stops, and one begins moving closer. The clinking of his armor alerting them that they had been heard. Miyoshi begins to panic, and Koto thinks for a second, before whispering again, “Go to the dungeon. Don’t look back.” He then bolts in a different direction, in front of the skeletons, making them all start following him. He doesn’t look back to see if Miyoshi is running to the Dungeon, as he needs to make sure they don’t follow her.
The adrenaline, though running high, is not enough to keep him from tripping, and falling as he runs. Only one skeleton has kept up with him it seems, and he stares at it as it raises its sword to stab down on him, only for a dagger to hit the side of the creature, and make it stumble. The dagger tumbles to the ground. A voice speaks, “Fuck. Fine. Here we go!” A blast rainbow fire slams into the skeleton, and then a rapier smacks its head off. The man looks down at Koto, and speaks, “You alright kid? Thought I told you to run, not stick around.” Koto recognizes the man as the one who freed him and Miyoshi. He grins, and starts getting up, as the man says, “And where the hell is your sister? I thought you two would stick together. Or did something happen?” Koto nods at that, “Yeah, something great happened. We found shelter with a Swordmaster and a kind girl about our age. They own the Dungeon just over there.” He points to where Codex is, and then he hears a laugh, “Own the dungeon? Kid, don’t trust them. They’re likely just Denizens, following the Dungeon’s whims. I recommend getting out of there when you can.” He begins walking again, as Koto says, now upset with him, “I’m not lying! It's a safe place!” The Dark Elf frowns at him, and then says, “Kid. Don’t trust a dungeon. It may not be hostile, but it could flip at any moment.” He continues walking, now not facing him, “But I’ll take it into consideration and keep an eye out nearby.” Koto watches him leave, then frowns and starts running to the Dungeon. Miyoshi was probably worried sick.
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Imai
Imai was chilling in a tree, relaxed with her sword on her lap, as Miyoshi runs into the Dungeon, crying and panicking. Hopping out of the tree, she puts her sword on her hip, and walks towards the panicking Miyoshi. She grabs the smaller Miyoshi’s shoulders, and turns her around. Miyoshi starts pointing towards where she came, “K-Koto-” her sobs and tears interrupt her voice, and Imai turns to face the direction. She begins sprinting in that direction, and after a couple of minutes, comes across the skeletons, and no sign of Koto. She draws her sword, and cracks her neck. Then she lets her aura burst forth from her. Imai readies her blade as the Skeletons begin coming at her. Her armor stops three of the Skeletons’ attacks, but the fourth misses, and the Knight gets a very clean shot at her, but she parries and counters, cutting through the rusty armor, and seeing a red “30”. She grins madly in her rage, and cuts the Skeleton again, getting a black “30”, as the Skeleton crumbles.
The same three Skeletons manage to hit her again, still being blocked by her armor. She slashes through one of the normal Skeletons, getting a black “30”. Two of the remaining manage to smack her armor again, just making her angrier as their damage is nullified and just feels like a thump against her side. With another slash, she takes down another Skeleton. Only two left. The story repeats twice more, until there are no more Skeletons. The sound of something running up from behind, makes her turn and almost stab Cloud, but she relaxes and lets go of her aura, sheathing her sword, and starting to return. With a yawn, she keeps walking, letting Cloud deal with the bones.
Miyoshi Youngthorne
Miyoshi was sobbing on the ground where Cloud had left her, scared and stressed out. As Miyoshi sits and cries, she feels a pat on her back. Taking a look, she sees the Dracen that showed up recently, and says, “It’ll be alright, girly. Imai’s got this. Doesn’t even need Cloud.” Miyoshi starts trying to dry off her tears, but she keeps crying, unable to stop, as she fears losing Koto. She begins having flashbacks to the night the village had been attacked. That toothy and demonic maw. The blood. Her heart was racing as the memories were replaying, from waking up to screams and panic, to the death of their mother, to the beheading of Araqiel. She began to sweat and approach hyperventilation. As the tears stopped, and her hiccups began interrupting her hyperventilation, her panic grew. She didn’t know what was going on around her anymore. She began to curl up, grabbing her ears and holding them down against her skull. She began remembering the faces of those she saw be killed. She began remembering the suffering she heard. She felt the pain she felt each time, until she became numb to the noises. She curled up, shivering, shaking, hyperventilating, sweating, and flashing back rapidly.
She hadn’t even noticed Koto grab her, and hug her, until she fought against him for a few seconds, terrified and scared that the Demon had come back to take her away again. To slaughter everyone here, and kill Koto this time. It was at this point she finally heard his voice again, “-s okay, Miyoshi. It's okay, I’m here. You’re safe. We’re safe.” She immediately grabbed her brother in a hug, and held tightly, returning to sobs, no longer scared for his life. Koto speaks calmly to her, “It's okay, I’m here.” She felt his hand holding the back of her head, as she sobs into his shoulder. She felt his arm around her back, holding her close. She felt the soft rubbing of his head against hers. Something she had forgotten would happen when either had been scared. A soft and warm feeling. A good memory resurfaces, calming her further, and lulling her slowly to sleep. A memory of a thundering night, a warm bed, and a mother smiling and comforting her children. After a few minutes, she loses the last of her energy for the moment, and falls asleep against Koto. Calm dreams overtake her mind, and she is once again, calm.
Luné Alpenglow
Cloud runs into the room, in the middle of the story, and Luné stands quickly, “What is wrong?” Cloud moves her head in a way, as if to say “follow me”. Luné starts running, with Sebastia standing quickly and getting her armor. The Priestess follows Luné upstairs, and out. Finding Koto softly humming a calm song to Miyoshi, who sleeps quietly against his shoulder. Cloud walks over to Koto, and sits. Luné approaches quietly, and softly and quietly asks, “What happened?” Koto comes to an end of the song, and slowly turns his head to look at Luné, then he quietly speaks, frowning, “I wanted to explore the nearby woods, and as we did, we ran into skeletons. One chased me, the rest kept going towards the Dungeon. I don’t know what happened to them, but the one that chased me was killed by the man that freed us. I don’t know where he went after. When I got back, I found Miyoshi curled up, unresponsive and scared. She even fought me while I hugged her, until she realized it was me.”
The Priestess speaks softly and quietly, as she sits down on her legs, “Please, tell me, what bad things have happened to you both?” Koto speaks, “Our village was enslaved, our mother killed before our eyes, and our guardian and mentor beheaded in front of us all. Then we were kept by the slavers for a while. I got punishments, while Miyoshi was kept completely untouched.” The Priestess nods slowly, understanding the situation, “She might have PTSD. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. It cannot be cured with magic. She will likely have to avoid whatever caused it to flare up. I assume the thought of losing you is what did it.” Koto looks at Miyoshi, and hugs her again, tightly. Luné looks at Cloud, “Make sure they get back to their room and rest. I will get an Expedition prepared to go straight from where the skeletons were. I assume you already took care of them, so show me the direction.” Cloud stands and essentially uses her body to point. Luné, of course, does confirm it first by moving towards it, which Cloud does so, not changing her direction. Luné nods, and decides a pack of wolves would be best.
As she watches Koto and Miyoshi be taken back to their room, Luné begins gathering up wolves. The Priestess watches the siblings leave with sad eyes, and then looks at Luné. Perhaps wondering where all the wolves came from. Once the four wolves were on their way, Luné began moving to the back of the house, followed by the Priestess, and Sebastia, who had just run out in her full gear. Getting to the back, Luné goes to the Smith, and begins changing its priorities. It had already made a good few nails, but she tells the Smith to keep the last bronze ingot, and start making more using the ingots they already have. Then she has the Smith making plate armor for herself, and Cloud. As she finishes restructuring the Smith’s orders, Sebastia speaks, “What are we doing, my Lady?” Luné looks at her, anger clear on her face, “Going to war.” Suddenly, a loud horn can be heard in the distance. Luné is not deterred.
Chaos, of Probability
He began laughing maniacally, he knew this would work. He orders the war horn to be sounded. He would allow them time to make the first move, and as the horn sounds, from the new Skeletal Wizard blowing wind into it, he looks back to see their responses. Luné looks in the direction of the horn, the fire in her heart burning even hotter with anger. Sebastia looks towards the sound, tense and ready for anything. The Priestess panics while standing completely still. Around the area, Zeuz raises an eyebrow, while Imai begins to grin madly. Cloud howls, causing her wolves to join her voice with their own. Looking at Codex, he can tell the Dungeon is even more pissed off than Luné.
For the fun of it, he checks on Lake of Codex, and sees him panicking. Chaos chuckles at that, then goes to the town to see the reactions there, Guards are running to the west gate, and forming a shield wall in fear that something is coming. Captain Sullivan is with them, ready for combat already. The townsfolk are running to their houses. Smith is smithing, as he could just smack whatever attacks him with his hammer and deal a hefty amount of damage. The Mayor is preparing his old armor and weapons. The Investigator is talking to his town criers, and then letting them go home to be safe. Then he slinks into the shadows.
Chaos then looks at Slavers camp, finding the beastkin panicking, and being confused as to what that was. The only one not confused was their leader, who had properly returned to them just a few hours ago, stood up from his seat, and yelled out, “Boys! That’s a Dungeon! Be prepared for everything, or you’re worthless to me! Keep the merchandise safe at all costs!” Chaos smirks, then says to himself, “You’ll get what’s coming, bastard. You and all your ilk.” He looks back to Fort Pontifex, and looks at Pontifex Ravenlance, he then speaks to Ravenlance directly, “Prepare defenses. The enemy comes tonight.” The Skeleton Lord begins standing from his throne, and raises a hand up, ordering the nearby Skeletons to their work. Chaos grins widely. The first chapter in Luné’s new Dungeon centric life, nears its conclusion, and he could not be any less excited.