Story so Far:
The Whales take their first steps into the dungeons of Teth-Odin and find the lights have gone out, they have their fight against a massive hunting party of entities known as the Dead Eaters.
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S03E02
"REDOUBT"
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“All clear.” Gwen told the party, “nothing else up ahead or behind besides some scavengers.”
“Everyone huddle up!” Ingrid said. “Viel will now use her Telekinesis to pile up the dead!”
“Let me shoot some!” Selphie said excitedly “I can use them as whipcrawlers to replenish my gun… the still-living Dead Eaters of course.”
“Sure!” Ingrid said, waving her arms to herd everyone around Neith. “Cuddly, you can brighten up the butterflies now.”
“Ermmm…” the cute Fae Hare replied. Waving his wand around, the butterflies’ luminescence intensified, now giving them twice the brilliance of a candle. Despite each butterfly’s wings sporting different colors, the light they gave off was a neutral white for easy visibility. As they brightened up, the butterflies soared higher, giving everyone a better view of the dungeon corridor around them. Philia crouched down and petted the fluffy hare, causing him to make cute murmuring sounds.
“Cuddly, have the Duck Man hold fire, don’t shoot anything or they’ll learn it’s just an illusion.” Ingrid said, referring to the decoy in the shape of a moorland hunter that Cuddly was familiar with back in his homeland. The bunny ermm’d in response.
Meanwhile, the firebirds hovering several feet ahead and behind the party continued to lazily fly in circles, as they continued to do so, they occasionally revealed a hint or two of a scavenger lurking just out of its light’s range. Philia noticed Ingrid looking at them and said,
“Easy, just think of them as stray dogs, Ingrid. It’ll be fine to let them take those at the periphery.”
“If you say so.” Ingrid replied. “I’m just surprised they got here so fast.”
“We weren’t exactly fighting quietly.” Sammy told her. “They’d of course head towards the sound of battle and just wait for the victors to move on.”
“Ingrid, don’t try petting them, alright?” Zefir quipped. “They’re gonna eat into our profits.”
“Roger.” Ingrid replied “but if I see any mice, that’s an exception.”
“What are you planning this time?” Kinu laughed, “You trying to build an army?”
“I was thinking more of a squad of pure pellet gun madness.” Ingrid told her. “Drum mags holding pellets in the five digits, pure suppressing fire.”
The mice looked up at Ingrid and squeaked excitedly. She crouched down and patted their heads. “Yup, squeak if you see any mice.” The mice responded by grabbing her hand so they could rub their heads on it.
“I’ll start replenishing everyone’s shields.” Iohann remarked, kneeling as she made a prayer of protection. She began to give off a warm glow around herself and everyone started feeling more protected as her prayer mended their shielding.
“189, reload one at a time, sound off!” Philia ordered as Selphie spotted and shot her first surviving Dead Eater. The half-dead warrior growled in defiance as the parasitic plant turned him into a shambling zombie, sprouting vines and blossoms as he staggered towards her, dropping dead as the plant drained his lifeforce as well as its own to generate multiple burls into be used as wood pellets and the flowers to generate more seeds. These she would collect so she could later put her magic into the seeds, letting them burrow into the wood burls for later use.
At Philia’s order, Arthur squeaked first, quickly laying down his backpack Traveler’s Valise and taking out a spare drum mag. With quick, dexterous paws, Arthur swapped drum magazines, placing the used one inside the enchanted bag before zipping it up and putting it back on. Sully followed next, and quickly the mice one by one reloaded their magazines while the rest kept watch.
“Iroquois, do the same now.” Cecil said, “Sound off.”
“Ermm…” Cuddly murmured as he took a carrot from his backpack and started eating. As a Fae Marsh Hare, he had the ability to draw from his body and convert it to mana, a fact that after Siria explained it to Ingrid she quickly took him shopping for food he could quickly consume with little to no preparation. Ingrid patted the adorable bunny’s head.
“So adorable.” Ingrid giggled. Cuddly pressed his head against her head, ermm’ing cutely as he did so. She then went to each mouse to pat them on the head while she waited for the Item Boxing to finish, prompting each mouse to briefly let out a squeak of joy.
Meanwhile, Johnny, the monster pumpkin wiggled over to one of the slain Dead Eaters, plucking it off of the floor and then bisecting itself in the middle to reveal a mouth full of sharp chomping teeth. The sight should’ve struck Ingrid as grisly but it instead cracked her up.
“What’s so funny?” Philia said, noticing Ingrid was looking at Johnny.
“I mean…” Ingrid said, starting to have a giggling fit as she patted the wiggly pumpkin. “Like, imagine growing some mountain duskberries and then one day they just start pulling themselves out of the ground and start walking to the nearest mountain.”
“Pffft!” Philia laughed “Growing them is going to be an exercise in futility…”
“But we have Johnny Prime, as you call him.” Selphie said, sweeping the burls and seeds from a broom taken off of Neith’s porter rig. Johnny Prime or JP was the original Duskberry that Selphie “tamed” and planted in Ram Ranch, unlike wild duskberries he was content to stay rooted near the house, near the gazebo where the Larkirk pigeons roosted.
“I know.” Ingrid giggled “But the thought of growing crops that run away is just funny.”
As the girls giggled, one Dead Eater managed to get up, but as he tried to hobble away he was suddenly snatched up into the air by Yogzolom, Iohann’s Nyx Fish familiar. Resembling a siamese fighting fish twice the size of an arapaima, the Dead Eater was crunched up in its massive jaws easily.
Meanwhile, Philia summoned her shotgun again and started reloading the bullets, at 200 bullets per type for a maximum of three types and 600 bullets total, she sighed as she began the long arduous process.
“Don’t you got a machine for that, Philia?” Ingrid asked.
“It’s in the works.” Philia said “I’ve been rather busy working on everyone else’s gear first. I plan to modify this gun like the Remington M-series which uses magazines.”
“I’m seeing more scavengers piling up, we’re drawing quite a crowd.” Zefir advised them, the drones Aquila and Falcis silently hovered high above the ceiling, and from the combined night vision and infrared, he and Gwen were able to see various scavengers slowly inching their way.
“Keep reloading, Philia. We’ll take care of this.” Kinu said. Kvaris let out a loud series of barks as the two sisters stepped ahead, showing themselves and making it clear to the scavengers that they were aware of their presence.
Johnny must have noticed them too, for before Zefir spoke up, the wiggly pumpkin shambled a good five feet away from the group and began laying out roots on the ground, along the lengths of which sprouted bright juicy fruits ready to burst with a nasty surprise. Some of Cuddly’s butterflies rested on these fruits, illuminating them but the scavengers here were no fools and knew there was something very wrong in trying to eat up something offered by a walking plant.
Cecil and the mice brightened up their lamps, causing a small stampede as the scavengers tried to scuttle further away from the light. The mice let out loud angry squeaks that sounded like territorial calls which no other creature dared to try vocalize against, lest they provoke a fight.
“Don’t shoot yet.” Siria said “We need those scavengers. Those that get too close deserve at least a warning shot. Ignore the slimes though, they’re fine.”
The mice squeaked in assent.
“At least the slimes have balls.” Ingrid remarked as some of them started gently rappelling down from the ceiling. “Cecil, wanna shake hands again? Maybe this time one of them’s carrying interesting abilities…”
“That would be convenient…” Cecil said “...if they do absorb abilities then this dungeon would’ve been regulated by slimes long ago!”
Kinu, Kvaris, and Sammy had been checking each other for any injuries or damaged armor, all of them smiling in satisfaction as they found that none of them had sustained any damage at all, neither to their armor nor themselves. At the mention of slimes merging with each other, their ears perked up.
“There’s a fallacy to that claim, Cecil.” Kinu spoke up, patting a slime. “We’ve never met any slimes that talk much less have your intelligence, it could be a possibility.”
“Yeah.” Kvaris chimed in “for all we know one of those slimes can cast infinite fireballs.”
“And for all we know…” Sammy added “you might be this world’s equivalent of an Elder Slime, who’s to say your arcane dimension isn’t in fact your own magic?”
“Hahaha, funny, I’m no such thing.” Cecil said, but he did fly over his Dialog Window over to one slime that started engulfing one of the Dead Eaters. Tentatively he stretched a tendril out.
“Ingrid, what I did last time was really stupid, so cut it off the minute something bad happens.” Cecil said. Ingrid didn’t answer but he did feel her mana signature flare a bit as she watched the procedure.
“Heeeey, buddy!” Cecil said “Wanna uuh… exchange cards?”
The slime let out a tendril, as if sniffing out Cecil, then it hesitated. It wriggled as it split itself in two then the graft excitedly crawled over and gently wrapped itself around Cecil’s tendril.
“Whoa!” Cecil cried out. “Feels like strong morning coffee after waking up!” he paused, shaking himself, “I feel…a lot more energetic! Though I don’t think I can cast spells anytime soon…”
“We’ll figure something out.” Ingrid told him. Looking up, she saw that Viel had already finished piling up all of the dead into a neat stack.
“Dispatching time!” she called to everyone “Nobody goes alone! Iroquois, spread out more and cover us while we dispatch. Selphie, shoot a few more of the ones farthest, that way they can help while replenishing your ammo.”
“Got it, Ingrid!” The dryad chirped, firing three more shots on both sides. As predicted the vines whipped out or stabbed the dying Dead Eaters as the now-crawling parasitized ones got into range.
Cecil cried out again. “The portals, Ingrid! Look!”
“What’s up Cec-oh!” Ingrid then noticed that Kiowa’s sub-portals were now capable of moving much farther. “What’s that? Forty feet now?”
“Looks like the case!” Cecil said “Alright guys! Don’t stray too far now! Bring it back.” The Kiowa team squeaked in response and took up positions again, now capable of spreading out more.
As the Iroquois team was testing the portal ranges the rest of the team got to work dispatching the survivors. There were quite a few of them still lying around though few were actually still capable of moving, most were unconscious and bleeding out.
“Use your polearms everyone, or whatever’s got good range!” Ingrid told them, dispatching her targets with a quick elongated blur of a kick to the head, followed by a quick elongated blur of her arm so she now held them by the neck before tossing them to the pile. Kinu and Kvaris used their corsecas while Sammy her halberd. Philia used a combination of her gun’s bayonets and her Guardians; constructs generated by her Praetorian Armlets to dispatch the fallen with their swords. Siria also joined in, her staff generating and energy blade at the end and the mice of The 189 used their glaives. All the while, Yogzolom and Johnny helped themselves by biting off the heads before throwing the rest of the body into the pile.
The affair took only a few minutes, there was a moment of tension as the party went closer to the scavengers, but Iroquois’ bright spotlights kept them away. Fortunately, not even a warning shot was needed. Also, as one turned her back to the scavengers, she was covered by a teammate, with Ingrid being the sole exception, handling the northern end all by herself.
“Don’t feed them Ingrid!” Zefir reminded her.
“Don’t worry, I won’t feed those that can’t handle a gun.” She chuckled in a sing-song voice.
“As Philia and Siria said, don’t take all of them.” Viel called to Ingrid, her cute voice echoing in the corridor “The scavengers are an important part of this dungeon, and they do need to know that we adventurers aren’t enemies… but we’re not their caretakers either.”
“I know, I know...” Ingrid said.
“And let the slimes take what they will… for now.” Siria said. “Just nudge them if they try to take those fallen dungeoneers.”
“Got it!”
A few minutes later, Ingrid joined the southern team, which lessened the tension as the scavengers scrambled further back. As everyone huddled back over to Neith, Ingrid, Sammy, and Iohann go to work cutting the fallen adventurers’ free of their bindings before wrapping them up in a sheet. These were among the stuff they had bought for occasions like these such as encountering fallen adventurers or… God forbid one of our own, Ingrid thought, came to pass.
“We can take from the fallen so long as they don’t look like heirlooms and are pertinent to adventuring, everything else we leave alone.” Siria told her. “Viel? Ready?”
“Yup!” The ciltran chirped and the two of them began casting their Item Box spells. For purposes of efficiency and redundancy, the party had agreed that the two of them will use Item Boxing so ease the load.
“Stay on guard everyone!” Ingrid said, following Iohann and Sammy’s example of dipping her hands into one of the slimes to clean them. She didn’t need to as she could simply use her mana to nuke any germs off of her hands but she couldn’t pass up the opportunity to pat a friendly, jiggly slime. She suppressed a snicker as she watched Philia resume reloading her shotgun one shell at a time.
“Part of me really wishes I could tag along…” Zefir said, “But I guess this boredom’s for the best.”
“War is one of two things, Baseplate. Either it’s very boring or it’s very scary.” Philia told him. “Besides, you’re in your own set of danger right now. We still have problems with a certain gang of thieves, how’s it going over there?”
“So far all’s been quiet.” Zefir replied. “Medusa and Euryale have been busy sparring with each other and the Larkirks have been happily cooing about.” he told her, referring to the pair of Wolian bodyguards and messenger pigeons they purchased some days ago back in New Gorpisal.
“What news from Dallas and Wayne?” Ingrid inquired. “I got a bad feeling some unscrupulous rich asshole is going to barge in and demand some kind of ridiculous extortion fee from them or try to take their goods.”
“They’ve checked in every hour.” Gwen replied. “I’m handling the comms between the canned goods store and Loch Ness, Dallas and Wayne say they’re doing fine and are turning in good money. No one has come by to harass them, fortunately.”
“That’s some good news.” Ingrid said. “What about Loch Ness?” she added, referring to their town Ram Ram by its call-sign.
“Sabrina’s laboratory is still being built.” Gwen replied. “She says she loves the wooden cottage Starfox built for her but can’t afford to do anything but the most basic potion making in a house like that. Says she needs sturdy stone walls and a good distance away from the town, preferably over gravelly ground just like her old cottage.”
“Hmmm…” Ingrid thought for a moment. Cataline had a point, she really needs a sturdy stone house for her laboratory work and a good place to have it built. “Hopefully we can have that arranged. Tell her to sit tight and focus on herb gathering for the moment.”
“We can buy a good amount of bricks and tile for Sabrina’s laboratory from those Dead Eaters and still have plenty to spare.” Kvaris said. “Glados, can you remind us later?”
“Affirmative.” Neith replied.
“What else?” Ingrid asked.
“Starfox is considering having a boat built but he needs a professional boat builder for something like that. Some of our fishermen have tried diving into the lake and found it very deep some one hundred feet out… it just falls out to a vast abyss. Said fishermen didn’t want to peer in however, saying that the undercurrent was getting stronger.”
“Just hearing that gives me serious thalassophobia.” Zefir remarked. “Fear of deep, dark water, in case anyone’s wondering.”
“Not if there’s some good mer-folk down there.” Kvaris told him. “We could establish good trade… IF there are, I doubt it in that arcane dimension however…”
The Item Box spells of Viel and Siria closed up, and Ingrid signalled for the party to move, leaving behind a small pile of Dead Eaters for the scavengers to feast on.
___
The location of the redoubt was on the right hand tunnel, opposite from where the initial Dead Eater hunting party came from, two intersections down, then a right turn into the escape tunnels. There were no other combat encounters except for a small procession of large turtle-like scavengers the size of an SUV one intersection down. Despite being turtles they moved with the grace of a big cat and barely gave the party a glance.
“Again, Don’t think of petting them, Ingrid.” Zefir said suddenly. “Just one of those big boys are gonna get 90% of all our loot.”
The Whales let out quiet chuckles at Zefir’s remark.
“Hey!” Ingrid jokingly shot back “I was only thinking of putting a machinegun atop them.”
“That ‘tank’ discussion again?” Sammy snickered “It’ll do us no good in a place like this...”
“Yeah.” Ingrid said quickly. “But for the open field it may help.”
The giant turtles moved quickly enough that the party didn’t need to slow down their pace, they didn’t even acknowledge the firebird that hovered above and lit up the intersection.
The party continued on, with the firebirds lighting the path ahead and behind them, the swarm of fae butterflies illuminating the party, and the observer drones hovering out of sight, hiding in the darkness to keep an eye out. As usual, Johnny’s roots trailed behind the party, deploying and redeploying volatile biological landmines to deter any back attacks.
“Switch up after we leave the redoubt.” Ingrid said. “Kinu and Aviz you’ll take point with me this.”
“Gotcha.” Kinu replied, she and Sammy were taking turns walking backwards to ensure they were being followed. Charles and Oscar were also doing the same, squeaking to each other as they assumed shifts.
Reaching the escape tunnels, Viel shrunk down the birds to account for the smaller quarters and Ingrid this time took up the front.
“Shooters, eyes up on the ceilings.” Ingrid said,
“On it.” Cecil replied, keeping his spotlights aimed high, but fortunately he found nothing.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
A few minutes of walking, Ingrid came across a circular opening, inlaid with carvings and a solid stone door. Remembering what was taught to her in the orientation, she touched the stone door and channeled a bit of her mana. Unlike the portal, it required an injection of energy to open and another to close it. Ingrid poke a mana-infused finger and the door made a scraping stone-on-stone sound as it slid to the side.
The party squinted their eyes as light flooded the corridor, it seemed that the faerie lights of this chamber was insulated from the influence of the mana surge that occurred during the night of the full moon. A cool breeze blew in, stronger than the ones that wafted across the corridors.
Ingrid peered into the circular room around them, it was quite spacious inside, easily holding a hundred people or more. She stepped aside and quickly ushered everyone in, making sure she was the last to enter the room before poking the round door frame with her mana to securely close it shut.
Turning around, Ingrid nodded at the four golden mice clones, who stood guard with their glaives out, she crouched down to pet them, making cute noises as she did. She did the same for the wriggling pumpkin that was Johnny, who started laying down roots in front of the door.
___
As the party let out a collective sigh of relief, Ralph jumped out of the portal to stretch his legs while the mice of The 189 filed into Cecil’s dimension so they could start reloading their magazines. Ralph adorably pawed at Philia’s legs who responded with a cute “Awww!!!” and giving the fluffy mouse a hug and nose-to-nose before handing him her shotgun and FAL magazine for reloading.
“Ermm….” Cuddly mumbled, taking another carrot. Iohann lovingly picked him up and cuddled the hare, making cute noises, who responded in kind by nuzzling her face.
Ingrid smiled as she saw the cute exchange, pausing briefly on her work of taking out the folding tables and chairs from Neith’s porter rig and deployed them. It was still too early for lunch though considering what they were planning next, it might be a good idea to get one early. She dismissed the thought and focused first on the more macabre side of business…
Just as she finished deploying the camping furniture, Viel had taken out the fallen adventurers from her Item Box, Kinu, Kvaris, Iohann, and Sammy were busy unwrapping their sheets and respectfully taking off their gear. Noticing her looking their way, Kvaris gestured at her to come over. “Come on Ingrid, as the leader you need a hand in this too.”
“Of course…” Ingrid said, there was no hint of squeamishness in her voice. This wasn’t the first time she had to loot from a dead body, she had plenty of experience back in her pre-Starchaser days. She crouched over one elf that looked like a ranger, her face was purple, there were no injuries on her neck however it seemed to be…
“Poisonous arrows or darts…” Ingrid said, looking up at the Valkyrie Squad she quickly asked “Have any of you been scratched?”
“Nope.” Sammy said said quickly, “We’ve checked each other for injuries, our defenses barely took a hit. In my case, not even my Moon Shield activated.”
“Our Pavise Charms took most of the brunt of the attacks.” Kinu told Ingrid. “Though we barely needed to block anything.”
“That’s good to know.” Ingrid sighed in relief as she took off the ranger’s belt, which contained several pouches. A few of them were already opened and a sheath for a dagger was missing its blade. “I don’t think they knew the value of what they guys were carrying.”
“They don’t.” Kvaris said as she gently sat up a kobold warrior to take off his breastplate and gambeson. Aside from the blood, it was rather intact, but his throat had been pierced with probably a spear. Reverently, she laid him back down again and crossed his hands over his chest before covering his face with a sheet. What bags they were able to recover were not worn by the adventurers but located farther away, probably carried by the Dead Eaters themselves. Which in Ingrid’s mind contradicted what Kvaris said about them not knowing their value but in hearing the rattle of broken things inside the bags, she reasoned that they were probably only after the rations.
“Their throats were slit.” Sammy told them dully. “It seems recent however, given the blood. They probably decided to kill their prisoners when the fighting seemed to be getting too troublesome.”
“It’s not like we need to take any prisoners at least.” Ingrid replied. “Unless Philia wants to test her weapons on them.”
“Too much drama involved,” Philia replied quickly. She was helping Cecil lay down some mugs and jugs of ice-cold wine from the chiller. Meanwhile, at the table, Siria was helping Selphie work her magic into the newly-made seeds dropped from the whipcrawlers. The dryad chaneled her mana into her hands, hovering them over the seeds. Slowly, the seeds wiggled about, growing tiny green roots which they then used to amble their way into the perfectly-shaped burls from the whip crawler vines.
“Nice done!” Siria said, patting the dryad’s hair as she saw Selphie now capable of animating a handful of seeds. “You’re learning quickly.” she added, seeing that they seeds were aware of which burls were unoccupied.
Selphie blushed, getting high praise from such a legendary elf.
“Th-thank you.”
Meanwhile, back where the fallen adventurers lay, Ingrid was expecting the Valkyrie squad to react to her remark with disdain but all they could say was,
“How would you even carry a live Dead Eater out of this dungeon?” Kvaris frowned, taking off the last set of charms from the fallen.
“Nobody’s ever thought of that?” Ingrid asked. She finished laying everyone’s hands crossed to their chests and straightening them up. As she did so, Iohann hovered over them,waving her thurible as she made her prayers, the sweet scent of divine incense seemed to fill Ingrid and her Valkyrie squad with determination, a smoldering need to avenge these adventurers.
“All that will do is cause a ruckus, and it’ll probably get killed by the guildsmen at the entrance.” Sammy said, covering the bear-folk’s face with a sheet before taking up his belongings over to the table “Now there are Tixi Mice that inhabit this dungeon, if you can get them to join the swarm, they can at least hide in Cecil’s arcane dimension for later registration.” she added, returning to the group to rewrap everyone so Viel could take them back in her Item Box.
“Anything else…” Kinu added as she lay the last bag atop the table after dusting it off “too difficult.”
___
Everyone but the mice (except for Ralph),the golden clones, and Johnny huddled around the table to examine the gear taken from the fallen, Yogzolom had returned to his ocean by shrinking himself and passing through iohann’s summoning orb. The weapons and armor were mostly unenchanted but were of good quality steel, while they didn’t seem to be of any use to anyone, it would at least be good enough to sell.
“Don’t sound too disappointed now…” Zefir told Ingrid “If they had SSR’s they’d still be around righteously kicking ass.”
“They don’t look green though.” Philia remarked. “It’s just bad luck they ran into a full Dead Eater hunting party.”
“Why hasn’t anyone reported something of this magnitude yet?” Ingrid asked as she inspected another dagger. “There’s a whole army of these guys, we should be expecting bigger groups of adventurers at the very least...”
“One, there’s guys like us who can wipe the floor with them.” Philia reminded her “And two, this magnitude of danger isn’t normally found in these dungeons. We don’t know the full story of these poor folks. For all we knew they were in the middle of a quest and were trying to return when they got surrounded.”
“Here’s a couple!” Siria said, holding up a pair of daggers. She handed them over to Selphie who laid them on an identifying scroll. The two of them worked together to quickly cast the spell and the results were…
“Stellar Spellblades, neat!” Siria said excitedly “Philia! Replace your bayonets with these!”
Philia put aside the twin daggers, they were straight edged and double edged, with decorative engravings along the fuller which extended nearly the whole length of each dagger. The pommels were pear-shaped but would still fit if she could slot it under her guns’ barrels.
She picked up the scroll and began to read aloud.
“Daggers that can grow the length of a sword,” she said “after absorbing enough Ether in the air, approximately every eight seconds the user can channel their mana into their weapon and slash out…” she paused to read further.
“Well?” Ingrid asked as Kinu, Kvaris, and Sammy were snuggling with her, causing her to hunch forward with Sammy leaning on her. She didn’t know it but she was starting to purr like a cat.
“It’s basically like your Excalibur, generates a slash shockwave, rated at a range of forty feet with diminishing cutting and impact force, and the blades are like, magically sharp, should punch through most defenses.” Philia said, putting the scroll down.
“Take them.” Kvaris said, pulling Ingrid to the end of the table so they could sit her down and pet her.
“Use them when enemies do get up close.” Kinu said, pushing Ingrid so she could be pampered.
“Yup, we don’t need them.” Sammy said, “What we need is to pet a cute human.” with that she ruffled Philia’s hair before giving her a wink.
Viel nudged Philia and giggled “You’re quickly becoming Sammy’s favorite.”
Philia sighed pleasantly “Yup, Isekai checklist… a princess needs to be ridden hard by an orc…”
Kinu sighed “Mhmmm… another rags to riches story, huh?”
“Oh right…” Zefir said “That’s how people see it here…”
“Brrr…” Sammy shuddered “I can’t imagine staying in a palace for more than few months… give me a road!”
“Actually, Philia’s talking about those captured princesses that get ridden by an orc…those kidnapping romances.”
“Ooooh…” Sammy and Kvaris said in revelation. “Running away with pirates fantasies.”
“Pffft!” Siria giggled “Runaway princess fantasies.”
As the others inspected the weapons, Iohann gathered the adventurer’s rations that were still edible and put them on a neat stack. “Eli? Can you send these to Cecil’s room?” she whistled, as she couldn’t send Ralph in since he was the only mouse outside. The mouse squeaked in reply, taking some other mice with him so they could put these snacks into the room. Iohann kept some of them as well as the inedible ones and fed it to Johnny. His body opened up like a venus flytrap and eagerly munched the rations.
“Cuddly? Selphie? Anything you two fancy?” Ingrid asked as she patted their heads.
“I got more identification scrolls, so if you see anything, we can examine them.” she offered helpfully.
“Ermm…” Cuddly held up a ring. Viel took out a scroll and laid the ring atop it. After casting a brief spell, the scroll filled up with various words and runes.
“Interesting…” Viel said, looking at the scroll. Siria came over and she, Viel, Selphie, and Cuddly huddled over to read it.
“What is it?” Ingrid asked Viel some heatpats too, causing her to meow.
“An Ether Ring, It’s a self-charging magic ring that draws from the Ether around it. It’s very rare.” Viel told her, playfully rubbing Cuddly’s head and ears. “With this, Cuddly can put more power into his magic or keep at his usual output for a much longer time.”
The hare looked up at Ingrid and made cute pawing motions.
“Of course you can keep it, Cuddly, you need that.” Ingrid said, ruffling his ears.
“Ermm…” Cuddly groaned happily, especially as Siria and Selphie rubbed his back, his eyes closed in bliss.
“You need it.” Siria said, encouragingly. “I got something similar as well, we mages need these things…so keep it.”
“Next, Selphie?” Viel asked.
Selphie held up a bracelet, it consisted of shiny beads of a dark amethyst.
“You can feel it too, right? There’s something about this.” the dryad said, laying it on a fresh scroll.
“Umm… let’s see…” Viel said and began quietly chanting the spell.
Ingrid, Kinu, Kvaris, and Sammy had retired to one end of the table and helped themselves to the ice cold ale.
“Phew!” The girls chorused. “Ale after a fight is so good!”
“Cecil! Mice!” Ingrid called “Don’t you wanna kick back with some ale first?”
“They’re busy!” Cecil said his Dialog Window was currently showing himself and the mice at the reloading table still at work. The mice excitedly squeaking in the background as they reloaded their beloved drum mags. He had a magazine partially engulfed in his body and a box of ammunition on the other end, with the efficiency of a machine, Cecil filled up the enchanted magazine with bullets at an unprecedented rate.
Ingrid watched the balls of fluff and jiggly slime reload with a twinkle in her eye.
“Ingrid’s adorable when she’s like this.” Kvaris said, rubbing Ingrid’s cheeks like a cat, causing the human to purr.
“Don’t underestimate a human’s desire to build an army of fluffs…” Zefir said over the radio.
“This bracelet was a form of protection.” Viel said “Amethyst Charm: made from enchanted Sun Gossamer Moth silk and Amethyst formed from a red dragon’s volcano…”
“That’s a giant moth that’ll scare every textile factory on Earth.” Philia deapanned.
Viel continued ”The magic of this bracelet was undone however, probably due to the Dead Eaters smashing away at the wearer’s protective field until it was overloaded. Its toughness is equivalent to that of amethyst stone.”
“What did they do? Hit the wearer with a wrecking ball?” Zefir said. “Glados, what’s the hardness value of amethyst?”
“7 on the Moh hardness scale. The toughest stone on Earth is diamond which registers at 10.” The AI replied quickly.
“Hmm…” Ingrid leaned back on her chair. “That still doesn’t make sense… what sort of thickness we talking about, Viel?”
“It says on this identification scroll about the thickness of this bead and an effective area that covers the entire body,” the cat girl replied. “It regenerates the shielding within an hour, if one area breaks completely, then the bead is overloaded and then…”
Viel leaned forward and read the scroll again ”...there’s a five second delay after one bead is overloaded and it musters the next one’s protection…” she thought for a while, “that could explain why only a third of these beads were exhausted, the wearer must have been attacked when the protection went down.”
“And, impact force would’ve gone through anyway, amethyst is brittle.” Siria said. “It’ll be like hitting a helmet with a hammer.”
“Siria, can you help me charge this?” Ingrid said, getting up from her seat but Kinu who was rubbing her cheeks pushed her down.
“No!” The garm girl said. “Conserve YOUR energy since you’re dealing with most of the fighting! Now take your cheek rubs like a good girl.”
“Borf..” Ingrid replied.
“Speaking of protection…” Gwen asked “Anyone injured?”
“None.” Sammy replied “My Moon Shield didn’t even activate.” referring to her charm that summoned a spectral scythe that slashed at anything that hit her.
“About that…” Gwen said “Why didn’t you just put it on the Rhokalian Dress Form?”
“Interference.” Philia replied. “Its spell was incompatible when worn by different people. Also, Starchaser’s too strong, Amarok, Anubis, Suika, and the mice have shields, as do I, and using it violates Prophet’s code, Ranger-Two isn’t keen on using it either. Which leaves Night-Rider as the only one that can use it even if it worked on the dress form.”
“We can’t make use of this Amethyst Charm either.” Viel said. “So it’s best for Selphie to have it for herself. Even if a bead gets overloaded she still has her pavise charm and the Rhokalian Dress form’s protection”
“Now this one…” Siria began “is quite an oddity, I can’t make heads or tails out of it.” She held up what looked like a cylindrical metal flask which couldn’t be opened. She shook it but it didn’t seem to contain anything.
“Try putting some mana into it?” Ingrid asked.
“Too risky…” Siria said “Viel?”
“Sure!” Viel replied. Laying it on an identification scroll, she cast her spell as usual, then her eyes widened when she saw the inscription.
“Huh…” Siria said “Attolek’s Arcane Station. Now that’s pretty valuable.”
“What’s that?” Ingrid asked, her voice muffled by Sammy’s cheekrubs.
Philia came over and glanced at it, she was of all things, a quick reader.
“It’s basically like Cecil’s room but the stuff inside only works while the bottle’s contents are deployed.” Philia replied. “If we can open it, we should just put them in Cecil’s room…” she paused, scanning her eyes over the text quickly. “It says the bottle's rather damaged so any further attempts to use this will probably damage the stuff inside...”
“What’s in it?” Kvaris asked.
Philia squinted down the text, it was rapidly shrinking to accomodate the description for the items inside.
After a few minutes she straightened up, she, Siria, and Viel conferred with each other for a few moments, the cat girl and the elf looked enthused with the idea, a few more minutes and she turned to Ingrid. As they talked with each other, the mice finally emerged from Cecil’s dimension, taking turns to cuddle with Ingrid and the rest.
“Why don’t we have lunch?” Philia proposed.”We’ll unlock these goodies and then use them for our upcoming attack on their lair.”
Ingrid glanced at the others, there was no dissent.
“Nobody’s complaining. What’s the plan?” she replied.
“We’re going to brute force this bottle open.” Siria said. “Might take a bit out of us, which is why Philia suggested we spend a little more time out here and gather our strength.”
Ingrid shrugged, she looked at the garm girls next to her.
“Kvaris? Kinu? What’s your take on this?”
“It’s unlikely we could be attacked in this redoubt.” Kvaris said. “The worst is other adventurers coming in and demanding we hand over some of our things, which will result in a shoot out with the mice.”
“Zero tolerance, mice!” Ingrid called. The mice, which had denigrated to a feeding frenzy on the cold chicken and egg salad, stopped and looked at her, their cute beady eyes looking back. “That means the moment someone acts troublesome, kill them.”
The mice squeaked excitedly and resumed their frenzy of chewing with their mouths open. They stopped eating at their first cold chicken sandwich and excitedly started pulling out of Cecil’s room the barbecue grill and related tools, as well as the pre-marinated meat in the freezer.
“Siege Spears.” Philia told Ingrid. “You have a rack containing twelve spears, all of them with the same enchantment, and an amulet for a single user. How it works is that it summons an energy replica of the spear and hurls at with the force of the user’s maximum throwing strength, similar to Iohann’s Raptor Greaves… want to register your throwing strength to it?”
“Sure.” Ingrid said, her voice still muffled as Sammy rubbed her cheeks like a cat, and now Kvaris was ruffling her hair. “Woof… but is it going to suck out all of the user’s strength if I do that?”
“That’s the fun part.” Philia giggled as she saw Ingrid being fawned over like a fluffy dog “Just like that Ether Ring, this one just sucks up the ambient Ether to replenish itself, there’s not cost to the user, however there are a…” she glanced back at the scroll, before leaning over and see the fine print.
“First of all, it shoots out all twelve of the spears at once,” she continued, straightening up and looking at everyone, gauging their interest in the items. “It requires the user to point one arm at the designated direction and the spears come flying in that generation direction albeit at random angles, so it’s not meant to be an accurate weapon. Second, the Spears of Light as they’re properly called are first generated in an arch formation above the user’s head, so…”
“More of a weapon to throw at multiple enemies coming at you.” Sammy said.
“As opposed to an accurate shot to a single foe.” Kinu added.
“Exactly.” Philia replied. “Also, it requires about five seconds to muster enough mana from the drawn and converted Ether to shoot again…”
Philia paused looking at everyone.
“So… who wants it?” she asked.
Everyone looked at each other for a while.
“Definitely not for me.” Iohann said, cradling Cuddly in her arms. The cute bunny rabbit ermm’d and slowly shook his head before resuming eating his carrot.
“I can’t” Selphie spoke up first. “I’m mostly in the back of the fighting so a weapon like this is wasted on me.”
“I don’t want to fight…” Viel said, closing her eyes and shaking her head in an innocent expression.
“Sammy?”
“That too should be yours.” the orc warrior told her “The way it works interferes with how I fight. It’ll just end up hitting enemies I’ve already struck, this works best for someone like you who flits in and out of range.”
“Same.” the Enthana sisters replied.
“For those of us who fight up close and have weapons for striking multiple opponents at once, Siege Spears are wasted on us.” Kvaris said.
“You Philia on the other hand…” Kinu began “would find this most useful as a secondary method of repelling enemies closing in before you use your bayonets.”
“You have a point…” Philia nodded, then turned to the mice “Guys? What about you?” the mice looked up and quickly squeaked and waved their paws.
“I don’t think it’ll work well with them either.” Siria remarked. “since there’s many of them. “
“If I could somehow use the spears from here…” Gwen remarked “it might be useful, but my role is to observe unseen, eventually they’ll find the drone that’s been throwing spears of light at them.”
“Same,” Zefir echoed. “Not worth the risk..these drones are silent, King Fish, I doubt they’re that easy to manufacture.”
“No they aren’t Baseplate.” Philia said “Alright… I’ll accept these gratefully.”
“Next Item stored is from Deregor’s collection, a Standard of Valor.” Viel said, looking up at Sammy expectantly.
“I’ll take it!” The half-orc said excitedly.
Viel looked back down at the scroll “to use, simply make a motion of laying it down on the ground, the Standard will then hover for up to a minute and let out rhythmic pulses of arcane force to batter the enemy…” she paused and read further.
“For friends it’ll feel like a light breeze but for all who wish harm on the user, it’ll be like a hard punch from the user to the face.” Philia continued. “The strength is dependent on how hard you smash the Standard’s shaft to the ground, it lasts about a minute as Viel said, and requires another minute to recharge…sound good?”
“Yes.” Sammy said.
“Also it only works on those trying to harm you and those close to you, so that means Kinu and Kvaris for most cases.” Philia added.
“Sounds like it’s more than a punch to the face.” Ingrid remarked. “Also, that’s the third time we’ve seen something that powers itself using the ether, I guess these guys were a lot better equipped than I thought.”
“Indeed,” Siria remarked, still reading the scroll “these dungeoneers aren’t some novices who caught during a bad time. Which isn’t good news for us either, we need to be more careful.”
“There’s also quite a number of healing potions and rejuvenators, not fancy but very useful.” She replied, looking up “I’m going to warn everyone that there’s a possibility some of them may get broken when we forcibly open this.”
“We’ll take the risk…” Ingrid replied, looking again to the garm girls who nodded.
___
A few minutes later, Cecil had a barbecue grill set up, with the mice excitedly crowding around it to start cooking the team’s lunch of the Terragalian equivalent of bockwurst and slabs of salted pork belly, along with chilies and aubergines. Cecil’s Muse Box was playing “Everybody Must Get Stoned” by Cypress Hill and the mice to Ingrid and Philia’s amusement were bobbing in tune to the beat and squeaking along to the lyrics.
Opening up the bottle that was Attolek’s Arcane Station required the combined mana of Ingrid, Siria, and Viel, with Ingrid doing the heavy lifting in order to provide the necessary output. The result was a loud “BANG!” as the steel artifact shattered (harmlessly onto Ingrid thanks to her Aegis Aura shielding her) thanks to Siria “brute forcing” a spell to open up the sealed artifact. Some of the potions ended up breaking on the floor, and a few more cracking open, but overall, after a check from Siria and Viel (and the three of them helping themselves to the rejuvenation potions) the rest of the items were intact.
Ingrid looked at the Siege Rack for the spears. As expected it was quite fancy-looking, with a heavy baroque aesthetic. The spears were similarly decorated and as she picked one up, she could feel the magic thrumming through it.
“After you.” Philia said, gesturing at the spears.
“Hope I don’t have to pay for damages.” Ingrid chuckled as she picked up one. Philia referred to the scroll of identify and then muttered a spell on the Siege Rack. Ingrid felt a small surge of power radiate from both the rack and spear she was holding. With another gesture of her hand, Philia gave Ingrid the OK sign to throw.
Ingrid wound herself then threw the spear hard, there was a distinct “THUNK” and crunching sound as the spear embedded two-thirds of itself halfway into the wall.
“That can’t be good…” she said but Philia shook her head.
“It’s fine, watch…” Philia then began weaving a spell, causing the Siege Rack to glow, including the spear that was embedded into the wall. There was a short humming sound as the spear vanished and replaced itself on the rack. Philia then placed the amulet around her neck, it’s lanyard magically shortening to a length that wouldn’t get in the way. Philia then pointed her left fist, then her right, the spears of light firing off all at once on both occassions. Interestingly, they did no real damage to the walls or floor. Philia then picked up a tomato from the table and hurled it atone of the jutting out spikes of light and for a moment, Ingrid was expecting it to get shredded but it merely bounced off as if it was solid.
“Not a stationary band saw no, but definitely a hindrance to any enemies still trying to push through.” Philia said.
Siria on the other hand was looking at some items not found in the scroll’s manifest. She and Viel were poring through them with the scrolls of identification.
“Ummm… Ingrid?” Siria said. “This is your specialty…”
“What’s my specialty?” Ingrid said, looking over at a small chest. Cecil flew over and exclaimed in recognition.
“It’s that chest again!”
“What?”
“The stasis chest where the Guileheads kept the golden mice!” Cecil said.
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Party Information
* Cuddly obtained Ether Ring
* Selphie obtained Amethyst Charm
* Philia obtained Stellar Spellblade x2
* Philia obtained Siege Spear
* Sammy obtained Standard of Valor
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Glossary
Ether Ring: a ring that recharges the wearer’s mana by absorbing the nearby Ether. Very rare and valuable.
Amethyst Charm: A bracelet consisting of enchanted Sungossamer Moth silk and Amethyst formed from a red dragon’s volcano. The bracelet has 13 beads. Once activated it generates a full-body shield with the toughness of amethyst. If the shield is overloaded, the bead deactivates and must recharge. There is a five second delay before the next bead can generate its shield.
Siege Spear: A spear rack and a matching soulstone brooch. The wearer can summon an energy facsimile of the spears which then appear above the user’s head and hurl themselves in random angles at the general direction the user wants. The throwing strength scales off of the registered user’s. Due to Ingrid doing the throwing, it has enhanced penetrating power. Has a cooldown time of three seconds
Standard of Valor: Deregor Weapon. A magical Standard that when deployed, hovers above the ground, letting out pulses of force in regular intervals. It feels like a punch to the face, with the force equivalent to how hard the user slams the shaft onto the ground. Lasts for one minute, takes another minute (effectively two minutes) to recharge. Only works on those that wish harm on the user and the user’s friends to close them.
Stellar Spellblade: A magical dagger that can grow to the length of a sword. Every eight seconds it can also release a slash shockwave projectile rated at range of forty feet (with diminishing cutting and impact force). Regenerates energy via ambient ether. There were two found and current serving as Philia’s new bayonets.
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INDEX: The Whales Party Sheet