Story So Far:
After fighting off a small army of Dead Eaters, the team takes a break in a Redoubt, a bunker-like safe room and see what a team of fallen adventurers were carrying.
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S03E03
“Peanut”
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Ingrid picked up the Stasis Chest and laid on the floor far away from the table and barbecue, just in case something very rowdy came jumping out of the box.
“It may look small, Ingrid.” Siria said “But appearances are deceiving, and don’t try to stick your hand into the box either.”
“Everyone, get ready for a fight!” Ingrid said, the mice quickly scrambled to get their guns, squeaking excitedly as they did. Cecil quickly brought out his .50 cal BMG, not wanting to take chances. The golden mice clones were the closest around Ingrid and they readied their glaives. Johnny wiggled over and laid roots around the floor, though not popping up any explosive fruits yet.
“Ummm… why’s everyone preparing for a fight?” Zefir asked over the radio. “That’s got to be one of theirs right?”
“A few things…” Philia said as she brought out her guns “it could’ve been a wild monster they caught and were planning to sell or research, so the minute we let it out it might rampage on us. Or it could be one of their own familiars and it’ll be angrily confused wondering if we killed their masters.”
“Right…” Zefir said.
Ingrid waited for the mice to make a half-circle around the box before she put it down and slowly opened it.
“H-hello!? Who…who’s there?...I hope I’m not in trouble…” A cute voice said from within. Ingrid peered in and saw of all things, a talking mushroom. It had a squat, off-white body, a red cap with whitish spots and cute beady eyes. It had a pair of stubby legs and arms and looked very adorable. Ingrid blushed and made quiet squee’ing sounds.
“Oh God that is just….mmnnngh!!! You’re safe now…” Ingrid replied, trying to wipe the smile off of her face. “But I have good and bad news… are you friends with the people who put you here? Because they were slain by Dead Eaters.”
“Oh…” The cute little mushroom slumped back against the walls of the box, “I…I s-see…” its voice breaking up a bit.
“Are you hurt?” Ingrid asked as the little mushroom started quietly sobbing.
“N-noo… it’s just… “ the little mushroom began ”my teammates threw me here to protect me… I don’t remember anything else that happened after they sealed up the Arcane Station. N-now you tell me they’re d-dead and…”
“It’s alright…” Ingrid said, she wanted to scoop up the little mushroom and hug but remembered that Siria warned her not to stick her hand in. The rest of the team hung back, as Ingrid still had some common sense not to let anyone crowd around her lest this creature was something hostile and pretending to be friendly. “Do you want to come out? We’re in a redoubt. No one is going to attack us.”
“O-okay.” The sobbing little mushroom said and jumped out of the box. Ingrid quickly leaned back as she saw the tiny mushroom jump out and suddenly grow to two-and-a-half feet tall and two feet wide. As it did so the box suddenly cracked and fell apart, the magic holding it together now gone.
The mice, quickly seeing the creature, immediately relaxed, the golden clones went back to guarding the door while the other mice flicked the safeties on before shouldering their guns, squeaking happily. Johnny withdrew his roots and wiggled back to the door to join the mice clones.
The cute little mushroom looked around, giving a nervous “H-hello…” before finally finding the covered up bodies. It quickly padded over to them, sobbing.. “No, no, no, nooo!!!” as it pulled back the sheets with shaking hands. Ingrid quickly walked over and slowly pulled back the sheets, causing the little mushroom’s voice to become shaky with disbelief before finally collapsing onto its butt and letting out a pitiful agonized wail as it recognized the bodies.
The sound was heartbreaking, Ingrid and Cecil hung their heads as they suddenly realized how it must have sounded at their own funeral on Earth and how cavalierly they have been treating it. Ingrid quietly picked up the little mushroom and hugged it, patting its soft velvety cap as it cried out.
“It’s alright, let it out.” Ingrid said consolingly, letting the little mushroom cry on her shoulder. A strong feeling of protectiveness swelled up on her chest as she consoled the trembling little creature, it felt like it lost its entire world. She looked up at her team and nodded, letting them know they could return to whatever it was they were doing.
“We may need to return to the surface.” Philia said in a low voice, keeping her mic on so Ingrid can hear.
Siria shrugged “The sheer amount of Dead Eaters we killed should net us more than enough money, and if there are people that need to be rescued it’s more prudent we report this rather than be some hero.”
“Can we do it all by ourselves?” Kvaris asked “Can Viel and Siria hold that much? There’s got to be five times more in such a nest of Dead Eaters.”
“Mine’s not even a quarter-full” Siria said “And Viel can hold way more than me, so yes we can do it. The problem is whether or not we risk more lives rushing in now or calling for help later.”
“I doubt…” Zefir began slowly. “...that the Guild will just scramble an A-team of their own guildsmen just because someone came to them with a talking machine claiming to be a team somewhere in a Redoubt.”
“It’s dark down here too…” Philia added “Things are way more dangerous now.”
“Unlikely they will…” Siria said “All rescue parties here are formed from volunteers. You go in here, there are no expectations of help. That’s how dangerous these dungeons are.”
“So then, the question is whether we can handle this or not.” Zefir pointed out. “I have no doubts Ingrid can, but I imagine after a fight she will have to freeze herself.”
“Cards on the table? We can.” Philia said “The problem is fighting our way out, and we can’t even predict what will happen to any prisoners we find. We will have to assume none of them are in fighting condition.”
“I’m fine if everyone thinks we should go back.” Ingrid said. “We can take this loss. Our little mushroom friend here needs time to sort out what’s happened.”
Ingrid patted the little mushroom’s back, who now had calmed to small sobs. “That said… can you tell us your name?” She held out the mushroom so they were face to face. “I’m Ingrid, I’m human yeah, but I’m the leader of this group The Whales, and you are?”
“Peanut…” Ingrid’s face scrunched up again, trying not to smile as pillow-sized mushroom had such a cute name. “Peanut Mallowcap.”
“Good to meet you, Peanut!” Ingrid said, cuddling Peanut to her chest, this time Peanut’s back was to her so she could face the rest of the team and make their round of introductions. Predictably, Peanut recognized Siria and the Enthana sisters, as well as recognizing Sammy’s Sunmane tribe. Even more interesting however, was that she knew Philia as a princess of Elion-Nosco.
“Sorry? What did you hear about me?” Philia asked again as the team took their lunch. Peanut had calmed down now, she sat on the table next to Ingrid given how small she was, cutely nibbling on a sandwich.
“We heard there was a fire that broke out in the palace of Elion-Nosco, but there was no mention of your supposed death.”
Philia shrugged, “I’m supposed to be not that important to mention.”
“Well…the thing is,” Peanut added “When we left Elion-Nosco, we heard that you were supposedly buying a large amount of slaves.”
“That sounds like something I would be known for doing…” Philia said “They’re probably just using my name to cover up whatever purpose they have.”
“Not important enough to be given protection, but still too useful to be declared dead.” Ingrid deadpanned.
“So, Peanut, what’s your plan? Originally we’d take you to the surface, but if you’re going to fight with us, we need to know what it is you did in your former team.”
Peanut turned around to face Ingrid, like Cecil, she could just shift her “face” around. In response, several broad kunai-like blades emerged from the bottom of her cap, like fruits.
“I can use these.” She said shyly.
“Did you just sprout metal blades?” Ingrid asked.
“No, Ingrid.” Siria said “She was keeping those in her body all this time.” She didn’t want to say more however, letting Peanut explain the rest.
“Since you mentioned you’re not from here, nor have you met any Erynjas, let me explain. I can break my body down into spores.” She then began hovering a few inches from the table, her image for some reason, looking fuzzier than before.”This allows me to fly and manipulate these blades…” to demonstrate, peanut then made the blades slowly spin around her, then had them flying slowly in erratic patterns.
Ingrid’s eyes glowed as she examined Peanut and noticed that the kunai-like blades were wrapped in some kind of aura, no doubt Peanut’s spores.
“How wide can you disperse yourself, Peanut?” Siria asked.
“Ummm…” Peanut then flew off to another side of the room where there was more space, she suddenly exploded into a thin cloud of spores, just opaque enough to see a multicolored filter as the light refracted on the spores themselves while not obscuring the vision of the chamber’s walls behind it. Ingrid saw the blades flying around in crazy patterns at high speed. Philia took a tomato and hurled it, smiling in satisfaction as Peanut was able to slice it several times.
“For your information Ingrid,” Siria said “That’s not something Peanut can do every time, she needs to muster her strength.”
“Still.” Ingrid said in wonder “this group is definitely not some beginner level team… they were really hit hard with some strong enemies I mean… anybody walking into that.” She pointed at the maelstrom of steel that was Peanut.
“Area denial.” Cecil said. “Peanut could block off an enemy advance or cut her way through a mob, those Dead Eaters must have whittled them down badly if they could get a group like that down.”
The cloud that was Peanut coalesced back to a noticeably less fuzzy image of her, no doubt in Ingrid’s eyes a more “solid” version of her body. She floated back to Ingrid, making cute pleased sounds as Ingrid patted her head.
“What do you do besides that spore cloud of death?” Ingrid asked. In response, Peanut flew to where the belongings of her guildmates were neatly stacked up. “Let me see if my wand is here…”
Peanut looked around for a minute and Ingrid saw the twitch in her face as she probably was reminded of her team again, no doubt from looking at their belongings stacked up like his. Ingrid got up walked over to her, picking up the little mushroom and cuddling her.
“It’s alright…”
Peanut wiped her face. “N-no… I can do this… I owe it to them…” she floated down and picked up a wand. It looked too big for her and probably belonged to one of her teammates. As she picked it up she concentrated her energy into the wand and it grew cute and colorful little shelf fungus on it.
Sobbing quietly, she picked up an amulet that was radiating energy as she touched it. She removed the chain and simply stuck the star-shaped amulet to her chest.
Next, she sniffled as she took a pair of large golden gauntlets. They were too large for her, and definitely meant for the big bear-folk fighter amongst her fallen teammates. Yet, when she touched them, the golden gauntlets shimmered and shrunk so that they fit over her stubby arms, which were more like prehensile stumps. In a way her body reminded Ingrid of Cecil but figured that like Johnny who spontaneously grew roots, there were limitations to her ability to mold her body.
Taking a deep breath, the little mushroom composed herself and flew near to one of the walls, ready to demonstrate her abilities.
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Party Info
* Peanut has joined the party
* Peanut obtained Phoenixheart Wand
* Peanut obtained Stellarwarden Amulet
* Peanut obtain Vindicator Gauntlet
* Peanut is assigned callsign “Kinoko”
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1 hour later:
“All’s clear.” Zefir said, the drone’s soaring high up and well hidden in the darkness. “Stay frosty.”
“Frosty?” Peanut asked, she was cradled in one arm by Philia, whom she was assigned to accompany and assist during combat.
“There’s a lot of figures of speech in Ingrid’s world we don’t know about.” Siria said “That’s something I’ve only heard of right now.”
“Stay calm and alert.” Ingrid said. She was now accompanied by Kinu, Charles and Oscar alongside Selphie and Cuddly. Kvaris, Arthur and Sully now accompanied Sammy as the rearguard alongside Johnny. The Duck Man was once again summoned by Cuddly, walking clearly in the light of the firebird flying ahead of the party, making him a tempting target.
The calls of the monsters went by as usual, reminding Ingrid of a jungle at night. As usual, more than a few monster calls were met with dissent and then a scuffle broke out. A sharp exhaling sound came out of Ingrid’s nose.
“What’s so funny?” Zefir asked, although he too was starting to chuckle at the absurdity of her finding their situation amusing.
“Sounds like a trailer park on a Sunday night.” Ingrid said. “And the monsters are the drunk, out-of-work people fighting each other over the slightest insult.”
Kvaris snickered as she scanned her eyes around the corridor as she walked backwards along with Sully. As soon as the mouse squeaked she turned around to scan the sides while Sammy and Arthur took their turn to watch the back. Johnny trailed behind, making genteel croaking sounds as if to let the group know that it couldn’t see anything hostile following them. Kiowa had Lester and Aiden watching the back at all times, while Chris and Ian focused on the sides.
Just like before, whenever they passed by a smaller escape tunnel, Ingrid looked in that direction as she passed, and then the golden clones of the mice would stand in front of it, glaive drawn and while the gun-toting mouse kept his weapon trained on the tunnel.
The first suspected chamber was five blocks ahead, each intersection crossing felt tense despite Zefir giving the all-clear and Gwen reporting no dangers following them behind.
Three blocks down the group halted.
“Shit!” Zefir said quietly “Something’s coming, it’s huge! Like fifty-feet tall!”
“Everyone halt.” Ingrid said calmly. “How many?”
“J-just one.” Zefir said. “It looks like a…”
Philia held up her phone and Siria glanced at it. “Umber hulk…the ‘Lord’ of this level.” her voice sounded tense.
Philia patted the little mushroom’s cap assuringly. “Don’t worry, Peanut.” she said, as she felt the little mushroom hug her tightly and shudder.
The huge, insectoid creature strode into view. It was vaguely humanoid in shape, bipedal, stocky in build and as Zefir said, fifty-feet tall and covered in tough jet-black carapace. Short golden tufts of hair sprouted between its armor plates, reminding Ingrid of one of those exotic beetles if it was anthropomorphized into a iron-pumping steroid jockey.
“Damn, it’s beautiful.” Ingrid said, her lips curling into a smile. “I hope the wildlife gestapo doesn’t try to arrest me for killing this rare bug.”
“As long as you don’t pin it to a corkboard.” Philia deadpanned.
“We’re gonna need a bigger cork tree.” Zefir said flatly…but a few seconds later the earthlings snickered.
The giant paused and turned as it saw the party in front of them. Small creatures like these did not concern it, but the human that seemingly led the party looked back without fear. Rather, it seemed to look at it hungrily. It hesitated a moment, but the territorial calls of other, larger creatures farther ahead merited its immediate attention.
“Seriously Ingrid, leave him alone.” Philia said in a bored voice.
“This is serious, Philia!” Peanut whispered urgently, not daring to raise her voice in fear of provoking the creature.”
“Ingrid…” Siria began.
Yes please! Peanut thought, please put some sense into this human!
“We need him to maintain order among the monsters here…” Siria said, her voice sounding like a bored mother taking her child shopping and seeing her child get attracted to yet another uninteresting bauble.
The staring contest between the human and the umber hulk lasted only a few seconds before the latter growled and continued on its way. It wasn’t growling at the human however, but rather at the audacious interlopers that dared crow to everyone that this level was now its domain to lord over.
Ingrid sighed. “Awwww…I hate needing a precedent to put down a monster.”
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“You’re a monster, Ingrid!” Kinu laughed. “Seriously, killing him is not worth it. We’d probably get reprimanded.”
The human scratched the back of her head sheepishly. “Okayyyy…”
Peanut looked up at Philia. “Why is… uhhh… is Ingrid really that strong?”
“Ingrid…” Kinu began “we saw her kill hundreds of monsters during the Red Moon in New Gorpisal.”
“I saw her throw so many fireballs it looked like a stream of dragon’s breath.” Siria added.
Philia smiled “Once, I tried to kill Ingrid by using a spell that could destroy a city…she took it to the face twice and only got angry.” as she spoke, the ex-princess subconsciously rubbed her cheek.
“Heyyyy…” Ingrid frowned, turning to her. “I’m sorry, alright?”
“But if Ingrid’s that strong, then why are we all acting cautious?” Peanut asked, finding a fallacy in how everyone acted.
“Oh Ingrid’s strong alright.” Kvaris said. “As far as taking care of herself I wouldn’t be surprised if she could rival the strongest monsters here.”
“But we’re a team.” Sammy added. “Strongest or not, there’s only so much Ingrid can do by herself, and only so much she can do to protect her friends, so we all act responsibly.”
“Like everyone else, Ingrid has limits too…” Philia chimed in. “She and I have experienced the dangers of not preparing adequately.” she sounded like there was more to it but kept quiet.
“I see…” Peanut squeaked.
___
“Last intersection before we reach the first suspected chamber.” Zefir told everybody.
“Nothing’s been following you yet, team.” Gwen added.
“All clear, proceed quickly.” Zefir said after scanning both directions.
The first suspected chamber now lay a hundred feet ahead, off to the left side of the corridor, Ingrid could see the tell-tale glow of a firelight emanating from the corridor as well as sounds of activity ahead.
“Viel, take off that front firebird.” Ingrid said quietly. “Baseplate, take Oberon inside, stay high up the ceiling.”
“Roger.” Zefir replied. Some of the team members took out their phones and watched the feed from Zefir’s cameras. It revealed a wide round chamber, big enough to hold a small concert.
“I don't know... this is a LOT!.” Zefir said. “Hundreds of them! Also, I dunno where they’re getting all this wood to make bonfires from but I also see cages… there’s definitely prisoners here. They got them corralled near what looks like a trash pile considering the thermals…”
“Ugh, don’t keep your food supply near the garbage...” Cecil said as he saw them butchering a (mercifully) long-dead kobold.
“They killed Peanut’s team when the fighting broke out.” Philia said. “There’s a chance they could do the same if they feel threatened.”
“Viel, Iohann, once you do your thing, I’ll step in and start cutting a wide path.” Ingrid said. “That should give you guys enough time to dash in, back up to a wall and start shooting.”
“Once we’ve settled in, quickly start bashing your way through the lines and secure the prisoners.” Philia said.”
“Right.” Ingrid said. “Iohann, get ready.”
“Of course.” Iohann quickly cast a protection spell around everyone.
“Stick to the plan, girls.” Ingrid said, and quickly they jogged near the entrance.Ingrid then nodded to Viel and Iohann who cast a spell together.
“Displacer Visage.” Viel said, her voice having a supernatural filter.
“Divine Thorns Armor.” Iohann intoned, having a special filter to her voice as well.
A second Viel materialized, slightly shimmering as she was coated in Iohann’s protection.
“Go.” Ingrid said. Quickly, the phantom Viel ran in and then started annoying everyone by poking them and running around, laughing and giggling as her Ciltran acrobatics allowed her to easily keep out of reach.
“Go now.” Ingrid said as the phantom Viel caused a ruckus.
Quickly the team ran along the walls, with Ingrid quickly dashing in and attacking those closest to the team. Her first victim, like most others, was laughing as he saw his comrades making fools of themselves trying to catch a giggling cat girl, except that his laughter was cut short when Ingrid blitzed in and literally took his head off with a running lariat. One of them saw what happened but couldn’t even shout the alarm as Ingrid was already in front of him; the Nemesis-Stalker’s arm jammed into his gut as she pulled his heart out. A third lost his head as well as Ingrid wheeled around and silenced him with a horizontal hand chop, her arm acting like a razor-sharp blade.
A fourth, fifth, sixth… twenty had holes blown through them as Ingrid performed a series of short, high-speed dashes followed by a precise high-powered bodyblow. The force was enough to blow a large hole through them and create an even bigger exit wound. To the Whales who saw this, Ingrid had turned into a blur of trailing red, zigzagging along and leaving behind explosions of blue on impact.
That trail of red suddenly turned to a straight light then curved then straight again as Ingrid tore through line after line of Dead Eaters who by this time were only a quarter-way through in turning around to see what had happened to their companions who had suddenly quieted down. They were halfway aware of what was going on when Ingrid raised her Nemea-shrouded and fist and punched through the crowd of Dead Eaters, sending them flying high into the air. With her other fist, she slammed the ground, creating an explosion of energy all around her.
“Open the Gates of Hell.” Ingrid said, knowing her team was already in position.
“Chain Lightning!” Siria pointed her staff and shot out a thick stroke of lightning as the fighting had begun, aiming for the densest concentration of Dead Eaters.
“Fire Bird!” Viel resummoned the first fire bird, it soared high up the room, keeping the area brightly lit.
Iohann began loudly praying a Psalm as she waved her thurible-flail around, sending billowing smoke everywhere and obscuring everyone’s vision. Everyone except for the Whales, the scent was faint with a hint of sweet-smelling herbs and not at all disrupting the senses, but for the Dead Eaters it was acrid, choking, and blinding.
Sammy, Kinu, and Kvaris charged forward as she smoke spread and joined Iohann in the Melee. Cuddly stayed close behind Iohann, deploying his Fae Harriers as support alongside the mice’s golden clones.
Preventing the melee team from behind flanked were Iroquios and the 189 shooting their pellet guns. Only Cecil and Ralf stuck to bullets, using their piecing properties to cut through the thickest of the mobs. Chris too focused on his RPG launcher and aimed where the mobs where clumped up the most and farthest from any friendly fire.
Siria did something similar, aiming a spell in the opposite direciton.
“Wind Lance!” She fired off a lance of light, just like the Tempest Lancers the Enthanas and Sammy had, it too generated a fierce whirlwind around it as it shot forward and drilled through the mobs wholesale.
Meanwhile, as originally planned, carried Selphie up her arms, rings of energy appeared around the ex-Starchaser’s feet as she leapt high up, easily clearing fifty feet and quickly sailing to the back of the enemy lines where the prisoners were being held. Ingrid had already interposed herself between the cages and Dead Eaters who were panicking and for whatever reason decided it was best to bring out or kill their prisoners.
Selphie quickly jumped down, yelling “Engaging!” As she fired at the mob, causing those in front to halt and keel over, they were quickly overrun but Selphie kept firing and soon the Dead Eaters were being pushed back by Whipcrawlers as they tore their way through the crowds.
Philia in the meantime used her shotgun’s FRAG-12 shells without reserve, aiming to quickly cut their numbers down and end the fight as soon as possible. Enhanced by her shotgun’s permanent Enhancement Lens, the little rocket-like projectile now struck with the force of a grenade. As she glided in closer she dealt with the Dead Eaters with blasts of Dragon’s Breath; a wide incendiary spray that incinerated them wholesale. Philia then fired off her Siege Spears and deployed her Guardians before quickly kiting back to shoot more rocket-like FRAG-12’s
There were projectiles hurled her way but a combination of Philia’s constantly weaving in and out and her true position being obscured by her magical capelet meant that they were hardly even close at all. Only a few times did Philia really need to dodge, and as she did so she spun around, using that motion to deploy the Stellar Spellblades that she now used as bayonets and deploy their ability to shoot out a slash projectile that cut through multiple targets.
Meanwhile, Peanut, who had flown in with Philia got to work as soon as the princess and the dryad landed.
“Step away from the doors!” The little mushroom squeaked, then without waiting for them to move, Peanut swung her wand at the doors, breaking their primitive locks by hitting them with a glowing, wedge-shaped projectile that made a small explosion on impact. The little mushroom kept flying around in erratic patterns to minimize the chances of a stray arrow or projectile coming her way and focused on breaking open all the cages.
“Philia! I broke the cages!” Peanut squeaked, quickling flying to her side and aiding Philia by shooting down anyone who came her way.
“Come in from behind, Peanut!” Philia said as she skated backwards while deploying her Guardians again, who quickly cut down a group of infuriated Dead Eaters trying to get to her.
Peanut flew in erratic, circular patterns around Philia, as she did, she let out a small spray of spores from the gills beneath her cap. As she flitted away it quickly coalesced into a magic arrow that shot forward. At the same time, she swung her wand, this time the wedge-shaped projectile trailing pixie dust was bigger and flew faster, exploding on impact with a much larger radius. With these, she provided covering fire for Philia as the ex-princess skated in and out of range and harassed the Dead Eaters.
Just as she demonstrated earlier in the redoubt, Peanut also deployed an ability similar to Philia’s Guardians. The little mushroom made a punching motion with her gauntlet-clad arm and a second Peanut (which the earthlings would later learn was properly called a “Node”) appeared, flying forward and delivering a barrage of punches. With every punch, the Peanut Node generated a spectral fist clad in a spiky cestus and would shoot forward in the direction of the punch. Something that the Whales would later learn that the huge fists actually matched those of the bear-folk warrior. Like Philia’s newfound spear ability, this too required Peanut to be mindful of its cooldown time, which it conveniently did by letting out a tell-tale thrumming sensation.
The pair took turns deploying their timed abilities, such that Philia would shoot her Siege Spears while Peanut was still charging up her Vindicator Gauntlets. Despite Peanut’s small size she was rather strong and the Vindicator Gauntlets enhanced her punching force anyway, making them hit just as hard as her dear friend who laid his life down to protect her.
___
Soaring above the action was Yogzolom, diving through the crowd, sending more Dead Eaters flying before snatching one or two up his jaws to crunch on while alive. Rather than try to eat the whole thing, Yogzolom was smart enough to just take a big bite then fling the mortally injured man away, diving again to get another bite.
Johnny wiggled behind Cuddly, excitedly spreading his roots as he followed the fighters pushing their way into the crowd. His roots either tripped up the Dead Eaters or deployed thorns for them to step on and best of all, quickly grew explosive fruits to whittle down their numbers.
“Sinners, Repent!” Iohann yelled, swinging her staff-mounted thurible, the censer now engulfed in divine flames and had a limited spreading effect to others nearby. Cuddly’s Fae Harriers constantly disrupted anyone who got past Iohann’s swings, which was an extremely difficult feat as Iohann still had the ability to instantly switch to her Talon Pillar for mid-range and her mace for anyone who managed to get that close. Not that anyone did, and the fluffy sheep-cleric didn’t need anyone to come close to deploy her mace.
A couple of times she swung it around, letting out holy water in a spray that felt like molten lead to her enemies, and the constantly smoke screen kept the crowd nice and thinned.
Which was perfect for Kinu and Kvaris to Iohann’s left, after flailing away those in front of them the sisters quickly switched to their Bloodreaver scimitars and took advantage of the blinded, choking Dead Eaters. This allowed Iohann to quickly advance forward and cover more in her incense’ smokescreen, repeating the process.
Some Dead Eaters managed to get past the Whipcrawlers and make a desperate dash towards Selphie. Rather than shoot them with her pellet gun, the dryad’s antler-like head branches glowed like wands as a flower on each branch suddenly grew in size and bloomed, firing off a small seed each. These too enlarged themselves before suddenly exploding like a flak round, not needing direct impact to activate. The Dead Eaters screamed in agony and froze up as the seeds exploded into a thick cloud of pain.
The flowers that shot out these exploding seeds were grafted onto Selphie’s body by Philia. It was known as the Flarebloom, an uncommon product found in Teth-Odin’s apothecaries and used as an ingredient for making antidotes. In the wild, the Flarebloom possessed a defense mechanism where it puffed out a small cloud of highly irritating agents, it was potent enough to cause asphyxiation within a hour as it caused the breathing passages to swell up until they closed and when left on the skin, reacted with the natural acidity to create a highly caustic compound that could cause painful, serious burns.
By grafting along with a flower that delivered its seeds by shooting out a hard shell that dispensed multiple seedlets, Selphie now had beautiful, and extremely potent biological grenade launchers, just one of the many products of Philia’s homebrew biological weapons program.
In Selphie’s case, the sheer size of the seeds and the super concentrated amount inside made the cloud of yellow dust feel, didn’t just quickly cause the victim's air passages to choke off but also blinded them and burnt their skin so intensely that it rendered the need to have concussive force moot as the affected warriors ended up either keeling over or scrambling away.
“Reinforcements coming!” Gwen warned the party.
“I’ll handle this!” Siria said, quickly lining herself up to the two entrances. “Gale Prison!”
A tornado erupted in the middle of the corridor leading into the chamber, sucking up many Dead Eater reinforcements, the razor sharp winds lacerating them severely if not dismembering them outright before flinging them upwards with great force, smashing them against the ceiling.
“Ice Wall!” Siria quickly plugged the entrance, allowing her to focus on the other entrance. She quickly spun around and aimed her staff.
“Fireball!”
“Whoa!” Cecil yelled. “That’s bigger than I thought!” he exclaimed as he saw the elf shoot one that seemed to be almost her size, and that was discounting the huge trailing tongues of flame as it streaked across the air. Siria angled her shot so that it struck the floor of the corridor outside, creating an area of denial as the flames continued to burn as if the floor was made of coals.
The elf then ran behind the mice, that way they could continue shooting unhampered, she quickly ran up the wall and made her way to the now burning corridor.
“Flame Shield!”
“Sphere of Protection!”
“Slow Projectile!”
Siria cast these spells in rapid sequence as she dashed into the burning corridor. She smiled as she saw a division of angry Dead Eaters unable to get in due to the burning flames. She laughed as she saw some try to walk through it, after seeing Siria unharmed.
“Hurricane Glaive!” Siria swung her staff creating a rapidly swirling ring of wind that cut through the mobs like a buzzsaw. It was as wide as a truck tire and after travelling a good sixy feet the the buzzsaw of wind suddenly erupted into multiple copies of itself, flying around in unpredictable, artful patterns and cutting down the huge number of reinforcements wholesale before returning to her, dissipating harmlessly before it made contact.
“Hailspear!” As soon as Siria cast her Hurricane Glaive she quickly aimed at the ceiling and deployed her enchanted ice, which quickly grew stalactites to train on the monsters below.
“Tempest Lancer!” Sammy roared, punching through the crowds as she created a huge drill of pure wind and ran through the crowd of Dead Eaters, emerging from the back and meeting up with Ingrid, Selphie, Philia and Peanut. Seeing just in time as Peanut flew into the mob and exploded into a wide multi-colored cloud of spores over a wide area, making the blades she had in her body fly at extreme velocities and turning the spore cloud into an oversized blender.
She gave them all an exhilarated smile before flaring her mana around her and manually activating her lance’s wind drill again to tear her way back to her position with the rest. The two golden mice clones that were with her disengaged with Iohann and rejoined her hacking and slashing their way through the mobs, just like before they aimed for the legs and lower torso, aiming to disrupt Sammy’s enemies.
Cecil and the mice continued to hang back with their backs to the walls, firing their pellets in controlled bursts, aiming only at the center of mass and letting the Companion Rogue Shillelagh’s hammers deal the fatal blow to the head. Chris only had two chances to fire his RPG-7 before switching back to guns.
“Night-Rider, cease any more Tempest Lances, the crowd is thinning already, conserve energy.” Zefir said as he glanced at one of the drones observing the action below. “Gunners, switch to pellet guns, watch your fire!”
“Advance!” Cecil cried. The 189 marched in step, squeaking loudly in unison as they closed in. The Dead Eaters were getting pincered, they spread out trying to flank and surround the mice but it was no use. They fanned out in loosely organized squads only to be burned alive as the mice at the outskirts used their flamethrowers to keep them off the walls and corral them back into convenient lanes for killing. A couple managed to get close, only to get cut down as the mice’s underbarrel semiauto shotguns shredded them.
The mice continued to squeak loudly in unison like a death knell, their tails wagging.
Cecil switched back to his pellet gun and was now firing in semi auto, finding less and less targets to engage in.
As the Dead Eaters were getting squashed from both sides Ingrid was in the middle, swinging away with her Nemea Cestus without any additional effects besides the enhanced punching power and letting it and her Typhon Aura’s ability to shred anything that touches her do the heavy lifting. The wild gleeful howling had turned into screams of pain and panic as the Dead Eaters realized they were going to die. Ingrid just kept slugging away as the panicked warriors tried to press themselves away from her, only to end up falling over and getting trampled in the ever tightening squeeze…
“Siria’s still holding.” Zefir reported, seeing her maintaining that huge firestorm around her, Viel had stepped forward and was simultaneously keeping Siria’s protection from fire spell up while constantly regenerating the ice wall on the other side.
“The ice wall-side corridor groups’ breaking off and joining the others where Siria’s fighting.” Gwen added.
“Ingrid! Join up with with Siria!” Philia called, she was down to her last opponent where she used her Stellar Spellblades to quickly and cleanly slice his arms off and kneecap him in the leg with a blast from her shotgun.
“He’s all yours Peanut.” Philia said, walking away.
The little mushroom screamed in anger as she wailed away at the Dead Eater using her Vindicator Gauntlets. No generating a Node this time around and simply punching away. The Spectral Fists still emerged as usual and at no cost. Peanut just continued to punch and punch away as emotion overcame her.
As fast as Ingrid could jump up and pinball herself to Siria’s location, the legendary solo adventurer was already finished cleaning up the corridor, although she looked a little disappointed with herself.
“Ahhhh…” the elf groaned in frustration. “I’m getting rusty, I burned more than few Dead Eaters…” she moped, finally extinguishing the flame around herself. “All clear now, Ingrid?”
“Clear.” Ingrid said. “Let’s get Viel to bring all these guys in…”
Her words were interrupted with the distressed and enraged sounds of the mice. Ingrid quickly ran in and saw what the commotion was.
The mice were squeaking angrily, jumping up and down as they clubbed some fallen Dead Eaters over and over again with their telescoping batons. One was garroting a struggling Dead Eater while another two were breaking his legs with hard whacks with their clubs. Only then did the garroting mouse let the warrior go, slamming the back of his head to the floor. He was flipped over and his hands ziptied behind his back, dragging him on the ground alongside another warrior who was kneecapped with a shotgun.
It was then that Ingrid noticed what set the mice off.
Off to one side were some small cages that housed Tixi Mice. Some looked really sick and others looked malnourished. These cages were now broken open, some of Ingrid's mice were quickly breaking out their rations while most of them were angrily breaking the legs of the vanquished Dead Eaters and zip-tying their hands behind their backs like the other two.
Yet another warrior was being garroted by the mice, while another waved at Yogzolom, the big Nyx Fish obliged and neatly bit off the warriors' limbs while the mice holding him down squeaked excitedly, jumping up and down in delight. These disabled warriors were then dragged to the now-free mice, flipping them over to their backs. Arthur was squeaking something to the freed mice which prompted them to launch themselves into a feeding frenzy on the now-helpless Dead Eaters' soft, vulnerable bellies.
Ingrid grimaced, but not at the sight of the starved mice eating their enemies alive, but at the grisly sight of butchered Tixi Mice carcasses hanging above the cages, drying in the air like smoked meat. Ingrid’s mice continued to bring in more still-living warriors, squeaking excitedly so everyone could eat.
Ingrid and Philia must have had the same brain cell, as both of them decided to help their charges by disabling more warriors and throwing them over. For Ingrid, it was to feed the mice, and for Philia, to feed Peanut’s need for revenge.
Sammy patted Viel’s head.
“You alright?”
“Yes, I’m just a little…” The ciltran girl began.
“Anger does that.” Sammy said quietly, gently pulling her in for a hug. Viel purred.
“I’m not upset.” she said. “Well, except for what those Dead Eaters have done here…they’re worse than monsters.”
“Mhmm…” Sammy said. “Dishonorable actions beget harsh justice.”
“Wanna help?” Kvaris said, throwing over some of the razor-clubs at the newly-freed prisoners, she gestured over at the still moving Dead Eaters.
Iohann put a hand over Kvaris’ shoulder shaking her head disapprovingly.
“We need to feed them first.” She said, reaching into her pack to bring out rations. The fluffy sheep-cleric looked up and saw Peanut once again in Siria’s arms, crying her eyes out.
“There, there… little Peanut.” Philia said comfortingly, patting the crying little mushroom’s back.
Neith approached Philia “The exit to this dungeon is a twenty minute walk, easily double the amount considering how many we need to escort out of here.”
“We’ll just have to take it one at a time, Neith.” Philia said as she patted the sobbing little Peanut.
“I’m assuming there are no objections for us taking the spoils here?” Kvaris asked as she handed out her rations to the prisoners.
“None.” Said one orc. “Just happy to come out alive.”
“We could do with some of their weapons while making our way out.” Said a kobold. “For protection. I was only caught yesterday, I can still fight.”
“Of course, you’re free to take their weapons and armor.” Kvaris said. “But focus on helping the weaker ones first. Combat will be my team’s duty.”
“What’s your team’s name?” asked an elf.
“We’re the whales… oh and If anyone outside of the Guild’s higher ups ask… just say someone else rescued you.”
Kvaris didn’t know it but behind her was the sight of armored Tixi Mice, squeaking happily with each other as they beheld the grisly sight of the other mice eating the vanquished Dead Eaters alive, like a bunch of torturers cracking jokes as their colleagues performed their work.
Off to the other side, A Nemesis Stalker was radiating such a malevolent aura as it stared down a group of scavengers attempting to make off with the team’s kill. Then there was Siria Bluethorne, the legendary solo adventurer, talking casually to what could only be the talking larva of an elder slime, residing in some stately arcane dimension. To the prisoners, it looked like there was no room for dissent.
“O-of course…” The prisoners chorused.
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INDEX: The Whales Party Sheet