| They Slimed Me | ||
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| Summary: After defeating a Lich, Bridget and Archene head off to a more safe battle plan. However, a mysterious figure is already there where they intended to hunt.    |
Archene smiles warmly before saying, "Alright! Then, lets get out of this creepy area. There should be something fun to hunt around here." He looks about, "What do you think about slimes?" He smiles, "There is a cave with those around, and there should be some in there. Their cores taste like candy or something. Then again, rumors are unreliable." He ponders a bit as he keeps walking. She shrugs and follows, curious to see if this rumor was true. "Let's find out." With that Archene guided Bridget through a part of the badlands where the buildings slowly grew more sparse, until there were enough trees and grass around for it to look like a forest. A small forest, but still lush green trees and grass. It was also possible to see some sort of mountain in what'd be the center of the forest. "And here we are at... the Enchanted Woods? I don't know if this place even has a name." He chuckles quietly. At the edge of the forest sits a heavily armored figure on the log of a fallen tree. It may be resting, it may be waiting for someone... or something, but despite the utter lack of movement at first, it's definitely not dead. As the other two approach the area, the figure turns its head to look directly at them, but says nothing, nor waves in greeting. Does it think it's not been noticed? The blood red armor really does stand out. Bridget glances around, her ears perked up at all the unfamiliar sounds. "This is weird..." She then notices the armored figure and her soul's projection is materializing in her hand in an instant, the glowing yellow revolver pulsijg in time with her heart beat as her eyes glowed similarly and peered into the visor. "It is a forest, how weird it can... be?" Archene steps forward in between the armored figure and Bridget, he looks at the figure. He stares for a few moments, before giving a small wave, "Hmmm, hello there?" Maybe they were mute? Muted? Just quiet, shy, and certainly not an evil guy in a blood red armor. Bridget shuddered a little at some of the things this man had done, but the blow was softened a bit by the obvious remorse and the obvious longetivity of this man. The gun faded and she turned to Arch. "H-he's fine." Her tail twitched a bit. Gonthri Fei gives a silent nod to Archene's greeting, then turns his head ever so slightly to look directly at Bridget and her shudder. "I am well, yes," he says, misinterpreting Bridget's words. Archene seems slightly, tense... until he hears Bridget's words, letting out a 'oh'. He then smiles warmly at the armored figure, "In that case, all is well." He smiles once more, his right arm and torso looking a bit purplish, and his shirt and jacket visibly in tatters on that side as well. The headphones are fine. He hmms before asking, "Are you also here for some slimes, or is there anything else to hunt around here?" Though such armor is probably a bit of an overkill for just some slimes though. Bridget nods to the man. "Pleased to meet you. We're here for the slimes." She turns to Arch. "And to answer your question, I haven't really been in a forest in years, and that was only when we were fleeing the lab." Gonthri Fei turns his head slightly to Archene again. "There are always things to hunt in the Badlands. And one is always hunted. It is best to be careful. I am not aware of slimes." His head turns once again to Bridget and nods silently to her in acknoledgement. Archene steps aside and looks at Bridget, "Oh, I see. Well, I hope you enjoy the walk in the forest." He smiles, "But as said, stay careful. You really never know what will happen in the Badlands." He thne glances at the armored figure, "Yes, there are some in some cavern by the foot of the mountain here. Their cores taste like candy and they also sell well. I thought of it as, a proper stop for hunting. You can tag along if you feel like it, the more the merrier." And not like one more will bring extinction of the slimes. The wolf girl nods, glancing around as her ears continue to twitch at all the strange sounds, not to mention the odd hum of ambient magic. "Like he said, feel free to join us. My name's Bridget, this is Archene." She turns back to the armored figure. Gonthri Fei tilts his head slightly as he says, "...You're hunting for creatures that taste like candy." He actually sounds like he might be amused by this, but it's hard to be sure through the voice modulation. "Very well. This could prove... interesting." He stands up and turns towards the forest, starting to walk that direction already. "You may call me Gonthri Fei," he says as he turns back to look at the two, perhaps gauging them to see if they recognize the name at all. Archene recognizes the name in no way shape or form, as he just smiles, "Pleasure to meet you Gonthri Fei." He starts walking towards the forest as well, "And yeah, they are just tiny blobs with candy-like crystals in the center. Alchemists like the cores, and if there are too many of them other creatures might have some problems. As they walk through the forest... it becomes strangely easy to notice that despite the lush greens of the forest, there are no little critters to be seen or heard, beyond some distant insects." Bridget follows, not appearing to know the name. As they walk, she notices the lack of sounds and begins to glance around warily. "Guys...I don't hear anything. Aren't forests supposed to be teeming with life and such?" Gonthri Fei asks, "Is the value diminished if they are singed?" He stops in his steps and looks around at what Bridget says, however. "They may just be silent. In hiding. But... there are some temperature anomolies, cooler spots in the distance. The animals may be afraid of us, or may sense those anomolies as well. Or perhaps this place was hit with a carbon dioxide outburst from the mountain." "If they are still warmer than ice, might be the slimes... and animals avoid them. Except for the ones that are attracted by their scent or something." Archene mentions, "But given how there aren't many animals around, I think there should be many slimes around. Let's just keep going towards the mountain, there shouldn't be an ambush or anything from those little things." It'd be more hilarios than anything to be surrounded by a swarm of candy slimes. Gonthri Fei takes a while to respond. "So by now... this hunt is becoming as much for extermination as it is for resources." He looks about a bit, training his eyes below that visor to try to spot anything out of the ordinary as he raises his left arm slightly. "You didn't answer the question about singed cores." Bridget feels her soul's projection manifest in her hand, the glowing yellow fire arm warm in her hand. "Let's be careful anyways." "Considerably, but no one expects and intact core sincerely. While alive, the slime is a bit acid and sticky, it is... complicated to pull the core right out and heating it up until they become a puddle isn't something most can do. Nor can most people just dehydrate them." Archene nods, "But yes, it should be mostly extermination, I thought that with the price of the cores, we'd have very few around though... "Considerably, but no one expects and intact core sincerely. While alive, the slime is a bit acid and sticky, it is... complicated to pull the core right out and heating it up until they become a puddle isn't something most can do. Nor can most people just dehydrate them." Archene nods, "But yes, it should be mostly extermination, I thought that with the price of the cores, we'd have very few around though..." "Well, with 3 of us here, it will be a good while of extermination though. We should leave some behind so that they repopulate though. The little things are a gold mine." He snickers. One of the sources of cold approaching them, even making perceptible noises as it pass through a shrub... but even before getting on sight, it begins to scurry away. Probably due to the side of its targets. The little thing wasn't even that much bigger than a basketball ball. Gonthri Fei looks in the direction of the dark spot in Infra-red. "One came close. Tell me. What is your preferred method of dispatching one of these slimes? I am unfamiliar with them." The raven haired girl shrugs. "Shoot it till it dies?" "I just go and pull the core out when it is just small numbers, but if there is more than a dozen, just breaking its surface is good enough for them to die. A few bullets, any piercing or cutting does it. Only way that really doesn't work, is attempting to blow it with blunt trauma, they'll just bounce around at that." He glances the same way at Gonthri, "You can just kill it in any way, it is a very killable thing." Gonthri Fei nods once to Archene and suddenly a blade extends from the gauntlet of his left hand. It appears too big to have effectively hidden within the armor, actually, and is it your imagination, or is his right hand looking more clawed than it was before? "Understood." Bridget pulls the hammer back on her revolver and nods. "Got it." And, suddenly there's a bluenette doing a surprizingly silent hero's landing nearby. Being familiar to at least one of the folks here, he apparently isn't too worried about shocking people. He quickly comes to a stand, dusting himself off a little with his landing hand. Afterward, he shifts the box he's holding in his other hand under one arm. "...nice day for hunts, isn't it," Cu wonders casualy. Being that he's out in the badlands, he'd be sporting his blue bodysuit that he tends to wear for battles. Bridget whirls to face the newcomer before relaxing somewhat. She turns to Arch and nods. "He's fine." Archene nods back at the two. He is about to say something else, as he notices a familiar figure doing some heroic landing nearby... "Oh, it is. We are just about to catch some cores, here for the same? They seem... needlessly numerous lately." On that note, yeah, for those with supernatural senses, or infra-red scanning... it shouldn't be hard to notice that there are a very good number of creatures moving on the group there way. Creatures that, by chance, are blob-like and ranging from the size of a soccer ball to even thrice as wide as that. They also aren't all that slow, some seem to roll surprisingly fast. (They aren't even in view yet though, but yes, they have all kinds of pretty colors.) Gonthri Fei turns slightly to look at Cu, then give him the slightest of nods before looking out over where he's notcing the approaching creatures. "We have incoming," he says simply. "Prepare for battle." Cu smirks at Bridget's comment, either not knowing it's context, or purposely misreading it. "Well I should hope I am," he states, "You look fine too..." As Gonfei mentiones preparing for battle, Cu places the box somewhere safe. A red spear appears in one of his hands. "Can't say I'm surprized." Bridget smirks and chuckles. This guy didn't seem half bad. "I'm flattered, but maybe we should focus on the enemies." She levels her glowing yellow revolver at the tree line where Gonfei faces. "People and their abilities to summon weapons." Archene shakes his head slightly, his skin seeming to shine slightly. For those who can sense so, he is channeling chi through it and the rest of his body for general self-enhancement purposes it seems as at the first sight of slimes he dashes towards them. The slimes more in the front where strangely fast and bouncing purple ones. If this were an RPG, they'd be among the first monsters one would find in their first cave. Not something special if not for the fact that they were numbered in the dozens and were as fast as a normal person speeding on a bicycle. Not far behind them there was a veritable horde of green slimes the size of baskballs! And lastly, there were big pink slimes behind them. One thing all the slimes, regardsless of color had in common was their cores. of of them being almost the size of a child's fist. (Even in the big ones.) Gonthri Fei crouches ever so slightly as the slimes come out more into the open, then leaps forward! As he does so, the rocket nozzle on his back flares to life, sending him litterally flying forward at the slimes. His attack is in three parts: The first with the blade on his left hand, aimed at bisecting two of the slimes with on swing, the second with his clawed right, where he's attempting to peirce into another to try to grab at its core, and the third is a slash with the blade on his tail. He does these without stopping, attempting to get in towards the back where the pink slimes are. Bridget opens fire, taking only as many shots at any one slime as would be necessary to put it down before moving onto the next like a well oiled machine, taking care not to hit the cores or her allies. Within a few seconds she had 5 down and was aiming at the next, the purple slimes were cannon fodder, but they'd get in the way if left unchecked. Cu wasn't around to get the boons from taking out these slimes, so he's good attacking the small fry, to get them out of the way, no problem. That said he'd attack from an angle, skewering a few of them all at once with gae bolg. "Sorry Archene, comes with being a dead man, I suppose." The poor slimes... poor, poor and mindless slimes are relentless. As a slime is bisected, the viscous liquid within them falls on the ground, leaving only the core vaguely floating on it. As Gonthri Fei claws into one and takes a core out the slime pops like a water ballon as soon after. By the time of his last slash, he is already before the green slimes, his slash making a number of them expire into puddles. Bridget's bullets are true all the time, nothing beyond a two bullets needed per slime. And with her expert care and aim, a good part of the purple slimes not living long enough to cause anyone trouble. As Cu goes attack the small fry purple smiles, he is better than just good, two or three going down with each of his attacks! "Come on, you can't be serious that I need to die before I manage to do that." At the same time, Archene kicks and stomps the slims he finds in his way! Some of them bouncing away only to be picked out by others, others burst like ballons. Little cores being left behind by his minor carnage as well. As the horde of slimes got close however, the green slimes sped up, specially towards the armored man just before them. Bouncing and sticking at him. While a single slime would at most be a punch and weight a galon, a dozen and more slimes could spell trouble, right? The pink slime nearest to him also seemed to be growing a tentacle... slooooooowly. The others not so close to himm possibly to, but that'd be hard to tell given the green slimes clustered by them. Bridget notices that Cu had the purple slimes handled and shifts her attention to the larger slimed to see Gonfei in trouble. She opens fire on the tentacle and moves to get a better shot at the slime attached to it. Remember when Gonthri Fei asked about the value of singed cores? Under the helmet, the man grins slightly as the slimes begin to swarm him. Soon the armor seems to take on a slightly different kind of red hue... that of glowing metal as it starts heating up before flat out bursting into flames. He stands there, if in pain, not revealing it. Instead, he walks more slowly towards that pink slime without a word. Blinks at his retaliation and shifts targets, taking the time to load six white lights into the revolver, muttering under her breath the phrase, "Unload." She opens fire on the pink slimes, thicker white projectiles lancing through them as opposed to the typical gold streaks. Cu chuckles at Archene. "You don't that's just why I get to call my weapon up out of thin air. I'm certain you don't want to go the 'become a legend, die, and then get summoned back from the dead with the weapon you became popular with route." He'd simply swipe the slimes off his weapon between attacks. He's seriously only doing this cause he dropped in and figured they could use the pointless distractions being out of the way. "Well, that route seems a bit too convoluted. The part where I have to become a legend before anything is already a bit too much. Plus, I still don't have a weapon." Archene sighs before kicking one of the last purple slimes, yup. All of them gone. As the white projectiles went -through- the pink slimes, they began to leak considerable amounts pinkish viscous fluid, become all woobly then... ... ... The leaks stopped. They were still woobly and strong, and now had tentacles. (Not due to the leaks thoughs, as the 'wounded' area seemed to crystalize instead of being like their usual rubber like surface.) As for the formely blazing armored person? Several crystalized dull-green shards lied on the ground around him... truly many of them, but more clearly there were small clear cores among the the shards. A good number of them were singed, a few even cracked, but a number of them were still fine. Just as Gonthri flames died down, a pair of rubbery pink tentacle slamed towards him. The pink slime seemed fearless towards the one that just destroyed so many of its kin! There were also still a good bit of green slimes moving towards Archene and Cu, as well as 4 big pink slimes. Bridget was safe (if there was such thing safety in the Badlands.) Cu raises a brow as the green slimes start on coming and the pink slimes tentacle up the burning man. He takes a short moment to decide before leaping upward, jumping up off of higher objects before slinging his spear downward in the direction of the pink slime. Gonthri Fei skids back as the tentacles slam into him, but instead of moving back further, he reaches up with both hands to try to grab at the tentacles, and once again he erupts into flames, or at least his gauntlets do. "They aren't very intelligent, are they Cu?" Bridget repeats the act of loading the heavier projectiles. "What I want to know is how they shrugged off those blasts. Unload." The last part is muttered again as she sends all six shots lancing through one pink slime, hoping to put it down. The pink slimes have no chance against this band of... heroes? Cut easily manages to jump to tree branches and the like and send his spear through the core of one of the the spear perfectly impaling the slime into the ground, but unlike ints green and purple counterparts, the pink slime just slumped there, its leathery tentacles falling to the ground. Gonthri Fei easily grabs into the tentacle, and once his gauntlets erupt into flames, the tentacle seems to explode! Into several tiny pieces of what smells like bubblegum, even with the right density, meanwhile the slime flails its half-tentacle flailingas its liquid flow out in considerable amounts. Dumb or not, there are green slimes by the armored figure again. Poor, poor candy slimes. The hail of bullets upon the single slimes makes it basically, explode. Each hole making it leak more and more liquid, the last one grazing the core and making the liquid gush out. The slime expires into a small mound of pinkish... bubblegum? The core being found on top of it. Archene keeps running through the limbs kicking them left and right, at times, leaning down to pierce through their skin and pull out their cores. A number of green slimes falling in his wake, until a pink tentacle throws him a few meters back and he only manages to say, "Come on, this is a bit too ridiculous. This many really is a bit too ridiculous." There were almost no green slimes left, and only 3 pinks slimes left... only gushing out its liquid and probably expiring soon, courtesy of the armored figure. "Unintelligent sounds right, yeah," Cu agrees. He hops from his landing place and goes to retrieve gae bolg. He's not even going to bother swining an attack at the slims at the moment...unless one of them goes out of it's way to bother someone, anyway. Gonthri Fei lashes out with his tail at one of the green slimes that's approaching him. "If I thought these things had any intelligence, I'd be telling them to run right now." Bridget grins and sets up another volley muttering unload again before opening fire on one of the less flaily slimes. "The wouldn't get very far lad." She chuckles. The flailing slime by the fiery armored figure soon enough finishes its flailing before plopping onto the ground. The slime hit by a volley of bullets, also seems to expire easily enough, becoming a mount of bubblegun, and the last one? Archene rushes at it, his right arms giving glowing steadly as the perforates its leathery skin, just barely managing to reaching its core by the time his whole arm was inside. Then with as much effort as it took to get his arm in, he pulled it out, even stumbling back. As for the poor green slimes? They die the green grass green as they all expire sadly, the cores left intact on the ground. "Well, we can't blame them... they don't really have brains." He looks about, probably to see if there is anything left, "Well, now we just have to... gather these." He raises the clear core in his hand, "Or at least, the intact ones. We should have quite some of those around. Personally finding nothing special before starting to look and gather cores in his jacket's left pocket. Gonthri Fei's arm blade retracts as he looks about once again to confirm there are no further targets. "Yes, it would be a waste to simply leave them here." He starts looking through the cores around himself for the best looking ones, considering he doesn't have much in methods of the ways of toting a large number of things around. Some small enough go into a hatch on a hip plate, however. "We had all probably best return to the city before we attract worse after this fight." Letting her soul's projection fade away, Bridget shrugs off her jacket and begins to collect cores, using her coat as a makeshift sack. Cu streaches out a bit. "Well, I just happened to see you on my way back from getting some cocatrice gizard..." he states, "I don't need the slimes, you guys can keep all of them." "Yeah, I'd not want to fight another horde like this. At least, there were no orange ones around. They just jump on your, melt and crystalize. They don't even leave cores behind." Archene takes a few more cores, before finding one small enough to throw in his mouth. Ohhh, grape flavored! He looks at Cu, "cocatrice, gizard? Strange tastes, but thank you. Though not like we can really get all of these back. Also.." He takes another core from a purple slime, just a bit bigger than a pinball. He tosses it at Bridget, "Try this out, should be grape flavored, and is sweet." He smiles warmly her way. Cu says, "Well, I can take the ones you guys can't manage to take then. ...the gizzard's not for me to eat. It's usually something people use for spells or potions." Bridget catches the core in her mouth while her hands are occupied. "Hmm. Not bad. And I can hold a lot more yet, this jacket's pretty handy." She grins and nods, continuing to collect cores. "And I hear ya on fighting something that might've heard the fight. It'd be a bitch fighting with one hand and a sack of cores to babysit." Satisfied with the amount of cores he's picked up, Gonthri Fei looks about warily for any new threats. "It sounds unpleasant. Also, I think I will pass on tasting these..." He holds up a pink crystal. "I'd rather have the money." "One can never be too sure, these here are alchemical ingredients, and are still some of the best candy I can find around." Archene chuckles quietly before saying, "You can trade them off in about anywhere that purchases loot from this place, even a magical shop should buy these, they aren't hard to sell. But yes, we should start to get out of here, this is probably more than enough exterminating than this place needs." Cu takes up whatever he can of any left behind cores. "Well, I guess I'll see what Frey's intrests are in these slime cores..." Bridget hugs her jacket full of cores close and glances around, ears twitching, before looking at Cu. "By the way, the name's Bridget." Cu smiles and nods. "I'm Cu, but a lot of people call me Lancer." The raven haired girl nods, grinning. "Pleased to meet ya Lance." Gonthri Fei looks out to the south, then to the others here. "We need to move," he says before immediately starting to walk. "Do any of you have transportation? Or are we all walking?" "Walking, in our case," Archene then motions towards Bridget before also starting to make his way, exactly the way they came from. Bridget nods and walks with Archene, tail swishing and ears on a swivel to make sure they weren't jumped. Cu replies with a nod, "Pleased to meet you too," he replies with a grin, " ...I'm always moving by foot. And nice to know this guy over here apparently reads his stories..." That last part seems to be reguarding Gonthri. He's walking along too. (Re) Gonthri Fei looks back over his shoulder again at Cu for a moment before returning his gaze forward. "We should move quickly, at any rate. I don't like walking out here." Being jumped on by slimes would be an interesting sight. But again the forest was quiet... nothing on Infra-Red until... The sound of cicadas could be heard. Yup, just a insect or another hundred meters away. Well, all is well. "How have things been for you, Lancer? Haven't really seen you since our spar." He chuckles as they make their way out, Archene's pace slightly faster than leisure. Cu is easily keeping pace with Archene. "Same as always, everything's fine here," he answers, "What about you?" "Life is fine, managed to play Danmaku in person, twice, spar the followers of some war god, learn a bit of magic that works for me." Archene chuckles, "And other than the jacket," which is kinda half destroyed, "Nothing bad has happened to me." He smiles warmly, "And of course, I"m glad to hear that everything is fine for you." At that pace, they'll soon be out of the forest at least, they can even already see the way out as tree get sparse in fact. Gonthri Fei says nearly nothing as the group makes their way finally to the wall. As the wall gets in sight, he slows down to let the others pass him, but doesn't stop. "Finally," he says. "I do not like being out here after dark." Cu says, "Why's that? Just how the monsters around here can get?" "They can get very bad around here at dark, though most of the bad things I've seen here aren't roamers or anything." Archene nods, "Just need a bit of luck to avoid them though and not run into obvious traps and nests in my case at least." He says as they get by the wall. Bridget shudders a bit. "Are there any more liches and things in the badlands?" Gonthri Fei shakes his head and says, "The Badlands are unpredictable. That's the most dangerous part about them. We're lucky we didn't run into a kaiju, or a roaming band of bandits, or worse. The Badlands are not to be trifled with." Cu says, "Oh, I know how things can get here. I come out here for work. That said, yes, there are easily more of everything, forever." Bridget shivered again before shaking it off. "Oh joy..." "Maybe," Archene hmms, "That's the first one I've found, and that wasn't even a real lich, just some cheap knock off. Real ones literally doesn't even die when killed. Have to kill the places the store their souls before they become mortal enough to die." "Just avoid dark places and you should be fine, denizens of darkness and undead prefer places like that. You should be fine." Archene smiles lightly at her. Cu says, "We'll be fine for now, either way..." Archene says, "Yes, yes. We are fine and we are lucky." He nods twice." Bridget turns to Arch slowly at that. "...that was a knock-off? And it had performed all those atrocities?" She shuddered at the thought of what would happen to her if she looked at a true lich's soul. Gonthri Fei shakes his head lightly as they arrive at the wall. "We are here. We are all now as safe as we can be now." He looks over the others a moment before adding, "It was good to fight with you, even if the enemies weren't much of a challenge." "Bridget, a true lich... is a vile creature that eats the souls of millions to empower itself. They are... truly the worst out there." Archene then nods at Gonthri, "It was a pleasure fighting with you as well, may we fight alongside some day as well." He nods firmly. Cu nods in reply. "We should go up against a real enemy sometime," he replies, "But some small fry on rare occasions ain't so bad..." The girl absentmindedly nodded. "Y-yeah. It was good fighting with you guys." | |
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