Payton looked around the alley a few more times before giving up, "the dude must've ported out or something…Rude."
A shadow of something caught his attention, he looked up in time to see a creature fly overhead, a creature with black and white.
Excitement bubbleing up inside would ahrdly cover the way the young Player was feeling right then. For not two seconds after the new flying creature had past over, Payton ran down that road like a greyhound after a rabbit on the racetrack. Something he hadn't done back home in his life.
It was nearly an hour after proting inside the building where the floating white haired creature had vanished like a mepidian. Payton stumbled along the hall, his feet aching and his stomach starting to rumble.
"Aw man. Maybe I should've taken that Danny kid's offer on the bread after all." He muttered to himself, "Would've lasted me until I got back for breakfast anyway…."
"INTRUDER!" someone screamed, Payton instinctively ducked into hiding, "SOMEONE'S STEALING IN THE LOWER HALLS."
This was followed by a loud bang, smoke filtered up from one of the doorways. Several of the nearest creatures rushed to see what was going on. Payton smiled, anxious to see if that new creature was fighting. It could be a good opertunity for a scan.
He wasn't disappointed, not two steps into the next large room two creatures came crashing through the wall. Payton's eyes widend, one of them was the white haried creature from before the other was a balck scaled mipedian he had never seen before.
On the one hand the kid was stoked about seeing not one but two, count em, two new creatures. On the other hand they seemed to be locked in battle right now, and for players while in Perim, that meant stay on your toes or get fried in the crossfire.
the black mipedian hissed loudly, showing sharp fangs gleaming. The white haired creature, looking very much like a dragon eyed kid, stuggled with the set of dark claws around his neck. His body flickering with some sort of green light. With a grunt the kid heaved btoh of his feet into his attacker's torso, sending the reptile a good few feet back while he rubbed at his neck, coughing.
"Great, tangible-proof gecko." His voice echoed slightly.
As he turned to face the mipedian all other creatures in the room were charging up attacks, aiming for both of the creatures in the center. younger creature noticed this, causing him to instantly be on alert.
He held up his hands defensively, "Hey, whoa, wait a minute, I'm the one who said there was an intruder. He's trying to steal scrolls."
Payton's eyes glanced at the bag around the black lizard's waist. Sure enough there was a rolled piece of paper sticking out of it, a very important looking one wrapped around what looked to be some sort of gold material.
The mipedian hissed again, tail lashing out at the nearest creatures, sending a purple energy their way, the blue markings on his face started to glow as something of the same color shot from his mouth.
As the attack connected the creatures found themselves knocked back then hit by some kind of sticky purple goo, unable to move.
The lizard then turned to the white haired creature with the same purple spit attack. The young creature flickered green, arching like a diver towards the floor as he vanished from sight. A second later he was rushing out of the floor, giving the dark scaled attacker a sucker punch right under the jaw as he flew up into the air.
Staggering from the attack, the lizard angrily spat another glob of purple goo at the creature. Only for it to miss with a simple side step and a smile.
"Yikes, that's almost as bad as your breath, have you seen a doctor about that?"
Payton's excitement started going through the roof as he pulled out his scanner, trying to decide which one to scan. The new overworlder or the awesome new mipedian.
Danny couldn't help but grin as he came flying in for another punch, after a week of begin cooped up in Kiru, this felt great. A lot like being back home battling ghosts again. Accept this one couldn't fly.
Just before he connected the black lizard's tail whipped around, glowing blue as it knocked him aside, followed by the claws raking into his shoulder. Danny gasped as he crashed into the floor again, his eyes flashed brighter.
"Wretched child!" the lizard hissed, "Stay out of my business and I will spare you."
Gee, if he had a dollar for every time he heard that one…
"Sorry Darkie," Danny smiled as he his hands glowed with energy, "There's a waiting list, take a number."
The lizard gave a shriek of pain as a beam of green ectoplasm hit it square on. The markings on his head starting to glow again. Danny noticed this and started tapping into his cold core even further. In almost no time the room began to crystalize in ice.
A count of three and the halfa lowered his hand, the black lizard completely encased in ice. Danny breathed a sigh of relief, smileing.
Of course not everything can stay 'peachy-keen' for long, because now he noticed that all he other creatures in the room had broken loose of their gooey imprisionments. The frozen remains of such litered the floor like forgotten purple popsicles.
Danny sighed for a new reason as the creatures surrounding them looked like they would attack at amy minute.
"Come on guys, I'm not the one who came in stealing from the library." He pointed to the lizard frozen there.
The creatures inched closer, one holding a gun that looked suspisiously like a certain ecto blaster his mom would use.
"surrender now. We have questions for you."
Danny sighed, "I garuntee I'm not with this guy. I came here to stop him."
The gun clicked ominously. The half ghost decided that maybe he shouldn't press his luck. He had bad experience with trigger happy people, good shots and bad. With another sigh he started floating off the floor, his legs becoming a ghostly tail.
"Well, if you wont listen…"
"HOLD IT RIGHT THERE!" the creature fired. But the half ghost had already switched to invisibility and rushed up to the ceiling, phasing through easily until he was outside.
"Better lay low for a bit." The muttered to himself as he flew off over the city.
Payton sat there a moment with his mouth side open, comprehending what he just saw as one of the most awesome things he had ever seen in his life. Until a thoguth struck him. Or rather a realization...that he still hadn't so much as tired to scan anything and now one of the new creatures was gone.
"Aw man." He hissed under his breath, turning to look at the other one. The ice had him completely frozen, but it wasn't very thick near as he could tell. The markings on the black scales were still glowing bright blue.
He raised his scanner, seeing a clear picture, couldn't hurt to try could it?
He pressed the button for a scan, the screen filled with white lettering for a moment as the device hummed. One of the creatures ears pricked turing to see a human holding up a scanner.
"A HUMAN INTURDER! SEIZE HIM!"
Payton's blood ran cold as he went into a familer panic as several creatures attacked him all at once. Fumbling with his scanner he pressed the button to port out not careing that where it was taking him.
A flash of blue and he found himself standing on the transport pad in Chaotic, a place only Players could reach via their scanners. A few steps later he slumped down into the nearest chair with a sigh of relief.
"Man htat was too close. And that's saying something." He muttered to himself.
"Really? you saw her too?" someone said at the next table, "Did you get a scan of her? I bet you did, let me see."
"I tried." Someone else said sadly, "and with how still she was standing you'd think it would've bee simple. But the second I started scanning she jumped into the trees and was gone. She flew over my head like a ninja or something."
"Hey guys, did you hear?" a girl ran up to the two out of breath, "a player called Rougestriker219 ported back from Echoing summit* and he started freaking out."
"What? Why?"
Payton's ears pricked, he was interested now too.
The girl continued, "He says he was attacked by a creature he'd never seen before. a big, cold, blue eyed blob whispering something about breaking. That's all I found out."
"Blob whispering about…" one of the first players sounded sceptic for a moment then seemed to realize something, "Hey dosent that sound like the blob we've been hearing about at Broken edge?"
"Come to think of it yeah, acept it had orange eyes. And didn't they say it couldn't be picked up with the creature locater on a scanner?"
The girl sighed heavily, a scrape of a chair following her next statement, "New creatures wit hno way t oknow where they are. Now that's a frightening thing to think about."
New creatures….Payton mentaly slapped himself as he pulled out his scanner. He forgot about his attempt to scan that black Mipedian.
"and with how fast I had to port out of there I wouldn't be surprised if…"he stopped, his hands starting to shake as he stared at the digital card's image before him, there it was. Status information (high courage and power, average wisdom and speed), element advantage (Earth, fire and water; sweet!), mugic counter (two; not much of a caster then), and a detailed and lifelike image of a black lizard in a dark tunic with glowing blue markings on his face staring down from a high rock, silouteted by a full moon about to be covered by dark clouds, something white pouring from the corners of his mouth. Above that a name…
"Semiwrath," he smiled to himself, "that's a cool name."
He then noticed the outline color. Scans and most cards were outlined in a certain color, creature cards under a certain tribe would be line with that tribe's color, underworld red, Mipedian yellow, etc. the not so common color was white, these were for creatures who weren't a part of any tribe at all. How that worked few knew, as just about every creature you meet in certain places is going to show up as an overworlder or such no matter what.
The fact this Semiwrath was a tribeless ended bringing a question to mind, "If your not a Mipedian, then who were those scrolls for?"
Unfortunately this thought didn't last long as the thought of trying out a completely new creature in his game crossed his mind. With a jump up he headed off to lock the scan as a part of his deck, "Man I cant wait to try this guy out! wait until I tell the guys about this. They'll be begging me to battle with him."
Hova: (sitting at home with a damp cloth on her head and her feet in a bucket of ice water) Oh, why did I take the double shift? the money may be worth it but the walk home...-_- oh my aching feet
(knock on the door)
Hova: It's open!
?: Ahalan, Miss Strider
Hova: (slides further into the chair with a groan) I forgot we were interviewing today, can we reschedule? (sees guest's expression, sits up straight with a groan) Fine, come on in Iflar. _ d'oh, sorry I mean Prince Iflar, I mean you lizardness, I mean...
Iflar: (steps forward and taps a spot on Hova's shoulder) ^ ^ don't worry yourself too much, Miss Strider. I am simply here to inform you of your sister's activities in Mipedian lands.
Hova: 0_0 um, if you mean Ren she...-_- do I even want to know what she's been up to outside my story?
Iflar: ^ ^ she's been a delight.
Hova: I knew she would get into...wait what? 0_0
Iflar: yes, so far while waiting on her next appearance she has offered quite a bit of help to us for upcoming celebration. The last I saw of her she was teaching the master cook how to make a dish called éclairs. and she has agreed to put on a little show for us during the actual event. I had the privilege of seeing her practice.
Hova: 0_0 ...she's behaving...and helping you set up for a party...and you haven't had any troubles at all?
Iflar: not at all. (glances at the ceiling as if remembering something. Hova doesn't notice until too late) although now that you mention it my cousin Mudinu claims one of his prized mounts has gone missing. a fine creature that one, breed for speed across the sands instead of just burdens. I have a similar one among my stables.
Hova: (starting to sweat) sooooo...anything you would like to know about the upcoming chapters...at all? ^ ^!
Iflar nods, and waits.
Hova: ...ok...um, well...the Tengu girl is coming back...and she'll hopefully have a name. the poll is still open for that so...last chance to vote for her name folks.
Iflar: (seeing the list on the table) Raven...Celeste...Melody? I would've preferred something more human for that girl, like Medusa.
Hova: um...that's not really a name for a bird...girl...
Iflar: Might I ask about the name 'Tetsuanna'?
Hova: (sighs) one of my sisters suggested it. It's Japanese, run it through google. although I'm not sure I spelled it right (Pone alarm rings) -_- and I gotta get ready for work...again. (winces as feet touch the floor) ah, tingly. thank you very much for coming Crown Prince.
Iflar: (bowing head slightly) thank you for having me here.
Hova: (turns to readers) and thank you all for being patient. please leave a review, come on, don't be shy, go on ^ ^