Aspico approached the temple full of underlings. She held her Pitch Piercer aloft, rushing forward towards the imps populating the first floor of it and beginning to cut through them easily; not even paying attention to the combat. Her mind was on the classpects of herself and fellow players.
According to the Exiled, she was the Seer of Heart, which meant no one else could be a Seer or a player of Heart. She began to think about the possibilities of the players based on what she knew about them, and what she knew about their lands.
She had to assume that Arvis was a Blood player, as he went on at length before the game about all his friends and connections. She assumed Heir of Blood because of how naturally he had made friends. There wasn't a doubt in her mind that Jeff was the Time player, though what his class was she couldn't tell.
She knew for a fact that Furlok was their Space player do to the mention of frogs in her land, as she'd learned all Space players were known to have a land populated by frogs. By a similar token, she assumed that Java was the Breath player do to her land's visual connection to the wind.
Hope player could have been Dustine, Risura, or Mutosi just as easily, though who was which was unknown to her at the time. Sylph of Life was all but certainly Valtina. As Princes and Bards both appeared to be the opposite of their aspect, she could only assume that Brendon was one or the other of Doom.
She hoped for Prince, as one who used Doom itself to destroy others was an unsettling thought. Considering Light's connection to probability, Aspico guessed that Lurabo was Light. Witch perhaps? No, Lurabo never showed any desire to alter or break the rules of probability or wisdom.
Wait, break the rules.. Aspico realized that breaking the rules of current faith, altering it for their own gain perfectly described not only Mutosi's worldview, but even the way she'd been using her brown blooded powers, making her Witch of Hope.
That was a distressing thought, but she pushed it to the back of her mind. What aspects were left? Void, Rage, and Mind… her knee jerk response was to think that Patior was Mage of Rage, suffering and profiting from his own aggression, but she knew this wasn't the case. There was no passion in his actions, it was all coldly logical.
And through this admission, Aspico realized that Mage of Mind had to be Patior. Which left Void and Rage… she sighed, figuring she'd need to learn more about her fellow friends and players to fully determine who was what.
In the meantime, she'd already completely cleared the first two floors of the temple she was in, and now needed only to head up to the third to fight the boss; which was bound to require a smidgen more focus from her to fight.
Dustine stretched his arms as he approached the bridge, swirling his mace in his hands. He'd been training in the area around the town, even bringing town a hostile tower full of monsters, and he felt like he was ready to fight the toad guard who'd sent him into the moat when he'd first tried.
The toad guard didn't look worried, bracing himself as Dustine charged, striking with his mace. The toad guarded with his arm, but noticeably winced from the force. Grinning at this, Dustine pushed forward and struck with his other hand, punching the toad in the gut.
The toad countered by letting his throat inflate with his croak, hitting Dustine like an airbag and knocking him back. Dustine glared as he got back to his feet, gripping the Mirthful Mace tighter as he prepared to attack again.
When he charged forward and saw the toad's eyes widen, he assumed it was just because he was shocked by Dustine's strength and resolve. Dustine was unaware of the purple haze that was now coming off of his body and weapon, heating the air around him as he began to wail on the toad guard with his mace.
The guard continued trying to fight, striking Dustine hard with his fist, but in his current state, Dustine didn't even feel the strike that had before dropped him like a bag of rocks. He brought his face, which had become completely purple by this point, down on the toad guard, causing him to stagger back.
Seeing this, Dustine grabbed the toad, grunting with the effort of pulling the guard around, lifting him up, and throwing him over the edge of the bridge and into the moat just as he'd done to Dustine before.
Dustine panted, feeling his muscles starting to scream at him as the purple energy faded as his mind cooled off. His arms were sore, as was his body from the punch he'd taken, but he was still standing.
A grin spread across his face, and as he walked into the town, he opened the messenger to contact Risura, wanting to tell him about the victory. He hesitated though, as he realized how long it had been since he'd messaged the jade blood.
Normally he never went a full day without talking to him, but now he'd gone almost five straight without saying anything, and he doubted that his responding with news he'd beaten down a guard would at all play into the laid back personality that Risura, and indeed everyone, knew him for.
He sighed, a small blush forming on his face as he realized how much he disliked the idea of Risura being disappointed in him. He wasn't gonna try to lie to himself about how he felt, especially after all his talks with Aspico about it. But that didn't make it any easier for him to deal with.
He shook his head, deciding he'd deal with it later, when he'd figured out something appropriately cool and laid back to say to Risura. For the moment, he'd enjoy what his victory over the toad had brought and look around the town.
Lurabo drew The Empress, its connection to action and accomplishment letting her focus her telekinesis, forcing the three rust ogres approaching her to the ground, holding them there as she struck the ground with her Arcane, sending a wave of magic through the ground to kill all three of them.
The yellow blood gathered the grist they left behind. She smiled as she realized she finally had enough for the last item she wanted to alchemize. She took the poker set, and alchemized it with the tarot cards with the 9 of wands, the 9 of cups, the queen of swords, and the 3 of pentacles.
The result was the Slicer Suites, a deck of sharpened poker cards infused with connections to victory from the 9 of wands, well being from 9 of cups, skill and bravery from the queen of swords, and effort and ability from the 3 of pentacles.
Just in time to, as an entire swarm of iron imps, all with jet wings and robotic laser eyes, were on their way towards her. She wasn't massively surprised, as she'd left the safety of the town and followed the ladders to a combat oriented platform.
Lurabo drew a hand of seven poker cards and threw all of them at the imps. The cards cut though the wings of the imps, causing them all to crash into each other and the ground. Only a few survived. They all fired their lasers at Lurabo, and she quickly drew from her Tarot again.
Luckily she drew the knight of swords, infusing her with the strength to endure the attack and return fire with her Arcane, blasting the imps away. She smiled, collecting the grist once again and looking around.
After a few minutes of peace, the spotlight on the platform brightened, and the boss of the platform landed. According to the depressingly long health bar, the monster was called a Tar Archeon.
It was more massive than an ogre, with a long, pointed horn sprouting from its head. It had long harpy wings and metallic arms, curved hook claws and roots digging into the ground. It roared, a rocket firing from its metallic arm.
Lurabo raised her Arcane, focusing her telekinesis to catch the missile and fire it back at the Archeon. She closed her eyes to focus as she reached to her deck again, hoping for another lucky draw.
She didn't notice the light forming around her body as she focused, a power coming from her, not any of her items. It grew even brighter as her fingers touched the deck, and she drew, holding the card up.
Ten of wands, the card connected to pain and ruin. The Archeon roared in pain, its roots curling back up into its body as it curled up, arms rusting over. Lurabo smiled, throwing more of her Slicer Suite poker cards and cutting the Archeon into ribbons, finishing it off with a blast attack combining her telekinesis with the Arcane's magic.
With the boss defeated, Lurabo looked at the different possible ladders she could take from here. She couldn't help but notice that one of them seemed to lead up higher than any of the others she'd seen, with a much brighter spotlight.
She supposed whatever was up in this direction would at least have to be interesting.
Risura's elbow crashed into the face of the cyborg basilisk, killing it and making a mental note to do something to Patior when he eventually reached him in person. He was more than a little certain it was Patior's putting his robotic lusus into the sprite that made so many of the enemies so powerful.
Currently the jade blood was… he wasn't actually sure. He'd not been in town in quite awhile. He'd been wandering through a pitch black field for hours now, just waiting for the enemies he could feel creeping up on him to attack.
Finally they had, and he was being attacked from every direction. Thankfully the faint white light his body naturally let off as a jade blood worked to his advantage, and not just through letting him see when the enemies were attacking him.
To keep from getting overwhelmed, Risura turned his glowing off, putting the enemies in the dark and letting him attack them from the shadows while they attacked where he'd been when he was glowing.
The only issue was keeping track of where the enemies actually where once he turned out the lights. It was difficult, but he managed to keep track of where everything was throughout the combat.
At least until his vision started becoming obscured by his messenger.
MW: Hey asshole, Making any progress in your land?, Mine's like basically beaten already, It was easy because it was full of perma-religious psychos like you,
LS: It's jUst UpsEttIng hOw hYpOcrItIcAl yOU ArE.
MW: What the fuck are you talking about?, I'm trying to take down hypocracy,
LS: yEAh, by mAkIng fun Of my bElIEfs, EvEn thOugh yOUrs ArEn't Any mOrE wEll fOUndEd )XXPP
MW: You glowing, femboy, piece of garbage!, If I weren't pretty sure that this is just terrible pitch flirting, I'd look for my gate and beat the hell out of you!,
LS: lOl, sUrE, *my* pItch flIrtIng Is tErrIblE )XXDD
MW: The thought, The very thought, Of being anywhere at all near any one of your quadrants even spade, Is just about enough to make me lose my lunch,
LS: If thAt's trUE, thEn dO mE A fAvOr And shUt thE fUck Up!
[LuckyStar has signed off].
Risura hadn't actually logged off on purpose. He'd just been punched directly in the face by an ogre and sent flying so hard it had broken the computer. He groaned in annoyance as he got back to his feet quickly and charged towards the monsters.
He couldn't actually see them, but hopefully they couldn't see him. And because he couldn't see them, he didn't realize that he avoided another ogre attack, passing directly through the ogre's attack like he wasn't even there. He did hear the attack hit the ground behind him and grabbed the ogre's arm, pulling the monster off his feet and swinging him at the other monsters, finishing them all off in one strike.
He panted, listening for any more monsters and finding none. He sighed, and continued through the land, re-alchemizing this hands free computer as he did.
