"Talking"
Thoughts
'Mental Communication or using a magic item'
[Debuffs]
Skills/Systems
Chapter 7 – Hunting for Metals Pt.1
Crescent looked down at the eight silver coins and sighed.
Tinker had been kind enough to collect all of her drop items. But not nice enough to repair her MG-250 for free. Between the repair cost, replacing the handgun for her mech, bullets for it, a back-up gun just in case, repairs for her mana shield, installing an air filtration- she REALLY did not want to go through that again, and adding a vibration function to her driver's seat.
Anyone who would judge her for that last one never had to have a battle to the -virtual- death in a rock-hard seat with a giant firebird.
She also may or may not have gone overboard and bought some smoke dischargers, a half dozen cracker grenades, and a really cool axe that becomes super-heated when MP is supplied to it. (1)
Even after selling her drops, and the rockbird saliva which sold for nearly 10,400,000 lir – she was never going to that restaurant. Her total for the day was 12,230,000 lir.
…but after the cost of everything, even with her clan discount, she had 8,000 lir to her name.
"Master, I'm beginning to think you have trouble handling your money," Wotan said as she handed her a tray of food before sitting down with her identical tray containing bacon, toast, and a ham and cheese omelet.
"I- You…just eat your breakfast." She took a bite so Wotan could enjoy her meal. It was hard to accept, but true. Every time she saw such awesome machinery, she just had to buy it.
"…and hold onto these." She added mournfully as she slid the coins over to her Embryo for safekeeping.
Maybe there was some kind of disconnect between reality and the game and since she didn't see it- well that part, the part involving money- as real she was less frugal.
At least meals for members of the clan were free.
As Wotan pocketed the money, putting it somewhere, Crescent took out The Suitable Job Diagnostics Catalog she had gotten from Java.
Was I ever supposed to return this? She wondered as she ate while filling the book out.
She had reached level 50 with her Mechanic job. This meant she couldn't gain any more EXP until she got a new job.
/A short quiz later/
"It gave me two answers again. Pilot or Engineer."
Wotan hummed for a moment, "I would recommend Pilot." She said before cleaning her plate before Crescent was even half finished. Apparently, just because she needed to see Crescent eat a meal first didn't mean Crescent needed to finish it first.
"Why Pilot specifically?"
"Simple." She said eyeing Crescents half finished omelet before her Master slid it over to her causing the wolf/raven girl's tail to wag like an excited puppy.
She was going to have to ask her how she did that one of these days.
"Our biggest problem in that last boss fight was that you couldn't control your mech too well and we ended up causing as much damage to it ourselves as the Rockbird. Master the Swaying Weapon is only at level 2 now, but that means you have an equivalent of two levels in the Piloting skill. If we run into another speedy monster, I don't think we'll survive. Even with the MG-250 we only got that last shot in because the trees limited its maneuverability. If we fought something like it again in an open area, I don't think we would be able to survive."
Crescent blinked at her. She already knew her Embryo was intelligent, and not in the sense she could hold a conversation, but it was these moments of insight that seemed to come out of nowhere from the teasing wolf/raven girl who liked to for some yet explained reason pick up, carry around, and give nicknames to guardian Embryos.
"I guess Pilot it is."
"Fin-tastic." Someone called out from the side causing Wotan and herself to shift to see a large black whale with legs walking - well more like waddling, but she wasn't going to say that- towards them.
"Clan owner? Guild master?...Boss?" Crescent just then realized she didn't know what to call him in this situation.
"Just Doc is fin-e."
"Alright, Just Doc." Wotan joked as the whale chuckled alongside her.
Yep, it was official, she was cursed to be around pun lunatics.
"Oh don't look so whaled down, Crescent." The man, whose face she had yet to see, chuckled.
"I'm here with a whale of a good experiment for you."
""Experiment?"" Master and Embryo chorused in confusion.
He nodded, "You see, I've been thinking about what you told me about Wotan's skill, Runic Script, and I have a hypothesis that if the weapon the s-krill is used on has a high enough durability, then in theory, it would survive her s-krill."
"That does sound like a plan, but I can only use it three times per day." And that was the truth. Runic Script was a powerful skill, but active skills had limits. They either cost MP, SP, or some other expense to be used and were typically the weaker of the two types of skills she had learned about through the wiki or a skill that had a set number of uses per period of time in exchange for generally being more powerful.
Since Runic Script was still at level 2, she could only use it three per day. The upside is that she got all uses back 24 hours after using the last one as opposed to one at a time. She supposed that drawback was exchanged for the damage it inflicted upon the weapon itself.
"That is fin-e. Whale, not fin-e, but we do have a clan member in the Duel Rankings who has a similar s-krill that tends to put a lot of stress on her Magingear."
"Can I meet her?"
"When she next logs in, I would a-pod you two getting to know each other."
Crescent looked a little sheepish, "Will I need to-"
"Whale pay for everything this time around. A lot of people are rough with their Magingear and whale repeat business is nice, we could stand to make a more durable product."
"If only to sale it as a higher-end product," Tinker added as he walked next to the clan owner. This time he was wearing what looked like a bathrobe that had been blackened from soot.
"As I have some business with the Pilot's Guild, do you mind if I escort you there Ms. Rose?"
"Not at all. I don't know where it is in the first place."
"Also", he quickly added, "Whale you be logged in in two Dendro days, at noon?"
"Yeah?"
"Fin-tastic. We're going to have a party to whale-come you and six others who joined our clan this month."
"You throw welcome parties for new clan members?"
"Of course. We like to whale-come new members and make them feel whale appreciated."
She wanted to say that the whale puns were doing the exact opposite but decided to just go with it.
/1 hour later/
Pilot, Crescent Rose
Getting to the guild was easy enough. Though it wasn't as large as the Mechanic's or Engineer's Guilds, it was still pretty sizable. And getting the Pilot Job was easy enough.
Tinker's business was getting a few members of the Pilot's Guild to test out the new seats they were designing.
She approved of this greatly.
On their way back, Tinker had asked to stop by a store to pick up something he had ordered.
It was a strange store that gave off the feel of those movies where the guy goes in, there's a bunch of creepy stuff, the guy buys something, it turns out to be cursed, and when he goes to return it, the store's gone.
The name "Overlord's Antiques" didn't exactly inspire confidence.
Add in the fact that the shop keep was hooded, and if his hands were any indicator, the withered old man did not do anything to help lessen her concerns.
"I'll just be a minute Crescent", he said, "Feel free to browse, just be careful around the cursed items section some of them kill on touch." He said with no real feeling.
There were literally cursed objects in the store.
Still, she explored the store, taking great care to avoid the section with the sign that said, "Cursed Items 50% off".
While she was reluctant to admit it, some of the items looked very useful…and expensive.
An anti-theft inventory was 10,000,000 lir, but then again, she could understand it somewhat. Cheshire had outright told her that the skill Steal existed, and a Thief job was a staple of RPGs everywhere.
The thought of someone being able to steal her MG-250 and all its option works made her shiver.
Then she noticed a machine in the corner, it was one she had seen before in the real world, it was a metallic rectangle with a transparent cube filled with plastic orbs to be opened.
It was a gacha machine.
When she was little every time she and her family were leaving the grocery store her dad or uncle would give her and Yang the change, just the cents, from their groceries to get prizes from the machines.
Her favorites were always the little figures depicting heroes with weapons and robots. She still had the large one that took eight prizes fitting together to make it.
She had spent her entire allowance that summer to get all the pieces, but she was so happy that she couldn't help but still beaming about it.
Turning to her Embryo, who was holding Salamander again gently petting him,-
"No." Said Embryo replied coldly.
"But-"
"No."
"But-"
"No."
"But I'm really good at gacha!" she protested.
"Master, we only have 8,000 lir to live off. The Clan might provide free meals, but it doesn't cover lodging and I for one will NOT do without a bath." her sole visible blue eye took on a twinge of madness in her expression that dared Crescent to say otherwise.
That was something else Crescent had noticed about her Embryo, she bathed twice a day and each time she bathed, she swapped which side her eye patch was on.
Crescent had asked her about that, but Wotan just tickled her until she promised to not ask under threat of being tickled until she peed herself.
The sad thing was her Embryo would do it and she knew it.
Crescent wanted to object, but then Wotan raised her hands like she was going to tickle her again, so Crescent closed her mouth.
"That machine takes everything from 100 lir to 100,000 lir. There have been customers who have gotten prizes worth 100,000 lir with just a 100 lir coin before." The hooded store owner said, "Of course, there have been those that got prizes worth 10 lir for the same amount, but most people aren't that unlucky."
"The rarity of the prize is proportional to the amount you put in. An "F" rank is 1/100th your price, a "C" rank is of equal value, and an "S" rank is 100 times the price you paid."
"So it's low risk, low reward, and high risk, high reward," Tinker added in.
"Exactly."
Crescent decided now was the time to break out her secret weapon. "Please Wotan." She said giving her the most adorable puppy dog eyes even Yang had trouble standing up to.
"That's not fair" Wotan grimaced handing her a silver coin. "If your pull ends up being stinky cheese, I'll make you eat it."
"Thank you, Wotan." Crescent beamed as she inserted the coin and turned the slot.
*CLINK*
*THONK*
Crescent blinked.
Wotan blinked.
Salamander blinked.
Tinker blinked.
The hooded shopkeeper blinked?
"X" was inscribed on the capsule.
"What does an "X" mean?" she asked the store keep.
"I have no idea. I've heard rumors of someone getting an "X" before, but that was 200 years ago."
200 years? How far back did this game's lore and backstory go?
Opening it, the capsule burst into a cloud of dust revealing…a pure black metallic sphere the size of her head with six rings rotating around it, each at a cardinal point.
"!?"
▉▉▉▉▉'▉ ▉▉▉▉
An item designed by Flagman – an artisan from an ancient civilization.
Details unknown.
…well that was helpful. It appeared to be mechanical and she could see it had four skills, but her Machine Analysis was only level 4 and thus couldn't get much more from it. Even the skills were just marked as "?".
Not really helpful.
"May I take a look? My Machine Analysis is level 8, so I might be able to see what you cannot." Tinker offered.
He had told her he was a High Mechanic and one of his job's skills boosted the level cap for Machine Analysis.
Letting him look at the item, he just shrugged. Its name is "Storm's Core", but other than that I can't identify a single skill."
"If I may", the shop keep quickly added in, "When skills are marked as question marks it typically means certain actions need to be performed or conditions met to activate them and make them visible. However, it is usually dependent on the item's function that determines if the skills become visible. If you cannot determine the item's function then unlocking the skills becomes all but impossible."
"Do you think it's a type of battery or something?"
"Not likely. You said the description mentioned Flagman, right?" Tinker asked.
"Yeah."
"Then probably not. The Pre-Ancient civilization had magic reactors that powered machinery infinitely. And I have seen such reactors, and none of them looked even close to this."
"If you like I can pay you 100,000,000, no 1 billion lir, for that item." The shopkeep offered, "Even if I don't know what it does. Anything tied to Flagman sales well enough. I've sold scrap metal of devices he has made for thousands of lir in the past."
The red and blonde-haired girl's eyes almost jumped out of her skull. What was with her and insane amounts of money popping up lately? If it was the shiny machinery that was messing with her sense of money, it was people continually throwing larger and larger sums of money around her that was messing with her financial senses. "I-I think I'll keep it for now. I want to try and figure out what it is."
"Suit yourself." He shrugged, giving up surprisingly easily.
As if reading her mind, "Young lady, I might be a Merchant and more than a little greedy, but I will NEVER pressure anyone into a transaction. I have standards you know."
"I see, I'm sorry."
"Not a problem."
After putting the item in her inventory, she turned to Wotan.
"Master?" she asked taking a step back cautious of the look in Crescent's eyes.
"Wotan, I think this is a sign," she said firmly.
"A sign?"
"I should put more money into the-Gugh!" Crescent was cut off with a soft and fluffy blow to the stomach.
/-/
Crescent Rose sat in the seat of a barebone's extract of a Magingear, not her own, still rubbing her stomach from Wotan's gut check.
Despite that, she had managed to convince her Embryo to let her try two more times…under the condition that if Crescent got anything less than a "C" rank, she was going to make her eat it.
Thankfully she managed to pull two "S" rank capsules. Unfortunately, since she only put in 1,000 lir each time, she only got items worth 100,000 lir.
…okay, maybe my sense of money is a little screwed up.
Still, the two men, and Embryos, looked at her like she had grown a second head. She had told them she was good at gacha.
She kept the All-Purpose Healing Elixir but had sold the Amulet of the Equestrian Tribe to the store owner. For 85,000 lir. He refused to pay the full price, claiming he had to make a living.
In normal video games, shops ALWAYS pay you the full value of an item.
If it wasn't for the fact they were going to be late for the test, she would have tried to convince Wotan to let her try it again.
"Alright, let's test the Mikaru Ore arm first." Doc Cricket said from behind an impressive blast wall. It was a metal Crescent had never heard of, but apparently, it was a fantasy metal unique to Infinite Dendrogram and was used for durability-designed Magingears.
Currently, she was in test field six with the iron skeleton of a Magingear holding up a sensor for her to hit.
Wotan assumed her form as an energy cape and then, "Runic Script", the cape coalesced along the arm, etching runes along its surface before its punch hit the target with a loud *CRACK*.
Shortly afterward Tinker examined the arm. "The arm is too damaged to use again without repair." He said calmly. "What of the damage reading?"
"Whale over 2500 points of damage," Doc replied from behind the blast shield. "Skip the Mithril and switch to the high-grade Mithril and then Orca-lcum arm."
It was an amazing, and somewhat humbling, thing to see Tinker at work.
The two skills Auto Fabricate, which allowed a person to auto-craft components following a recipe, and Auto Machine Craft, which auto combined those components were what defined a Mechanic. While using both in such quick succession was what separated a good Mechanic from a great Mechanic.
Both required SP to use, but what made the distinction was using them simultaneously. If Crescent had to put it into words, it was like keeping the assembly of each piece of a complex model with one hand, keeping the sequence of parts you need in the correct order straight in your head while putting the pieces together as you built it in your other hand.
She had tried it when she first made the air compressor system but ended up with a headache and what may or may not have been a primitive vacuum cleaner.
This is probably what they meant by 'sense skills'. Despite the name, they weren't skills from the system but skills a person had. Such as a five-star chef being able to make great food even without having the Chef job or a comic book artist being able to draw despite not having the Artist job class.
However, when paired with similar job skills sense skills were said to be even more powerful. An average musician in real life could become a rockstar by simply having the Musician job class.
After Tinker finished crafting the arm, they tried Wotan's skill two more times. First high-grade Mithril and then Orichalcum.
After testing it was determined that anything weaker than high-grade Mithril would be unusable after a single application of Wotan's skill.
Fun.
The fun didn't stop there. High-grade Mithril didn't occur naturally, it had to be made by an Alchemist with the skill Mithril Alchemy which required large quantities of silver to make.
Normal Mithril sold for 20,000 lir a kg. the same amount of high-grade Mithril would cost around two to three times that.
Even if she only got enough for the major stress points of the MG-250, it would set her back HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS of lir.
In short…things were not looking good.
"You could always go on a mining party run, you know?" Tinker offered while Crescent, and by extension Wotan, was consoling herself with ice cream.
"Mining party run?"
"In addition to ores that are mined like real-life metals, there are also monsters that drop metal ingots and similar items."
"Really?"
… "But wait, I thought I had to get the high-grade Mithril from an Alchemist?"
"You still do, but most Alchemist shops will offer a fee just to use their skill. Meaning if you provide enough silver or more preferably natural Mithril, then you can pay them a reduced price to convert it into high-grade Mithril for you."
"Why didn't you say that sooner."
He just shrugged. "I had to clean up the test site and record the data."
"Where do I sign up for it?"
He stroked his chin for a moment, "As it stands, our clan's main harvesting parties are in the Harshwinter Mountains to the north of the Imperium and will not be back for several days." He mused as Crescent deflated.
"Can't I do this myself?"
"I would advice against it." The tired man said in a voice that she had heard in her dad anytime she did something dangerous, "If you were a few hundred levels higher, I could support the idea, but as you are now, you would get the death penalty without fail. Your strength is single combat and ending your opponent quickly. Farming monsters for materials requires you to defeat multiple monsters repeatedly. Even with your upgrades, I do not see you surviving."
And she deflated even more.
"However…"
And her head was back up…
"There is the sixth place clan, Coffee Lock," Crescent was now sitting up straight, "Who is recruiting people to go Arvest Mountains to the east towards Caldina to locate new veins of rare metals as well as harvest several monsters for metal-related crafting drops? But that's only if you know someone in the clan…" he trailed off as Crescent grabbed Wotan's hand and ran off…
…and then ran back to return Salamander to him which Wotan was still holding on to.
Why did she continually pick up and carry Embryos?
Questions for later, metals now.
/-/
Blaster Princess, Javanista
Coco had known Yang Xiao Long for a few years now. They had met by pure coincidence. They had both been having a bad day, interestingly enough, due to their siblings.
Though she would say two younger brothers and one older outweighed one younger sister in normal circumstances. She would give the blonde bombshell credit, none of her siblings had ever managed to professionally disassemble an entire motorcycle to its most basic components in under an hour at the age of only fourteen.
Granted Van was a nightmare and a half when it came to electronics, but typically they couldn't simply put those back together after he was done.
But she digressed. The two hit it off and much to Coco's displeasure didn't go beyond friends. Yes, they were both heartbreakers, and record breakers, and yes it would have been incredibly hot, but sometimes more than someone to warm her bed, a girl needed someone she could drink with and share life's complaints.
It was that friendship that convinced Coco to go along with Yang's attempt to draw her sister out of her shell. Hence the plan to totally send Crescent to another country in Infinite Dendrogram knowing she would take to Dryfe like Coco took to the Mistral Fashion Week Catalog.
And now said sister was standing in front of her, with her Maiden Embryo, another surprise even after having already been watching her to make sure she didn't get the death penalty on day one, was begging her to let Crescent accompany them on their next farming quest.
While Coffee Lock wasn't a large clan, it had several strict rules: 1) You had to have either a crafting-related job or Embryo or an Embryo that directly helped gather crafting materials. 2) You could not slack on quests and had to complete at least six quests per month ID time. And 3) you had to be at least level 150 with at least one high-rank job or level 300 with only low-rank jobs.
Crescent didn't check any of the boxes.
Still, she was having a hard time dealing with those puppy dog eyes. How did she do that?
But the deciding factor came in the form of one of her clan members, Sweet Treat. His avatar was a small green fairy-like creature with light brown and green dragonfly-like wings as opposed to a normal humanoid form.
He claimed it was because he wanted to know what it was like to be smaller than everyone for a change.
"Java, we need to talk."
"Sweets, what's up?"
He looked to Crescent with some concern.
"In private."
So, it was clan related.
"It's fine Sweets, tell me what's up."
"…Okay, Both Billy Flaming James and LtG were given the death penalty by the arsonist."
"What?"
"They were Pk'd."
"When?"
"A few hours of game time. I just happened to check my email before logging in today."
"Damn it. I was counting on them showing up."
"How did this even happen?"
"The Fire Bugs struck the player-crafted auction earlier today."
"Damn, that was today?"
"Um…" Crescent piped up forcing the two to turn towards her with such intensity that she let out an involuntary "EEP" before hiding behind Wotan.
"What my Master means is if people know who the arsonist is, why haven't they been arrested?"
Coco- Java- took a deep breath. She did not want to get heated in this situation.
"There's a clan in Dryfe known as the Fire Bugs. All of their members have fire-related jobs or Embryos. On the surface, they seem legit, but there are rumors that not only do they do worth with the criminal guilds, but there are only rumors. And since they only target Masters, the only thing they can be charged for is the destruction of the buildings, which isn't enough to get on the wanted list."
"I hadn't heard they only targeted Masters," Wotan replied as she grabbed Sweet Treat from the air and started cradling him like her favorite toy.
Oddly enough he seemed to be trying to not nod off.
Was her suit's fur that soft?
"It's kind of hard to immediately prove since Masters don't leave bodies, but even so, when they respawn, they all say the same thing: they were in a building one minute, then it either burst into flames or exploded usually giving them an instant death penalty. And since no one has seen anything, we can't prove it was them."
Sighing, she looks to Crescent, Yang said not to guide her or coddle her, to let her make her own decisions. Since she came here of her own free will…
"Sweets, Crescent, and the new guy, Skirt Keeper, are going to have to fill the slots. With them, we have three whole parties of six and I know she is a damage dealer…and we still need someone to tow us."
/-/
Pilot, Crescent Rose
Crescent hadn't been sure what Java meant by "tow", but now she knew.
Her Magingear had been hooked up to a large, armored trailer that housed all the other members save for those in the small room built onto the top of the trailer that acted as lookouts.
Crescent, Java, and , a strange man who had functional eyes all over his avatar and was at the top of the trailer, communicated with items called Telepathy Cuffs that allowed them to communicate. In addition to that, all of the party leaders and sub-leaders had cuffs on.
Parties were limited to only six people so each party had a different role; combat, excavation, and reconnaissance. Of course, each party had players who fight, but they were more heavily concentrated in the first party, Crescent's party.
'We have three Tirhorn Dragons heading our way from the south.' spoke into his cuff. 'They'll hit us in about five minutes.'
Crescent was more than a little surprised at how they were speaking so casually. She had heard that Trihorn Dragons were as tough as Crimson Rockbirds and yet they were talking about them like they were simple Goblins.
'What kind of drops would we get?' Java asked.
'We're running low on Dragonhide Rubber and they have a 20% chance of dropping the material.'
'Still, let's not waste our ammo.' Java replied calmly. 'Formation Lazy Drill.'
Before Crescent could ask what that meant, she heard Java say 'Crescent, don't bother with the Demi Dragons, focus on just getting us from point A to point B. We'll handle the rest.'
Trusting them, she waited until she began to see three triceratops-looking creatures charging toward them, she had her newly repaired gun in her mech's hand just in case.
But as Java said, they had it covered.
She heard Sweet Treat intone a skill 'Lackadaisical Yawn of the Gentle Giant- Behemoth!'
She wasn't sure what had happened, but the triceratops just seemed to…get sleep? It was the same expression Dad made when he was tired from work and just wanted to sleep on the couch on Sunday mornings.
Skirt Keeper, a woman Crescent had seen only for a short while with curly brown hair and a mechanical skirt that looks like she was wearing a deep sea starfish with five long tentacle-like limbs at five points reaching down to her ankles, intoned a skill, but it didn't sound like the ultimate skills she had heard about, those typically mentioned the Embryo's name. instead, she heard 'Flying Grasp' through the cuff.
Then she saw three of Skirt Keeper's tentacles flying through the air, whirling straight like drills, and tearing through the throats of the monsters. Who only reacted after having their throats drilled through before being turned into items that the tentacles collected.
'W-what exactly happened there?' Crescent asked into her cuff.
It was Java who replied, 'That was Sweet's ultimate skill, the embodiment of what his Embryo stands for. It applies a powerful buff called [Compulsory Calm]. Since it's technically a buff, most monsters can't resist it and become incredibly docile.'
'But I thought Behemoth was supposed to be some kind of gigantic monster involved with the apocalypse or something?'
This time Sweet Treat answered, 'That is a common misconception. Yes, Behemoth is fabled to be a gigantic and powerful beast, but on the other end, he is said to fight Leviathan, the one openly known to want to cause death and destruction, at the end of days. Implying he's more of a guardian to humanity. Additionally, Behemoth is known to let out a mighty roar during the summer solstice when his powers are at their peak. This roar is known to frighten all the animals into lessening their ferocity so that all the weak animals can live in peace.'
'Though I am sure that there are Embryos with Behemoth's name that focus more on the aspects you were referring to.'
/-/
Dragon River Valley, Huang He
The Glass Works clan had finally done it, they had managed to rob the Huang He royal family's treasury.
They were rich enough that once they made it into Caldina, Wine Glass could get his second Superior Job. his only chief competition being that slip of a girl with the hammer, but he would become the King of Debauchery in addition to his current Superior Job, The Cannon.
They just needed to make it through the valley along the river and then they would be home free.
"Hey boss, did the river always flow into a mountain?" one of his lackeys asked.
Turning around in the dim moonlight it appeared as if the river was indeed flowing straight into a mountain. But that didn't make any sense, the river was supposed to feed into an oasis in Caldina. It was supposed to be a straight shot.
Had a Treasure Beast, what those on the western side of the continent call UBMs, done this? Or was it one of Huang He's two Superiors? He had heard they liked breaking the landscape.
Then the mountain…moved?
It turned and faced them. A gargantuan monster bigger than anything he had ever seen, with countless eyes, countless legs, and a maw with countless fangs.
W-w-w-What was that thing?
Then he remembered one of the two Superiors, the Beast General, couldn't compete in the arena due to his Embryo being too big.
There was no running from something so massive, they had to fight. He knew he couldn't achieve his second Superior Job without those funds, but being sent to Gaol meant he wouldn't have another chance.
"Moccus." He called summoning his Embryo that looked like a giant piggy bank he fed it the inventories that contained all the treasures and lir he had taken. It would be a small price to survive as upon consuming all the valuables he morphed into a cross between a Schwerer Gustav and a large, but nowhere near as large as the Superior Embryo, bank valut."
Just as he was about to call upon his ultimate skill and order his men to fight, he heard a small voice, completely nonchalant, state "Beyond the Weight of the World Upon the Back of the Ultimate Beast – Kuyūtha."
Before any of them could so much as twitch, the creature, the Embryo, opened its mouth until half of its mountainous body was hidden behind its jaw as a black sphere appeared in the back of its throat. The sphere wasn't large, but Wine Glass only noticed it because it had suddenly become very close…until he realize HE was the one who had gotten closer as he saw his clan drawn into what could only be described as a literal blackhole.
…and thus the Superior, Sine Fine, sent a PK clan of over fifty Masters to Gaol…and finished the crossword puzzle.
I bet my uncle would put up a better fight than these guys. I bet he's already a Superior with a Superior Job that makes him super cool.
/-/
Back in Dryfe.
'I would like to meet them one of these days if possible. I'm sure they would be as pacifistic as my Behemoth is.' Sweet Treat thought absentmindedly.
(1) Yep, added some basic Zaku weaponry to the mix.
Well, that concludes the first half of my first two-part chapter.
For those unaware, Kuyūtha is another name for Behemoth. One focuses on the pacifying roar of the king of beasts, and the other deals with its massive…mass and how to manipulate it, such as creating a literal black hole.
Here's the who's who:
Sweet Treat = Yatsuhashi Daichi. Yatsu's a gentle giant, tired of having to be so careful around everyone who is much smaller than himself, and just wanted to be on the other side of the experience, so he made himself abnormally small. His Embryo is related to the whole "Gentle Giant" concept, and I figured it would fit his personality and the fact he places rules on himself to follow.
LtG (Lead to Gold) = Henry Marigold. His player name has a bit of a pun to it. He was conceived under the concept of "Shitty Neptune", the symbol for Neptune, in terms of alchemy, is representative of lead and as he is both the King of Alchemist and his last name has gold in it, I thought all these factors tying together would be neat, "Lead into Gold".
Billy Flaming James = Roy Stallion. I originally wanted to go with something referencing his inspiration from Roy Mustang, but went with the cowboy angle and only made the "Flaming" part of his name the sole reference.
Skirt Keeper = The Innkeeper from Qrow's story in Volume 3, Episode 4, Lesson Learned. I wanted to create a character with a crazy skirt Embryo, but Ruby, Weiss, and Gwen Darcy were already taken, so I had planned to scrap the idea until I remembered the Innkeeper with the skirt that could defeat Qrow.
= Fox Alister. Yeah, couldn't come up with anything smart for this one. His Embryo stems from his desire to see with his own eyes and manifested as multiple eyes on his body that grant him numerous visual abilities.
Wine Glass = Amoncio Glass. He's a villain from the RWBY game Arrowfell. Since his first name is a type of wine, I dubbed his avatar Wine Glass and since he uses a mech with a cannon, I thought I'd make his Superior Job The Cannon. As for his Embryo, Moccus, it seemed fitting that a boar god that granted wealth and protection for being offered sacred pork meat seemed to fit him. Or am I just weird?
Sine Fine = Adrian Cotta-Arc. I aged Adrian up when I found out he was supposed to be a small child but was later changed to a toddler. His username means "Endless" in Latin both for his name referring to the ocean which is endless and his endlessly massive Embryo with an endless appetite.
Sadly he will be very disappointed if he sees his uncle at this exact moment.
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