Hello everyone, sorry about missing the previous week's chapter. Things at work are heating up due to an upcoming deadline so it's all hands on deck. I don't know if I'll be able to keep my normal schedule, but I will definitely try.
"Talking"
Thoughts
'Mental Communication or using a magic item'
[Debuffs]
Skills/Systems
Chapter 23 – Into More Ruins, Pt. 1
Pilot, Crescent Rose
The redhead with blond tips bent down as she examined the wreckage of several humanoid robots of some kind…also stowing what useful pieces she could see in one of her suit's pocket inventories for later.
She wasn't going to waste ancient – yet somehow more advanced than current – tech.
Especially the laser firing mechanisms.
Who didn't love lasers?
No one, that's who.
The ruins themselves looked to be carved into a series of adjacent mountains with several smaller slabs of rock surrounding them.
Despite the passage of time, she could still see markings that indicated slabs had been cut from the rocks.
Maybe this place was a rock quarry at one point.
If not for the opening and the scattered remains of robots, she could very well see how this place had gone undiscovered for so long.
In fact, now that she looked at it, she could see damage to the rock in front of the opening. Like it had been blown away as a result of magic or a skill.
Had the ruins been discovered as a result of a fight?
"Someone got here before us," JAnz says as he touches her right temple. The side Crescent knew JAnz had her Embryo for an eye on.
"I thought your Embryo was only auto-locking?" Kelly asked, flipping her purple hair out of her face.
JAnz glared at her, the girl clearly having forgotten she wanted as few people as possible to know her Embryo was in her eye.
Crescent had asked her about it before, and while Embryo's can't be fully destroyed, not completely, they can be damaged or simply separated from their Master. Given that her Embryo was literally one of her eyes, Crescent could understand why she didn't want people trying that.
She liked her silver eyes way too much so the thought of losing them was understandably off-putting.
"I have a few skills for tracking and locating targets. In this case, I'm using Infrared." She scratched her chin, "I'd say whoever did this did it about twenty to thirty minutes ahead of us."
"They were just here then?" Regal asked, "How do you want to do this?"
This time it was Meta who answered, "In military drills, in the event of a potential hostile is within an enclosure, typically a small amount of forces are to patrol the exterior while the main force precedes inside." She stated cheerfully while gently salting and then eating some of the discarded robots.
The group stared at her, not quite expecting the bubbly young woman to list military tactics. However, they shrugged it off, there were plenty of military enthusiasts in gaming. Dendro wouldn't be an exception.
Part of Crescent wondered what it tasted like, but then realized, even in a game as crazy as Infinite Dendrogram, she'd just break her teeth.
"Sounds like a plan, but who stays and who goes?" Kelly asked looking around.
"I'll stay." The giant chick- er, Pinetree said. Dressed in a white and brown rooster costume, he didn't exactly cut the image of dependable.
He did look super adorable with his little alien Embryo, Doppelganger, riding on the crest of his rooster costume.
She would probably give all her savings and cookies to see Doppel riding on top of Zwei.
Cuteness overload.
"Doppel can store and copy the stats of any monster I've seen or killed. This means I can adapt to different situations better."
"Plus the passage is big enough for Crescent to use her Magingear inside of it. She's the only one of us with a Mechanic job so she might be our best bet at understanding what the ruins do."
That had them all nodding. Despite dressing like a fast food mascot he made a good point.
'Should I tell him you thought that Master?'
'Wotan? Please don't.'
Crescent immediately had a premonition that she wasn't about to like what happened next, 'Then you wouldn't mind if we had salads for dinner?' her Embryo mentally asked a question that wasn't a question.
She hated vegetables, but she also didn't want to hurt Pinetree's feelings…'Oh, okay, but we are having chocolate chip cookies for dessert.'
'Whatever you say Master.' She could actually FEEL her Embryo ending that thought with a '?'. Though how that was possible she had no idea.
"Alright. Then make sure you have your Telepathy Cuff equipped and take this." The dark blue-haired girl said as she handed him what looked like a party favor. "I don't know if the ruins have any shielding against telepathy or not, but if you can reach us, then use this. It'll make a noise loud enough for it to reach us…probably."
"Probably?" Crescent arched an eyebrow.
She shrugged. "If it's like last time, probably not, but this seems more of a straightforward path."
The Maiden Master nodded.
"Someone's already here so let's get in formation," JAnz said assuming command, "Cresent take the front," she said as Crescent took her Magingear out of her inventory and Wotan transformed into her energy cape mode. It was a Marshall II.5 with a fair number of options works (Crescent already spent all of her down payment on upgrades for it).
She then turned towards the black-haired young man, "Regal, you and I flank her with Kelly in the middle."
"Roger that." The man said taking out two black chakrams that looked like snakes biting their tails with lightning bolt-like spikes sticking out of them.
The skater girl had her Embryo transform into its bat form.
"Meta you hold up the rear."
"Aye, aye ma'am." The Type: Body Master saluted.
As they took formation, they moved into the ruins, hopefully ready for anything they might encounter.
/-/
Clay Princess, pril
The magic gunner, or in her case sniper, wasn't a common troupe, and for the life of May Zedong, she couldn't understand why.
If both magic and guns were awesome, then why wouldn't combining them be even more awesome?
Granted she could understand the reasoning. A solid Mage job required a lot of focus in MP while the Shooter Grouping required a big commitment to DEX.
So it was somewhat understandable why there weren't a lot of people who could pull off the build well.
However, that was only if you considered things in terms of purely jobs. When it came to Embryos, she hit the jackpot: Steady Clay Shot, Tripodero.
It looked like a sniper rifle with a tripod stand, but it extended the range of earth attribute magic by several hundred metels as well as had a B rank status correction for DEX.
It took her going into an old Mistralian dictionary to find out "earth" meant dirt. A bit of a strange name for anything, but eh, she shrugged.
If not for the jackal bastard from back then, she would say her Embryo granted her the longest attack range of any Embryo.
She was currently using the scope of her Embryo to observe their destination…and saw a giant rooster…pecking(?) at a sandwich on the ground(?)
"Uh guys, does Dryfe have giant roosters?" she asked while still keeping an eye on the giant chicken who was now having a tug-of-war over the sandwich with a little light green…alien(?)
She knew ID catered to just about every demographic, did that include space fantasy people?
Tusk was the one who spoke up, "I don't believe so, why do you ask?"
"Because it's chasing an alien that stole its sandwich." She replied absentmindedly before realizing just how crazy that sounded.
She then felt someone place a cold towel on her forehead and put up a parasol. "Young miss, I would recommend you get out of the sun you are clearly not feeling well." Seventh Star said in a carrying almost paternal manner.
The man really took his roleplay as a butler very seriously.
The mere fact his voice didn't have an ounce of mockery and genuinely sounded sincere somehow didn't make her want to punch him.
"Just look." She said offering her Embryo to the man.
While Masters couldn't equip each other's Embryos, unless they had the ability, they could still hold them.
Supposedly there was even an Embryo that went around kidnapping Type: Guardian Embryos using the same process.
The short woman in the sand-colored special reward cloak nodded approvingly as she watched the man dressed as a butler hold her rifle like a real pro.
Maybe he's had military training…or was just another gun enthusiast like herself.
"Well I'll be, there is a small alien and a giant rooster fighting over a sandwich."
"Does you're Embryo cause madness or something?" GIL snarked, her color-shifting cloak making her appear to blend into her surroundings. "Guess that's what you get for having a mechanical Embryo."
D'apery took out a pair of binoculars, "Wow…they're right." She said after a moment. "I think the little alien is winning."
"Okay, so what do we do now?" the edgelord, JAX, asked.
pril took her sniper rifle back, "This." She said as she channeled a spell through her Embryo firing it nearly 6000 metels before it made impact with the chicken's head, swelling as the clay expanded.
A second shot managed to disable the small alien.
"You didn't kill it?"
"Can't tell if it's a Master, monster, or maybe an Embryo." She replied standing up, "All I can tell you is if it's got a party or a Master, they'll know if we kill it."
/-/
Beast Ogre, Pinetree
Try as he might, he was stuck in some kind of clay.
Was it earth attribute magic? An Embryo skill?
Both?
He genuinely didn't know. What he did know was that someone had managed to capture him and Doppel without him even seeing it coming.
'Guys, can you hear me?'
The one that responded was JAnz. 'Pinetree, we've been in the cave twenty minutes, please tell me you're not just calling because you're bored.'
'I'm not. Someone just attacked me and now me and Doppel are stuck in clay and can't get out.'
'Shit.' He heard her mentally curse, 'What can you tell us about them?'
'I can't even see them- wait, a boat shaped like a whale is approaching me.'
'A whale?' yeah didn't expect that either.
"Are you a Master, Embryo, or monster?" a man dressed as a butler asked.
Okay, think of something to get as much information as possible.
"Bagawk."
Damn you brain.
Even Doppel facepalmed.
"I see." He said rubbing his chin. "Excuse me for asking, but my Identify tells me you are wearing what appears to be an Epic special reward."
"Yeah, I don't know why I cawed like a rooster."
"Perfectly understandable. We've all said something by accident or by Freudian Slip."
"Uh…thanks?"
"You are most welcome." He said with a genuine smile, "Now please tell us who your party members are and if possible what abilities they possess."
"And why would I tell you anything?"
At this, the butler raised an eyebrow as a woman with a color-shifting cloak leveled a dagger to one side of him while another shorter woman in a sandy cloak leveled what looked like a sniper rifle at him from the front and a man in blue had two floating metal gauntlets the size of tractor tires crack their knuckles.
"Fair point." He conceded, all while relaying their descriptions via Telepathy Cuff.
"However, I have a counteroffer."
"Oh, and what might that be?"
"You switch sides and get a cut of the one hundred eighty million lir for retrieving whatever is in the ruins."
That made them pause.
A man dressed like a dark lord in a Mistralian anime moved closer, "How many people are in you're party?"
"Six counting me."
He seemed to be doing some mental math.
"JAX", warned the woman in the color-shifting cloak, "We've already been over this. We're doing the job and that's it."
"Fine." He said drawing a dagger of his own.
The butler spoke, "I am sorry my lad, but this is just how the game is played."
"It's fine," Pinetree replied. He didn't know why, but he felt the butler was truly a polite and kind soul. Shame he's going to have to give him the death penalty.
One good thing about his suit was that it had a very useful skill, "Storm Bringer." He intoned the skill causing literal storms to burst from the wing-like flaps on his arms, destroying the clay binding him and hitting the edgelord and the butler head-on.
Doppel, latched onto his shoulder and already knowing his plan from a mental command hand transformed into a miniature Black Wolf, an evolved version of the common Teal Wolf. Though it looked more like a black puppy, it meant Doppel's AGI stat was now 1500, and combined with his Jaguarman job's skill Beastheart Possession at level 8, his AGI had increased by 400 points.
When paired with the nice boost he got from his equipment, his AGI was sitting around 2100.
Which was helpful as he just barely dodged the woman in the color-shifting cloak's dagger. Something she hadn't expected to happen.
'Doppel STR.' He mentally sent as he used his slightly higher AGI to get into her guard before Doppel transformed into a miniature Goblin Warrior, allowing him to deliver a 900 STR punch to her ribs sending her flying.
The man in blue sent his two floating gauntlets at Pinetree faster than he could dodge.
'Doppel END.' He mentally sent as Doppel transformed into an armadillo-like monster they had seen in the Market.
Despite his END ending up around 750, he was still sent backward, his feet dragging trenches across the ground as his HP took a solid hit.
When he came to a stop, he had Doppel shift to the Black Wolf allowing him to get close to the man in blue.
"EX Resistance: Bludgeoning." The man intoned as a hit connected while Doppel had transformed into a Goblin Warrior.
The hit did absolutely nothing. He didn't even budge.
As he noticed the woman with the sniper rifle pointed at him he mentally commanded Doppel to switch back to the Black Wolf.
It was still a strange feeling for him. Whenever he shifted his AGI up, it was as though his perception of time had shifted with it. Everything seemed to move slower.
Yet despite this, he only just barely dodged the shot from the woman, one of the large novelty eyes of his rooster costume getting shredded in the process as he moved in on her, left fist extended to strike.
However, things didn't go as planned.
"Metatron."
In a whirling sound like tearing metal, his left arm was torn clean off.
Turning his head, he saw both the man in black and the butler were fine.
The butler was surrounded by female figures made of pure crystal while a young man in an angelic-looking robe with curly blonde hair floated over the man in black, contained in what looked like a black rubrics cube.
Falling back he took out a Potion only for it to be destroyed in his hand by a dagger from the woman with the color-shifting cloak.
[Missing Left Arm]
[Bleeding]
[Hemorrhaging]
"Storm Bringer." He intoned trying to create some distance.
"I'm afraid not." The butler said as he held up a Gem that released an even more powerful wind spell that completely overpowered his skill, shredding his suit and sending him flying.
[Bleeding]
[Concussion]
Thank you game.
His suit, now in tatters, the woman with the color-shifting cloak whistled approval. Pinetree's avatar was that of a young man in his twenties with tanned muscular skin, orange eyes, and green hair.
"Not bad, shame I've got to give you the death penalty. We could have had fun." She grinned drawing a second dagger that had a kind of bee motif to it.
Barely managing to get to his feet, Pinetree looked at the approaching opponents.
Throughout the entire fight, he had been feeding what little info he could gleam to his allies, so he wouldn't say he was getting his butt kicked for nothing. It was just the fact he was getting his butt kicked that was the problem.
"At this point, we should have just killed him." Said the man all dressed in black. The young boy in the cube was still floating over him.
If he was being honest, he was probably going to get the death penalty from this one.
It sucked, but there wasn't much he could do.
At least if he was going to get the death penalty anyway, he was going to try and take one of them with him.
With Doppel still in his Black Wolf form, he charged forward meeting the woman with the dagger head-on.
Despite his high AGI, he could tell the woman herself was faster than him. Based on her movements, he would bet she had something like an Assassin job, or more likely the high-rank version, Black Hand.
He went to strike but was forced to dodge another clay bullet.
"I don't need your help to finish him off." The woman said taking out several small black knives and throwing them at him.
Two managed to hit him in his right leg.
[Poisoned]
Before he could react, she got in close and stabbed him in the stomach.
[Paralysis]
Doppel tried to attack her in his Black Wolf form, but she sliced off his two front legs.
"Doppel!"
*Stab*
*Stab*
*Stab*
She was taking her time to stab him over and over again. He didn't have his sense of pain turned on, but it still wasn't a pleasant experience to see a woman smiling while stabbing him repeatedly in the gut.
"I think I'm going to carve you up good and-". Whatever she was going to say was interrupted as she suddenly jumped away, a fountain of blood trailing her.
It took him, and even some of the others in her party, what felt like several moments to realize that her right arm had been ripped off by some invisible force and she was now using healing items to try and stop the bleeding.
Then, as if by some signal he couldn't perceive they all turned as one towards a woman with dark skin and white tribal tattoos. Her green eyes looked rather intense set to the backdrop of her short red hair. She also had a black snake coiled around her right arm.
/-/
Burglary Princess, Bahia
Emerald would never say she had an easy life. Hell, most people would say she had a shitty life.
Spending most of her life on the street didn't exactly give her a lot of career prospects. Well, legal prospects anyway.
Still, she managed to make a living stealing to the point she was making more than most people who worked a nine-to-five job.
But it still left her feeling…empty.
Then one day she was scouting out a warehouse for higher-end electronics and what did she find, but the latest VRMMORPG, Infinite Dendrogram.
She wasn't much of a gamer and in any other situation, she would have just hocked all the copies, pocketed the profits, and moved on. However, the tagline of the game - "A World of Infinite Possibilities" – something in her just…clicked.
She never would have imagined she'd find something she would enjoy so much.
Granted, it probably said something about her when given infinite possibilities, she still chose to steal things.
However, it was nice to steal things and be appreciated for it.
She used to think people who fell for tians were idiots. Dendromony as they called it.
What a joke. Who in their right mind could fall for a video game character?
However, that changed when she met Claudiah. She would freely admit to going full Worlder.
She was the first person to ever see Emerald as something other than a street rat or a thief.
After obtaining a Superior Job, she thought it was a good idea to steal from the Barbaros Mansion.
Not only did Claudiah catch her red-handed, but she even beat her in a fight. But rather than alerting the guards, she asked Emerald – well Bahia – to be her friend.
Since then Claudiah had become the sole person in Bahia's life that seemed to care about her.
She didn't judge her for her life or her choices. She was there offering advice, and admittedly really good snacks. Before she realized it, Emerald had been looking forward to meeting her first real friend more and more.
It wasn't one-sided either. Claudiah talked with her about everything; school, work, books, stealing things…everything. The two could tell each other anything.
Unlike some others who tried to use her in the past Claudiah told her to think for herself and do what she wanted, not what others did.
Her new friend even gave her advice that helped her get more comfortable in her current life by leveraging her connections to outsource her thieving. In only a few months she went from going solo, living in an abandoned warehouse to running a small crime ring and living in an apartment with AC, running water, and a functioning toilet.
She couldn't express how much she was thankful for that last one.
And for that reason alone, she would do anything for her first and only friend.
Which is how she ended up trailing the group that Claudiah had tasked with exploring some ruins.
It wasn't that she didn't trust her friend's judgment, it was just her making sure they were up for the job.
Yeah, that's it.
If anything, her scarily smart friend might have planned for her to be here. Claudiah was a true genius sometimes…when she wasn't in her more… free-spirited persona.
"And who the hell are you?" asked an edge lord wannabe with a…child in a black Rubik's cube floating over him(?
This game is so weird sometimes.
Rather than respond to him, she decided to simply get this over with, "Greater Takeover."
One of the skills of her Superior Job, Burglary Princess, was Greater Takeover. It let her steal the body parts of any target within range under the condition that the body part fit in her hand. At least normally, with her Embryo, she could expand what counted as that hand's carrying capacity to steal roughly half of a normal person's body.
Again, under normal circumstances.
Instead of the edgelord losing the top half of his torso, it was the woman dressed as a sailor behind him.
It happened very quickly, but she saw the black Rubik's cube above him shift.
Most likely it was either a Type: Angel Castle Embryo or spatial warping Type: Territory. While most Type: Territory Embryos didn't have a visible form and just had an area of effect centered on their Master, some took on more unique parameters. Such as the Summoning Princess and Curse Princess in Legendaria.
Though she supposed both was also an option.
Either way, his ability allowed him to redirect even her skills. This meant he was going to be the hardest to take down.
Thankfully, she had a few special rewards that might come in handy.
"Great, there goes our ride home." Snarked the woman whose arm she had ripped off earlier.
The one in the sandy cloak fired her sniper rifle at Bahia which she dodged easily.
"EX Resistance: Lightning." Said the man in blue as the floating gauntlets above him began the glow as lightning began to dance across their surfaces before firing towards her like a pair of rockets.
She evaded them both, having an AGI-focused job rocked, but she couldn't help but sweat drop at the sound of one of those gauntlets crashing through a section of mountain without so much as slowing down.
Her Reveal had his job as King of Resistance. If she had to guess, his Embryo was either a Type: Arms or Type: Guardian which gained elemental affinity based on whatever he had the highest resistance to.
Then the man dressed as a butler equipped a weird disk-like thing before placing three Gems on it. In a flash, all three Gems turned into…admittedly very beautiful sculptures of women; one red, one green, and one purple. All were tastefully dressed in togas but had an air of divine beauty to them.
If nothing else she could admit the butler had good taste.
What she wouldn't admit is that she was having a hard time handling them. Not only were they Gems for fire, wind, and lightning spells, but all three of them had stats that would make them comparable to a level 500 Master.
Granted their stats seemed evenly distributed so they weren't strong in any specific area, but between them, the sniper, the gauntlets, and the one-armed Black Hand, she was feeling a little overwhelmed.
She dodged a few long-range) attacks from them, but when she tried to get close to them, she noticed their bodies radiated with their respective element. Meaning touching one of them meant either being burned, cut, or shocked. Not a good trade-off. Forcing her to evade them.
It wasn't that they were fighting with any coordination, just the opposite, she only managed to evade a shot from the sniper due to the Black Hand trying to stab her and accidentally taking the hit.
She'd estimate each member of their party was a Pre-Superior, like herself, but it didn't seem like they had much practice working together.
Yes, they kept each other out of range of her Greater Takeover, which they had somehow guessed was 60 metels, and were staying within the area of effect of the edgelord, but that was it.
The guy in blue and the sniper seemed to have worked together while the butler seemed to at least be trying, but the edgelord and the woman in the color-shifting cloak were messing things up.
Bahia dodged as she felt the air start to unnaturally shift as a clay shot and a fireball flew towards her. Not a moment later the ground looked like it had been twisted distorting and canceling the magic cast by his teammates.
So, he can use his Embryo to attack and defend. Given the lag between the start of the fight and the attack, there might be some restriction or casting time for the skill. Like her Greater Takeover.
Her skill depended on both a range proportional to her skill level and her ability to see the target, mentally activate the skill, and make a grasping motion.
Speaking of which, as the wind and fire Gem creatures came towards her, she did just that and stole both of their heads, storing them in Andromalius' stomach…only for them to keep moving and use combined magic to nearly insta-kill her.
If not for her high AGI, she would have been cremated with a fire tornado.
Before she could set up her skill again, she had to dodge the gauntlets and a knife from the one-armed woman.
Burglary Princess wasn't a job for subtle theft, like the Thief job, it was suited for snatch and grab. It made her job more offensively oriented, but restricted in how she could steal things. However, that didn't mean she was out of options.
While she couldn't steal Embryos or magic attacks, her skill Greater Pickpocket let her steal any transferable item.
Setting herself up, she used the skill to steal the dagger from the woman as she made to stab at her. With her left hand using Greater Pickpocket, she loaded her right hand, the arm her Embryo was coiled around, to use Greater Takeover, focusing on her head.
The Black Hand seemed to know what was going to happen as her eyes widened with fear and surprise, but before Bahia could complete the grasping gesture, one of the Gem creatures pushed her out of the way.
"Move GIL!" shouted the butler.
Its entire upper torso was stolen, but the lower half continued to move before self-destructing.
She managed to partially evade the brunt of the blast but was still sent flying in a discharge of electricity. The [Paralysis] debuff appeared in her window before flickering off thanks to one of the special rewards she had equipped. Sufferward Rings, Bourdrim, a Mythical special reward that granted a passive equipment skill that increased her resistance to disease, mental, curse, and restriction debuffs scaling to her AGI.
As she gets to her feet, she sees that the butler has conjured four more Gem statues, along with the two headless ones, meaning the number of attacks had increased by three.
If she had to guess, he has a limit to the number of times he can do that, probably a Type: Legion Embryo that focuses on stronger individual units than a mass of fodder.
As she continued to dodge their incoming attacks, she made a note that the new Gem statues were ice, light, darkness, and some kind of corrosive element.
Was there acid magic?
She wasn't sure.
What she did know was that she had to continue to dodge them. The butler was starting to control them better, learning her tells for using her skill, and was already able to move his Embryo statues out of the way of her skill or time them to intercept her and try and damage her.
She had taken little damage so far, but one mistake and it could be disastrous for her.
The thought of disappointing Claudiah was not something she could entertain.
Still, she did have an ace up her sleeve. She just hoped Claudiah would forgive her for using it.
Just as she was about to reach into her inventory, the ground began to violently shake as the nearby rock quarry wall began to crack and fracture.
Bahia only just remembered the guy in the rooster costume was there when he began moving away from the collapsing rock structure.
Something she was all too happy to do and she and those she had been fighting began to back away from each other as well as falling rocks.
Unfortunately, they were smart enough to stay in formation out of the way of her skill, though she did manage to take out the acid Gem. They may be able to function without heads, but torsos are another matter.
With a deafening boom, the ground burst open, and the rock quarry was completely obliterated as a giant mechanical moth with rings of different colored energy looping around it began to rise into the sky.
"What the hell is that?!" someone shouted, though Bahia couldn't help but mirror the sentiment.
Crescent Rose = Ruby Rose
Kelly Hawks = Reese Chloris
JAnz = Nebula Violette
P-M374 (Meta) = Penny Polendina
Regal = Nolan Porfirio
pril = May Zedong
Tusk = Ivori
D'Apery = Olive Harper
JAX Crowned = Jax Asturias
GIL T Crowned = Gillian Asturias
Seventh Star = Klein Sieben
Bahia = Emerald Sustrai
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