Private - Hallowed Halls [Q]

Hallowed Halls

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The day was coming to an end, dusk steadily approaching, and Luna made her way to the temple of Endra in Pormont. A request had gone out to any local adventurers, asking for help holding off the undead while a priest hallowed the area. While not yet a strong fighter, Luna wanted to get a close look at the ritual he would use to cleanse the grounds - so if it meant using spell after spell to keep hordes of undead away, she would do her best.

She came to a stop at the outskirts of the temple grounds, waiting patiently for the two other adventurers that had signed on for the quest as well. She'd met neither of them, so their compatibility had yet been tested. Perhaps they would work well together. Or perhaps they'd squabble and make ruins of the temple before it even had a chance to come to greatness.

Who knew?

@Ozwin Ahab @Verity

 

Ozwin yawned as he walked towards the temple while staring into his wallet. 3 days? No that was being generous. Two days and nights of food but a bed for only one night. One might suggest to him that he should spend less money on flirting and carousing, he would just say he needed to earn more money.

Still, undead was a new one to him. It wasn't like there were many zombies swimming around in the ocean. A slight headache was bullying its way around his skull, a symptom of the previously mentioned activities and his refusal to change his settings from realistic. It was actually a sign of the great amount of realism they put into this game.

As he was finally making his approach Ozwin felt a smile push its way past his hangover. A pretty young woman with a bit of a mysterious air, a body that well served as a canvas for tasteful markings tattooed all over her body, and (dearest to his heart) legs for days was up ahead, waiting for him.~

Oh yes he knew this young miss was waiting in a professional sense but he was allowed to take happiness from the small things. The man who looked most definitely like a sailor in the way he was dressed if he did not have the weathered look cheerfully gave a small wave from a distance while keeping his usual pace. As he finally got within civil conversation distance he merely said, "Ozwin Ahab at your service miss, is it almost time to meet the father?" hoping to hear the voice and this lovely woman to improve his night of fighting nasty undead... Just please let the other fellow be an alright chap and not like that annoying spooky pants from last time.

 

While he was still learning the ropes about this game, Verity somehow managed to get the concept of Quests as he accepted it regarding about protecting some kind of priest. Yet traveling to Pormont turned out to be more difficult than heading to Stokbon. Not only he has to manage his inventory for his food and water meter, but he has to defend himself from aggressive monsters during his travels.

Though to be honest, while the thought of fighting the undead in the virtual world was scary, he was unfazed about it since he did watch many zombie movies, which most of them are bad ones. Regardless, what he worried about were the players that will be joining him.

So of course, once he arrived at his destination, he just continued to frown as he approached his would-be party mates.

 

She stared at @Ozwin Ahab as he approached, a slight frown on her lips. "Yes, which is why we are currently gathering," she pointed out, wondering if that common sense had just flown over his head or if he was trying to make friendly conversation as an excuse to continue staring at inappropriate parts of her body. Yes, she'd noticed. But other than shifting her body so that the cloak would cover more of her skin, she said nothing.

Instead, she looked out to the distance, where a second person quickly approached from. The Party UI labelled him as @Verity. If she could see his name, that meant he was a friendly and probably had every reason to be here, right? Without waiting for him to introduce himself, Luna turned around and stalked towards the half-built temples, where a wise-looking man stood, awaiting them.

"Are you three the brave souls fated to help me today?" he spoke, making a sweeping motion with his arm to gesture at the ground around them. "It is not an easy task. Are you all certain you would like to proceed?"

Luna nodded. "Of course." Regardless of what the men chose, her curiosity had been piqued. Plus, she'd promised herself to the quest. Luna would do herself no favors if she made enemies of NPCs by turning around and abandoning her contracts willy-nilly.

He waited for the other two to answer before proceeding to lead them deeper into the temple grounds. If one focused or used their investigation mode, they might spot the ritualistic circle drawn into the dirt.

 

It stings a bit, Ozwin smiled yet sighed down in his heart of hearts. Ah, he was far more used to a woman knowing him better before giving him such a disapproving look... his gaze may have lingered a bit too much on her legs or her lips, more likely her legs. Ahem. Still it was rather refreshing in a way that was hard to describe. Ah to trace those tattoos~... No focus, you are here to work, you can ask after the work is done if she is interested in dating.

A man who came up to them that Ozwin could only assume was their last party member... said nothing... Hmmmm was this just the sort of luck he had? Not many people in this game were that sociable were they? Looking at the party... Verity?

Partying up with the other two, Ozwin followed @Luna up to the temple where the father was waiting for them. "I don't know about fated father, but unless there is some drastic change in the job description I don't see the need to reconsider the job."

When they went into the temple Ozwin hmmm'd a bit to himself as he was indeed using his investigation mode, slightly enhanced by his hunting skill. "Should we expect them to mostly come from one side father, or will I need to be prepared to act front line all around this circle of yours?" He already had his copper trident out and was doing some stretches with it while asking. "Rather what are your styles? I use Aeromancy to increase my mobility, hunting to keep aware of the battlefield and well..." he looked at the trident that he was currently using to keep his arms straight behind him as he leaned backwards, hoping that bit was fairly obvious. "Well I use the stick here to poke holes in things as you might imagine." He wasn't going to mention his class title was marauder however because... it made him sound like a pirate...

 

It seemed that Verity was not much of a talker unlike the other two. Besides, he wanted to get this quest over with while knowing more about the game mechanics in the process. Not to mention he wanted to get some alone time after this. "I'm not worried about it. I just want to get some combat experience and get this over with."

As Oswin asked about their styles, Verity just turned his gaze away from him. He was a stranger, so he was not the type to share everything about him. "Why do I have to tell you about my battling style? Besides, I don't even know if I can trust anyone of you for this quest."

 

The wise father chuckled at the adventurers' eccentrics. "They seem to be attracted to the temple, and alas our walls are not yet sturdied," he started, closing his eyes to take a rattling breath.

Luna took over, impatient. Dusk was approaching, they had no time to waste. "Assume every direction," she said. She could not make head or tails of the runic drawings scribed into the floor, much to her frustrations.

Following @Ozwin Ahab's lead, she explained a bit of her skills. "I use Aeromancy. I've specced into Astramancy," she ignored the squabbled confusion of the NPC over her terminology, "but no spiritual contact. Yet." Her cloak fluttered around her as she inspected the structural weak points of the building, which was basically everything. They were sitting ducks here, exposed from every direction.

"Then don't say," she sighed in @Verity's direction, not even bothering to look at him as she swiped through her spells. "Just fight, keep old man here safe, and stay alive. You're useless to us dead."

Wise as he was, the father was no longer amused by their quirks. Instead, he seemed eager to get away from the three odd adventurers. "Then I shall begin," he warned, before mumbles started pouring from his lips at a rapid pace.

Like moths to a flickering light, the groans of the undead grew louder as they approached. They would be upon them soon.

 

Ozwin snorted a bit at @Verity 's response, and nodded at @Luna 's own description of her abilities. Speaking first to Verity, "I'll just assume you are a meat shield for the father since you don't seem to be interested in telling us if you fit any rolls better than others. Since I am the only one who seems to have particularly useful armor I will take point, dance around a bit at first, and draw aggro." He saw his hunting enhanced investigation mode was starting to pick up a number of enemies.

"Luna I will give you my back and ask you to try and stun or slow any heavy hitters or particularly fast guys you spot and signal me if one side looks like it is a bit much on numbers or tough to handle."

He was done speaking at this point though as the undead started coming into sight. He brought his lance into position as he chanted his Graceful Gale spell from memory and currents of air started moving around his legs. He waited a bit for the undead to get a bit closer so he wouldn't go too far out and abandon the circle before...

He dashed forward finally with moderately impressive speed and jumping power. He didn't initially try to kill the undead so much as stab into their legs to hinder their movements and gather the attentions of as many as possible in order to distract them from the circle. Better if they were trying to surround him than the father. He wouldn't try going for an all out killing strike unless several tried to just walk past him at once in order to give the others a chance to pick off the weakened undead one by one from a distance.

 

"Don't worry. I'm not going to die from a quest like this," he said to @Luna as took out his sword from his sheath to prepare for the upcoming threat. Yet, Verity glared at @Ozwin Ahab at his remarks about him. Being called a "meat shield" was one thing, but his arrogance was enough to tick him off. "Really? Judging by what you said, you're more of a "meat shield" than me."

But despite his remarks, he was actually a little worried about his battling style. Not only his first weapon was just a one-handed sword, but he only got two Aeromancy spells so far. Regardless, he decided to keep what he got and roll with it as he prepared himself for the oncoming (undead) storm.

 

She said nothing as the two men squabbled over semantics and meat shields together, only keeping a careful eye on them as she backed up to stay within range of the father. Her eyes flicked down to the glowing ritual circle, interest clearly visible. If only she had a camera. There would be time to inspect and study later, she supposed. The undead were here.

@Ozwin Ahab did exactly as he said he would, charging in and pulling as much aggro to himself as he could. Shooting a narrowed glare at @Verity, she lifted a palm. With a muttered incantation, Luna sent a blade of wind flying over his shoulder and into the undead approaching him from behind. The walking corpse collapsed into itself. There was no moment of joyous victory, just her tracking down her next target and muttering another cast of her bladed winds. Another look at the battlefield, however, revealed something to Luna. While there were plenty of undead piling up to get their fill of the living, they were all pathetically slow. And they felt… weak. She barely had to power her spells to stop them in their tracks or even kill them.

Still. Being outnumbered was dangerous. "How much longer?" she hissed, looking at the sweating Father. He was too busy with his incantations to grace her with a response.

The bright moonlight filtered into the temple through the broken bits of ceiling. Luna resigned herself to a night full of fighting. She'd use this opportunity to memorize the incantation instead of relying on the system's functions to guide her.

"Evlogia te vou aero," she whispered, summoning forth multiple strands of wind around her. She molded the wind with her mind, sharpening them with her control and power, before launching them at multiple corpses. Some blades were duller, simply pushing the undead backward, but others sliced straight through their bodies, instantly mutilating them. Luna glanced to her energy meter. That had taken a lot out of her.

 

Ozwen didn't bother refreshing his Graceful Gale spell as he kept tearing at the legs of the undead. They were maddeningly slow already so nearly stopping their movements completely and intercepting them before they made it to the circle was quite possible... But why the hell were there so damn many?! He wanted to try and investigate just how many of these damn things were still outside the temple but he had his hands full making sure that everything that came within 30 feet of the circle was doing so while crawling... The real reason he wasn't using magic to speed around at the moment though was because he had a bad premonition that if he tried to keep it up he would pass out from exhaustion.

How many of these things had he torn down to the ground already? He knew dozens was an understatement but the more he thought about the number the less he wanted to know. Mostly because he had a bad premonition this wasn't even a third of them. "Not that I believe you aren't doing your best father, but this isn't the sort of thing I can keep up forever." Ozwin glared at @Verity briefly who seemed to be a bit in a daze, and them looked at his stamina meter and tried to do some math in his head while continuing to circle around tearing into the monsters with his trident and stomping skulls in when he could.

He glanced a bit nervously at @Luna , who killing quite a bunch herself, before returning his gaze to a particularly disgusting looking fellow covered in what looked like boils and piercing the trident into their waist and swinging his own body around to sling the zombie back into the crowd and knock a number off their feet.

"Luna how long have we been at this? Trying to estimate how long I can keep this up, maybe another 20... 25 minutes maybe before I have nothing left at this rate?" That slinging the zombie thing was more effective than he thought. With how fragile these guys are the collision itself breaks a number of their limbs. However lifting and throwing them took considerably more out of him. It broke around even with running around and stabbing their legs one at a time? He wasn't sure and he didn't have the time to work out the math. Dammit he had to give up on that idea for now and just stick with what he has been doing.

"What about your end? If you run out I probably won't last another minute afterwards if these freaks- Dammit!" Once more the chant for his Graceful Gale spell rolled off his tongue providing him much needed mobility right when some of the zombies he aggro'ed came up from behind and almost surrounded him. He flipped out of the entrapment and killed those who had surrounded him with quick stabs at their skulls. Ah... he was going to have to do a lot of maintenance after this... Maybe he might be able to afford something with better stats?

His next step as he started patrolling the circle again made him grimace. When major advantage and disadvantage to having pain set on realistic is that you could feel how much damage you had and where without focusing on your UI. He didn't need to look to know he had a rather shallow but long gash running from the outside of his waist almost to his knee. He kept running around like he had, but wind spell or no wind spell he was now doing so with a limp and wasn't making it around nearly as fast. He had to pull back his area of patrol from 30 feet around the circle to 20 and he was losing a foot or two almost every minute.

Sweat from exhaustion, pain and nervousness began rolling down his face in many small stream and his complexion was worsening as he kept bleeding, not able to stop and bandage up his leg and all the activity making his blood flow quickly. If their was a silver lining it seemed his bleeding was making it easier to draw the zombies' aggro... Ah being eaten by a horde of zombies would be an awful death... Why the hell did he have his pain set to realistic when he was about to be eaten alive?! Nononononono, stab, stab, stab, stab! He wanted to experience many things but not that! Ah, arm! It's biting his arm!

Ripping an undead off his arm he stepped back to where he was between the main mass of the horde and the others, weakly stabbing at anything that approached in the head as one of his arms had lost a lot of strength. Then he fell to one knee panting and stabbing at legs where he could.

"Father if you are not almost done it is time to evacuate, finish me if you run!" Ozwin used the last fragments of his stamina to electrify his trident which began to release a sound like a taser and rushed forward holding his weapon horizontally to plow into and stun as many as possible to give the others room for action or retreat... and then he passed out. Please, please, please, please, please don't let him wake up to being eaten...

 

As he saw many undead coming their way, Verity can't tell if he should be shocked or disgust at their appearances. Despite they are made of data, he can't help but be impressed at their gruesome design. Then again, it was just a game, so he has no reason to be scared.

However, staring at the undead made him realized that he wasn't doing anything at all. It was only the voices of @Ozwin Ahab and @Luna that caused him to snap back into reality and see the current situation. While he can saw them managed to kill most of the undead, he noticed that more of the undead are still entering the temple grounds. Considering the number that was joining the fight, he had a feeling that they might not able to kill most of them on time. He still can't trust them and he was just learning the basics, but he was not the type to leave them from their virtual demise.

"This is going to be a pain..." Verity sighed before he approached the undead as he swiped his hand to bring up a panel. Once he picked out a spell, he raised his hand and recite some kind of Latin chant as the undead closed in. Once he finished the chant, a huge gust of wind suddenly blew behind him as they suddenly pushed away from it. From his knowledge, the first spell he cast on was called "Breeze Shroud". It was supposed to deal small damage to any nearby monsters and push them back a little bit. Sure, it sounded useless when it came to damage, but to him, it was perfect as he quickly used the wind behind him to let it push him to the undead, which allowed him to slashed through three of them as he only took a few bites from them.

While he did keep using this spell to gain an upper hand, he was still aware of his remaining energy as due to his inexperience, using Breeze Shroud will drain a lot of energy from him. So all he had to do was to use it to eliminate some zombies who were in his way while he helped out his party mates, namely Ozwin who was somehow unconscious, by stabbing one of the undead who was attacking him with another spell called "Thunder Burst", which was basically a simple Aeromancy spell that creates a small burst of lightning toward his opponent, which it dealt a small Wind damage to it.

Eventually, he continued his attempts to fight off the undead by using his sword and his Breeze Shroud spell, which he hoped the priest NPC might be finished at what he was doing.

 

Another burst of wind, cutting through the space between her and what might as well be grotesque zombies. How many times had she said that phrase "Evlogia te vou aero," now? Part of her vaguely recognized the Greek words - evlogia and aero. Blessing... and wind. Probably.

It seemed that the fight was dragging on too long for their ambitious trident-wielding fighter to continue, as he promptly passed out with one last spell. Luna clicked her tongue. Maybe she would take his advice and leave, come back another day when they were all dead and out of the way. She could inspect the circle in peace, during the day time. But their third party member was fighting his way through the thinning throng of corpses.

Just as @Verity reached the unconscious @Ozwin Ahab, the ritual circle lit up, beams of brilliant white light shooting for the sky. Luna paused in her attacks, looking back at the old man they'd been protecting. The light seemed to shrink in on itself, consuming his entire figure, before flaring out, crawling across the land. Upon contact with the magical light, the undead seemed to burn, fizzling out until they were nothing but dust.

It was an awe-inducing sight, one that seared into your mind and held you in place until the light puckered out at the outskirts of the lands, running out of runes to fuel its immense power. "How many runes...?" She almost respected the old man. If it hadn't taken so long to set up and activate, she would want to try it herself.

Looking to the wizened father, she sighed as she came to the realization that, just like Ozwin, he had passed out. While the fighter could be left behind without consequence, the father would be needed to get her reward, and possibly some information about his rituals.

Well... perhaps they could rest a bit. It seemed the danger had passed.

[[ ooc: we can end it here or do another cycle of posts. pm me? ]]

 

A bit later into the night Ozwin stirred to find he was still in the temple and NOT being eaten alive. He swear it felt like his eyelids had weights on them and when he opened up his UI he saw he had regained 5% stamina... Though his health bar at 7% made him wince. He didn't sit up though, he felt far too terrible to do so quite yet. "Assuming this means we were successful and you guys are still here... well I can only guess then that would mean the father also blacked out since I am still cut up worse than construction paper in a kindergarten and the feeling I have that you two probably would leave the moment you have been paid."

 

Just as the old man fainted after the ritual, he gasped for air as he already felt the effects from his low energy. Yet, he was surprised how he managed to kill as many living corpses despite this was his first real battle. The sight of them was enough to make him feel uncomfortable for the few days, but at least his strategy with his first spells worked.

Then once @Ozwin Ahab woke up, Verity turned around and stared at him in a bored manner. "At least one of us still have half of HP left. I'm just surprised that you're still alive at this point." Whether if he may witness the Maruader's reaction, he felt that it might be better to ignore him as he turned to @Luna as he sat down on the ground. "I hope that's all we can do for Father. Unless we get an ambush very soon."