BARKING UP TREES [HARD(er) QUEST]

Leaves rustled all around Roland as he pushed through the untamed wilderness somewhere within the Adecus forest. It was spring and as such the trees were in full bloom making visibility in the forest extremely minimal. Roland cursed silently as he felt his boot get stuck in yet another thorn bush. He had a basic idea of where he was going, thanks to the wandering merchant who had told him of the quest. The merchant had pointed to a curving hunting trail on his map and stated there was a small woodsman’s lodge a quarter of the way in. The lodge would serve as a meeting place for the rest of the adventurers before they attempted to tackle the quest. Roland had taken one look at the path, that snaked its way through the woods and decided it would be easiest to simply cut through the untamed forest in a straight line rather than follow the trail as it was.

It turned out that was a mistake. Granted when he had made the decision, it was near the edge of the forest where the trees were smaller, and the brush thinner. Brandishing his sword, he had begun to hack and chop at all the trees and foliage in his way. It worked for a bit of time before thorned vines began to impede the strokes of his blade, stopping it at odd angles. After some ineffective squirming, he had decided to just push through unequipping the blade entirely. This left Roland alone with his thoughts and the rustling of the woods as he struggled forward. Naturally his mind turned to the wolves he had been sent here to hunt. Of all the creatures he had fought in video games, none had been so routinely negatively impact-full than the occasional canine. They were fast, hard to hit, and often made horrible death screams as you killed them. More than once Roland had been in party decimated by some variety of the beasts, often due to one or two party members not being willing to do what needed to be done. Roland hoped that wouldn’t be the case today, but hadn’t checked to see if he knew anyone in the party.

After what seemed like an hour of rough travel, Roland finally emerged from a thicket right on the dirt trail just a few hundred feet away from the wooden log cabin down the road. “That better be it” Roland grumbled as he removed a variety of leaves and twigs from his gear, before wiping off the blood from the plethora of small cuts he had received from the thorny passage. He hissed from the slight sensation of pain he felt, as he pushed onward towards the cabin. It was a fairly normal affair, complete with an axe embedded in stump just a few feet from its front door. “Hello?” Roland called out loudly someone anyone in the general vicinity would hear him, “Is anyone in there?”
@Sera Phim @Olive Westfield

 

Sera lazed around in the log cabin. She had arrived in it much earlier in that day, really having had nothing else to do. She had no work orders to complete, and Lucia was busy doing something else. She frowned at the thought, wishing she could be helping the woman she cared so much about. In order to get a bit more money, which was helping in a way she supposed, Sera had accepted a quest to hunt down a group of wolves. There was one particular that was rumored to be leading the pack, but Sera didn't remember it's name. Besides, the whole 'alpha wolf' thing was based on terrible science and had been disproven time and time again, and the original study had turned out to be tampered with anyway. Then again.... this place was a video game, and as such would potentially have video game logic. Video games have minor bosses to defeat on quests, often, special named creatures that were slightly more powerful than regular ones of its kind. Perhaps that's all this wolf would be.

The cabin itself was rather interesting. It was nice, but reminded her of the type of place where someone who lived in the real world would use for all their prepping for the "inevitable collapse of society", likely caused by the government or something, in their minds. There were trophies of animals that had been killed, as well as a couple different bows and arrows lining the walls of the place. All the furniture appeared hand-carved from wood with the same hints and patterns as the bows and arrows did, indicating to Sera at least that the same person had made it all themselves. In fact, even the logs of the cabin seemed like they had been made by the same person. Whoever lived here, or had lived here, was obviously a craftsman of some sort. Sera wondered where that person might be.

Her rainbow colored prism floated around her, every now and then floating toward parts of the cabin and seeming to examine things. She had figured out by now that the word she spoke to summon the prism was the contact spell, and was the name of the seven beings who lent their power to Sera through the prism. The spell to summon it hardly cost Sera much energy, if any at all, nor did it seem to cost her any maintenance. However, having the prism around was a necessity to cast any of her spells other than her teleportation spell and her basic utility spells, but even each of those were buffed by the prism being present. That all made sense, she supposed - since the prism was what allowed her patrons contact with this world, it would only make sense that powers gifted through them would be more powerful in its presence.

Suddenly, the prism jerked toward the door of the cabin. "Someone is coming!" it warned Sera in its seven-layered voice, before quickly floating back to be near Sera.

Sera hadn't really needed the prism's warning - it came immediately after someone had shouted from outside. She frowned slightly at the prism's apparent uselessness. It never seemed to be able to deliver information to her that she didn't already know. "You realize you are of utterly no help when you do that, right?" She asked the floating prism. It flashed violet at her in response, before returning to it's normal method of slowly switching from one color of the spectrum to the next. Sera shook her head, and then cleared her throat. "Yes! I'm in the cabin!" she called out to the man who's voice she'd heard. She prepared to cast an offensive spell toward the door, in case the man proved a danger to her. Well, obviously he wouldn't be a danger - in case he tried to be a danger, she corrected herself to.

 

Olive didn't really know why she had accepted this dumb quest in the first place. Actually, to be honest, she didn't even know when or how it happened, just that she had finished pounding the trees and rabid squirrels with her fists in, by her own admission, a fit of pure anger and rage released, and opened her eyes to see the quest screen with stunning clarity. The sight had, in effect, driven her into more murderous rage and, despite her lack of ability to do so in terms of skill level and mastery-selection, she managed to take down a tree with nothing but pure grit and willpower. Also, she had about 1% of her HP bar left, which was fine and dandy since Gwen had packed her a few health potions beforehand, suspecting this, but she had quickly run out restoring her health back to full.

She groaned, kicking the dust, as she hesitantly made her way to the location of this quest (apparently she had to start in a cabin or something with two of strangers) for the sole purpose of telling them to shove the quest up their respective buttholes as she could do it on her own. She hadn't wanted to take the quest, no, but the initial hesitance was drowned by her visions of glory and by her own imaginings that this could be the quest to prove herself superior than the others. The thoughts brought sparkles to her eyes as she walked up to the cabin, hearing voices already. Had they, perhaps, been expecting her visit? She beamed in pride. They were obviously awaiting her presence with golden rows and velvet carpeting.

"GUESS WHO THE MOTHERFUDGE IS HERE?!" she screamed on the top of her lungs, a vicious grin on her face. She, of course, was a generous idol and might not just kick these other two losers out of the quest to do it by her lonesome. Being in a good mood today, she supposed they could watch and worship her as she fought down these mutts with her teeth and claws.

@Sera Phim @Roland Rutledge

 

Roland scanned the forest as he shouted, half expecting the telltale sound of growling and silently cursing himself for the lack of precaution he had taken. It seemed being free for the mire of thorns had made him think that safety this far into the forest was assured. Still all he heard was the lone reply coming from inside the cabin "Yes! I'm in the cabin!" a voice shouted. With a curt nod Roland moved to the large oak door, opening it without too much flair. Inside he was surprised to see Sera, accompanied by some… odd ‘thing’ floating in the air that looked like a multicolored prism. This caused Roland to pause at entrance mouth agape for a brief moment before regaining his composure and beaming a friendly smile, “Well I didn’t expect to see you out here.” He said struggling to remember the blacksmith’s name, sometimes playing with HuD features turned off could make things awkward.

There wasn't much time to feel awkward though as barley a moment passed before a scream pierced through the now open door, "GUESS WHO THE MOTHERFUDGE IS HERE?!” The words echoed through the room as Roland responded in stunned silence having never seen the tall slim girl before him. Again Roland tried to quickly recompose himself affixing an affable grin that he shot at the tall woman, “Ah, I guess we have our third, I don’t think we’ve met I’m Roland.” He said with a small formal bow hoping the girl’s demeanor would change if he tried to introduce civility into the conversation, though, deep down he knew better.

@Sera Phim @Olive Westfield

 

Sera looked to the door as it opened and Roland walked in. "Oh, why hello there! How are your weapons holding up?" She asked him. "It was... Rolo, right? Or something close to that, at least?" She asked. In regards to the man's comment that he hadn't expect to see her out here, Sera could only let out a soft chuckle and shake her head. "Well, I've not been getting much work recently. Apparently, there's some NPC blacksmith making weapons for people completely free. It's making it hard for me to do business, and he's not making any profit either, so I really don't understand the point... But I can handle myself in a fight," she said. "Or, well, Roy here can handle me." She gestured to the prism.

The prism floated closer to her. "Indicative of the childish pneumonic device. We accept."

"Good," Sera said. "Because you needed a name. Roy G Biv it is, or Roy for short," she told the prism. "So yeah, don't worry about Roy here," she explained to Roland.

But it wasn't long before she heard a shout. She couldn't help but repeat the worst part of the shout back aloud. "Mother...fudge?" She asked. "Oh no... Please tell me the third person joining us isn't some child who thinks she's a badass, but is still too young to curse..."

Roy flashed slowly. "Likelihood high." it reported.

 

Olive kicked open the door, her head held high and her confidence rolling off of her in tidal waves as she gallantly enter the room, ignoring the man's greeting, and plopped down on a chair in the cabin. Her eyes shone with rabid mischief and she displayed her fangs brilliantly, viciously laughing at the two nearby. Leaning forward to meet the green-suited woman, she gave a snarky welcome. "Hey there greenie!" she guffawed at her own remark before turning to see the other man in the room. "And you, what are you supposed to be, some weeb cosplaying as a loser with a sword?"

Then she jumped up to her feet, almost as fast she had sat down in the first place, and displayed a very rude gesture to the both of them. That one gesture that including sticking her hand out and putting down every finger except the one that's smack dab in the middle. Then she gave another laugh and walked out the door, eyes shining with excitement. Right before she left, however, she twirled around and looked straight at the cabin with both hands on her hips.

"Nice place here; might just forget the quest and stay!" she remarked loudly. It seemed as though her voice's default tone could result in deaf ears. "But let's go, hurry up! Chop, chop!" she made a chopping motion with her hands, hurrying the two up. She didn't know where they were supposed to go, or even where they are, but she knew that she couldn't spend another second just waiting idly around.

@Sera Phim
@Roland Rutledge

 

Roland’s mask of faux friendliness shattered as the girl-child stormed into the room leveling insults in a brash voice that already began to induce a small ache in the middle of Roland’s forehead. Even after their brief interaction he determined he knew exactly what type of person she was, loud, conceited, and uncaring for anyone else in the world beyond herself. He loathed that type of person, likely because it was a reflection of his own worst faults to a degree. “Look here you little-” He said cutting himself off as he stared out the door directly behind her, something had moved. Gone were the thoughts of the annoying child, replaced by a sudden chill as he stared down the cold blue eyes of the wolf slowly stalking forward. Numbly and without a word, Roland, reached for his bow with his right hand, while pulling an arrow free from his quiver with his left. Even though if felt like the motion took ages, Roland found himself drawing the arrow within a heartbeat his vision snapping into focus at the tip of the arrowhead as the game’s auto assist improved his vision temporarily.

The wolf had stopped upon seeing his movement, eyeing Roland with a cold intensity. Roland briefly wondered about the intelligence of the creature. Did it know they were a threat, sent to kill them? Or were they just intent on killing any humanoid in the area? He guessed it came down to how much information the AI gave them. Sure a normal wolf might grow to start to hate humans due to various bad encounters with them, passing the trait onto their pack, but as Roland stared into the digital wolf’s eyes he guessed that this was not the case. No, this wolf didn’t hold hatred in his eyes, it looked at him like he was prey, and he was sure to this creature he was merely supposed to be a night’s meal. Leaving no room for hesitation, Roland, let loose an arrow aimed at the beast. Unfortunately, as the arrow left his hand he watched helplessly as it wobbled in the air flying aimlessly forward as it traveled the distance of the cabin towards Olive, and the door she stood mere feet from. Roland grimaced, as it nearly impaled her left shoulder before falling ineffectively into a patch of dead leaves immediately to the wolf’s right.

Swiftly recovering from the misfire, Roland shouted, “Wolf!” while abandoning his bow in favor for the sword at his hip, and as if in response the wolf sat back and let loose a tremendous howl which in turn was meet by an innumerable amount of replies all around them.

They were surrounded.

 

Sera cringed at the girl's presence. Oh boy. This was gonna be rough. This was gonna be really rough. What was it about worlds like this that attracted people who felt the need to overcompensate for so much in their lives? How old was this girl, even? Twelve, at the absolute oldest? She sounded and acted like a child who had just discovered that, in this place, her parents wouldn't find out if she behaved like a brat and was using this place as an outlet for everything that she should be thoroughly spanked for in real life. Or, even worse - the girl belonged to those people who were convinced that spanking would traumatize their child, and so never punished her effectively.

Whatever the reason for the girl's terrible behavior, Sera whispered a praise of thanks when the girl began heading out the door, but it was cut short when she realized that she would have to follow. "Goddess damn it," she muttered. She pushed herself up and made her way toward the door, Roy floating close by her.

Just as she reached the door, an arrow flew by it. Sera shrieked and jumped back. "Roland, I think there's an enemy archer as well!" She called out, not knowing the arrow had been shot by him. Spotting a wolf, Sera uttered the release phrase and launched Roy toward it.

The prism impacted into the wolf, and absolutely nothing happened.

Sera cursed, speaking the contact phrase again. "Fucking hell, Roy! Do something useful!" She told the prism, before launching it at the wolf again.

This time, a red explosion would envelope the wolf and kill it. Sera breathed heavily, before summoning Roy once again. "That wasn't the leader, right?" She asked.

"Negative," Roy replied.

"Lovely... There's a lot of them," she muttered.

"Affirmative."

"Go fuck yourself," Sera told the prism. She turned toward Olive. "Alright, Anger Issues, time to be useful. What'd you say earlier? Chop, chop?"

 

Olive fell onto her bottom in startled surprise as the arrow whizzed right past her shoulder and into the pile of leaves behind her. Panicked sweat dripped from her and she stuttered, trying to get up to her feet whilst oblivious of the wolf stalking behind her. Finally regaining her composure and supposed confidence, she gave a vicious snarl at the archer who had shot the arrow in her general direction. "WHAT THE MOTHERFUDGE WAS THAT FOR YOU INCOMPETENT GENITAL-SUCKING LO—" her rant was disrupted by the surrounding howls and the sudden appearance of the green-garbed woman who had sent some flying object her way. Immediately, Olive cowered and curled in on herself. An explosion of red filtered her vision and, upon that, she looked from her armadillo position to look at just what happened.

"W-WHAT THE FRICK FRACK IS GOING ON HERE?!" she screamed and the wolves, almost as if annoyed and irritated by her antics, leaped down from their perch to greet her with gnashing teeth and hungry eyes. She winced, frightfully trying to edge away from the pack. "WHY WOULD YOU GUYS EVEN WANT TO EAT MY DISGUSTING, PUTRID FLESH?!" she cried before pointing at both Roland and Sera. "THEY'RE THE TASTY ONES! JUST GO GET THEM, GO BOY! SHOO!" her efforts only got the wolves to snarl and growl even more, slowly moving towards her. She looked left, right, forwards, behind...she was entirely encircled.

As one wolf lunged for her she gave a squeak and, in her panic, accidentally swiped up the spell menu and began, unknowingly, chanting a series of words. Before long, an uncontrollable flame burst from her outstretched hand, covering the wolf and singing its fur and body. As she curled up, oblivious to what she had done, she decided to peek out after a few moments of not getting torn to shreds to see a burnt up wolf. The spell had exhausted her but the adrenaline pumping through her veins was stronger. Arrogantly, she stood up and looked back at Roland and Sera, ignoring the wary wolves. "DID YOU GUYS SEE HOW AWESOME I AM? LOOK, I BET I CAN TAKE DOWN ALL OF THESE WOLVES WITH NO TROUBLE!" she laughed haughtily. She quickly imitated her previous movements to open up the spell window, eyes shining with fierce excitement and pride. Without even thinking, she selected all of her spells she had and she felt her mouth forming the words to the incantation without her active participation. Thrill rushed through her veins. She truly was a masterpiece, wasn't she?

Flames began to spew around the general area, creating a circle of uncontrollable fire that entrapped both her teammates, herself, and the wolves. "FEAR ME MOTHER—" she spoke and, mid-sentence, she flopped over, face-first in the mud. She had somehow missed all the wolves and, displaying brilliantly on her health bar, laid a status condition called [MIND DOWN].

@Roland Rutledge @Sera Phim

 

Roland grit his teeth as he ripped his sword out of his holster, muttering “Damnit” under his breath as Sera and her odd prism began charging forward crashing into the wolf outside that he had missed, and, after some arguing, managed to burn it to death. He darted his eyes around the log cabin, noting that the windows were near ground level briefly before three of them shattered simultaneously sending shards of glass to the wooden floor. Four wolves erupted into the room snapping and growling at him as they prepared to pounce. “Look out!” he screamed at the only other remaining person in the room, Olive, who he had just noticed decided to crumple into the floor in a fetal position. “Damnit……” Roland growled again with growing frustration, before one of the wolves jumped towards him.

Time slowed, as he stared at the matted collection of fur and white teeth hurtling forward towards him. Though he thought he was frozen in fear, his body began to move on its own. His blade, covered in a red aura flashed before him, dull edge slamming into the wolfs mouth batting it aside with a loud thud. A brief notification of the skill he had just used, ‘Parry’ popped up on the screen disappearing as quickly as it had come. “Wha-“Roland questioned briefly before yet another wolf took its turn, launching at him with a yowl. His leg snapped back into fighting stance, flowing supernaturally into a memorized move set, he thrust his now blue sword forward in a lopsided arc cutting through the wolf’s open maw leaving a trail of blood in its wake. From his practice he knew what the color’s represented, when he utilized his blade skill during an attack his sword would glow bright blue, when he activated his defensive skill ‘guard’ he or his blade would glow red for a brief moment. He supposed this was the game’s way of telling you when it was using a mechanic.

With a moment to draw a breath he glanced back at Olive, who was now standing (thank god), attacking one of the four with a torrent of flames. “Good…” Roland muttered as he turned to the remaining three within the cabin. The two he had knocked down earlier had seemingly recovered, and all three gazed at him with menacing stares as they slowly tried to encircle him. “I’m not going to let you do that.” Roland stated evenly to the beasts as he took a more offensively styled stance, pushing his right foot in front of him, and holding his sword slightly above his head. The wolves continued to slowly inch forward, but Roland didn’t wait any longer pushing off from his back foot and flying forward instantly batting away the wolf furthest to his left as it leapt at his charge, ‘Parry’ again flashing on his screen. “One.” His blue edged blade returned to his home position to his side before streaking forward at the unprepared wolf directly in front of him landing with a loud crunch as he felt a few ribs break in the strike. “Two.” Without waiting he ripped the blade free, as he spun his feet flipping his orientation to where he had been standing before flicking his blade downwards in an arc that meet the third wolf’s head in midair sending it crashing down into wood floor with another telltale crunch of bone collapsing under strain. The first wolf stood up on shaky legs directly in front of him, still stunned from the previous parry. “Three.” Roland pushed his right foot forward and twisted his blade back into the air, before striking downwards at bottom of its neck, turning the wolf’s legs into jelly as fell to the floor with a whimper.

Despite defeating the three, he didn’t have any time to celebrate as their places were quickly taken by four more. Retreating backwards towards the door, Roland waved his sword defensively in front of him as the wolves began to surge forward. Suddenly, however, they were met with a wall of fire sending them back with a yelp. Roland spun on his heels heading towards Olive, who span around in a circle spitting out fire in all directions. Unsure how he had not been hit, Roland sprinted forward as she began to fall, grabbing her with his free hand, and yanking her out of the, now ablaze log cabin, into the front yard where he was met with Sera. Their situation was dire, somehow the girl had managed to completely encircle them in a ring of fire about thirty feet in diameter, and within that circle remained the three of them as well at least five to ten wolves. Dropping Olive to the ground, Roland resumed a defensive stance near Sera and screamed over the fire, “Any ideas!?”

 

"What the fucking hell, you fucking brat?" Sera shouted at the girl who seemed to be shooting fire at everything except the wolves, and then immediately passed out from spending too much mana. Her prism glowed blue. "Okay, so what are you trying to tell me with that?" She asked it. It shined brighter, but didn't change it's color. "Come on, throw me a bone here," she said, but still the prism didn't answer.

Sera watched as Roland seemed to handle three of the wolves entirely on his own. "Impressive," she told him. "But honestly, leaving the brat there might have been a better idea. She's really just going to be a burden to us if that's all she does," she said. When he asked if she had any idea, she frowned. The prism was still shining blue, not changing it's color at all like it usually did. "I think Roy is trying to tell me something, but for the life of me I don't know what. Blue..... hope and sloth.... uh.... I hope the fire goes out, but should do something about it? Well, if I had some water, maybe I could do something about it," she said.

Almost as soon as the words left her mouth, water began to gush forth from the prism in a torrent, dowsing the flames and splashing against the unconscious girl, possibly waking her. When the flames were all extinguished, the water stop. "Okay, that was useful, I had no clue you could do that," Sera said to Roy. She sighed and shook her head. "A lot of good you guys are if you don't tell me what you can do!"

She turned back to Roland. "It seems like it takes a lot of time for them to do things. Put those weapons I made you to good use, because you're going to have to keep all the wolves occupied. I have a plan." She turned her attention back to the prism. "Alright then, you listen to me, you little shits...."

 

Olive dreamed of roses, butterflies, and unicorns....

Hidden: Olive's Dream

Naw, she was just messing with you! In fact, Olive dreamed of a throne made of swords (definitely not plagiarized from Game of Thrones or anything, all her dreams pride themselves on being completely and totally original and imaginative) and a sea of red clown-people bustling underneath. This was not a good dream for Olive (unless you counted that throne, but even then it pricked and was mighty uncomfortable for Olive to even glance at. The sharpness of the throne seemed to even be able to cut into her mind, as cheesy as that sounds).

Flames wicked the bottom of her grand symbol of authority and the heads of sea monkeys (which were quite small) were impaled on a series of wooden pikes leading up to her sitting place. It seemed to be a mockery of a king's castle or whatever (you know, the ones that you find in Final Fantasy or Lord of the Flies or something). She ignored the grisly sight of her half seahorse, half clownfish army kneeling below her. Perhaps it was something Freud would comment on, when the crowd was filled with pregnant male seahorses and clownfishes that sporadically change sex whenever the need strikes them. Maybe it was a sign of repression and, deep inside Olive's mind was something stifled by society...

Naw, she was just messing with you again. Her dream was so because she thought it would be funny (and it was, in its own horrifying kind of way). "MY ARMY!" she addressed to the sounds of adoration and admiration. "LET US DESTROY OUR FILTHY ENEMY AND GAIN GLORY FOR THE NAME OF OLIVE WESTFIELD!" she cheered, confident and ambitious. She never noticed that the cheers of her crowd were not, in fact, cheers.

"BURN THE TYRANT!" they called, attempting to reach her throne. She made no notice of the vicious crowd, instead living in her own delusions (that were in the delusions of her dreams; delusionception). Then water began dripping on her face and she looked up to see that the ceiling was leaking, pushing out as if it were about to break. She merely laughed. "YOU FOOLS THINK THAT WATER CAN—" her words were drowned out by the sound of her suffocating and coughing fit when a flood began to fill the room.

Then she woke up. And there was no fire. "WHAT THE FUDGE HAPPENED?!" she shouted angrily, quickly getting up (ignoring the fatigue in her muscles) and, in a moment of unprecedented anger and daring (most likely attributed to the fact that she had just woken up and didn't have the mental capacity to properly think. Not that she actually participated in the art of thinking, though) she marched up to one of the injured wolves with a glare on her face and a snarl. And then she kicked it. In the crotch. About ten times. And she continued, screaming bloody murder, as the poor wolf cried out as any hope for his bloodline died with him (unless he adopted, of course).

@Roland Rutledge @Sera Phim

 

Roland let out a long relieved breath as Sera and her prism managed to clear out the fire that surrounded them. It seemed that she had a hard time controlling the thing, for whatever reason, but it clearly had its uses, unlike a certain someone who laid motionless on the floor presumably asleep at the moment.

Sera turned to Roland and shouted, "It seems like it takes a lot of time for them to do things. Put those weapons I made you to good use, because you're going to have to keep all the wolves occupied. I have a plan."

Roland grunted in confirmation, “Good a plan, that’s nice” He thought eyeing the wolves as they encroached slowly forward. She was right they did to move slowly, “Why aren’t they all just attacking?” he thought as he spun around trying to track each of their movements. It was a hard feat as they moved in and out of the brush, Roland couldn’t even keep track of their exact number. The best he could surmise was that they were trying to surround the party, which he guessed make sense if they considered them prey, the wolves wouldn’t want them running off.

That said he didn’t have any intention of running off, he was just going to try and buy Sera as much time as possible to do what she had planned to do, whatever that was. “Well I was planning on saving this for after I had some more practice.” Roland said as he quickly tapped an invisible interface, causing a second sword to materialize in his off hand. “But I guess now is as good as time as any.” The wolves had seemingly had enough of an intermission and began to move forward as a group.

Roland sprang forward, trying to not let them get the first attack again. His left blade whipped forward in blue streak catching a wolf in a shoulder a moment before it pounced sending it to the side with a yelp. The rest of the wolves paused seemingly to shocked to act, using the moment in his favor he shifted his movement to the right slashing at the next nearest beast. His blade met air as the wolf jumped backwards avoiding the attack, quickly lowering itself to the ground with a menacing growl. “Damnit.” Roland cursed stopping short expecting a counter attack, which suddenly came, from the opposite direction than he was prepared for, as a blur of white fangs and fur slammed into his shoulder trying to find purchase through his armor. Roland skipped backward backhanding the beast off himself as he grunted, glad his shoulder pads had done their job. He didn’t have much time to be thankful though, as another beast launched itself forward in front of him, reacting naturally he burst forward himself meeting the beasts gaping maw with his blade, and pushing forward through the back of its head which was sent flying into the night.

Quickly back pedaling a few feet, Roland, moved back towards the two girls, of whom he noticed Olive was now standing, kicking one of the stunned wolves for some reason. Ignoring her brought up both blades in front of him noting that several wolves were now openly charging in their direction, “I’m not going to be able to hold them off alone much longer Sera, whatever your plan is do it now!” As soon as the words escaped his moth two wolves launched at him at the same time. Forming an ‘X’ with his, now glowing red, swords he blocked the initial barrage, and pushed them backwards. He tried to move forward to finish the attack, but was once again forced to raise his blades in defense as yet another wolf snapped at him. Smacking it away, Roland felt a tug at his ankle, which ripped him down to the ground. Startled and confused he lost one of his swords in the fall, barley making out the snarling mat of fur currently pulling him backwards.

 

"So the color blue seems to control some form of hyrdromancy," Sera muttered to herself and to the prism. "You said you each have control over powerful magics? Well, in this world, there only exists about nine different magics. Pyromancy, Hydromancy, Geomancy, Aeromancy, Arcanamancy, Phantasmia, Naturalmancy, Illumancy, and Malefimancy. Those last two are typically associated with good and evil, and are pretty stringy. So those are probably those other two members you told me about. Meaning I have access to all the elemental magics, and then some, through you guys. So you all are going to help me with this, alright?" She asked the prism.

It glowed brightly in response.

"Right then... time for my plan..." Sera cleared her throat and pulled up her spell menu. Several new options were visible to her, and she smirked. She began tallying up the math in her head of how much these spells would affect her. "Rank 1... rank 1... rank 1... rank 1... rank 2, rank 2, rank 2. Alright, this is gonna spend all my energy, but it should work..." She turned toward the prism. "So here's the plan. First, hydromancy to make rain clouds. They're not going to start raining right away, but they will soon, so that'll be fine. Next, I create illusionary markers using Phantasmia to tell me where I need to aim with my later spells. After that, naturalmancy for it's connections to animal life to stun the wolves for a bit. The next part is going to the the hardest. If I have the energy for all three, I want to see if I can combine pyromancy and geomancy to create flaming meteors and crash those down toward the wolves. Finally, I want to finish them all off with a good lightning blast. It always worked for Pikachu, right?"

Sera took a step back and began to chant. "Terribilis in die nox minabatur. Cum fortis animo coeptum ingeri Nostro refusus pectori ignis. Quo proelio perditis videtur lumen vultus ad sidera spem relucet." Her first spell complete, the sky would begin to darken with storm clouds. Only the sky directly above the group and the wolves, however, resulting in a rather ominous feeling for the three. So far, her plan seemed to be working. The spell to create rain clouds wasn't a terribly high cost one, but it still took a bit more energy than she had hoped it would.

"In mediis diem clarissimum nocte. Cave tibi in timoribus facta est lux. Quid qui possem prohibere dextra mea exardescet sicut flavis lux." Tiny yellow markers would appear above each of the wolves. More energy drained from her. She might have to drop one of her final three spells. Probably the pyromancy, as geomancy itself would still be devastating, but with the rain pyromancy by itself would likely fizzle out and hardly do anything. It was about this time that she would hear Roland tell her to enact her plan now. Her next step would buy them all time, so that should be more than fine. It would only stun the creatures temporarily, though. Just long enough to make her job of aiming with the lightning easier.

"Clarissimum in die tenebras noctem. Non faciet male evadere facie mea. Venite adoremus illis qui in malo, ne, cave meis, viridi lux in lucerna." Suddenly, each of the wolves would stand still, as if they'd heard something calling out to them, or if they had been touched by something.

Sera watched her energy drop from those three spells. As rain began to fall from the clouds she had created, she knew that her original plan wouldn't work at all. She had only enough juice for one more spell, at the most, and even that would likely result in a mind down, especially since those first three spells were all rank one, and the following spells would require double the energy to cast them, being rank two spells. As a result, she modified her plan and decided to drop two of the three steps, and proceeded straight to what had been her originally intended last step.

"De mediis tenebris diem clarissimum nos pugnant qui illuxit nobis, ut mulier Lucia. Sit misericordia guide vos indico lucem. Nunc fulgur ruinam et percutiat animam meam peltas, et infectum infectum est quod notatum ab magicae!"

Lightning streaked down from the sky, piercing through the yellow markers above each wolf and striking the wolves themselves. Sera watched her energy crash downward even as she fell to the ground herself, her vision fading black. She knew she had hit all the wolves, or at least most of them. But had it done anything? Had she spent those four spells and not done enough? She supposed, in a slight sense, it didn't matter. It was up to Roland and Olive, now, to deal with any wolves in this immediate area that still survived. She knew that the alpha or big wolf they were supposed to be hunting wouldn't have been here. That would have been too easy. With one last grasp at consciousness in an effort to stay awake, Sera would fall to the damp ground, growing still wetter, and fade into unconsciousness. [MIND DOWN] would flash in her vision and above her even as she did so.

 

Olive watched as the wolves fell from that admittedly terrifying attack by the superhero-wannabe. "WHAT THE FUDGE?!" she yelled, on her knees and punching the teeth of the singular wolf she managed to defeat (albeit it was weakened and taken by surprise). Olive roared in defiance as lightning fell from the sky and, well, the display of power pissed Olive off even more. She shoved two derogatory fingers up at the brown-haired woman and snarled. "WATCH WHERE YOU'RE AIMING THOSE THINGS!" she shouted when a bolt narrowly streaked past her, electrifying the wolf below her and missing her by a hair's breadth.

She watched as the woman fell from the sky, fainting from the overuse of her magical abilities. Olive groaned, burying her face in her hands. It was as she had feared; her teammates were idiots. "WHAT KIND OF PERSON IS DUMB ENOUGH TO USE SO MUCH MAGIC THEY FUDGING FAINT?!" she screamed above to the Gods who have cursed her to live around such idiocy. That was definitely a problem Olive would never face, being much smarter than the fool in question.

She ignored whatever that guy with the sharpened stick was doing and instead opted to show her wrath. In fireballs. Needless to say, as she sprung out with the flames blasting ahead at no target, she barely managed to get a single flame out. [MIND DOWN].


@Roland Rutledge @Sera Phim