Succubusekai: The Demoness Just Wanted To Stay With Her Friends! [Original-Ish] [Quest]

I basically offered the artist carte blanche with some inspirations, and well, the result is good I think

Putting on record that I'm definitely going to hang onto Eterniboss for a future gag; I feel like I underlored it in comparison possibly.

[x] (Paladin Discovery Risk) Stick to Paladin, you know it and you do well at it; doing right by your online associates is more important than the risk of embarrassment.
[x] (Avatar Discovery Risk) Screw it, you're still you, keep the avatar!
[X] (Senaz's Energy Drink Of Choice) Demon Energy Drink, with the jagged-edged "D" On one side and various brandings on the other; the MANrog MANgo flavor (which gets pride branding in June) depicts something legally distinct from the Balrog as depicted in the Lord of the Rings films, and has a sweeter fruit taste than most of the brand. Incidentally, they've also done AWO-branded editions; a rather large chunk of the fandom agrees the Flamma Fruit Punch flavor should've been sold as a counterpart to the infamous Rockstar 21. (For the unaware: It was a 6% Alcohol-by-volume version of Rockstar, which was Rather Quickly discontinued to the point where googling it tends to get you references to the cancellation.)

[X] (Team Two) Rebecca - Alchemist/wildcard. There's always someone who brings a "normal iRL" sort of name that stands out in an MMO. Senaz isn't even sure whether or not it's her real name; she doesn't talk much about herself out of game. But she's skilled, flexible, and reliable.
[X] (Team Two): CommPoser (PSY), a TK-based Mezzer/DPS who has this weird sense that he's just sort of sleeping through everything? nice TWEWY reference tho.
[x] (Team Two): Class: Stellar Lancer Role: burst dps mobility spellblade, space/cosmic spells/debuffs secondary battlefield control skills

… The couches in the Guild Mansion look comfy. More importantly, they're sorted into rooms, making conversation for specific teams easier. Given how the fights are organized, it's much easier to coordinate this way.

It lets you look around at your team.

You, the tank with off-DPS. Your look may resemble your new IRL appearance, but your outfit sure doesn't.

Then there's ToxinJam - DPS with some Mezzer via Archery. A bit of a dudebro, sure, but his poison-happy build is very reliable, and his darty playstyle makes him easy for the healers to keep up with.

NoiseShocker, team lead, Gets You, and is a capable a Healer/Buffer.

Then there's Rebecca, your Buffer with some offheal and DPS. You're not sure if it's her real name or not, but her avatar usually runs plain - human with shoulder-length brown hair, not the default options but not too wild either, her Alchemist style runs plain, and she likes to focus on in-game topics when talking. Who knows who's behind the screen… But her support is reliable.

CommPoser, your Psychic and Mezzer. He always sounds tired when on voice. Always. But his playstyle, while leaning towards the sedate - only move as much as needed, focus on getting the action loop just right - is a good match for teams of adds - that is, your optimal realm as a tank.

And then there's STARMember, who runs the aerial-heavy Stellar Lancer class - a DPS with some Mezzer again, who can set AoEs to punish adds and sometimes block paths via walls, trying to force foes to strike her from the front where she can hammer them with cone AOEs. Stellar Lancer's a bit tricky in many parties, because their primary debuffs are bleeds and slows - fortunately, this plays nicely with CommPoser's lockdowns and ToxinJam's poisons to get the damage piling on quickly.

It's a team, and it's pretty good.

You're the first to speak up - local area chat limits voice to basically two specific couches, keeping it manageable for a group of twenty-four.

"Today's happened," you start, "and now raid's happening."

NoiseShocker chuckles. "Right. How many days has it been for you?"

"About the same couple days as you, honestly. Like… It's weird."

STARMember pauses. "Okay, so, you mentioned the time flow thing. And you've got, I think you said two other people with you?"

"Yeah."

"And since they know about the apartment, they're probably sleeping in it, during which time your subjective experience of time is flowing because you're likely in there with them."

"That's about right."

"So, like, two days for us is closer to four for you, give or take?"

"Enough that I've got a dedicated clock for keeping track of west coast time, yes."

"... Do potions of healing exist?"

"What?"

"I'd stockpile some. It sounds like you could show up to raid with some hefty injuries you need to treat before starting."

You blink. "I mean, I'm actually kinda supernaturally tough, so I don't think that's as big an issue, but…"

The Stellar Lancer shakes his head. "It's worth thinking about. Just like truck safety is raid effectiveness."

You blink. "Um, that's. A way to-"

"I'm a local-haul trucker, remember? Keeping myself safe is part of my raid effectiveness." You actually didn't, STARMember doesn't talk about his day job much, but-

NoiseShocker looks a bit annoyed as she responds, "And R9 was hit by one which starts all this. I have the news report."

"Wait, there was a news report?", you can't help but ask.

"Yep."

"Not sure I wanna see that."

"No photos, thankfully. It was like, three paragraphs. No one's noticed, um."

"That I'm still employed, and raiding? Yeah, wouldn't expect an average journalist to poke a random accident unless they, like, thought something was wrong." You sigh a bit. "Too many other things going on, after all."

"Right. And it's not like you want to correct the record, I'm guessing?"

"I can only imagine what that would look like, especially around the point Fucks News-" - word choice very intentional - "- got their hands on the story. So, yeah, I'll just keep being an anonymous Succubutt."

STARMember pauses. "Can't blame you there."

Rebecca pauses. "Leaning in towards our collective point for gathering, should we start the checks?"

NoiseShocker nods. "All gear on your best-available?"

You open your inventory window, quickly do a comparison, and nod about two seconds after STARMember and three before CommPoser. "Confirmed."

"Appropriate buff foods?"

Everyone's "Yes" takes under a second."

"Potions?"

This one takes you quite a bit longer - Flamma spec means that occupies a good bit of your hotbar and active inventory. STARMember is visibly tapping his foot by the time you say, "Confirmed."

"We've got 35 minutes to entry. Do we want to do a warmup roulette?"

Three "Nos" immediately stop you from saying yes.

"IRL water and food?"

You respond by picking up your energy drink can. "Today in cosmic ironies, the last couple energy drinks in my apartment are Demon Manrog Mangoes."

"I mean," STARMember observes, "They're like, number one in the 160-milligram category of energy drinks, aren't they? So statistically…"

NoiseShocker pauses. "Isn't Rapstar still a bit bigger?"

"God, Rapstar tastes like hell," STARMember responds. You never thought it tasted that bad, though the original formula is way better than the revised…

You blink a bit. "Still definitely in the 'funny' category. Especially since I kinda mix which ones I get most of the time."

This gets a bit of a shrug from Rebecca. "I mean, fair enough. Sounds like we're about set, though."

You nod. "Boss review, then?"

NoiseShocker nods. "Our target for this raid night is Reynard and Sylvia, the 'two-headed' - or two-bodied, really - Divine Beast of Sylphan of the Winds. Teams one and three will be the primary tanks on them - each of them hits almost as hard as a solo raid boss on autoattacks, so expect extra pressure, Rebecca and myself. Cleanses will be more urgent in general, though, so keep that in mind."

You nod. "And, of course, there's my primary role. The Rats, the rats, adds are rats, they play at night they stalk at night, they're the rats."

"Stab the big rat that makes all the rules, so the twins can't see what they'll get up to," NoiseShocker finishes. "Ideally we need to bring ALL the rats down, but big ones, if either gets a chance to chomp, can negate an entire minutes' worth of DPS with how big the heal is. Except when called for Rushdown Phase, all of our damage should be focused on big rats first, then smalls, with an exception for ones that get the target marker going faster."

"... You know," you say. "It's odd that killing them stops the Twins chomping them. You'd think they'd be easier to eat if dead."

"Do you want to have to pack knockbacks to clear them off the stage or something?!", NoiseShocker responds.

"O-okay fair." You blink. "And then there's the Spinner."

"Yeah. Entire field lights in sections, then the sections rotate to align, fast enough to forcefully move you into range of attacks. Nasty stuff. When the floor lights up, check which section each of them is standing on, then get yourself and the adds to different-colored sections."

NoiseShocker's emphasis on 'and the adds' reminds you what went wrong last time. "R-right. Sorry," you mutter.

"It's a weird one," NoiseShocker responds. "I'll try to run callouts. We'll be on focus comms, as before, but still keep it down." Focus Comms meaning everyone except team captains shut up unless somethings' going wrong. Easy enough.

You nod. "Right."

And then, you sit back a bit. "Thank you, queueing from the house."

***

So the only way I'm breaking the writer's block is to Get Writing. No vote this time; the impacts of the last vote are still applicable.

Next time... A more chaotic action sequence begins. (And probably finishes, for the sake of maybe reaching the next chapter before a family trip.)

The load time finishes, and you are in an empty field, ringed with stone and lined in three rings with dead grass.

Before you is a pair of fox-like beings - paws for feet and hands, a fox's head, and yet still carrying their staves. One to the left, one to the right.

Marks appear on the ground, set by teams one and three. One is near the center, by a less-than-conspicuous hole.

You glance towards NoiseShocker, and activate your stance. One last glance at your item hotbars.

And then, two people are moving - the tanks of teams one and three. Team four is behind the latter, all charging in to start heavier DPS on Sylvia first.

Three, two, one, in. You use a special to leap directly in front of the rat's spawn point.

Three, two, one, and the sound of Reynard sniggering accompanies the first trio of rats spawning. You don't keep every mechanic gauge up, but one that you do clearly says: "Reynard Chomp: 30s" - in other words, that's how long to take the first wave of rats out.

A sweep kick gets all three zoned in on you. Four potions and two buff actions get your defenses up and their attention secured enough for the rest of the team to dive in, the first wave of buffs and debuffs kicking in as you begin your strikes - largest rat first.

Floor turns blue. Jump back, wind slices through where you were standing (somehow not harming the rats), jump back in. Easy enough - it's more to force you to split attention.

Rat begins to glow. Cool girls don't look at explosions, especially ones that inflict the Blind debuff, even if it costs a second or two of DPS - you're not going to risk it.

Explosion occurs. Immediately spin around, use a cooldown to block two big bites from the small rats, sweep kick to keep meters up - big rat drops dead. AoEs take out the smalls.

Reynard suddenly loses interest in the tank on him, diving for the center - you use a vertical leap to clear him, get one hit from above, and then he leaps back to where he was as you land. A bit of a riskier move than just moving away from the gap, but as the second group of rats spawn and the timer for Sylvia's turn pops up, you are already in mid sweep kick to lock attention - faster drops may buy your ranged DPS a few tags on the Twins alongside team four, now switching over to hit Reynard.

Maintain Focus (4dF+3): 0-0+ = 3

This goes on for three cycles - Sylvia, Reynard again, Sylvia again. Then, Sylvia speaks. "I think it's time we put a new spin on these adventurers!"

The rats spawn. Sweep kick. All of the grass is lighting in a borderline kaleidoscope, and both twins are charging a big attack.

Reynard's under blue. Sylvia under green. They'll both hit the entire center section.

Yellow is in front of you. One WIld Leap gets you there. The rats follow, as your DPS scatter a bit - two into green, that's gonna hurt-

The field spins. Thankfully, the camera stays pointed north for this, keeping it from being dizzying. Reynard's close enough for you to get a couple hits in, but as his wind forms a tornado in the center, then conically blasts out hitting just one DPS, you grin.

First spinner landed. Should be four more before the phase swap. Back to the middle with the rats, to better prep for the next.

---

At seven minutes in, Reynard and Sylvia suddenly jump north - out of the ring, and untargetable.

Zero rats have been eaten this time. You've made the phase transition perfectly.

Your team… Mostly so much. Not perfectly, but closer.

The secret of these sorts of phase transitions, is they're often meant to be a breather. A perfect chance to take a big swig of water, energy drink, or beer (if you're in a more casual group or on lighter difficulties). You are not missing that opportunity - one hand goes to in front of your keyboard to grab the Demon, the other stretches a bit.

A good sip of mango-esque (it's apparently concentrated juice? Doesn't taste like you'd expect it to be, but you've never had straight mango juice before…) flavor, a moment of kickyfeet, and both arms refreshed a bit, you prepare for -

A big green orb full of feather-like shapes appears. It's time for the rushdown phase - switch your buffs to maximum damage, and break the orb to bounce it back on the Twins.

Kick, punch, it's all in the mind. Or rather, the rhythm of actions, as you run through a different action cycle.

The orb launches away from you - success, with time to spare, as it stops between the Twins, who both look at it in surprise before it explodes, sending them flying (well, more than they already were). Their lifebars drop by a rather obvious chunk, as Phase two begins.

This time, the mechanic reads "Both Chomp: 25s". Tighter time limit, higher failure consequence. As long as you stay on the ball, and the DPS where's STARMember, check lifebars, what dropped her, speed up speed up, NoiseShocker is one step too close and eats a wave, forcing a self-heal rather than getting STARMember back up, and right as the Twins are diving on you with one rat still up, one of the tanks drops.

NoiseShocker's wince is audible over voice. "Crap. Captain says wipe it up."

---

Back in the mansion, you sigh. Your avatar is flopped onto the couch inelegantly.

At least you didn't make the mistake this time. Also, team got a bit further.

"So, time to try again?", you respond.

NoiseShocker's avatar shakes her head. "I mean, yes, but fifteen minutes break first. Bathroom, water, et cetera."

You nod, and stretch a bit, standing up and heading out to walk a bit. Good for the head, maybe.

You step towards the front of the apartment. Nothing's out of place, door's still cracked open so that morning comes on Aridia around when Eira and Helen are likely to wake up. You glance outside - door to the inn room is undisturbed, window's still closed.

You don't really have any reason to be paranoid, but you still feel like basic checks are a good idea to get adjusted to, especially when using the Apartment - the longer you keep it a secret outside of those you have chosen to trust, the better off you are.

Satisfied you're safe on that front for tonight, you glance at the… Increasingly empty refrigerator. Sigh. Restocking soon, you guess. From your regular bank account. (Figuring out ways to get between earth currency and local currencies remains in the objectives list - you could very easily wind up much better off in one than the other.)

Introducing Eira to sodas - and Helen to 21st-century sodas - could be interesting. Tastes around here are… Vastly different, in part due to less use of manufactured stuff. Makes you miss something about home kind of.

But, for now, some water, some stretch time, and another attempt. And a few more, before you pivot to other tasks to whittle away the night.

***

I will probably be abstracting the other few attempts at the raids (damn that would get repetitious), to progress to the next morning and the Online Shopping vote from several back resolving.

Given that the core of the system is now entirely under Creative Commons and the OGL threat is gone for now, I'm not going to try and do a system change for Succubusekai anymore. That said, I do like the flavor of Earthside activities not using Aridiaside rules - see how the post had Senaz rolling Fate Dice.

I don't intend to go too heavy on the system for Earthside activities, but there's two ways I've thought of as to how to do this, and so, here's a vote:

[ ] (Earthside Ruleset) Use Fate Dice as the basis. Simpler, faster, and easier for posters to roll (4d3-8 is identical), though less refined than the alternative.
[ ] (Earthside Ruleset) Use Genesys Dice as the basis. More complicated and requires an external roller, but damn if they aren't cool dice, and the Success Separate From Advantage scheme is really cool in my book. (I'm not yet so hot on the system itself, but I don't have a massive sample of it.)

Thank you for your patience as I work to get momentum going on this again, and I hope you enjoyed this post!

EDIT: Font tags removed; the copy-paste between Google Docs and here seems to have shifted a bit.