You seek out Hikaru as soon as you can, hauling yourself to the roof of the town's lighthouse. He's backlit by the sweep of the great lantern when you see him, his small and winged silhouette another reminder that neither of you are home.
"Are you alright?" he asks, tilting his head towards you. "Your request seemed uncharacteristically clipped."
Steady that breathing. "At the first fight, outside the gate. You remember I, uh, called my attack?"
"I do," he says, smiling. "I'm not sure your belt is quite ornate enough for it, but we can fix that in town, I'm sure."
"The pirate's tank didn't find it as funny," you say.
Hikaru shrugs. "Well, there's no according for -"
He stops, putting a hand to his chin, and turns to face you. Looking up at your face, and frowning.
"You're certain he got the reference," he says. It's not a question.
"Why would a..." you struggle for the right word for a second. "...a
local think that calling an attack is unusual? Adventurers use all sorts of incantations. But this guy turned to me in the middle of a fight to mouth 'seriously?' because I was referencing fucking Kikaiser."
Hikaru pinched the bridge of his nose and rubbed. "Players with the pirates. That...
tremendously complicates an already delicate situation."
You bite back a
yeah, you think? and facepalm instead.
easy wikiwalk said:
"Meaning a lot more midbosses are running around taking
slaves," you hiss. "We have to do something about this."
"Midbosses? - Ah, yes, we would seem like that," he agrees. "We do need to do something."
You curl your fists and nod.
He holds up his hand. "However."
"We need to figure out
what to do, together," you say, looking askance at him. It's something he's fond of saying before a raid, or other risky business.
"Exactly," he says. "Let's get the party on the line, and figure out what to tell the Captain -
who absolutely needs to hear this from one of us - and what to do about... these griefers."
You sigh, and nod. There's no logical objection you can muster.
It's been two days and you're already tired of this.
"And Deedee."
"Yeah?" You turn to him.
He sighs, and says, quite simply:
"Thank you for trusting me with this."
You give him a thumbs up and manage half a smile.
"I don't need this," Alesha sighs.
"None of us need this shit," Sekhmet opines. "But there it is and here
we are, so we better do something about it."
"Did I say we wouldn't?" Alesha says, glaring at Sekhmet from over her hand. Her bare hand; she had taken off her armor for the feast, just wearing her arming jacket. Ace, sensibly enough, had followed her lead; she was rolling her arm and wincing as she tried to make sense of the situation.
All of the party had some wounds and aches from two battles in a row; all of you were tired, and it being close to night didn't really help. You look down at your hands on the table at the tavern, nursing something that seems to be mostly citrus to have the citrus in you (you didn't know if this game modeled scurvy, but the Captain had treated his lime juice like it did and you didn't want to find out the hard way), trying to read the room.
empathy said:
Alesha is definitely more offended by the players who went pirate than by your warning, at least. Ace was more... resigned, this sort of Screaming Twenties kid's attitude of
this may as well be happening than panic. Hikaru had... Hikaru would probably get the reference if you told him he'd 'gone crystalline,' cold anger turned to zen calculation of his ethical calculus as he visibly cogitated over what right action and right intention even meant right now.
Sekhmet absolutely wanted to hoist the red and black and introduce some assholes to a baseball bat, but this was also Jules' attitude to IRL slavers and thieves from the poor, and they were never that difficult for you to read.
Cautiously, you say, "If we don't deal with these guys now, they'll rest up and hit the town again after we're gone."
"Unless the galleon from the mainland that's picking us up tomorrow deals with them," Alesha points out. "Or we tell Valencia what to expect, he asks for it, and he deals with it when we're gone."
"Absolving us of responsibility," Hikaru says. "The question then becomes 'do we think they can handle it.'"
"Aren't adventurers stupidly powerful compared to trash mobs?" Sekhmet asks.
Ace shrugs. "How do you tell the difference here? Are players just straight up badder asses than the locals? That seems a little messed up."
"According to the class training quests, the process of investing power in an Adventurer is expensive and time consuming," Hikaru says. "Player character adventurers are the beneficiaries of this process - not the
only group so empowered, but the
biggest one. Miles Valencia himself is likely equivalent to a second or third level Oathsworn, a Hospitaller or an Auroran Paladin; his command assuredly is
not a match for player characters
."
"So five of us can take how many of them?" Ace says. "Five? A dozen? Two dozen?"
"Theoretically, an Elite is worth two standard enemies of the same level," Hikaru says. "Practically, tactics and party composition can overcome tactical weakness at the same level, and if you're completely outleveled scoring a hit approaches mathematical impossibility. This isn't the case
yet."
You roll your shoulders. You hate this so much. "Meaning that every time the guard here fails to stop them, the gap widens, because guards are trash mob equivalents."
"The more they grind, the starker the difference gets," Alesha says, eyes closed. "Damn it. We
should intervene."
"Outstanding. Definitely how I wanted to spend my evening," Sekhmet says, rolling her eyes.
Ace just sighs.
Alesha leans back and looks up in the sky.
"...we have two, maybe three hours to do this and still have daylight," she says. Auroran boons kicking in again. "I'll tell the Captain what's up, then we do what healing and resting we need to do and we move out as a party to find them. Meet me here in an hour and a half, we make our move then. All in favor?"
There's a chorus of subdued or sighed
"ayes." She doesn't bother to count nays.
Everyone gets up and stretches: you look around at the party, try to sense which ones are carrying hurt, who's hiding it, who can't. And your eyes light on the one who's wincing and who's body language is the most constrained...
"Ace," you say, quietly. "How hurt are you?"
"Bad enough. I heal fast so it's
probably fine," she says, looking up at you.
Those eyes are really, really wide and purple and you shiver.
But you're the healer; you ought to offer.
"If you want some more assurance I can lay on hands," you say, opening your palms to her, face up, at your waist.
"Is that a - you did it for Hikaru, of course it's a thing." She rolls her shoulders, winces, then her neck, and you
hear the crack and wince with her. "I could
probably use the healing, although."
"Although?"
"In literally
any other time and place I'd wonder if you were hitting on me," she says.
You can't read her expression or judge her tone and frankly your turning bright red and your breath catching isn't helping.
You feel a weight on your shoulder, and turn.
To see an elbow resting on it.
You follow it up to the grinning feline face of Sekhmet.
"Hey, Deeds?" they say. "This is the part where you go 'only if you want me to be.' Fingerguns optional
."
You bury your face in your hands, and hear Ace's cawed laughter, and wonder if you'll wake up at the cathedral in the middle of
Costa Dulce when you next open your eyes because
you're pretty sure you're dying.
"Don't move your hands around too much without warning me," Ace says as she lies down on the bed, propping her waist and head up with pillows.
"Right," you say, face still burning, as you warm up the oil in your palms. "I promise this is just healing, no matter what my idiot roommate has to say."
"Not what I meant, asshole," she says, and you
think it's amused enough. "I didn't
think she was warning me, more like she decided to be
helpful at the wrong time."
Privately you think it worked, in as much as you're able to joke about it with Ace now, but rather than saying that you shrug as you lean over her. "She wants the best for me and has a funny way of showing it," you say - then, "I'm going to press into your shoulders, alright?"
She nods assent, and you
feel her exhale as you press down. "I think you mentioned she was your roommate...?" Ace asks. " - right under my shoulders, it's hurting for
some reason."
"Check," you say, gliding down, thankful for the normal conversation. When you find the spot, she grunts and sinks deeper into the pillow. "I think it's been like two-three years now. Got her a job at the convenience store too."
"Mmmm... got it, so that was Sekhmet's revenge," she says. "- ease off a bit."
You chuckle, and you lighten the pressure. "Believe it or not, that's not the worst job she's ever had - you'll have to ask her about it. I would probably bury a body for her. Or tell her to put away the gun before we needed to."
"In my experience you need the second one more," Ace sighs. "...mn, okay. Hit up my lower back, I'll tell you where to stop."
"Sure," you say, trailing your hands down on either side of her spine,
slowly.
Ace makes an appreciative noise when you find the right spot, which is a fair bit lower than you would have dared without her actual guidance, and you take a deep breath. Her tail twitches, accidentally brushing the inside of your wrist, and you take another.
"Feeling better?" you ask, softly.
Ace's Resolve + Least Boon of Eranda said:
She makes a sort of hum, before answering with words. "Yeah. Yeah this... helps. I got a
lot of beat up through the armor without realizing."
"Good," you say, relieved. "Wouldn't want to go at this pirate's den all beat up."
"I wouldn't want to go at a pirates den at all, I just like the idea of idiots running around LARPing as pirates even less," Ace growls. "Most of us just wanted to play a game. I would have left Mundus the hell alone after the demo expired if the anime gods didn't decide to drop-kick us here."
You stop, for a moment, resting your hands on her hips instead of breaking contact, to catch your breath and figure out where she's coming from.
"Don't get me wrong, this situation sucks and I hate it, but I'll be damned if I let these assholes make it even worse," Ace snarls. Then shudders. "Ugh, this just... pisses me off."
"Yeah," you say, automatically. "I wouldn't want to be the kind of man that doesn't clean up my own messes."
There's a brief moment where you both take a moment to realize what you just said. You grimace, and your ears flatten, and you try to take your hands away.
Ace stops you, her hand on your
(thinner, yet stronger) wrist, turning her head to look at you.
"I'm sorry," you say, and it comes out as babble. "I didn't mean to hide it from you or anything, or - or to trick you, or -"
"Deedee," she says, and she sounds weirdly sad, "I know that. It just kinda figures. I'm not mad."
This is just healing, anyway, and you know she's into girls, and you didn't mean anything by it. You try to stuff your heart back in your chest.
"Thank you," you say.
"Should I put on my shirt?" she asks, smirking.
"...if you'd rather, the rest is working on your arms," you concede.
She flops back down. "Meh. I'll wait."
Leadership said:
You two try to see if Cora or any of the others are still around to join you, but all of them are too tired to go off without an explanation you're not sure if you can provide, or trust them with. So you and Ace meet the other three members of your party at the table, and you stifle a yawn as you sit.
"No luck getting a sixth," Sekhmet says. "The stoner cat made it clear he and the pixie were a pair. They did give us some lovely parting gifts. So did the other alkycat: she somehow wasn't
surprised."
Sekhmet puts those potions on the table. You stretch a little as you grab a couple, including some of the lightly glowing cyan Potions of Breath.
"The Captain has been apprised of the danger and assures us that he will consider them outliers to the conduct of the Adventurers as a whole," Alesha says, sighing deeper into her seat. "He also very helpfully provided us with a map and marked probably pirate bases, but it isn't exactly up to modern standards."
"Which is why I took it to an Ionian priest deeper in town to get a better one," Hikaru says, grinning.
He raises his palms, and you and Sekhmet definitely do not leave him hanging.
"Right," Sekhmet says. "We need to move fast and hit hard. I can do some forward scouting without being seen and report back."
"Otherwise stick to standard formations," Alesha says. "Hikaru next to me, Deedee close at hand, Ace initiating. Think you can handle it?"
"Initiating in like the MOBA sense?" Ace asks.
"You know it," Sekhmet replies.
"I'm ready," you say.
And so you're off.
This monster update is getting too long and is to be concluded on Tuesday. However, I'll put in a vote now and open it at midnight:
What booty will ye be plunderin from the plunderers?
(Approval vote, most popular 2 win.)
[] Better weapons.
[] Better armor.
[] A relic sacred to Flamma.
[] An accessory with a buffing spell.
[] An accessory with a debuffing spell.
[] Valuable gemstones, for resale or enchantment.
This is for Deedee specifically:
the others will take their own equipment, possibly things from this list that you don't.
