Raykbay prison
Maaris: "Relax, not like I'm planning to pick a fight with all of them. Just any who insist on making us stay here while who knows what goes on outside"
She jumped a little when someone grabbed her shoulder while she was deciding what to make of the shadows. But whatever they were they didn't seem to react as they went past to the barracks, so, whatever. And inside the barracks she nodded appreciatively as Aiofe experimented with her new weapon. "Very mystical"
Now for the hard part, every weapon presented a different set of strategies, strengths, and weakness to take into account. Had this been a game she would have already done some research to figure out what sort of fighting styles would suit her class or race best, but 'death' didn't come with a player's guide.
At length she settled on the pair of cestus that Runi had passed over, those would do. Whatever was going on out there they probably needed to move fast to get away from it, and that meant packing light. Plus the weaponized leather gloves seemed to fit perfectly as she pulled them on.
She had been about to consider looking for some lightweight armor, but Lana was already starting to move again. While the tanktop and shorts that she'd been wearing (under a layer or two) before her fatal accident were hardly protective, they were also light enough to give her some confidence of outrunning whatever madness was going on outside.
"You doing okay Runi? Looked like these gave you some trouble earlier"
Bona-Fide Mastah
The Barracks
Runi:“Hm?”
-Runi turns to face the gel girl-
“Oh, uh...uhm.”
'Calm thyself, you useless NEET! A girl is talking to you!
“I mean...yeah. There was...how do I explain this...”
-He taps his chin-
“Some kinda...voice in the back of my head? Told me I couldn’t use them.”
Nailed it
Galdra felt the pain in his voice and emphasized with it. "He's trying so hard... I'll help him out." He thinks.
"A voice in your head? That's like... a magic familiar or something, right? That's totally cool, isn't it, Maaris??" He says to her. His tone of voice is one of somewhat poor acting, yet he sounds excited, at least.
He gives Runi a smile of confidence.
"I wonder..." Galdra thinks. He swipes a finger in the air, trying to open his stats and inventory.
Edited by KingOfStickers on Feb 8th 2020 at 1:02:01 PM
Raykbay Prison - Barracks
Maaris looks a little concerned at Runi's description, and less than convinced at Galdra's attempt to explain it, but there was something amusing about the situation.
Maaris: "Familiar, huh? Well, whatever the case we'll have time to figure it out once we get somewhere safe"
She smiled and was about to turn to head for the portcullis when the Neko started pawing at the air. "What are you up to, Cat?"
Galdra sighs, giving an expression of defeat. "You knyow... nnn... NNNN—" He's clearly trying to give up on his strange accent, but his tongue is forcing him into it. He sighs instead.
"Nyevermind... Ok, so you knyow how in isekais, nyormally the main chawacter gets their own stats, wight? I don't seem to have any..." He says.
AKA Nixer
Aoife – Raykbay Prison
“Guess so...” Aoife hummed, a little cheered from Maaris' comment on the discus. “Still, it's a little weird... wonder why it did that... or what it's for...”
Runi's comment regarding the voice raised a questioning look (more specifically an eyebrow) but she elected not to comment—they had more pressing things to worry about, after all. Lana was already beelining for the portcullis, and she made a note to keep an eye on her. She seemed very action-oriented. It might end up backfiring if they weren't careful.
“Is anyone cold, actually?” she absently wondered, clutching her chin in thought as she glanced between them. Only to cock her head to one side in confusion as she witnessed Galdra gesturing in the air. His following explanation didn't do much to lessen said confusion.
“Ise... ise-what? Wait, stats?” she repeated, frowning a little and raising her hands as if to attempt herself. She didn't notice the discus steadily rotating itself back around to her front in response. “Let me try– WOAH!”
A burst of light and smoke forewarned what seemed to be a densely packed fireball, which blitzed past Galdra by about a foot before crashing into the opposite wall. Exactly how much damage it did to the surface of it Aoife had no idea, because she was by then clutching her right wrist with her left hand and looking down with it in slight panic.
After a while, the smouldering aura dissipated from around her arms and the floating discus obediently stowed itself away behind her once again.
“What... what the f$&%?!”
Edited by Enirboreh on Feb 8th 2020 at 8:45:57 PM
bork
Bona-Fide Mastah
Prison Barracks
Runi:Yeah...definitely once we get out...
-He nods-
I’m being pitied by a catboy...second chance at life is going well.
-He idly pulls back the crossbow string with one hand and loads a bolt-
-Blink-
Ok, I could get used to this.
-Runi jumps back from the sudden fireball-
Jesus! What the hell, Aofie!
-...really right back Into Maaris-
Edited by Skyzerk on Feb 8th 2020 at 3:48:29 PM
Galdra stood absolutely still, although he was nearly scared half to death by the suddenly burst of light. His fur raises. He does a small shriek.
"Holy cwap!! I was just about to die again!! Aoife, what the hell!?" He says, clearly annoyed.
Edited by KingOfStickers on Feb 8th 2020 at 8:52:56 PM
Fwomph
Raykbay Dungeon
The portcullis grinds open with decent speed once the lever is thrown, opening the way onwards to a tall, round room with a large doorway on the right hand side.
There would of been a wooden double door on that doorway, but it has been blasted off it's hinges, likely by the gangly assemblage of metal struts now fishing through the rubble. With a shudder it raises up from the scavenging and turns to regard the group with it's circular, blank, mirror-sheen 'face'.
Unrusted Scavenger Frame: Panoply detected. Acquiring.
And with that, it started running towards the group, 'arms' out and ready to flail at it's foes.
It's clearly a case of backroom political albumizing.
AKA Nixer
Aoife – Raykbay Prison
“Agh, I'm sorry okay! I just... was trying to copy you...” Aoife huffed, face going a deep red with shame as she turned away a moment and crossed her arms. “Okay, guess I... need to watch that. Whatever that was, it was sensitive. You sure I didn't actually hit you– oh CRAP!”
The charging robot soon snapped her out of her brief period of sulking, and she only had a moment to wonder why such an anachronistic creature existed in what she'd assumed to be a medieval time period before it was almost upon them. She yelped and backpedaled a few feet towards the way they had come, before remembering herself and forcing herself to refocus—this time letting the strange tingling sensation do as it wanted instead of ignoring it and instinctively maneuvering her hands in a series of floating patterns.
The smouldering, fiery discharge that had momentarily appeared from her person just earlier returned with a greater potency that increased alongside her movements, and the segmented disc split apart and corkscrewed around her arms before placing itself (almost as an aiming mechanism) just above her splayed fingers as she took aim. She didn't hesitate at all this time in letting the flames erupt from her hand, but once it had been successfully discharged she made sure to move to the side out of the way—just in case it was completely ineffectual.
That and she'd felt something within her drain upon releasing the fireball. She got the feeling it wasn't exactly a free action.
bork
Raykbay Prison - Barracks
Maaris: "Eh-?"
The gel girl steps back as the sudden fireball flies past, then freezes after catching him under the arms-
"R-Runi, What are you doing?!"
She quickly pushes him off and turns away crossing her arms. Fortunately for him the large, robotic looking thing approaching from the now open portcullis was more pressing.
"Never mind, Just grab your crossbow!"
With that she moved forward and to the side, ready to pounce at the thing and strike while it's potentially blinded once the flames have dissipated.
Galdra sighs. "I'm okay... just- WAH!?" He notices the crazy looking robot. He is absolutely shocked to his core, acting as if he is remember some traumatic past or something.
His first instinct was to hide behind Aoife after he dodged her fireball. He cautiously grabs the flail from the length of its chain, pulling it closer towards him.
He's shaking in place. He raises his flail and tosses it towards the giant robot, aiming towards the head. He does a grunt as he does so.
Fwomph
Raykbay Dungeons
The fireball splashes off the Frame, leaving ash marks where it hit and causing the machine to stagger before resuming the approach. But then Galdra uses the flail.
As the flail impacts the Unrusted Frame, each individual link of the chain jiggles like the physics-enabled object they are, bouncing against each other in a wonderful display of the game engine's rendering prowess—! And then the world slows. And then, for a moment, the world stops.
Patching...
Reality jumps back into motion. The Frame staggers back slowly, juddering through the animation as the flail returns to Galdra's hands... Different. It now lacks the usual metal sheen of a weapon, relegated now to a matte checkerboard of purple and black.
->Increased flail code efficiency, reducing lag for most users.
->Flails no longer use full physics-derived animations.
->Error discovery credit dispensed to Galdra.
The Frame slowly gets back up and tries to swing at the party. It's clearly a case of backroom political albumizing.
Bona-Fide Mastah
The Dungeons
-Runi boings and goes red a bit-
Runi:R-Right, sorry, got startled...
-And then the Frame appeared and began it's attack-
Oh, this isn't good, not good at all, right, cross bow...crossbow..."
-He raises the weapon to aim at the Frame...and then Galdra hits it.-
-And it...spazzes out-
"What...the...hell?"
-Whatever had happened, Runicas didn't know.-
"Ok, ok...do I have like...Skills or...Feats or...?"
Accessing Skills
-Suddenly words begin to fly through Runicas' head as he levels his crossbow-
"Ok...I think I'm getting this, voice head...then..."
-The bolt in the bow gains an orange outline-
"Aim...and...Focus Shot!"
-He pulls the trigger, sending the bolt flying at high speed at a joint of the Frame-
Edited by Skyzerk on Feb 8th 2020 at 5:50:19 AM
Galdra watches the robot spazz the fuck out. He chuckles at the robot- moreso as a way of relieving stress. However, it did remind him of a funny video game glitch.
"I'm... I think I'll stay back just a bit." He says as he watches Runi throw a blast.
He puts his hood over his head, hoping to not get noticed by the robot as he hides behind Maaris.
He finally notices the off textures on his flail. He squints at it, as though the brightness was affecting his eyes.
"This really is a poorly-coded fantasy world... huh." He says outloud to the others. It's quite hard to tell what he's thinking, as his expression remains blank. He simply has no opinion on the subject at hand.
Edited by KingOfStickers on Feb 8th 2020 at 11:04:40 AM
"Shit! Fuck!" Lana was first to get through the door and first to immediately scramble off to the left, away from the frame creature. She didn't know how to fight, and like hell was she going to go up against that in melee! But then again she had to do something! Shit! She had a spear to throw at least. Keeping her back to the wall she tried to pull out her spear to hurl it, not realizing that this shouldn't have worked with how close her arm was to the wall. She did notice when she tried to throw the spear and it just... stopped, rattling inside the wall and making hundreds of rapidfire bumping noises. As was her arm and parts of her left leg and hips.
"Guys, help!" She said, uncertain what else to do. She stammered, keeping her head and hand clear of the rattling spear. "The wall got me!!"
AKA Nixer
Aoife – Rakbay Dungeons
Okay, this is getting ridiculous.
The entire world seemed to be breaking around her, but Aoife was finally pegging as to what was going on. The shadows being 2D static images she could almost pass by. The flail becoming untextured and Lana being slowly eaten by a wall via glitching spear was too much to ignore.
“Holy crap you were actually right,” she almost sighed, a tone of resignation entering her voice as she glanced for a second over at Galdra. “This is some sorta... buggy, not-real fantasy thing isn't it...?”
So this is where I go when I die. Who'd have f$&%ing thought. At least the texturing is nice...
She could just about feel an existential crisis coming on, but virtual or no their lives were about to be snuffed out by a killer robot. So at least for that very moment she forced herself to concentrate on the fight and not have a panic attack then and there.
For instance, Lana was stuck in the wall, and countless hours in multiple MMORPGs told her that either she'd fall out of the world if she managed to clip through it or she'd just reset somehow. She hoped it was the latter. She wasn't sure if they could die here or not yet. She didn't really want to find out like this.
“Lana, hold on!” she called out, swirling out another fireball from her palm before rushing over to her side. “Okay just... I probably can't touch you because that might make things worse! Can you try... easing yourself out? I'll cover you, okay?”
She tried to ease a sense of calm into her words despite the fact she had no idea what to do regarding Lana's situation. Plus she was now fearing she'd hit a bug of her own. And what that'd be.
C'mon, Aoif. Just focus. Kill this thing and then we can handle everything else.
A mental pause.
Like the sixty other instances of this thing that might spawn. Ooh, or a boss. Even f$&%ing better.
Edited by Enirboreh on Feb 8th 2020 at 11:57:46 AM
bork
Galdra... had no idea what to do. A hundred thoughts are rushing through his mind and he can't keep track of them all.
He's wondering if he made things worse, or if this is some sort of punishment for not going out that much, or if he was really just in some intense drug trip, if everyone else hated him now... His first instinct was to help.
He flings the flail upward by accident, the adrenaline messing with his aim and concentration. The non-spiked part of the flail bonked him on the head. He's gone....
Wait, nevermind. He's behind Aoife now... aaaand he blinked away again, about 5 seconds later. He was now spamming all over the place, his expression of fear and confusion being covered by the shadows of his hood.
"Make it stop!!" He thinks. The flail responds to his thoughts almost instantly, as he slows to a stop.... The textures on his flail return to normal, and Galdra is left standing on the floor directly in front of Runi. He breaks down, and starts to sob; albeit quietly as he doesn't enjoy people seeing him do so.
Edited by KingOfStickers on Feb 8th 2020 at 12:24:54 PM
Raykbay Prison - Barracks
Maaris was about to leap in to action, when suddenly the robot just, spazzed out and- Patch notes?
Maaris: "Wu- The hell?"
In the confusion that followed, she simply stood her ground for a moment in front of Galdra... Before he suddenly? Kind of like a player caught in a lag spike.
"Oh god this really is an Isekai... Okay-" And then she noticed Lana was not just trapped on the other side of the mechanical beast, but sinking into the wall "-Damnit, don't tell me this place has wall mimics too!"
Don't worry about that, Aoife is on it, what can your lazy ass do? Think video game, think protagonist
Maaris took a deep breath to calm herself and stepped forward, attempting to position herself between the strike and as many party members as possible while not thinking too hard about whether this world had a Hit Point system and if so, theoretically whether that meant she wouldn't be able to take lethal damage until those ran out, or if a strike to a vital spot means more HP loss. After all, slimes don't have bones to break or vital organs to damage... Right?
She struck a defensive pose and braced for impact.
"Steel Defense!"
Fwomph
Raykbay Prison
The crossbow hits home on the lagging machinoform, cracking the mirror-face. It starts glowing from the crack... When the world stops again.
Patching...
Lana clips through the wall, half-embedded. Her weapon rattles and tries to dislodge itself but only serves to push her slowly deeper through the surface.
Maaris' spell goes off, her gooey surface picking up a subtle metallic sheen... Then another, and another layer. More layers of sheen pile up until she looks like flowing mercury.
->Fixed an issue where the animations for javelin weapons did not properly interact with solid objects.
->Added a minimum armor value to prevent a bug involving null-to-negative armor values and Armor spells.
->Error discovery credits dispensed to Lana and Maaris.
The robot resumes glowing, the faceplate cracking more before it bursts, releasing a few items: A book with "Haste (I)" on the cover, a small pouch of coins and a small glass cylinder filled with clear liquid. The rest of the frame falls to the ground and goes still. It's clearly a case of backroom political albumizing.
Bona-Fide Mastah
The Barracks
Runi:Bulls-
-The patch notes interrupt him-
-And then time resumes-
-eye!
-beat-
Eh?
Those patch notes again...this really is like some VRPG back home...
-He clears his throat-
So uh...I killed it? Loots mine then?
-He walks past the sniveling neko and newly shiny Maaris.-
“Yo, fuzz head. Fight’s over.”
-Runi bends down to pick up the spell book-
“Haste (I) huh?”
Compatible spell acquired. Would you like to learn this spell?
-A green Y appears over his left eye and a red N over his right.-
“Woah!”
-He looks around bewildered, closing his left eye in some shock-
-The book bursts into data and travels through his arm-
Spell acquired. Haste(1s). Passive skill acquired. Elven Progression, Spells Will now grow with level.
-And with a flash, the process finishes-
-Runi whistles satisfactorily-
Raykbay Prison
Maaris flinched as the blow came... And totally bounced off of her now metallic body as the patch notes arrived.
Maaris: "Huh?"
And the creature was down.
...That was minimum armor value? I'm not sure that thing even did scratch damage.
She paid little attention to Runicus' question until after he'd used the spellbook, she was too busy being relieved the monster went down easy and that Lana was just clipping rather than being eaten by another monster. And it's not like her attempt at tanking really did much to help this time.
"Hey, Aoife and Galdra did damage too, at least split the coins with them"
Edited by BlitzTrain on Feb 8th 2020 at 8:10:10 AM
Galdra stood sniffling as he watched the rest of the team finish off the boss. He's a bit more calm now. "Coins sound nice..." He says in a weak tone as he wiped away his tears.
"So, um." He begins. "Guess we should head out now. Or do we want more loot from this place? They might be worth selling..."
"Okay, okay, focus, okay." Lana said, trying to take a deep breath or something like Aoife suggested. "I think I'll be okay. I'm just going to..."
Lana reached out and firmly grasped the shaft of her spear, steadying it even if she could certainly feel the shaking go all the way into her collarbone. "I think I've got this." She put the spear back in her belt, and stepped back out of the wall. "So, videogame rules, then? Wild, hell of a dream here. I don't play much more than Fortnite and stuff, what am I going to be seeing if I go all the way through, nerds? I felt empty air on the other side. I think that's more important than any loot right now, making sure we know what's happening here."
Edited by Taco on Feb 8th 2020 at 8:43:32 AM
"Spear! Hell yes!" Lana read exactly enough pop history to know that swords were obviously lame, and that the underappreciated knife-on-a-stick right here was what she wanted. Reach, force, and just as sharp as any spear, that was what Neil "The Grass" Tyson's twitter always said. Just as overlooked as the spear was something even more plain: a toolbelt! Lana strapped that on over her dress, threaded the spear through her belt, and turned around to finally see what everyone was freaking out about. For some reason it definitely got her, good, and sent a spike of panic through her. Probably because at first it felt like a ghost or something, and then painted-on shadows, but then that sort of circled around into what the fuck did that?!
"Okay, okay, let's get fucking going!" She commanded, and kept on moving forward, toward the portcullis. Not stopping to check after the shadows she put her back into throwing open the portcullis lever for whatever was on the other side; anything was better than this shit here.