Bay 12 Games Forum

"Talking about Revivians and their weird customs, duh. You mortals should know all about that."

First Class Level 3.

26, 46, 71, 87, 6, 9, 8, 2

42-1 gains HP, LCK, DEF, RES and SPD.

24, 20, -, 48, 30, 2, 71, 9

Asuna gains HP, STR, SKL, LCK, DEF, and SPD.

57, 20, -, 20, 13, 13, 49, 52

Jenkins gains HP, STR, SKL, LCK, DEF, and SPD.

40, 15, -, 51, 53, 50, 25, 51

Jarvis gains HP, STR, SKL, DEF, RES and SPD.

5, -, 23, 8, 31, Auto, Auto, 21

Keilee gains HP, MAG, SKL, LCK, DEF, RES and SPD.

52, 32, -, 43, 8, 54, 10, 23

Keith gains HP, STR, SKL, LCK, DEF, RES and SPD.

48, 34, -, 7, 77, 53, 74, 9

Lilian gains HP, STR, SKL, LCK, and SPD.

Auto, 3, -, 72, -, 28, 31, -

Marcia gains HP, SKL, DEF and RES.

30, 20, 3, 36, 93, 49, 31, 58

Rosencrantz gains HP, STR, MAG, SKL, DEF, RES and SPD.

49, -, 51, 50, 54, 16, 4, 56

Selene gains HP, MAG, SKL, LCK, DEF, RES, and SPD.

89, -, 58, 15, -, 45, 13, 45

Serena gains HP, MAG, SKL, RES and SPD.

8, 39, - 28, 21, 3, 7, 21

Shoes gains HP, SKL, LCK, DEF, RES, and SPD.

5, 63, 92, 67, 23, 3, 53, 51

Vlad gains HP, LCK, DEF, and SPD.

43, 32, -, 68, 39, 62, 30, 39

Yliss gains HP, STR, LCK, and SPD.

"Oh, don't even give me that, succubus. What do you think the Demon Lord is, a human?"

Lautia closes his eyes.
"I'll remember this, vampire. Us demons, we don't have many virtues, but we remember our debts."
Walking out, he drags Ardenta with him, the sole remaining gargoyle and skeleton following after him.

---

Serena looks over at Keith, nodding. Her anger quite forgotten, she knows what she needs to do now.
"Alright, I'll let it slide for now. Now, if you excuse me...."
She....also sets about to go healing.

"Hellrealm teleportation methods are quite ostentatious that way. I advocated for a stealthier entrance, perhaps employing a skyship to fly us in under the guise of a tourist group, but Ardenta....he's quite a traditionalist. He doesn't get with the times, and he felt a fire-and-brimstone approach was fitting for our recovery force."

Lautia seems quietly surprised his proposal worked.
"That's all? I'd have expected you mortals to ask for more. But, well...if you must know. We are here to find the Demon Lord Belphegor. Lord Mammon and Lady Leviathan have not heard from them in two weeks, and Mammon has been fed up with their inability to keep up their obligations to the Dark Lord. Our force was not here to attack, simply to ensure that whatever traps that laggard has in store, we could disarm. Not that you'll believe the word of a demon."
"Yeah, why ARE we listening to him? He's a demon, he's evil, now get rid of him! They're demons, they just lie all the time!"

"Look around. The only people left standing are a skeleton under his command, myself, and a gargoyle stupid enough to think that you can taste the color purple. By all means, be my guest, but I'm not exactly in charge here. _{Much to everyone's dismay.}"

Shoes and a freight train have, on balance, many things in common.

Firstly, they're loaded with enough metal to make Vlad drool, a train quite literally, Shoes quite metaphorically. Secondly, they operate on a single track; a train quite literally, Shoes metaphorically, focused on the single track of murdering people.

Finally, they're both quite unstoppable when they get going and deadly to get hit by.

(Shoes' hooves thunder!)

Shoes initiates!
Hit Rate: Irrelevant
Hit: Autohit!
Crit: 3, critical!
Undead Swordsman F takes 36 damage!

Undead Swordsman F is defeated!

Left behind, there aren't even the remains of bones. Literally the only thing that you could use what Shoes left of the skeleton for is for fertilizer. And not even particularly good quality fertilizer, either.

Nothing left but bonemeal and the thundering hooves of an angry demon in equine form.

42-1 doesn't quite have such a damaging blow. Still, healing others is just as essential as destroying enemies. After all, Jenkins has quite proven that, good at stabbing or not, you're still quite mortal.

42-1 heals Selene!
Selene is healed for 10 HP!

Rosencrantz, meanwhile, opens one of the chests belonging to Belphegor. An awful, dark aura almost overwhelms Rosencrantz as he does, forcing him to step back.
"Holy hell, what's inside here?!"
As he shakes his head, waiting for the pain to dissipate, a wave of nausea washes over him. The goblin fights the urge to throw up as he beholds the blade within the chest, laid upon red velvet, several clippings of nails from some unknown being around it.

A sword made of a strange material, simultaneously silvery and chalky-white like bone, scarcely larger than a knife. The hilt bound with red leather, nails driven into the hilt to keep the leather bound. There are actually two blades emerging from the hilt; one longer, and one shorter, arrayed almost like a deranged pair of scissors, curving into each other. The blades are stained with faded brown, from something that isn't quite blood. Rosencrantz attempts to touch it, to reach for it and grab it, but a strange sense of nausea and unease overwhelms him again.

"Man. I gotta...I can't screw this up. They asked me to do this for them, I owe them this. Even if this thing makes me want to throw up by looking at it."

Almost retching and holding back some bile Rosencrantz produces a cloth and manages, barely, to pull the blade out by the hilt. Without direct contact with the sword, Rosencrantz is just about able to resist the sword's aura, hold the sword and extricate it from the chest to very quickly place it in his sack to return to the others.
Item Get!
Nailclipper acquired.

Back in the other room, Vlad grants his allies the power of movement.

Vlad performs Asuna and Keith!
Asuna and Keith may move again!

Lautia and Ardenta share a look, readying themselves for the final battle.
"Tch. So many incompetents. Fine, we will handle this ourselves, Lautia!"
"I might advise running. They outnumber us, and they carry with them an archbishop; surely you've sensed the sheer holiness from one of them."
"You're quite the coward. These are mortals. Goddess' support or not, they will fall and you will HELP me instead of running."
".....of all the fields I could have worked in in the army of the Demon Lord, I chose to work in the field and got assigned to you. Demons of Greed, you really are so greedy, and for more than wealth, too."

Asuna sprints at Ardenta, blade drawn. The imperious demon looks almost bemused by Asuna's efforts, and produces a tome, his hands coursing with black magic.
"Come then, mortal. You may have the blessing of the goddesses, but you will NOT strike me down!"

(The Lightning Flash strikes!)

Asuna initiates!
Hit Rate: Irrelevant
Hit: Autohit!
Crit: 12, critical!
Ardenta takes 24 damage!

Ardenta retaliates!
Hit Rate: 64 to hit
Hit: 9, hit!
Crit: 4, critical!
Asuna takes 45 damage!

Asuna is downed!

A flurry of blades leaves Ardenta reeling, deep wounds leaking demonic ichor. Asuna's wrath cuts keen, but Ardenta cuts keener. Asuna leaves herself just open enough, her movements just slow enough even with the blessing of the goddess Serena that for a scant few seconds, she leaves a gap for Ardenta to strike.

A blast of dark magic slams into Asuna, sending her crumpling to the floor.

Ardenta coughs, cursing under his breath. Despite managing to take down Asuna, it didn't quite come without a cost to him as he's barely standing. However, he does managed to take the time to gloat, glaring down over Asuna's fallen body.
"....see, mortal? You.....couldn't hope....to beat me...."

And this distracts him from Keith.

Now, ordinarily, Keith wouldn't quite be sneaky. A big, muscular pro wrestling vampire sneaking around would be quite ridiculous. Keith was no thief, no sneak. Even the most oblivious person on the planet woulld notice Keith's arrival. If the situation had been different, Keith would have simply been caught and blasted with dark magic, probably sending him crumpling; vampirism, after all, provides no special defense against even the dark magicks, for the vampire plague did not originate from Hellrealm, as all dark magicks did.

Two factors, however, prevented Ardenta from noticing.

One, fighting Asuna; Asuna was as fast as her namesake, and even a demon couldn't hope to keep up with her, and focusing on finding an opening in Asuna's attack took Ardenta's focus away from the rest of the battle. Two, hubris; Ardenta was the arrogant sort, immensely self-assured. And that meant that when he took out who he perceived to be the most dangerous of the pack, he thought himself safe from the attacks of the other animals with her.

Big mistake.

Keith initiates!
Hit Rate: 89 to hit
Hit: 100, miss!

Keith strikes again!
Hit Rate: 89 to hit
Hit: 67, hit!
Crit: 3, critical!
Ardenta takes 33 damage!

Ardenta is defeated!

Keith's first attempt at a hold misses. Ardenta manages to evade it, catching the vampire out of the corner of his eye. He doesn't, however, catch Asuna's fallen form.

As the demon falls over tripping over the swordswoman, Keith seizes his opportunity and catches Ardenta in a sleeper hold. The demon struggles, but between the wounds Asuna inflicted on him, Keith's massive frame and Ardenta's overestimation of his own physical prowess, it doesn't take long for Ardenta to fall unconscious.

Ardenta is defeated!
XP: 95/100