StarChaser: Another (18+)

Story so far:

The Whales are almost done with their preparations for the journey to Teth-Odin. Little Cecil is delivered to Arek and Star Tulip keeps her mouth shut. The Whales discuss feasibility of inviting people into their town and grow a farm. Iohann learns the group's story. Zefir is permanently benched. The head of the mousefia, Don Ingrid, lays the law on anyone threatening any member of the Whales. Gwen hints that Philia has grown biological WMD's.

 

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Quick Reference:

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The Next Day, Farmer Grace’s House:

“What’s the problem, officer?” Arek said as he let Sheriff Jenkins into the house.

“What’s your deal, Arek?” The horseshoe moustached sheriff said as he walked into the room. “I got like a report of ya buyin’ like a’ eighty barrels of gasoline ter ya backyard, ya trying to brew sum martian meth to sell to yer space buddies?”

“Whoa!” The alien terrestrial lobster raised his hands as if to calm him down. “Not making drugs, officer, no! It’s a fad in the Ulixian dune buggy club, they wanna do vintage fossil-fueled buggies, no offense. Thought I could turn some decent bucks selling them some novelty pre-FTL dinosaur juice, that’s all.”

“Whale Shiet, Arek. Why couldn’t ye tell me sooner?” The sheriff laughed.

“Come on, man!” Arek’s mandibles chittered rapidly. “I don’t want Officer Percy to overhear me calling his road hogs an ‘antique grandpa bike’ but up in that planet of blue sand, taking one of those hogs for a spin is as cool as riding those old-timey bikes, you know? The ones with the big wheel up front.”

Sheriff Jenkins chuckled. “Yup, poor old’ Percy’s dick gonner shrink hearing his roadhog compared to an old musket. Weall, that’s all I’m here for, Arek. Just make a nice contribution ta the officers’ ball this weekend, having to keep an eye out here while keepin’ an eye out for those keepin’ an eye out fer aliens fum outer space is a sumbitch of a jawb.”

“Oh I will, sheriff, just as soon as I send my barrels up to space. I just hope my biker friends in space don’t get cold feet.”

“Boi, if those sand-riders in Yoo-lick-seeya got a problem with good old Earth gasoline ye tell me and I’ll yell their ear off, that’s sum goddamn good old dinosaur juice pulled straight from American soil, I tell yew what.”

“I will, officer.” Arek saluted the human as he turned and waved.

“Heh heh… poor old’ Percy’s bikes lookin’ like an antique.” The sheriff chuckled as he saw himself out. He flipped on the radio and spoke into. “Sheriff Jenkins here, tell em’ nice folks at the station to stand down, yer perp’s one of our assets and yew damned near blew his cover,” he lied “...Now who do I need to talk to ya’ damned’ desk jockeys to…”

 

___
New Gorpisal Market:

“Could you cut these up into steak?” Cecil asked as he hovered at the stall near the butcher. “You can make them a little thinner.”

“Aye!” The kobold butcher replied.

“Steak, huh?” Ingrid said, hefting up sausage links.

“Cooks faster, of course. I wanna grill when we camp out.”

“What’s wrong with sausages?” Ingrid said “I’ll take this bunch too!” She called

“Aye!” The butcher’s assistant replied,

“Well, no rule we can’t do both.” Cecil said. “But look at how marbled these ones are, these gotta be from the Red Moon.”

“Yum.” Ingrid said. “You think we should grab some that are fit for smoking?”

“Oh right!” Cecil said, “Boss! Got anything we can hang up on a smoker?”

___

While Ingrid and Cecil handled the shopping for food that can be stored at Cecil’s room, Gwen was shopping for ale and tea.

“Well, hello Gwen!” The shopkeeper cheerily said. “I heard your team would be heading to Teth-Odin next.”

“That’s right.” The brown-haired catgirl maid said pleasantly “It would be a shame to run out of your finest ale and tea on the way.”

“Ohohohoho!” The shopkeeper tittered “that won't earn you a discount from me, young lady, I hear those all the time!”

“How’s the road to Teth-Odin? Is it generally free from bandits or the like?” Gwen asked.

The matronly shopkeeper leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially.

“Generally, it’s safe for adventurers, there are roving bands of bandits there but they generally avoid trouble with guildsmen or big merchant caravans, if you’re traveling alone however it’s not a good idea. Of course, now that the Red Moon’s just occurred you shouldn’t be encountering any highwaymen considering that there’ll be an influx of armed adventurers around.”

“That’s good to know, thank you.” Gwen said politely.

“Were you considering taking a few heads for extra income?” The shopkeep chuckled.

“It never hurts to enhance one’s armor…” Gwen joked, although she really didn’t need any.

Despite how she looked to other people Gwen Hartpenny was packing heat. Ever since Ingrid floated the idea that Zefir remain behind in Autumnhollow, Philia had instructed Gwen to arm herself whenever she goes out which led to her and Ingrid strapping various holsters around her body and under her clothes to make sure she had a gun she could pull out no matter where her hands here.

In addition, Gwen had been taught the Public Obfuscation Spell. It was a low-level spell that was easy to maintain and cast. The spell obscured Gwen’s identity by mixing her features with that of other people around her. It wasn’t a perfect disguise spell however, as it required people around her and the spell didn’t work on people standing close to her. That said, it allowed her to blend in with the crowd when she was moving from one shop to the next to make her purchases.

Not that she needed to of course. She was wearing the team badge signifying that she was a member of The Whales and of the Fenrir Guild which let anyone with less-than-good intentions know that any attempt to cause trouble would probably mean lethal force.

Not that such people existed in New Gorpisal either, but Philia told her to start getting used to the idea of staying armed as the need to defend herself will start to become more and more real as the part goes to other towns.

Ingrid later met up with Gwen at the store and started loading her purchases into Cecil’s room. As the ex-Starchaser and her familiar loaded them in, Gwen quietly spoke into her earpiece.

___

“We have our spices, bread, grain, and butter.” Kinu quietly spoke into her earpiece as she and Kvaris emerged from the baker, stopping quickly to get dried food such as fish and fruits.

In a move that would make their father Amaduscia Enthana proud they had slashed thirty percent of the price in the name of buying in bulk, even when it came to the spices; the mention of which last night had Zefir and Ingrid’s mouths watering.

“I can’t wait to tell father how much we got out of it.” Kvaris snickered as she chose the heftiest of salted cod-like fish. “Pops give me the real ones, not these suckerfish, please?”

The crafty goblin fish-monger chuckled and took out of a sack some brilliantly pink-fleshed and soft fish, perfectly salty yet still tender, it only required a few minutes of frying and it was good to eat.

“Just for having good eyes, I’m giving you a discount.” the jolly goblin said.

___

Meanwhile in Autumhollow:

“King Fish copies your last, Outlaw. We shouldn’t have to worry about bandits unlike last time. Feeling a little trigger-happy and want to join the expeditionary party? Over.” Philia said over the radio. She was winded from the summoning spell and lay back on the patio floor as Zefir laid the server-type computers, keyboards, and monitors onto his Table Box. He would be taking these up to the ground floor guest room or study he had cleared out and designated as the “Command Center.”

“You said the ones protecting the center group consisting of Glados, Kitty-Five, and Prophet will just be yourself, King Fish.” Gwen said. Iohann had been introduced to the radio earpieces and she chose the call-sign “Prophet” which was fitting given her role as a cleric while still not being too obvious, as “Prophet” could also imply a leadership role or as one with clairvoyant abilities.

“You forget, there’s also Arthur and Sully armed with guns too.” Philia said. “Ranger-Two and Starchaser can handle one side while Night-Rider, Anubis, and Amarok deal with the other, we’ll be protected really well, Outlaw.” she added in a comforting tone. “Your expertise is with taking care of the domestic work as a maid, there’s many of us now and I do not want you to exhaust yourself having to perform two roles. Over.”

“As you say, but what exactly can I do as an assistant to Baseplate?” Gwen asked over the line. “You mentioned earlier I’ll be working on a computer but so far my experience there has been balancing budgets and solving complex math problems…”

“You will be observing the team and providing your valuable input given your lifetime’s knowledge of this world.” Neith replied. “I do not have this knowledge, Outlaw. Over.”

“I seem to recall…” Ingrid joined in “That Gwen was your proxy sometimes when you have to visit the underworld of Elion-Nosco. Well, from here on, we can just have a drone do that and and have Gwen speak through it, it’ll scare the shit out of those guys.” she chuckled darkly.

“Outlaw copies. Very well, I shall assist Baseplate.” Gwen replied.

“Kitty-Five, interrogative.” Viel said, having picked up the term from hearing from Ingrid. “How is she supposed to observe us? Wasn’t Glados in charge of using these observer constructs to scout ahead and behind us? Over.”

Viel and Siria were at Autumnhollow too but she thought it was important that everyone heard the answer.

“Kitty-Five, in addition to the two drones there’ll be another pair observing the group from above. Each member of the team will also be wearing a head-mounted clip-on camera that allows Baseplate and Outlaw to see what they’re seeing. There are situations where relaying this information could be helpful, over.”

“Copy, King Fish.” Viel replied.

“And I can help too when I’m available.” Arek said over the line. “Not much by way of advisory mind you. I won’t be needing a callsign since I’ll be meeting nobody there in Terragalia. Over.”

“Help’s always welcome, Arek. Over.” Ingrid replied. “Especially when it comes to setting up those PC’s over.”

“Pee-See?” Kvaris asked over the line.

“Anubis, that’s those ‘thinking machines’ we talked about last night.” Philia replied “Through them Baseplate will be able to control various devices to observe us in the field. Over.”

___

Ingrid, Gwen, Cecil, Kinu gathered up near Fenrir guild house. Aside from their daily meals at Autumnhollow they had also bought food to store at Cecil’s place. Some of these were raw ingredients stored either in the refrigerator or freezer which they could cook on-site while others were ready-to-eat food that Cecil could store at room temperature.

Their next place in the itinerary was Inzir’s shop. Sammy was there overseeing the work order placed by Zefir. Cecil and Ingrid had carefully measured out the dimensions of his bedroom and and placed orders for shelves and cabinets, but not drawers as they weren’t ergonomic for slimes.

“Zefir’s wives? How come the husband’s not with you?” Inzir called out, happily shaking their hands.

“Oh, hubby’s busy with his blond Daos floozie.” Ingrid joked, referring to Philia. “Anyway my familiar Cecil here, aside from taking the orders of furniture, would also like to trade in some of the furniture he has, as it serves no further use to us.” Ingrid gestured as the portal of Cecil’s room while Cecil gently swept the roomside portal around showing a panoramic view of the bedroom. The only major difference now was that Ingrid had taken the bed out and laid in the master’s bedroom back in Autumnhollow.

“Not bad, not bad!” Inzir said “Some of these would look like it would fetch a good price. Done.” He nodded. He looked up at the strange devices firmly mounted on the caddy he had built for Cecil some time ago and grinned in satisfaction that they held firm without the slightest wobbling about. “It also seems that ‘caddy’ I made is holding on really well.”

“Indeed!” Cecil squeaked ”...very well done, Inzir! Thanks!”

“Fortunately, I didn’t have to build that much shelves and cabinets since you said you’ll be buying of some of the ones I already have in stock. If you can wait for another hour, it will all be completed…”

“Sure thing. Inzir, I just need to head to the guild. For a bit, what about you girls?” The rest shook their heads, indicating they prefer to stay and chat for a while. Kvaris however, took Ingrid’s hand and they headed to the Guild together.

 

“Have you been to Teth-Odin before, Kvaris?” Ingrid asked as the two of them headed to the guild hall.

“A few times, yes.” Kvaris said “They have a bigger market as to be expected from a Demon City.”

“Demon City? I’ve heard that term before but I’ve yet to know what that means. What’s a demon? Because that means something different in my world. It basically means people with horns and wings tormenting every living thing they see.”

Kvaris chuckled “Here, a demon’s someone you come to to get tormented by your own volition, because you’ll be running in their dungeons battling monsters for wealth and glory…and a bit of duty thrown in on the mix.”

“Why demons though?” Ingrid asked. “Why not a dwarf, or minotaur?”

Kvaris chuckled at the silly child-like question, though it did make sense considering that Ingrid did say she was from another world.

“A demon is someone who's been exposed to arcane energies of a Rift for extended periods of time.” she explained. “So yes, they can be elves, or orcs…as a matter of fact, the King of Demon City Teth-Odin is a Sauren-folk… that’s one of those scaly dragon-like people. Incidentally, don’t tell the Saurens of Teth-Odin their horns are demonic in nature, they like to think those are natural growths on their heads… even though it isn't. Trust me, father and I have gone and met so many other Saurens everywhere else they don’t have horns.” Kvaris chuckled as she told Ingrid this.

“So you grow horns when you’ve been exposed to the rift for quite a while?” Ingrid said, digesting this information. “What happens if you step out of the city? I can imagine some people not wanting to leave or it’ll fall out of their heads…”

“You have ten years give or take, although it does slow the growth.” Kvaris said. “A lot of aristocracy do prefer to grow their horns as a way of showing off their lineage, but yes, travel definitely is a burden when it comes to keeping appearances.”

“Is it… harmful if they horns are removed?” Ingrid asked.

“Not at all… except for your social status probably.” came her reply. “So why were you asking if I’ve been to Teth-Odin?”

“Autumnhollow” Ingrid said “I want to know if there’s some nearby place we can hide our little home.”

Kvaris’s eyes were twinkling. “Teth-Odin was originally a forest so anything that isn’t farmland is rapidly being reclaimed by the forest there. One of their biggest exports is lumber. The name in Sauren literally means Creeping Forest, as a matter of fact they’ve actually had to put a ditch around the borders of the farmlands to discourage growth.”

Both of them waved to Iohann passing by, she had been attending church services before heading back to the guild hall to tend to the sick and wounded.

“What were you two talking about?” Iohann asked as she joined them.

“A place to put Autumnhollow in.” came Ingrid’s reply. “Kvaris mentioned there’s some forests there closer to the city but she also mentioned that lumberjacking is one of the town’s main exports… so our chances of people noticing there’s some strange magic going on will be pretty high…”

“We can put that off till we get there.” Kvaris waved her hand dismissively. “If push comes to shove, I’m sure we can get something arranged…”

 

At the guild, Ingrid and Kvaris sat down at the guildmaster’s office. Millarna, doubling as his assistant regarded the two smilingly.

“I apologize for arriving so late.” Ingrid said “I’m the leader of the group yet I’ve been delegating all the paperwork to others.”

“It’s alright, I’ve been told you’ve been making extensive preparations to head to Teth-Odin.” Guildmaster Tibbles said “First of all I’d like to extend my thanks to you and your team for helping in the defense of the town, as well as volunteering to travel to Teth-Odin and help clear out the monster population.”

“Just doing our duty.” Ingrid said, she winced a bit as Kvaris elbowed her ribs “...and as thanks for allowing a human like me to be a guildsman, and not someone’s pet dog.”

“What’s a dog?” Millarna asked.

“One more thing.” Tibbles said quickly, changing the subjects “Since you brought that up, Philia Lovelock or should I say Philia Elion-Nosco came here on Siria’s urging when you had your documents done. She preemptively revealed to us her identity just in case those Elion-Nosco spies come sniffing around. Because of that, we will be more careful about mentioning her presence. In addition, as per her request, we are removing all mention of your team's…enhanced involvement. Therefore, as far as any outsider is concerned, there is a party known as the Whales, but they have not done anything above the lines of duty. Is this the arrangement you like?”

“Yes sir.” Kvaris said. “We’re just a drop in the bucket.”

“A good precaution, though personally I doubt that Elion-Nosco would be looking for Philia.” Millarna added. “From what I knew about the Elion-Nosco kingdom, there had been hardly any mention of the king’s bastard daughter. It’s unlikely, but we will hold our silence in this matter, let’s just say while we are not directly enemies with Elion-Nosco, we do not appreciate their sycophants.”

“For that matter, when possible, do let us know where you’re moving next, simply handing the letter over to the guilds will do. We do keep in touch with each other.” Tibbles said, nodding his head and letting them know he had said everything he had meant to say.

“Agreed, thank you Guildmaster, Millarna.” Ingrid said, “but if pressed, you can always credit Kvaris and Kinu Enthana.”

 

As the two walked down the corridor, Ingrid frowned and looked at Kvaris “Are you sure about this, Kvaris? Didn’t your father distinguish himself in battle?”

“I did not kill hundreds of monsters all by myself, Ingrid. You did. There are consequences for holding such an achievement. Consequences I’ve yet to be confident in dealing with. Now let’s hurry to Teth-Odin and see how well I can deal with those consequences…”

“Oh right, Sammy mentioned you three got some new weapons, I wanna see later!” Ingrid said.

___

Back in Autumhollow:

“Do you need help with that?” Ingrid said, hovering excitedly over Philia as she assembled the two SCAR-H battle rifles.

Philia slapped Ingrid’s hand away “No! Bad!” then looking up at Ingrid she said “This is a custom job, Ingrid! Watch me first…”

Ingrid then quickly saw why. Philia didn’t just have the two battle rifles retrofitted with Mythril parts, but she added a second barrel underneath the first one. It was smaller and meant for pellets. A switch off to the “inner” side of the gun altered the mechanism of the trigger, dictating whether it would shoot pellets or the full-sized 7.62mm rounds. Underneath that barrel rested a pistol-grip underbarrel shotgun which was semi-automatic rather than pump-action and its magazine slid into the grip just like a regular pistol’s.

As Philia mentioned a day or two ago, she had put some mini-flamethrowers on the left side of the rifles. These required the user to press with their thumbs a pair of buttons located on opposite ends for safety purposes.

“Mini-flame throwers… huh, now I’ve seen everything.” Cecil remarked as he saw Arthur let out a jet of flame against a test dummy. “Guess we don’t have to worry about having to use napalm or whatever it is flamethrowers use for fuel.”

“Actually we have to use more resources but it’s fine…” Philia replied. “We got Cecil storing the fuel in his room’s extension.” she said, referring to one of the doors that opened up after she had activated Qhetar’s Totem. “...and he’s got plenty of space there in that “roof deck” of his to store them safely. Of course the caveat is that that compact flamethrower has a pretty small reservoir, and even with the spatial enchantment that Viel and Siria provided, it’s just enough for ten seconds of spraying fire before it needs a minute or two for the soulstone inside the flame-throwing device to teleport in the next batch of fuel. Hence why the attachment has a soulstone slotted onto it, just like the magazines.”

Cecil’s eyes widened “How much did you guys put in those magazines?”

Philia held up a hand. “Oh before you get an answer, we modified the drum mags to carry both regular bullets and the pellets. So for pellets it’s the same 3000 rounds and the full-sized 7.62mm cartridges it was… how many again, Siria? Viel?”

“Two-hundred, but Qhetar’s blessing probably put it now to Four-hundred. Which means you’re also looking at six-thousand pellets.” Siria replied, she and Viel looked a little tired but quite proud of their work with the magazines. Cecil could imagine that as sorceresses the challenge of enchanting such a complex device alone was a reward all by itself.

Ingrid looked at them, her jaw slack. “But still…two-hundred!? I’m surprised you two don’t look shrivelled up yet!”

“We’ve worn ourselves out…” Viel said, that was a few hours ago but they still had some fatigue on them, but her face betrayed a big goofy smile. “...but it was definitely fun!” Ingrid quickly padded to give them hugs from behind.

“Great work!”
“Thank you Ingrid” Siria said when she felt some energy flowing into her from Ingrid’s hands.
“Hey, you put your whole heart into it making those guns, it’s the least I can do.” Ingrid replied.
“Imagine having to fill that up…” Cecil remarked “Oh wait, I do, worth it, though!”

“Yes, but you need to test them out.” Siria waved her hand at Arthur, who nodded and then took aim at a training dummy. He quickly flicked the switch in the middle of the gun and fired a burst of pellets. Each hit blew a hole through it as if he had shot the dummy with a mid-sized caliber round and each shot caused the Rogue Companion Shillelagh charm from Ralph to create a simulacrum of the heavy warhammer to smash the dummy.

Quickly turning to the next target, Arthur squeaked and quickly flicked the switch again, this time using real bullets and fired a short burst at another dummy, creating bigger holes than what it was capable of.

“Is that… hitting like a .50 cal?” Zephir asked in disbelief, but I thought only Cecil’s…”

“That’s part of the enchantment we put on the gun, via the barrels, as you call them. “ Viel explained “We set up the enchantment so it’s cast on the bullets or pellets as it travels along the barrel, that’s why you’re seeing those rings of runes at the end of the barrel.”

“It’s only halfway to being a .50 cal though…” Philia said. Arthur then advanced to the third dummy and shredded it with the underbarrel shotgun. “And that magazine was much simpler to enchant, you’re looking at sixy shells stored in it. So there you go, our two mice on the ground are now heavily armed.”

Arthur advanced towards the dummy again and summoned into his left hand a glaive from the set that Sammy bought for them.

“...and that’s why we don’t need to give them bayonets.” Philia added as Arthur used the hook at the back of the glaive to pull the dummy down. The cuddly mouse turned back and chirped adorably to everyone, causing Ingrid to come over and give the mouse a loving cuddle.

“You’re so cool, Arthur,” Ingrid said, scratching his ears. “Now, Sully, your turn!” She said, quickly setting up another trio of dummies for him to test.

As Cecil saw Sully slot in the drum magazine, he noticed that it sported a soul stone, which probably allowed it to maintain the enchantment. After Ingrid stepped aside, Sully also tested his enchanted SCAR-H as well as his glaive to great results, earning cheek rubs from Ingrid. The fuzzy giant rodent’s eyes were closed with bliss as Ingrid doled out her affection.

“During a fight, I want you two to protect the center of our group, okay?” The mice squeaked in response.

“I’ve been thinking of a group name for our mice…” Cecil suggested. “Since the mice in my room are connected to the world with a flying portal, we’re now officially a gunship.”

“Gunship?” Kvaris repeated, not familiar with the term.

“It’s a flying warmachine in our world that assaults enemies from the air by shooting at them.” came Cecil’s answer, “I’ll name our group here in the portal after one such type of gunship: Iroquois, which in turn was named after an ancient tribe known for their brave warriors.”

“Ee-ro-koi, I like that name.” Sammy said.

“You would.” Cecil quipped. “They ride like the wind, strike fast as lightning, and then they’re gone, leaving only fallen enemies in their wake.”

Sammy felt giddy imagining the idea of ancient warriors mowing down tons of enemies.

“In that case, I’ll name our mice on the ground the 189 (one-eight-nine), after the brave Swiss Guard in 1527.”

“Fifteen-Twenty-Seven?” Kvaris asked, wondering what sort of significance that number would be.

“That’s the year in our world’s calendar, which would be over five hundred years ago, give or take.” Philia said “The holy city of Rome was being attacked and the city being overrun. A hundred and eighty-nine-”

“IN THE SERVICE OF HEA-VENNN” Ingrid and Cecil chorused to the Sabaton song.

“A hundred and eighty-nine…mercenaries in a way, rather than flee, defiantly faced death to allow the pope to make his escape. Stories of their bravery had been celebrated quite recently in my old world’s culture due to that popular song. I guess part of the reason their last stand became popular again was due to a rather recent movie, or should I say a play based on a somewhat similar event; the last stand of the 300 Spartans versus a million invading Persians.”

Kvaris looked at Philia with wide eyes. “Don’t tell me they won.”

“They died to the last man.” Philia related “...but the story goes that by the time the brave 300 Spartans fell, they took down so many of their enemies that the Persians were horrified thinking about how they would deal with the remaining thousands of Spartans waiting for them further ahead.”

Kvaris and Sammy snickered, guessing that it probably didn’t end well for them.

___
Zefir touched his earpiece, he was quite surprised at how easily he adopted the practice of putting it on like any other everyday piece of clothing, and he remembered his father back on Earth saying how he went from an era of curly-corded phones ensconced in the living room and office desk to waking up everyday slipping it into his pocket as automatically as slipping on underwear.

“Baseplate to Whales, we’re up and running.” he said, sitting back on his custom-made “gaming” chair which was made in town. He was quite surprised he got it done so within two hours thanks to the quick-thinking of the wood-workers. He had found a rejected design for a chair and the Zefir then quickly explained to him that he wanted that chair but with a special base that lets him roll around the floor. As the seat itself had already been constructed there was no need to deal with the time-consuming process of upholstery, the rotatable wheels were not a technical marvel either as serving trolleys existed as do ones used by other craftsmen.

The study (or guest room) that now served as his the Command Center of the Whales was located at the ground floor of the Autumnhollow house, near the front door and accessible from the living room as well as through a second door from the outside patio through as set of heavy, folding french doors with glass panels. It had a bed but Ingrid had moved it upstairs to the master bedroom above where the whole party slept together in, nobody felt cramped inside as that room was an immense boudoir in its own right, enhanced with whatever magic that made Autumnhollow possible to be much bigger than it looked from the outside.

The sturdy desk the computers rested on was something he had made locally a year earlier and once served as his own Table Box until he decided on a more rugged and simpler looking table so as not to attract undue attention. A row of CPU chassis blocked his view of the door, all of them setup so it was easy for him to sit at the opposite side and do repairs on the machines as needed. Meanwhile, six big monitors loomed over him held up by various specialty mounts Arek had provided.

At his desk, he sat with his back to an empty shelf. These were once filled with books but they weren’t what he expected; they were all old books from earth, all of them works of fiction and many of them classics such as Jules Verne’s “Journey To The Center of the Earth”, Daniel Defoe’s “Robinson Crusoe”, Herman Melville’s “Moby Dick”, among other literary greats. These he had bundled up and placed in the living room, which had a couple of “curio” or “hutch” cabinets displaying fancy porcelain plates with gilded edges. These frivolous ceramics he had put into the kitchen, allowing him to move the titans of literature to their rightful place in such an acclaimed piece of storage.

In the now emptied shelf, rested the big military-grade radio. Neith had helped him connect a secondary mic to the computers, allowing him to talk with the group without having to turn around every now and then and use the handset. This allowed him the necessary redundancy such that in case the computers malfunctioned, he could still use the radio’s own handset to talk with the team.

Also resting on the shelf was another row of NAS computers, which consisted of multiple storage devices for hours and hours of recording the party would doubtless be writing onto the discs for hours on end through their cameras. These had a separate laptop for interfacing and redundancy as Neith had connected it to the desk as well, just so Zefir and Gwen could focus on the desk. There were also rifles resting on the shelf, just in case Zefir and Gwen needed some extra firepower to defend themselves.

Gwen sat beside him, also on a chair of her own and he had been teaching her how to use the devices.

“This is Baseplate, Glados could you assign us a few drones to our control? Over.” Zefir said, using the desktop mic to speak.

“Stand by Baseplate.” Neith replied, there was a short pause as she made mechanical sounds. “Baseplate and Outlaw, state the names of your drones for easier access, over.”

Speaking quickly, Ingrid said “Glados, assign observer Titania to Outlaw and Oberon to Baseplate. Over.”

“Who are those?” Gwen asked as Ingrid mentioned the unfamiliar names.

“Oberon is the king Fae and Titania his queen in Earth’s mythos.” Zefir said, pressing on the desktop mic button he said “Baseplate acknowledges, Starchaser, over.”

“Acknowledged, Baseplate, Outlaw, confirm your manual overrides. Over.” came Neith’s reply.

Zefir pointed at the screen directly in front of Gwen, indicating she use the joystick in front of her to manipulate the drone, which was currently hovering to Neith’s left, who in turn was in front of the Autumnhollow house.

“It’s… it’s like I'm really flying!” Gwen exclaimed.

“Get used to the controls, there will be moments when Neith is unable to control them and we will need to manipulate them ourselves. We will use these to act as eyes and eyes for our team.” Zefir said.

___

While Gwen was test-flying her drone. Ingrid, Kinu, Kvaris, and Sammy took a walk inside the pocket dimension of Autumnhollow so they could show Ingrid their new weapons.

“I heard you got some weapons at Dain’s?” Ingrid asked as they reached the sun-lit grasslands.

“Yes, and so we don’t tear up the ground, it’s best we do it here.” Kvaris grinned.

“These are weapons from the mad Wizard Deregor, they require a condition to be met in order to be summoned, the plus side is that you don’t have to worry about storing them like the Apport Ring weapons.” Sammy added.

The quartet glanced at each other as they stood before a flat expanse of grass, the newly-christened ATV “Sleipnir” and it’s barrels of gasoline stood a good hundred feet away to the right. Behind them hovered the magic circle that delineated the rear of the portal leading back to the primary dimension of Autumnhollow.

Kvaris pointed for Ingrid to stand some distance away, perpendicular to the girls and as she reached her spot, the ex-Starchaser saw why.
“Let’s go girls! Tempest Lancer!” Kvaris, Kinu, and Sammy simultaneously charged forward in the grass. Ingrid’s position allowed her to see that they suddenly summoned long jousting lances, their shafts wreathed in a violent, localized maelstrom of wind that she imagined would have drilled and torn their way through a crowd of monsters. In addition, the spell that the lances had also caused the girls to accelerate really fast.

“Awesome!” Ingrid called out, the girls had easily cleared a hundred feet or so very quickly.

Turning around, Kvaris quickly address the other two then each in their own way kicked forward a metal ball. Ingrid saw that it was a smooth metal ball but as soon as it took to the air it turned to heavy-looking spiked ball.

Sammy’s ball broke up into caltrops in mid-flight, while Kinu’s detonated into caltrops a few seconds after hitting the ground while Kvaris’ remained unchanged.

The girls then walked back to Ingrid, with Kinu speaking up first.

“Don’t worry! The caltrops have been dispelled.”

“What you saw first was Tempest Lancer, it requires us to charge at the enemy, the magical maelstrom however requires some time to muster itself.” Sammy explained “That said, we could just put our own mana and use it again if we want.”

“Those spike-balls are what Deregor called Grand Caltrop.” Kvaris said next. “What you saw are the three possible effects, each with their own merits. What Kinu demonstrated ends up hitting twice as the detonation strikes with the same amount of force the impact makes, but there are merits to scattering the caltrops in mid-flight, or simply not scattering any caltrops at all.” as she finished the trio had reached Ingrid.

“How come your feet aren’t hurting? That ball looks heavy!” Ingrid said, yet none of them looked like they hurt their feet.

“It’s very light and hollow while it’s a smooth ball.” Kvaris replied.

“Like kicking a wicker ball, actually.” Sammy said.

Ingrid ruffled the Garm girl’s hair “Bring it in, Sammy!”

“Bring what?”

“Hug me!”

“Oh” Sammy said, she was taller than Ingrid and the human curiously made animal noises as she received affection. Ingrid was quite a contradiction, she was as sapient as the Elion-Nosco princess and seemed to possess and sharp tactical mind yet she relished simple shows of love like any other human she had seen.

“There’s more though.” Sammy said as she rubbed Ingrid’s cheeks, but the human’s eyes were closed and she was smiling as she basked in the warmth of the orcs’s hands.

“Mhmmmm.” Ingrid replied.

Everyone stood back as Kinu demonstrated the next set of weapons from the Mad Wizard. She brought her arm up and swung downwards, as she did so a tall pole axe with a big chopping blad swung down, biting deep into the ground. She let go of the weapon, allowing her unencumbered hand to quickly back into position and repeat the swing again.

“Amazing.” Ingrid said again “...so the condition is that you must perform a strike from above?”

“Yup, that’s how the Meteor Axe works.” Kvaris said. “Our corsecas by themselves make excellent weapons for mid-range combat, but as Sammy can tell you there are advantages of a long-reaching chopping weapon.”

“There definitely are.” Ingrid nodded. “Especially if you don’t see a pole-axe or halberd being raised in the first place, it could be anything, like your flails.”

“Or this…” Kinu said as she unsummoned her shield. She now held in both hands a pair of sickle like blades and performed a series of hooking attacks that Ingrid imagined what she would do if she wanted to disarm an opponent. “Thri-Kreen Claws. Named after the hooks of their warrior caste.”

Kinu then summoned a scimitar and began forming a series of flowing, artful, yet deadly drawcuts.

“That’s Blood Reaver, it draws from the enemy’s lifeforce to enhance your body, making you move faster and your senses enhanced to make meaningful use of the speed.” Sammy told Ingrid. “That one I also have.”

“I can picture it now, Tempest Lancer to charge into the crowd and Blood Reaver to push further inside.” Ingrid said. The three of them considered it but shrugged.

“We’re not that well trained with it so it’s best to leave it for situations where we can manage it.” Sammy said.

“It’s quite a novel weapon.” Kinu said, she drew her arm back in a way that made Ingrid think she was going to perform a downward stab and true enough a broad cinqueda-like dagger appeared in the garm girl’s hands as she performed her stab.

“Heartpiercer, now that’s a little more practical” she added, even performing as series of reverse-grip slashes.

“You have those too, Sammy?” Sammy shook her head, she raised one hand and flexed her wrist, reminding Ingrid of her retractable arm-blades from her Duregar-forged war gauntlets.

“But I do have two things the Enthanas don’t have.” She told Ingrid as she stepped back for room. The first unique Deregor weapon she demonstrated was a staff-like weapon that made Ingrid think of bo-staff. It’s ends were generously sheathed in fancy, gold-plated metal depicting swirling flames.

Actually, now that Ingrid thought of it, all of the new weapons the girls showed all looked like expensive “premium” weapon skins she would see in an MMO; fancy-looking, pay-walled and powerful. The irony of seeing them obtained not only in real life but obtained through sheer merit made Ingrid smile.

Ingrid watched as Sammy performed a series of rapid strikes, always keeping both hands on the staff and always alternating strikes between one end of the staff to the other.

“That’s Talon Pillar. You can’t see it but when it strikes something, the gilded end lets out a nasty shock of lightning while summoning a fiery claw to strike from the opposite direction.” Kvaris said.

“With Iohann joining us, I want to give this to her.” Sammy remarked. “Adherents of Saint Ygris are taught to defend themselves.”

“That’s weird, aren’t priests supposed to be peaceful?” Ingrid asked. Though she had seen her share of warrior-priests from the Vatican’s New Templars.

“As a priest of Saint Ygris, you have a duty to heal bodies and souls and bring forth the teachings of their scripture, as task you can only do while alive.” Sammy said.

“Now this, I can keep for myself!” she then swung a great hammer downward. It was big, and heavy and…

“Definitely fit for the Red Banner of the Nightmane Tribe.” Kinu said, as if reading Ingrid’s thoughts.

“Red banner?” Ingrid repeated, not knowing what she meant.

“She’s the daughter of Tom Foster, chieftain of the Nightmane. She rides ahead of the tribe to drive away anything or anyone that tries to get in their way, hence red banner.” Kinu said, “because she wears red and carried a red banner, I imagine.”

“True.” Sammy said, smashing her hammer on the ground. As she did so a series of pillars of light appeared in series, moving forward.

“I see, you can also use this to smash through multiple enemies.” Ingrid said, noting how the pillars of light didn’t spring from the ground but rather shot downwards. On impact it let out a small halo of light that pushed the grass back, indicating that it had a small area of effect that probably broke ankles and staggered others back.

“It’s quite ironic though that you’ll be our rearguard, would that be a problem?” Ingrid asked Sammy, but she shook her head.

“My father, he has considered me a successor of the Tribe, that’s why I must go through this journey and learn what it means to be a leader. I saw my purpose in protecting Viel. For better or worse I see she has great potential and I wish to see it through.”

Ingrid nodded. “A great leader brings out the best in her crew, am I right?”

“Yes, and… as chief, I cannot afford to ride ahead all the time, now can I?”

“I’m a bad example.” Ingrid laughed “But then again, we’re not a tribe of two-thousand strong.”

“Exactly.” Sammy told her. “In a small group like this, a warrior does well leading from the front, but in time, I will be chief of many orcs, I must learn what it’s like leading from what is relayed to me.”

“Glad to help you on your internship.” Ingrid clapped a hand on her shoulder. “Now if there’s any other weapons you girls need to show me…”

___

Philia called over to Neith, she had laid over on the table a set of small tactical cameras. Like the earpieces, they were clippable to the heads, allowing Mission Control to see what the wearer is looking at. These models weren’t available from the civilian market and Arek as usual had procured these without too much trouble.

“Neith, begin pairing these devices to your systems as well as to Mission Control” she said. The big, rugged case it was in carried more than enough for the entire team on the ground, including the Tixi Mice Sully and Arthur.

“This is King Fish, everyone in the expeditionary party please head to the patio, we will be fitting your tac-cams. Over.” She said over the mic.

“Belay that, everyone get dressed like we’re out adventuring.” Ingrid called “Let’s get everyone outfitted with these new devices.” she laid down on the table another large box.

Twenty minutes later, everyone ended up coming over, with Zefir to help his teammates put their tac-cams on their heads. They came with thin, horseshoe-shaped bands that went around their heads which they call tucked under their hair for maximum concealment. These also came with a flashlight for added convenience.

“Next, I want to standardize our Travelers’ Valise bags.” Philia said, she only needed to spend a miniscule amount of mana and the decorative little belt of braided gold around her waist briefly glowed and summoned her Traveler’s Valise back to her waist. It was in the form of a belt pouch with the bag itself strapped to her right side.

“You made a belt version of the Apport Ring?” Ingrid asked. Philia shook her head.

“I didn’t make this Gilded Girdle.” Philia replied “I socially engineered this up-and-coming wizard to make me a belt that brings in other belts. When you’re an inventor-wizard like me, you need your tools nearby at all times.”

Philia took off this belt so she could lay it on the table.

“As you know, this Traveler’s valise thanks to Qhetar’s blessing has given us twenty iterations of the same bag. Ten of them with the bag’s natural capacity, and the other half having at least double the amount.” Philia began, opening one of the deep-pocket iterations of her bag and taking out the full-sized first-aid kit and survival kit stored within.

“I’ve already had all of you store these first-aid kits and survival kits, to increase all of your chances of survival… everyone please take out your bags and confirm they’re still there.” Everyone took out their Traveler Valises and laid them on the table.

Seeing that everyone had them, Philia quickly gave everyone a refresher in what was in these two kits. That refresher however lasted a good twenty minutes in its own right.

“Iohann, as the healer of the team, I’m giving you an additional more comprehensive first-aid kit as well. We’ll go through it later.” Philia handed it over to Iohann, who then placed it into one of the deep-pocket iterations of her valise.

“Good, next let’s confirm you all have your U-boxes.” She said, referring to the boxy-like device that served as their earpiece’s charger, powerbank, signal extended, and container for spare earpieces. Upon seeing that everyone’s U-boxes were in order, Philia then inspected everyone to make sure their microphone switch boxes were all in order.

“Good, now again, about these tac-cams. That’s short for tactical cameras. These will be eyes for Mission Control; that’s Zefir, Gwen, Neith and Arek. There will be situations where one of us will need to go ahead or be separated from the group, having these cameras providing visual information will definitely be helpful in those situations.”

Seeing everyone’s Tac-Cams were fitted properly Philia then asked “Neith?”

The spider bot spoke up “All camera feeds working. Proceed with power banks.”

“Right, now these…” Philia handed out everyone the rectangular cellphone-like power banks to everyone along with the power cords. “...will be used to keep those camera devices powered. These cameras can keep running for quite a while on their own and these powerbanks can be used to replenish their power. Store these alongside the U-boxes.” she added. “If you’ve been away from the group, you can place these under the sun to recharge some of the energy, just make sure this black plate is facing the sunlight.”

Philia then handed out to everyone hand-held transceivers, or as Ingrid and Zefir knew them; walkie-talkies as well as spare batteries.

“Store these in a separate deep-pocket iteration of your valises, along with the U-boxes and power banks…” Philia waited for everyone to reshuffle their things before continuing. “ These work just like our earpieces, but these can reach much farther away, in addition, if multiple people need to talk or hear from us, then this would be the preferred tool for long-distance communications.”

Philia then handed out noisemakers. First passed around were compressed airhorns. These were reusable, with a hand-pump at the base allowing the user to refill the canister with air.

“Place these in the same compartment too. These are air horns, or noisemakers. These can be used to scare away animals or signal for help when all other measures don’t work. The best part is that it’s a simple machine.” Philia explained before pointing it up so as to minimize the scare. Ingrid still snickered however as some, like Viel and the mice jumped as Philia let out the comical sounding “toot!” from the airhorn.

“Not a real horn, no, but it’s still loud enough to be heard from far away. ” Philia said. After everyone packed them in, she then handed out to each a small bag of electronic noisemakers, or as they were normally called, Personal Security Alarms.

Philia held up the egg-shaped object, which had a lanyard. “You pull this away and it makes an annoyin- AAAGH!!!” Philia cried as the egg-shaped device let out a piercing whistle, revealing that the lanyard could be pulled off to activate the device. Quickly she stuck the pin back in and the device was silenced.

“There was a whistle in our survival kit by the way.” Ingrid said, rubbing her ears.

“You can also throw this to serve as a distraction.” Philia added. After everyone had stashed them away. Philia handed out a small round device with a blinking red light.

“Transponders, these will help us locate each other…”

___

Three hours later, the team was collectively stretching and yawning as they finally concluded the standardization of each other’s EDC (EveryDay Carry) spaces for some of their DPI (Deep Pocket Instances).

This also included the mice’s bags which all carried identical Traveler Valises in backpack format. Uniquely for them, they also carried extra submachine guns and pistols in one of the DPI’s and extra ammunition in the other.

Philia also fitted all the mice with a tactical harness worn over their lamellar armor, from which were a pair glock pistols, a heavy Desert Eagle at the back, a combat knife, and a telescoping baton.

“That goes for the Iroquois mice as well.” Ingrid said firmly “Even if you’ll be sitting in Cecil’s room all of you need to be wearing that just in case you need to jump out.” The mice squeaked and nodded.

Over all, the orientation was far from boring for the team as Philia, Ingrid and Zefir introduced them to various devices from Earth. As Gwen was already familiar with most of them, she had excused herself early to make the team supper. She kept her earpiece on so she heard everything. Occasionally she would ask a question, so it still felt like she was still part of the discussion. It also didn’t help that Neith was holding up a monitor, showing what Gwen was cooking.

Ingrid giggled “G-gwen! Y-you’re Terragalia’s first RL streamer!”

“A what, miss Ingrid?”

“We have entertainers who derive their material from just carrying on their daily lives… and they get paid lots.” Zefir answered.

“It’s just a shame we can’t really derive money out of this.” Arek said “The minute they see Ingrid or Philia and we’ll start attracting unwanted attention.”

“Oh well…” Ingrid sighed “...guess we can’t have everything.”

 

After dinner, Sammy had given Talon Pillar to Iohann for her to use, while Philia had given her one of the Apport Rings and wands of duality for her to use, Iohann’s church in New Gorpisal had presented her with a Blessed Thurible as recognition of her deeds in healing the sick. It was a long staff that dangled a large censer which would constantly emitted a sweet-smelling incense.

“Won’t that be dangerous?” Ingrid asked “With the smell of incense attracting creatures as well as the possibility of scattering embers everywhere?”

“Not at all.” Kinu said. “The scent doesn’t travel far if Iohann wills it, and it doesn’t use regular flame to burn that incense. It can scatter sacred flames but only as the user wills it.”

“Furthermore…” Iohann added, laying down the thurible and opening it up. It was filled with a single large red ball. Iohann made a short prayer and the red ball of compressed incense began smoldering with sacred flames. She held it in her bare hands showing that at the very least, she was immune to its effects. “Its heat only applies to enemies and this blessed incense.”

“How long will it last?” Ingrid asked, wondering if she’ll need to make frequent stops at a church or an apothecary to fill it up.

“Assuming I let it burn all the time, about a week.” Iohann replied, placing the ball back into the thurible and closing it up. She gently swung the smoking censer in the direction of Autumnhollow in benediction.

“Iohann can simply deactivate the sacred flame when not needed.” Kvaris said, “so it will last a lot longer than that.”

“What about the about smoke?” Cecil asked “won’t that obscure our vision?”

In response, Iohann uttered a prayer and began swinging the censer more vigorously, the smoke should’ve been enough to obscure her figure yet…

“Whoa… not only can we see through it but, it’s not even irritating our noses!” Ingrid said. She turned to the Enthana sister, guessing that with their enhanced noses they should be at least be overwhelmed but they seemed unaffected. She wasn’t sure if they were simply toughing it out until Kinu spoke up.

“Nothing, to our noses, she might as well have just been letting it burn mildly.”

Satisfied that everyone found her weapon having no drawbacks, Iohann touched the Wand of Duality to her sacred mace and blessed thurible. In a flash of light, only the mace remained. Iohann then registered her mace to the Apport Ring, letting it rest in the magic circle that Viel built in Cecil’s room.

“Now let’s see you demonstrate your skill with the staff, Iohann!” Sammy called. Iohan approached one of the training dummies and began quickly performing a series of strikes, starting with the “butt” of the Talon Pillar staff before striking with the other end.

Compared to Sammy’s Iohann was far more proficient and struck much faster. Although Talon Pillar featured spectral claws that swung in the opposite direction, Iohann seemed to pay no mind, possibly not attributing it’s magical nature to her order’s restrictions.

Jumping back, Iohan dismissed Talon Pillar and swung her thurible. The training dummy’s torso was obliterated in a single strike.

“Looks like your flails have competition, Enthanas.” Sammy quipped.

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INDEX: The Whales' Party Sheet