Skaia

"Eh? I- I see..." Carmen trailed off, now certain that she never wanted to meet a demon if she could help it. Of course, the thought of what the building was didn't really sit well with her either. A ghost haunting a building was simple enough to understand, it came from a dead person so all she had to do was avoid places where people died or try not to do specific things to anger it. A cursed object? Sure she didn't know where those things came from but if she saw some grotesque looking severed monkey hand lying around she just had to be sure to never speak any of her desires around it and leave it be. A demon? Simple, avoid Hell. But buildings could just become possessed for no particular reason. The girl shuddered at the thought that at any moment her very living space could turn into an infinite corridor of which she'd never be able to reach the bathroom and then kill her with some apparition of her disapproving mother. The girl was snapped out of the thought spiral as Shiki asked their question. Relationship value? Event? "Eh..." The girl was certain that every dialogue choice that she had picked with Brian so far only served to lower his opinion of her. And what they were doing was more akin to a main story, after all it wasn't like they went out shopping together or bumped into each other on the side of the road while it was raining and desperately needed to share an umbrella or anything like that. Unless this was just the common route. Did Shiki plan on bringing more men to go aid the two of them? The mere thought nearly sent Carmen into shock, she was already terrible at dealing with strangers and men more especially and having all three of them pay any amount of attention to her and force a spotlight on her made her feel as if she would just wither and die immediately. She already had a hard enough time dealing with Brian but she wasn't sure if she could deal with someone aggressively nice either. In fact she was sure they'd be just as forceful but try to spin it as "for her own good" while also making her go down roller coasters that could derail and fly off into the ground at any time or give her food that she didn't ask for - well Shiki just did and she liked that so perhaps that wouldn't be too bad - but the sheer radiance of a person like that would only serve to drive her further into her home base. And then some kind of smug rich know it all would only remind her of her poor status and general inability to accomplish anything, making her wonder if perhaps entering society at all had ever been a mistake. Or maybe Shiki was planning the opposite? Two other girls would certainly be more welcome. After all that would get the attention from Brian off her and they would be able to do more in her place. Besides she was always better at talking with other girls after all. Though if one of them were the sporty athletic type she knew she'd only be reminded of her past in school and see the social divide between the two of them even more. And those kinds of girls were always looking down on others that weren't her type so Carmen knew that if such a woman were around she'd have to tip toe around every line of dialogue she tossed out lest she be socially murdered for all to see. But if it were a cute and innocent type of girl perhaps it'd be easier to get along with them. Though she was a gloomy and utterly creepy creature so she was certain that she'd call the police on herself just for being in that kind of girl's presence. Actually, was she even better at talking to females? “I don’t know,” Brian said. “I don’t hate her, I guess. Somehow, despite watching whatever that was in that building dance around in her body.” Brian speaking up, using a rather disturbing turn of phrase, had once more pulled out of her spiral as she thought on his words. The girl didn't realize she had gotten to the point of not being hated, unless his loathing of her somehow transcended the word hate and he just couldn't figure out how to put it to words. As for her opinion of him. "Eh?" A mortified look crossed her face at the thought, shaking her head violently to reject the idea. "Taking a nap here?! No no no no, I don't want to close my eyes in a haunted building that'd be the worst! And," the girl gave Brian a side eye, nervously taking a step back and shaking her head. "...I definitely can't sleep here..." Her last mission made her well aware of what kind of man she was dealing with. As the man reached down and grabbed for her hand, the girl's terror that the monster was coming for her again was soon abated as she realized he was just dragging her through the building. With the man's forceful nature pushing the both of them forward the girl let out a sigh of relief, knowing that if he were a fake he would've asked anything about her well being or need to take a break first. "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! Diiiiiiiiiiiiiie!" Sweat on her brow, wide eyed yet not looking directly at either of them she said, "I um...I think...we're um, maybe near our next rank...ehehe"

Though there was one enemy down two still remained. The Dregnr that had stabbed Sabrina pulled out its sword, and seemed to be ready to go for yet another against its opponent. Pulling back the sword, the two Exalted would be able to see lightning crackle across the Drengr's blade as it winded up its next swing. The large bestial coyote meanwhile had recovered from the attack that Abby had delivered earlier. Rather than immediately pounce, however, it began to go from a low snarl to something much louder, before letting out a roar. In a large conical burst coming from its mouth, a blast of sound struck all three combatants. Both Sabrina and the Drengr would find themselves staggered, if only for a moment, by the attack. Abby meanwhile, though the attack still hurt a little, was able to Endure through it entirely.

As Ziun walked over the girl simply nodded and returned his greeting. However when he asked if she was ready she simply looked to the side saying, "I could do without any of the horrors from yesterday. But, if you must know," a look of pride crossed her face as she pointed to the axe on her back, "I'm all freshly armed and ready to take this whole set of floors on." With Chris coming next the girl's expression soured at his question. Her instinct to his question was to say, "no I was haunted," but that would've both been tattling out Farah and it also wasn't really true. Though, it did make her morning much less pleasant then it needed to be but that was less the ghosts fault. Lana couldn't help but wonder if Anna was actually the one doing the haunting between the two. All the same, the girl shrugged and said, "I just hope nothing tries to eat my ace again." A frown was across Lana's face as they went in without Estelle to the next floors. It was a bummer to her for sure, both losing a friend and capable mage to help them out, to no longer go down deeper into the dungeon with. She couldn't dwell on it for long though, and thankfully the fact that there were more skeletons on this floor already had her irritated attention. Hardly paying attention to their new choice in weaponry, the girl raised an eyebrow at the incredibly suspiciously basic, not foggy and almost empty looking room. After having something fall from the ceiling and try to eat her head, rats hiding out in tunnels and skeleton dogs running endlessly out of fog that this was so simple looking both made Lana feel greatly at ease and incredibly on edge all at once. Lana, however, decided to err on the side of it being a much easier floor then the last. As such, when Ziun went to use his magic, she had brandished her great axe and was ready to get into the fray as well. With Chris charging ahead to take down one of them, Lana decided to go after the skeleton that Ziun had just attacked. The man didn't have a great track record with undead being on top of him and Lana would much rather take of it immediately then have to run back and forth across the room. Charging with her axe overhead, the girl brought it down smashing against the skeleton, its already brittle and now melting bones giving way under the weight with no effort. With the skeleton having been defeated the girl turned her attention towards the center of the room, getting ready to aid Chris next when she noticed that the coffin next to her slid open. "Huh?" The girl looked on with trepidation as the lid came off the coffin fully, revealing a husk of rotting flesh covered head to toe in bandages. It wasn't her first zombie of course, but the girl grimaced at the sight saying, "oh gross." At least it had the decency to mostly cover up. Still, with a new enemy appearing right next to her the girl raised her great axe and went to smash in the head of the newly risen creature.

With the next stop being a "boxing ring," Fen looked around to see that as far as things that she had seen thus far this one actually had a little of familiarity to her. Combat sports weren't exactly uncommon where she was from, though this specific one seemed to be entirely about punching one another only and having to face off in a rather small arena. While the girl was looking at each of the people currently fighting, trying to understand just a bit better any other rules of the sport, a large muscular individual had promptly entered her field of view. The girl looked him up and down as he explained who he was and examined his body as per his invitation to do so to see that he was in fairly good shape overall, figuring that he was both a regular here and perhaps a sporty individual in general. But raising her hand to wave off his earlier comment the girl said, "oh, um, well that's quite a kind offer, I think. But no, I'm here to um," Fen looked towards Kelsey saying, "box? Was it?" Adonis followed her gaze and when he saw Kelsey, "Gah!" he suddenly exclaimed. "I, uh, did not see you there!" Kelsey ignored him and responded directly to Fen, "Yup that's the plan. Maybe I should show you how it's done with that punching ba- that guy over there?" She said, indicating Adonis. Putting her hand to her chin the girl said, "oh well, I do learn well by watching first, so if you'd be so kind to." Fen looked over and innocently smiled to Adonis saying, "and then maybe we can box too after." Adonis coughed awkwardly. "Ah well that, you see. My, uh, my hip! My hip has been acting up and I wouldn't want to step into the ring without showing my best..." "Oh that won't be a problem this won't last long enough for that to matter." Kelsey said in a falsely sweet voice before grabbing Adonis and half-dragging him to the ring. Fen marveled at first at Kelsey's display of skill, her technique and sheer power behind her fists with each strike she made. She then started to wince a bit as the fight continued and a look of growing concern crossed her face as the fight continued. Yet all the same with the match finished between the two, Fen looked thoughtfully about what she had just saw and nodded to herself. "I see, so that's how it's done. I think I have a good grasp on the rules now. Oh and um, well I knew you were strong but I didn't realize how good, er well, skilled at punching you were." Looking at Adonis she asked, "is he um, alright for more though? I didn't realize a person's arm could bend in that way when taking a punch." "Oh him? Yeah I'm sure it's fine! He isn't good for much but he sure can take a beating." Kelsey answered for him as Adonis seemed to be dazed still. Her expression was still a bit concerned about the well being of her opponent yet decided to still trust Kelsey's words. "If you say so. Well, um, if you don't mind." Getting into the ring and putting on a pair of gloves herself the girl said, "well, um, whenever you're ready, Adonis." Once Kelsey left the ring life seemed to return to the man as Adonis refocused. Seeing it was not just Fen in the ring he cleared his throat and stood taller. "Ah, so it's you now! Well I'll have you know I was taking it easy to let you learn! But now that you have I suppose you won't mind if I take this seriously right?" "Oh, please, go ahead. I know I may be knew to this but the last thing I'd want is, well, for you to take it easy on me." Shifting her feet, posture and arms into a stance similar to what Kelsey had just had she said, "so um, uh, put 'em up?" "Forgive me if this hurts too much, feel free to cry if you must!" He then ran forward to take a heavy swing. Seeing the man take the initiative to attack, Fen realized how one sided the match against Kelsey and Adonis had been as she didn't actually know what was allowed for defense. Given his large musculature the girl didn't really want to attempt blocking the attack, and instead opted to duck under the swing, striking him in the gut with a swift jab. Backing off, not hearing anyone complain about what she had done she thus inferred that dodging was legal in this sport. Still, the girl remembered her friend's form and strikes and seemed dissatisfied with her own. She was never much of an unarmed fighter to begin with so all the technical aspects of it weren't ingrained in her body, and so she could do was keep improving. Each time Adonis went in for a swing Fen would dodge the punch, either by ducking, or stepping back or to the side, before going in for yet another punch of her own. And each time she did she would mumble something to herself, before trying to shift around her footing or the positioning of her arms. The fight didn't last very long and Fen had gotten through it without too much difficulty, her opponent being KO'd for the second time in a short time frame. Taking a deep breath, getting herself out of her combat focus, the girl gave a bow to Adonis. "Thank you for the match." Then looking over to Kelsey she smiled saying, "that was pretty fun."

It took Carmen a moment to realize that she hadn't just looped back into the previous room. Only when Brian mentioned the time did she look at her own phone again. She had used it as evidence to figure out that she was in some kind of fake room but she didn't even realize how long the whole thing had gone on for. It was at this moment that Brian started taking a step towards her and the girl's instinctive response was to back away, though on the floor she could only hope to shuffle her position without moving very far. As the man reached down and grabbed for her hand, the girl's terror that the monster was coming for her again was soon abated as she realized he was just dragging her through the building. With the man's forceful nature pushing the both of them forward the girl let out a sigh of relief, knowing that if he were a fake he would've asked anything about her well being or need to take a break first. Wordlessly following along, the girl's silence was only broken with a small, "geh," in surprise as she saw Shiki. As it turned out her night wasn't over yet, though that was clear enough from how the last mission she and Brian had been on ended. As Shiki introduced themselves, Carmen's eyes widened as she pointed to herself saying loudly, "I- I'm Carmen!" She looked back and forth between Shiki and Brian as if too say, "you have to believe me," before her attention turned to the burgers. The girl's face lit up with excitement at the sight of the fast food, only to then drop and blink several times. She was positive she had just mentioned McDonalds not a moment ago...the girl looked back towards the driver's seat, before looking back to the burgers. Oh well, it was free food. The girl's hunger was enough to at least keep her paranoia from getting in the way, as she grabbed a burger and began to eat. After a brief period of choking, having eaten her first burger at an alarming speed, the girl looked back to the driver's seat and said, "u-um...thanks...." After a moment longer the girl then asked, "do you uh, think it was a ghost or demon?" To the both of them.

Walking up the road, not paying any heed to the conversation the two of her teammates were having Jacklyn said, "oh there you guys are. You'll never believe this! There was some guy with a cool looking mask just now. I wonder if he's also an adventurer?" Before she could get her answer though Jacklyn's eyes immediately shifted to the statue in the center, "Whoa! What the heck is that?" The girl walked on the path, curiously eyeing the statue before walking into the marsh proper. The girl seemed to be bothered by her shoes sinking into the mud at first, disliking how much harder it made it to walk, but shrugged and persevered without much worry. Up close and looking at the statue, the girl couldn't help but feel this strange sensation in her head as she tried to figure out just what it was supposed to be. It certainly wasn't a person but if it was supposed to resemble a pokemon she didn't have the faintest idea of which one it would be. It didn't help that she was developing a growing headache, of all the luck, making it harder to figure out anything about it. Furrowing her brow in annoyance, closing her eyes as she put a hand to her chin the girl opened them back up as she thought of something. She then looked back at her map and raised an eyebrow. "Why is there even a statue here?" Jacklyn had grown up in a big city and as such she was very familiar with statues being every which way. She didn't know the purpose of most of them but she generally thought they served some kind of symbol beyond just decoration, or they were some rich person's very expensive decoration for the whole city to see. Not to mention, even the older ones, she still had some idea of what they were trying to depict. Perhaps this was what lead to this sudden insight, though the girl didn't really have anything else to offer. Looking back to the rest of the group with a smile on her face she said, "someone take a picture. After all, this is our first major landmark on our journey, so we gotta capture it in a photo right?" The girl winced as her head still hurt, growing a little impatient though her adventurer's spirit still burned brightly. "Oh, I'll take one for you guys if you want too!"

Though she on her last legs, unsure of how she was going to deal with the now transformed Lucas, she was glad to see that Lindow had at least managed to defeat his werewolf. As he regrouped with the Chosen, he began to heal her and handed her a healing potion to which she immediately used on herself. Her arm was feeling better now, though she still didn't think it could take too many direct attacks before giving out again, and her breath was steadying as her vision started to normalize as well. Though she was in much better shape then she was a moment ago, with Keres attending to both Madelyn and Reinaan at present it was down to her, Lindow, Cym and Pan. Ryia did not have any idea on how to approach this man, however. From the brief showing of strength she saw against Reinaan she had already expected him to be in a league of his own compared to the other werewolves and now he was transformed. Simply walking forward and getting into a straightforward altercation with the werewolves hadn't worked all too well for her up to this point and she didn't think she'd last a moment if she just stepped up and went for a frontal attack. However, Lindow had a different idea in mind. Taking the last of the greharms he had purchased, the man tossed it forward towards the Lycan. Before the Lycan could react to the projectile, the Thunder Chosen let out a discharge of lightning into the object, detonating it in the man's face. Lucas was certainly made surprised by the attack and though it most certainly didn't stop him, it still managed to damage him. Taking the moment to step up, Ryia still didn't exactly know how to proceed but got herself ready for his attack. The werewolf had moved forward, swinging one of his arms down in an overhead towards her. The girl raised her shield to parry the attack away as she side stepped, though grit her teeth immediately as the force of the arm, not budging from her shield parry, came down on it. Getting ready for an attack of her own, Ryia started a swing only to see that he had already begun swinging his other claw. Doing what she could to evade the next attack, the girl attempted to duck, using her already awkward balance to move under the swipe. Before she could think of what to do next the lycan's knee struck her in the face, forcing her backwards. The girl didn't get to recoil very far back though, as he grabbed onto her. Cym took the opportunity to stab Lucas in the back, though her offense was not without retaliation as he picked up Ryia and swung her at Cym. Hitting the elf with her steel coated body, Ryia could barely make sense of what was going on, having never been tossed around like so, before she finally hit the ground. Letting out a pained groan, the girl tried to get her bearings as she brought herself up. She had certainly fought opponents that she wouldn't have been able to properly block before, they were all far larger and with far more mass than herself that she would've expected it. And while his strength was surprising in of itself, the fact that he had a speed that she hadn't encountered before to back it up made it all the more dangerous. She didn't think that she would be able to land a good hit in against this man, but she didn't think she had to. As long as she could endure his attacks and create an opening for the others that would be enough for her. Looking to Cym she huffed out a, "s-sorry," feeling bad that she had just been used as a weapon against her teammate. Then, she stood up and got ready for the next go.

Sibyl looked up as Aeon called out to them from where she was. The girl shrugged saying, "the other two ran off. Wonder if they flew back to Caesar," despite how clear Arcturus had made it that they were annoyed by their boss, Sibyl had the feeling they'd go flying back to them eventually anyway. And she was most certainly ready to go meet the big boss himself and any goons that he surrounded himself with. "Sounds like a plan! Let's go have some fu-" The girl's statement was cut off as an earthquake followed by an explosion interrupted her. Seeing the line of fire plume up through the city, obscured though it was by the stadium they were in. "Holy shit! The hell was that?" Sibyl made her way out of the building immediately, her curiosity forcing her to find out the answer to her question. With the one guy, Selesky or something, calling out about something just popping out of the ground. It didn't take a lot of looking to see the giant plumes of steam and the creature that accompanied it. "Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit! That's awesome!" A wide grin formed on her face the more she exclaimed. "Alright Caesar can definitely wait. Here I come big guy!" And with a look of glee that girl rushed off to meet with the creature.

As Kelsey explained the distinction between her world and this one, Fen couldn't help but be both impressed and in disbelief. It wasn't as though that she thought Kelsey was lying to her, simply that the scale of distance to refer to them, almost in the same manner as going from one city to another, was more than she could presently comprehend. As the girl went on to mention that no one had left yet, Fen's brow furrowed. She didn't exactly know what to make of it, both because she didn't know how people's attempts to do so had gone nor did she truly understand her employer in general. In fact something that seemed even stranger to her was that Percival was here. It wasn't so strange that if there were people from different worlds being recruited that others from her guild would find their way here - in fact she found it odd that she was the one picked from all of them to begin with. Rather, he had clearly been here for longer than she had but she didn't have any real recollection of him not being home for any length of time. She told Kelsey that the job she had now reminded her of her guild work, yet she hadn't realized just how many similarities there were. Snapping back to reality, the girl looked over to Kelsey as she mentioned the fish. "Oh, uh right. Well that rainbow trail one you mentioned certainly sounds delicious but only a poor chef would limit their choices to the first thing they heard." Fen smiled back as the two looked further in the aquarium. There were many sights to see, their forms generally looking familiar while the actual mechanics of their biology being entirely different. There was a pufferfish that pushed out spikes from itself, each one having a light at the end of them to act as a large multi-light globe to attract prey towards. There was a lantern fish that no one quite knew what it actually looked like as it obscured the area around it, forming a large dark mass that traveled through the water. Fen couldn't help but stop in her tracks as they came across a shark. Putting a hand to her chin, examining it she said, "so the kind that live in water also exist here too." After traversing the aquarium for awhile, the two started to make their way for the exit. However before actually getting to the exit Fen remembered something before saying, "oh, um one moment." After hurrying away from the entrance Fen left Kelsey there for a moment before returning. Proud, carrying what was clearly a plastic bag from the gift shop, the girl said, "I wished to thank you for the trip today, and as you paid for the entry I decided to pay for the souvenir." The girl pulled out a shirt, a very plain blue shirt with a few fish on the front and the back emblazoned with the same penguin the building was structured after. Forcibly handing it off to Kelsey she said, "oh um, you don't have to worry either." The girl pulled out a second one. "I bought one for myself as well." After the gift giving had been done, the girl looked up and said, "oh hm, it's still not that late. You mentioned some uh, other more physically active places to go, right? Would you want to go to one of those?" Catching herself on her question the girl said, "oh, um, of course only if you still aren't busy or the like."

With her first failure finished, Carmen frantically searched the room for anything that seemed as off as Sherlock's picture did. Her first instinct was to check the clock in the room, as that was something that required the least amount of digging through to find. Looking at her phone and looking at the clock, the girl checked several more times before she could definitively say that they were different times being displayed. Gulping as she found yet another discrepancy between what she figured to be reality, the girl froze in place before suddenly moving into a frenzy. Looking under the poster where she had originally seen the drawing of the boss she noticed that there was no longer anything there. "Gone..." the girl muttered. Rushing then to the notebook she had found earlier, she flipped through it only to realize that the picture she was looking for was nowhere to be found again. "G-gone...gone gone gone!" Looking to Brian with a pathetic look on her face the girl whimpered, "this place is really haunted." "Well duh that's what we're here for what are you freaking out about now?" He got closer. "You having some sort of episode or something?" "This! Th-this whole room is - ahhh, everything's all different in here! No wait maybe..." The girl trailed off as she started to think about what was going on. The collar and pictures both had just vanished. Paling at what that could mean the girl said, "maybe we'll just vanish if we stay in here for too long..." looking as if everything was doomed, the girl looked towards the door like she wanted to make a break for it but gave up before trying. "Are you kidding me? Nothing is different, it's the same damn room isn't that the whole problem? Did you not get any sleep and now you're hallucinating?" "I'm not hallucinating!" The girl emphatically yelled, before moving away from him. She knew what was real and wouldn't doubt her memory when it came to this. She knew what was originally here and what no longer was. Though, the clock didn't vanish it was just different. Could it mean that everything around her was just different and made to look the same... Everything? The girl thought about it more and more as her mind raced with everything that had happened and could happen, feeling that her life was growing ever more and more in danger. Calming herself from simply hysterical, the girl's voice shook tremendously as she tried to test something. "M-maybe you're right...maybe I just...need to calm down and like, eat something...I-I could r-really use the, ugh, McDonalds from last night..." "Or maybe you just need to sleep so I can figure this out without you shouting nonsense at me." The response caused the girl to freeze in place. She figured she was seconds away from being stabbed by some kind of ghost or demon or djinn and that there was only two options now. She, of course, always wanted to run away from the danger if she could. She would just book it out of the building and never return. But she was trapped. She couldn't run anywhere, no matter how fast or how far she moved it would always lead back to here. So there was only one other option. Her hand reached up to the seal and then in an instant, pounced. "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!" The girl hysterically shouted as she jumped "Brian" trying to force the seal onto the man's body. He put up his hands to fight back and force her away, but she only felt more correct in her guess and more feral in her attack as the man's strength wasn't nearly enough to keep her at bay. This was not the person who ripped the flashlight from her hands so easily. This was not the man who would just brush past something that was obviously wrong with what she said. This was not the man that told her to actually fight the ghosts instead of just bury her head in a table. This was probably a ghost. Or demon. Or djinn. All the same the girl shouted, "diiiiiiiiiiiiiie!" in a panicked frenzy as she finally placed the seal on the man's body. In an instant both the body and seal burst into flames, leaving nothing remaining when it was over. The girl stared at the place where her foe just was, hyperventilating and processing that she indeed had just won against the haunt. "I-I I did it...It's...gone?" Slowing her breathing the girl felt immense relief only to be filled with immense dread as she realized that she still had no idea what actually happened to Brian and whether this was the only ghost or not waiting to shank her. Hastily putting on a seal on herself the girl ran out the door to see if anything would change this time. Exiting into the same room as before, Carmen immediately saw someone at the opposite end of the room. Another look of relief appeared as she shouted, "B-Brian!?" As she was happy to see that her partner was in fact alive, what had just happened was still fresh in her mind and thus panic set in once again. "Aaa-aah!" The girl shouted as she took a very sloppy fighting stance, hastily backing up and tripping over her own poor footing into the room she had just come from. However, instead of ending up in a new room she had found herself in a hall. The hall that she had seen at the very start of this whole debacle. Unfortunately she could only let out an, "ow, ow, ow," as she tried to pick herself back up.

The girl made her way to the shopping district, as she had not too many days prior, to once again fix up her armaments. Though, in this case, rather than fixing something she had she was here to fix her problem of not having. Going to browse the weapons that she could, Lana knew that she needed to replace both a great axe and a hand axe. As the girl browsed looking for a replacement for the first of the two, she found herself admiring a few other two handed weapons. Specifically, her eyes had fallen onto a great sword. Picking it up and getting a feel for it before committing to actually purchasing it Lana couldn't help but realize how incredibly awkward this weapon was. The weight was far more evenly distributed across the entire weapon, as opposed to being entirely focused at the top, and to compensate the grip was almost entirely at the bottom. "How does anyone swing something like this?" It wasn't as if it was too heavy for her she just had no handling on the weapon at all. Yet, it was the weapon of choice that her, brief, teacher had used and she certainly looked cool with it. The girl then imagined herself with it, thinking how cool it would be to possess a similar "aura" to Joan and thinking that this weapon was certainly the first step towards it. However, it was also something that she didn't actually have any proficiency and she was heading into the dungeon soon. The girl frowned, and looked increasingly more uncomfortable as she remembered the events of last time and tried thinking about using the greatsword instead. "Maybe next time." Picking up a greataxe, the girl looked around for something else. Thinking back to how many times she had slashed and used the weight of her weapons on all the undead, she figured she needed something else to deal with anything skeletal. As well as anything trying to claw or bite of her arms again. And so, the girl purchased a pair of gauntlets as well as a mace. Now fully outfitted the girl felt prepped to take on anything the dungeon would through at her. Standing at the dungeon entrance, the girl took a deep breath before looking towards the area with completely unfounded confidence. As with every time she had entered the dungeon, Lana was completely disregarding what the dangers would do to her mood, instead only excited to take the plunge once again. "I bet there'll be an even bigger pay out this time, and then..." The girl smirked as she thought about finding some kind of fancy restaurant to splurge some of her winnings on, feasting as much as she could in whatever bizarre and over expensive outfit she could find. "Now just to wait for the other two."

Fen was made more curious by Kelsey's initial explanation, but before she asked about it she was asked her opinion on "this." At first the girl thought she was referring to simply the aquarium, to which she was definitely fascinated by the structure and enjoying her time seeing all the new types of ocean life, but then realized she likely meant the city as a whole. No perhaps she meant the "planet" or "world" as a whole, though the two hardly seemed any different then the "city" to her with what limited exposure she had to it. Even still, her answer remained largely the same from the aquarium. "Well, hmm, I think I've certainly enjoyed my time here so far. I was uh, definitely overwhelmed when I first came though. I don't think I've ever seen, well, just about any of the magical devices that they have here back home." Bashfully the girl added, "in fact I was uh, well, nervous that to even send a message with this," the girl held up her watch. Her nerves, based on Kelsey's response as well, were not unfounded though she supposed that was more a matter of prose then function. Back pedaling the girl said, "oh but um, that's not to say that I've had only difficulties with these devices. And I've learned all about how convenient they could be. Back home because of, well, my own magic I had to constantly use it as a means to store and preserve food, but I've learned that there's a wonderful thing called a "refrigerator" that does it for me. The city is also much more um, I suppose vibrant and tall then I'm used to." Thinking about where she was from the girl said, "I suppose really the only place that compared was the capital of Arbolia, though even the grand architecture and size of that city pales a bit in comparison to this city. It's also a bit overwhelming to deal with...oh, but well, I've had a number of helpful people - oh yourself included, who have helped me. Well, get my bearings. It...almost reminds me of my guild...really..." The girl looked to the side, remembering that she was far, far from home with no way back before saying, "the work here isn't too different then what I'm used to, and I do enjoy helping people but...that I don't know how long this job should last...or how to get home and how sudden it all has been...well um..." Fen trailed off before looking back to Kelsey, her expression lighting up. "Oh, but you said you've traveled to other worlds before right? Does that mean you can come and go as want?"

With Cherry taking yet another victory against a wild pokemon, the smile remained on Jacklyn's face as she cheered, "way to go Cherry! I doubt there's any wild pokemon that could match up to you now." The Buneary hopped up in joy at the praise. "Oh my god, it's so cute." Jacklyn and Cherry turned their attention to the source of the voice; a trendy looking girl in a skirt with a lollipop in her mouth who seemed to be smiling at the Buneary. She marched on forward, paying no heed to Jacklyn as she crouched down and grabbed the, now confused, buneary's ears. "And they're so fluffy too, and like seriously where do you get one in this color?" The girl continued to fluff the confused Buneary's ears as she marveled over the pokemon. The Buneary remained confused at this invasion of its personal space, though didn't really do much against it, as Jacklyn smiled proudly. "That's right! I'm glad you understand how great my team member is, isn't that right Cherry? After all when it comes to being cute there's no one better on my team then her." Cherry, still unsure of what was going on, knew it was being praised and thus smiled and cried out excitedly. "For real, for real. But you know there's no one more 'dorbs out there then my Minchi." A crack could be heard as the girl chomped down on her candy, looking up at Jacklyn. "What'd you say?" The girl looked down, locking eyes with the Lass as it was clear what was about to happen. Standing up, the Lass walked back before reaching into her backpack and pulling out a premier ball. With a flick of her wrist the ball went to the ground, opening and releasing the Mincino that was inside of it. Jacklyn, furrowing her brow, said, "I see. So that's "Minchi." Hmmm...not bad." "Right? Like I knew you'd get it." "But don't think that means you've won just yet. Go on Cherry, show her just how cute you are!" "Bu!" "Bet." Lass Sadie challenged Jacklyn to a battle. The two pokemon battled each other, though the both of them only knew one attacking move and it was the same move. As such their strategies were entirely one dimensional, in the repeated use of pound, dodge, pound, get hit, pound again. The two pokemon also had a bit of confusion as the two trainers kept shouting about being cute while doing their attacks, or even to "cutely" take the hit and shrug it off. To make matters even more confusing to a bystander, "alright Cherry go for it! Show off what you got!" "Minchi, dazzle them with your cuteness!" The Buneary then began bouncing around, as if splashing, to no effect. The Mincino, meanwhile, clapped along, offering a Helping Hand to Cherry's display. The two trainers nodded before the battle resumed in earnest. Though the two were evenly matched, in the end it was Cherry who had come out on top by a hair. The Lass called back her pokemon, looking disappointed saying, "losing isn't very cute at all. But your Cherry's pretty cute too, so," the girl tossed Jacklyn a lollipop as part of her winnings, before giving a wave saying, "laters." Popping the piece of candy in her mouth Jacklyn said, "that's what I thought." Then proudly looking to her Buneary she shouted, "way to go Cherry! I knew you could do it." The Buneary gave a thumbs(?) up to the girl, though looked wobbly on her feet. "Alright you can take a rest for now." The girl returned her pokemon before looking around saying, "now where did everyone else get off to?" As Jacklyn wandered off back onto the beaten path, starting to go up the road again she saw someone coming the opposite side. Jacklyn attempted to lock eyes with the man, but it proved impossible as she couldn't clearly see his eyes under the mask he was wearing. As he passed by the girl just called out, "cool mask," before making her way up to regroup with Anima.

As morning came, Lana got out of her bed, groggy as ever. The day after a dungeon dive had always left her needing more sleep then normal, though she couldn't help but feel like her typical post dungeon fatigue wasn't as terrible as the last few times. It still took her a few moments to snap back to attention and remember what it was that she needed to do for the day. Her eyes fell on her hand axe and dagger sitting on the table in the room. The girl then looked at the wall, bare of what it usually held, and sighed. "My poor axes...my poor money..." The girl didn't want to have to go into town to go and buy new weapons, especially if they weren't going to be any better than the ones she just had. But she could hardly go into combat missing a primary weapon. As such, sacrifices had to be made. "Well, once I'm done I'll be filthy rich so just a little won't matter now." As she got out of bed, the girl began to make her out for the day when a commotion caught her attention. Making her way to the source of the commotion, she could see that Anna was being chewed out by her father for having slept on the church grounds all night. While she was not one for getting involved in family business she and Anna were, presumably, friends so just leaving this as it was didn't sit well with her. "Uhh, good morning? Is, uh, everything alright?" "Ah, good morning young lady...did we wake you?" the priest said. Anna just waved. "I was just getting up actually. So like what I heard...did Anna really stay the night here?" "It would seem so. She snuck out of the house to do so as well." The priest sighed. "I suppose I should just be glad she didn't rope you into it too." "Eh? Why did you..." The girl looked at where they were for a moment, then looked at a random gravestone, before sighing to herself. Clearing her throat, forcing an incredibly friendly expression and tone on her face the girl said, "ahhh, did you just want to stay the night with me Anna, is that all? But I sleep inside you know?" Anna looked over at Lana. "No. I wouldn't be in the graveyard if that was the case." Her eye twitched as the girl seemed to not want to bother playing along on with her assist. Though, Lana wasn't sure if this was more Anna's fault for not understanding it or Lana's own fault for not realizing yet who she was dealing with. Clearing her throat heartily again, she looked to the priest. "I'll uh...keep an eye out for her in the future to make sure it doesn't happen." The priest smiled. "You're a good kid. Maybe some of that will rub off on her." He muttered then took Anna by the arm. "Now come on, you have to apologize to your mother." "Ahahaha, well...uh, good luck Anna." "Byebye." Anna said flatly as she left. Letting out a sigh the girl then looked around and, in a hushed tone, asked, "Farah? Farah are you here?" No response. Lana looked around for a moment longer, opening her mou- "Wow, talking to yourself, what a weirdo." "Ah!" Lana yelped before looking over to the ghost girl. Then, sighing again she'll ask, "why did you let Anna sleep outside?" "What do ya expect me to do, drag her back home? Anyway she didn't actually sleep much." "At least get her to sleep on a pew or something...Wait, she was up all night?" The mere idea of staying up that long seemed to disgust Lana. "She was watching the stars. She does that sometimes." Farah said and nodded. "I...see..." The girl looked to the day time sky before letting out another sigh. "Well, people are probably going to think she's haunted if she keeps spending nights in graveyard, which would be bad news." With a slight look of resignation the girl said, "I guess I really will need to keep a look out. Oh well, that's for later. I gotta go shopping now for some dungeon stuff." "Well. She IS haunted." Farah said with a giggle. "Kay! Buy something nice for me while you're at it!" With that Farah faded away. As Lana walked away she just mumbled, "what do you even buy for a ghost?"

Ryia had also been catching her breath as the elves replied, understanding the sentiment they both shared. She grimaced, seeing Madelyn having been knocked unconscious and that there were still two lycans left aside from the leader of the pack himself. Having taken on three by this point, and not without aid from others, she knew that having anything other than Lucas when having to fight Lucas himself would be close to suicide. She winced as she heard the howl, daring not to look in the direction where it came from knowing that there was only one that such a piercing sound could belong to. He was strong enough to take on Reinaan without breaking a sweat without transforming, and she was sure that there was more than just cosmetics as a purpose to these transformations. As such, the girl nodded to Cym's response and got ready to move out. Calling, "Ackrin," once more, the spirit went to her side before merging with her. Looking at the field Lindow had dealt quite a large amount of damage to his Lycan and was currently dead locked with it, her attention then turned to Keres. The Water Chosen was on the ground, the Lycan as well knocked down before getting back up. Knowing how strong and fast they were, she knew that Keres didn't have much of a chance if it had managed to actually get upon her. And so she rushed to the mage's aid. Closing the distance between herself and the Lycan, the girl managed to reach as it got back on its feet and raised her sword for a swing. The wolfman unable to react in time snarled as the blade of the girl found purchase in its shoulder, before turning its snarl into something more visceral. With its mouth opening to try and bite down on her, the girl brought her shield up to defend against the attack, only to grimace as the mouth impacted against her defense. Pushing back against the jaw, the girl swung her sword this time against the now exposed neck. However, while her attack was similarly successful, the girl realized that she was in grave danger as she was stuck in her current position as the Lycan brought up both of its claws to attack her. Water struck the shoulder of the Lycan, giving her the opening to shove the creature back and step back before it could tear her to shreds. Catching her breath, the girl sized up her opponent, waiting to see what would happen next only for it to go for yet another double swipe against her. Stepping to the side, the girl managed to avoid one of the claws and raised her shield against the second. Crack. Ryia grit her teeth, suppressing a scream trying to escape from her mouth as the claw of the Lycan impacted against her shield. Though she managed to absorb the blow she could feel her arm bending in a way it wasn't supposed to as she was shoved back by the attack. Stumbling back from the attack, Ryia was starting to realize just how heavy her breathing was becoming as the fatigue of battle was starting to pierce its way through her adrenaline. Though she could still move her shield arm there was no way it could take a direct attack like before, or at the very least it would be useless to try. So instead, she had to go on the offensive and end this fight as quickly as she could. Stepping forward, the girl swung her sword against the shoulder she had injured before, causing the Lycan to have a similar reaction to what she just had though still going in for a stab with its claw against her. Stepping to the side, the attempted to parry the attack as best as she could, feeling the pain course through her arm as she did so and continued her offensive. The two stepped forward, trading yet another slash and claw strike against each other, Ryia clearly on the back foot. And so, trying to go for a decisive blow, she slashed at the beast's neck. As it went to swing its claw at her, it found it stopped by a whip of water curled around it. Pressing the advantage as her blade found purchase in the beast's neck, Ryia went for one final swing, only for the lycan to break free of its entanglement and struck her in the side, piercing her armor with its claw as the Earth Chosen's blade ended the creature's life. Bleeding from several places now, a barely functioning arm and having pushed herself to a point of exhaustion she never had before, Ryia's footing began to grow unsteady. Though she was panting, practically gasping for air, no matter how much she took in didn't feel like enough to sustain her. Still, she refused to give up just yet. Even though she could barely see straight, her eyes trying to shut themselves as stars formed in her vision, she had to keep everyone safe still. Even Lucas now in wolf form moving towards them, even with her knowing that there was no way she could win and even if she could hardly take a step forward, she stood firm on her ground still.

It didn't take long for Carmen to realize that her phone was a poor distraction to her environment. There wasn't anything particularly going on at this hour for one, and for another she was also reminded that the less she paid attention to her surroundings the worse it got. After all, she knew what to be afraid of if she could see the danger. She had no idea what to be afraid of if she was looking elsewhere or had her eyes closed, and that was all the more frightening. Putting her phone down the girl looked up and asked, "s-so uh...have you um...found anything?" He sighed, annoyed. "No, nothing. Maybe there's nothing to find..." he picked up the trash can and looked under it and shook his head. "Ughhhh," the girl whined as she placed her chin on the table, defeated. Looking at the dog picture she grumbled, "we're both just Watsons..." The girl made her joke and complaint to herself and the dog picture, but then she thought of something. Why did she make that joke? It was because the dog was named Sherlock, of course, but how did she know that? Looking at the dog, squinting and leaning forward closer she was positive that there was something that told her its name until she thought back. Remembering that there was a name tag on the dog, she looked and found no such thing on the dog anymore. "Eh? Huh?" There were two possibilities here. One, Carmen had made the whole thing up and just assumed based on the dog picture. This could not have been the case though as Carmen had always believed her own irrationally paranoid mind to be correct when it came to such inconsistencies. Which lead to only one other option. "A-aaaaaaaahhhhh!" The girl shouted as she immediately back away, the chair rolling away from the desk as she shoved herself away from it. Brian turned towards her. "Can you be quiet I'm trying to figure this out." "B-b-but I think it's haunted!" She emphatically pointed at the dog picture. Brian made his way over and looked, then looked at Carmen. "Are you sure you're alright? Maybe you should, I don't know, take a nap or something." "Eh?" A mortified look crossed her face at the thought, shaking her head violently to reject the idea. "Taking a nap here?! No no no no, I don't want to close my eyes in a haunted building that'd be the worst! And," the girl gave Brian a side eye, nervously taking a step back and shaking her head. "...I definitely can't sleep here..." Her last mission made her well aware of what kind of man she was dealing with. "You might as well, not like you're doing anything else." He gestured around, "and obviously I'm not going anywhere." His insistence only proved to her more and more that falling asleep in such a place would be the end of her, in a sense. Shaking her head violently still, the girl made her way over to the seal box and, in an attempt to be useful and do something else. Slapping the seal on the picture of the dog, nothing seemed to happen. Brian rolled his eyes and wandered off, "whatever." The girl gulped, knowing that she had just failed to do anything useful but continued to start looking around for anything else in the room that would be haunted.

Sibyl raised an eyebrow as the core seemed to shift around into the center of the now hardening slime. The girl was, of course, ready to tear the rest of the slime apart before it started to let out a beeping noise. Though her emotions had put her into a frenzy she had enough common sense, or at the very least knowledge of television and film, to understand that when something spherical was beeping red it was probably about to explode. "Trying to end the fight like that huh? I ain't gonna let it be that easy for you though!" The balls that her original shadow limbs had previously morphed to changed back into their original claw like form, the slime that had been inside of them the entire time falling harmlessly to the floor. Running over to the beeping ooze core the girl grabbed onto it. From here she knew that she could just toss it away and the slime would be utterly harmless to her. But simply ending the fight like that, against an opponent that already couldn't think, was boring to her. It was then that her attention was directed skyward as the fight between the other two villains and Cassiopeia was reaching its conclusion. Her smile widening the girl said, "yeah, how about some fireworks to end this." As the core began to flash faster and more repeatedly, Sibyl turned around and lobbed the ooze into the air. The projectile had gone largely unnoticed until it was already right near the two flying enemies, Arcturus only having the time to shunt themselves away from being directly hit before the slime exploded. Albatross was blown back, though still managed to use their wings to right themselves in the air. Arcturus, meanwhile, had been launched down into the field below before skidding to a stop and getting themselves back up. "Last time Caesar gets a favor out of me," Arcturus says. "Didn't tell me they could explode. On top of everything else too." Looking at her downed opponent with glee, Sibyl shouted, "heeeeey, glad of you to come down from the sky," she giggled to herself. "I'm already 2 for 2, so wanna keep the wager going?" Before waiting for their opponent to respond Sibyl had already thrown a punch, limb stretching across the field, to hit the villain. Arcturus, however, had already begun to launch themselves off the ground, shunting Sibyl's arm away with another blast of theirs. "Not really in the mood anymore. Long day, lot to think about, people to complain to, Cassie to avoid. I'm sure you understand." Albatross, seeing Arcturus's retreat had also decided it was time to make his break for it too. Her expression scrunch up as rage filled her face, Sibyl shouted, "huh?! Where the hell do you think you're going?!" Of course they were already off and moving at speeds and height too fast and far for Sibyl to actually catch up with, which did nothing to abate the girl's anger. "That bitch acts all confident and then isn't even gonna go down swinging?!" Punching the field tearing out of chunks of mud in her anger Sibyl rampaged for a few moments before finally letting out a deep sigh. The shadows on her body seemed to retract and dissipate before saying, "I'll kick her ass next time." A smile returned to her expression as she looked up towards her ally, shouting, "hey good work up there Cassie!" Looking around, seeing the invisible figure with water still raining down on them and outlining their shape, the girl walked over and crouched down to examine them. "Three presents in one day, I'm like Santa."

"Huh?" Jacklyn repeated for the second time in several minutes today. This one, however, was not out of pure confusion or shock from Anneliese's statement as it was before, though. After the question hit her Jacklyn's expression darkened as she couldn't help but glower at Anneliese only to let out a resigned sigh. "Yeah I guess so," practically grumbling the response. Turning a bit more defensive in tone the girl then said, "but you know, all the others were just lame anyway so who'd even want to hang out with them, right?" As she looked around her smile then returned as she said, "and you know, I'm here on the adventure now like a whole bunch of other trainers while they're just twiddling their thumbs at home. So who's the outcast now? So I'm right where I belong! Hahaha!" Jacklyn let out a hearty laugh as she breezed through the subject, getting her adventurous vigor back , nodding along with Anima. "That's right, there's no sense is just sticking around here. I mean sure this place is pretty cool," in the sense she found it novel how little there actually was here, "but there's a whole rest of the region waiting for us. So, gang, let's go!" And with that the girl marched off through the town, guiding her teammates along. It didn't take long for them to get through the small town they had stopped in before getting onto, "route 102!" The girl declared as she looked up from the map on her pokedex. Though she seemed amped to be in a new area it was still just grass and road for the time being. Looking over to her team the girl said, "Anima, I like your vigor from earlier! And I still need to figure out what being Rus's trainer is supposed to be all about, so! I think getting to training is a great idea!" The girl declared, before walking along the grass and the road, only for a wild hoppip to jump out at her. With a grin on her face she said, "alright, time to show you just what being a trainer is all about. Let's do this!" Having put Rus back in his pokeball after leaving the professor the girl fiddled around on her belt before pulling one out. Throwing the ball she shouted, "go, Ru- " "Bu!" "Huh....Oh..." A defeated expression crossed her face as she looked at the now emptied pokeball in her hand, Cherry having come out from it. She had learned in her quest to understand the professor's question, choosing Rus when she wanted to would be a good first step in being his trainer. "I'm gonna need to label these or something- well anyway, Cherry! I choose you!" The buneary jumped at its name being called, then looked to its opponent curiously. "That's our opponent Cherry, so show them what you got!" The buneary pumped one ear into the air, signaling its understanding, before looking forward at its opponent. Cherry and the Hoppip stared down each other, only for the Hoppip to hop harmlessly in place. Cherry, in turn, hopped in place as well as if joining in on the grass types frolicking. The two accomplished nothing. "Uh, Cherry...what can you like, do?" The trainer asked, not actually knowing what moves her pokemon was capable of. The buneary looked back towards Jacklyn, stopping its splashing about, and cocked its head to the side in confusion at the question. At this moment of distraction, the Hoppip moved in bouncing forward and tackling the shiny buneary in the back causing the Buneary to let out a surprise yelp. "Hey that's cheating! Cherry!" The Buneary hopped back to its feet, a determined look in its eyes. "Alright Cherry let's go...use...uh, tackle?" The Buneary's expression turned to confusion as it looked back to Jacklyn. "Scratch?" It shook its head. "...ember?" It cocked its head. "Hmmmm, what is it...oh, right! Cherry, use pound!" The Buneary seemed to understand that, leaping forward and smashing its foot into the Hoppip and causing it to bounce across the ground like a kickball. Then, righting itself, the Hoppip shot forward yet again. Now paying attention to it and with her acute knowledge of how bunny pokemon could move Jacklyn shouted, "Cherry hop! And," The Buneary jumped up getting higher than the Hoppip before hearing, "pound!" Bringing its foot down it smashed into the top of the Hoppip, forcing the pokemon into the ground and bouncing up again. Stunned from the attack Jacklyn gave one last command, "Cherry, knock it out with a Pound!" Complying, the Buneary hopped up and smashed its foot into the pokemon once more, sending it into the tall grass from whence it came. A smile crossing her face the girl shouted, "alright way to go Cherry!" The girl walked over and bent down, bringing her palm to the pokemon who met it with its raised ear, the two giving an odd high five to one another. "Starting on a victory is a great way to start your own adventure Cherry, but this is just the first step. So let's keep it up!" "Bu bu!"

Oh guru of the waifu bequeath unto me your knowledge.

Fen wasn't quite sure what she was expecting of this "aquarium" building before getting to it. For one she was expecting the entrance to be some kind of large glass wall to display the fish in their entirety to the patrons before they could enter. Though, perhaps that would defeat the purpose of the establishment to begin with and with how much danger there seemed to be on the streets having any building made out of glass seemed like a recipe for disaster. All the same she was still expecting that was roughly building-shaped, and so was taken aback by the large penguin like structure in front of her. "Oh...do birds count as fish then?" As they walked in, while Fen was marveling the inside of the building Kelsey had already stepped in and paid for her own ticket as well. While Fen would certainly protest to getting a gift unearned from her new friend, frowning a little, the purchase was already made and so there was little point in not accepting it. No, she would just have to bide her time to give her own gift. The girl resolutely looked towards one of the gift shops before making her way down the stairs with Kelsey. The girl marveled at the glass tunnel, looking at all of the fish that passed by, her interest peaking about each of them. There were definitely a few that had seemed to resemble, if not outright be the same, as the fish as she knew from back home. The girl found this to be a marvel in of itself, though thinking about it more she and Kelsey both seemed to be of the same species. Sure they had their differences, Fen with her magic and Kelsey with the variety of unique armaments and metallic arm, but beyond those surface level ones they were both still human. As such, she wondered if this was the case for other animals too. After all, there were still fish at all so perhaps there were some that were only different from a surface level perspective too. As they made their way to a room filled with more sea life on display, now in glass tanks, the girl looked over to Kelsey as she told her about the strange shark. "Really? I can't say I've ever seen something so well, colorful from back home. Though, hm, I am reminded of uh, these sharks that could move through land when I first arrived. Oh, and there was a rainbow fish that I prepared not too long after arriving too! It was, uh, quite unique for flavor though. I don't think I had ever experienced meat that tasted so different and so well, uh, fruity, across each of its different parts." Her excitement went to concern as she said, "I uh...don't know if we were supposed to eat them either..." Recomposing herself she said, "oh, but the uh, the fish back from my own home. Well, I uh, I wouldn't say many of them are as exceptional as those, though I'm not sure if "standard" applies when we're from such different places. But um, hmmm..." The girl put a finger as she mulled on a bit longer. "Oh! Well, magic is not a commonality amongst all humans and animals, but some animals can use it too. There's this species of fish called the Ice Twine, they're a type of carnivorous fish that travel in large schools together can freeze the water to create giant ice nets to trap their prey. They're internal temperature is also quite low because of this and you can store them fairly easy for long periods of time. Though they don't make the best dish raw as a result. Oh, and while not fish we do have giant beasts that live in the ocean. They make travel between countries quite difficult but they're a marvel to behold as well. Like this enormous multiheaded serpent that can super heat the water around it and breathe giant gouts of steam. It's said that as they grow older they lose their excess heads until only one remains, but the remaining one continues to grow. I've never been able to hunt one though so I couldn't tell you what it's like personally. I don't go on the sea often but there was this one time..." Fen rambled about various sea life that existed until realizing that she was just rambling to Kelsey and grew flush with embarrassment as she cleared her throat. "Er, um, but yes those are just a uh, a few of them. How about you? Do you have any unique fish, or uh, sea life?" The girl thought about it for a moment longer, knowing that she was a mage and the sea life from her planet could use magic. Curiously she furthered her question. "Are they, uh, also armed as you are?"

The Earth Chosen hardly had any time at all to rest as the battle was still going on. She wasn't able to pay much attention to what was happening with the others that weren't around her, the pain making it hard for her to focus as well as her attention only being able to be split so far, but the chaos of battle happening all over was still incredibly evident. And her attention was immediately turned towards the closest Lycan near her, the one who was fighting the elves. Pan seemed to be exhausted from all the magic he had been casting and Cym was already in dire straights. As a result, the girl didn't take any time to rest and simply moved to attack the Lycan. Thrusting her sword into the arm of her foe, the wolf man snarled and looked towards Ryia but still seemed determined to kill Cym. Continuing to push against her blade, the girl looked swung her shield against the beast's face, causing it to finally let go of the elven girl and back off. However, Ryia was not going to give it the space to think about what to do next nor the ability to take the initiative and leap towards her or either of the elves. Stepping forward the girl went for yet another thrust towards the lycan's neck this time, her blade being batted away as the retaliated with its claws going for her throat. Bringing up her shield, wincing at the impact of claw against her shielded arm, the girl went for yet another thrust with her sword only for the werewolf to hop backwards away from her. Ryia was still not going to let up on the pressure, instead stepping forward and swinging her blade into the already injured arm of the lycan. The werewolf snarled as it was only covered in more wounds, but rather than slow down it instead continued with bestial ferocity as it lunged, mouth wide open to bite down on the girl. The Earth Chosen raised her shield again, interposing the metal between herself and the creature's teeth, and while successful she could feel this to be only a temporary counter measure. The lycan then let go of her shield, snarling in pain as a fiery mass rammed into its side. Looking past it the girl saw Cym having stabbed the lycan with her flaming blade, though her situation was dire as the werewolf's attention was once more on her. However, now with a clear shot at her foe, Ryia thrust her sword into the throat of the werewolf. Snarling, or however much it could with a sword now blocking the airway, the werewolf stumbled backwards as it was slowly starting to lose strength. Still keeping the pressure on Ryia stepped forward, attempting to end it even faster as she smashed her shield into the pommel of the sword, causing it to be driven deeper into the neck of the werewolf. Still holding on, the werewolf attempted to reach out and grab Ryia only for the girl to duck and shove into the gut of the creature. Though it held firm he had managed to avoid being grabbed immediately, and to attempt to end this as fast as she could she reached up and pulled the blade from the creature's neck, blood sputtering every which way. Stepping back, the girl slashed at the already injured arm to keep it at bay, while the lycan did not reach out yet with the other arm. The girl wasn't sure what it was planning, profusely bleeding as it was, but the last thing she wanted was for it to lunge onto one of them and die on top of them. So, calling out, "Ackrin," once more the girl stepped forward preparing to strike. The stone blast had landed against the wolf man and the girl's blade struck true against the werewolf, though not before it had given her the parting shot of its claw going into her arm. Ryia's breathing was starting to become ragged and though she was certainly had more stamina and durability than most she could start to feel the fatigue from both battle and her own injuries start to set in, her arms having been pushed to their limit and clawed as they were already. Yet still, there were three werewolves left and she couldn't stop while everyone was still in danger. Looking back to the two elves before she moved on she asked, "are both of you alright?"

Jacklyn, pouting as she had attempted to reverse the conversation with a childish "no you" style of question, found herself more interested as the professor had explained just what her profession had actually entailed. The girl cleared her throat as she bashfully said, "well, I guess a professor is pretty cool then." As Jacklyn was about to ask something, curiosity coming over her, she had stopped as Anneliese's comment had caused a similar dumbfounded expression to cross her face as she let out a, "huh?" Staring at Anneliese, getting ready to say something, the girl looked back over to Anima as she kept conversing with the professor. Composing herself once their conversation had ended, and her curiosity now in focus the girl asked, "does a professor go out and explore to find out about stuff about pokemon?" The woman's gaze flicked downward for a moment. Then she responded. "Suppose some do." "And you raise pokemon too, so...does that mean professors are also trainers?" She groaned. "I guess someone could say that..." "So...does that mean..." Jacklyn trailed off, pondering what she had heard until she realized the evidence could only point towards one conclusion. Stepping closer, she looked up directly into the professor's face with starry eyes and an incredibly joyous expression. "A professor is like a professional adventurer!?" A look of horror crossed her face as she took a step back. "How did you come to that conclusion?" she asked. Jacklyn, seemingly ignoring the ladies horror, said, "oh man, that sounds so awesome. Rus, why didn't you tell me you had such a cool mom!" The Lepash let out an embarrassed sigh as the girl went off. Then, realizing what the woman had said though still ignoring her expression about it, Jacklyn said, "well, you go explore places. You train and battle with pokemon. You get to see all sorts of cool stuff and pokemon too. So that's basically an adventurer!" "I..." she looked over towards Anneliese as if asking for help. Only to find the girl looking wide-eyed and nodding along with Jacklyn. She sighed. "Are all kids so...imaginative these days? It's too early for this sort of thing..." "Hm, I thought we were already well into the morning." Jacklyn looked up to the sky before saying, "oh, we should probably get to exploring more though." Smiling she said, "thanks for teaching me about a cool job that's out there Professor, oh and thanks a lot for raising Rus too! I still don't really know what you meant by "what's being his trainer" or something, but I'll do my best to figure it out!" "Yeah...you do that..." at first she seemed she was just going to close the door then she paused. "Oh what the heck, here." She then handed Jacklyn what looked like a bell. The girl looked curiously at the bell, moving it around a bit in her hand. "Oooh, thanks...what is it?" As she asked, the professor then instructed her to look at the "item dex" portion of her pokedex. Bringing it out the girl used it on the bell to find that it was something called a "Soothe Bell" that supposedly amplified feelings of friendship and fostered bonds between trainers and their pokemon. "Whoa, so something like this exists huh?" The girl put it in her pocket before saying, "thanks a lot professor! I'll be sure to put it on Rus next time we rest...or maybe Cherry would like it? Hmmm...well, I'm sure it'll look cute on either of them, so thanks again! See you again sometime!" Though she had no idea when that would be. As she began to walk off to meet back up with Anima, Jacklyn said, "man, she was really cool...oh! Right, Anneliese. About what you said," remembering the thing that had halted her train of thought not minutes ago. "Outcasts don't have to be just witches or lumberjacks, anyone could be an outcast no matter what they do or look like." The girl frowned for a moment as she looked off back to the house and muttered, "like even a professional adventurer..." Clearing her throat she said, "so there's nothing wrong or weird about a person being an outcast. Got it?"

"Uh, right, sir." The girl nodded to the priest as he made his exiting remark, only to let out a large sigh of relief once he had actually left. The girl was glad that she managed to keep the whole, "friends with a ghost" thing under wraps as well as the fact that she didn't have to pay for any damages caused in here. The girl looked over to Anna, who herself seemed to have been staring off into space the whole time her conversation with the priest was going on. Following her gaze more she found that she was staring in the direction of the cemetery. With her new found ghostly acquaintance being missing the girl couldn't help but wonder aloud, "so uh, did she go back there?" "Probably. She doesn't like being around when father is here." "Makes sense," the girl flatly agreed. She wouldn't want to be around someone she thought was going to kill her too. Lana didn't have anything more to say about that, though, so silence fell. And still looking to her recent friend she couldn't help but ask about the priest's closing note. "So like, does your dad not want you being an adventurer or something?" She looked at Lana for a while. "Maybe?" came her reply. "I never asked." "That so?" She expected as much, or at the very least she should have and wasn't the least bit surprised by the response. Not wanting to upset the person who was putting a roof over her head, though, Lana further asked, "do you think what I told you about the dungeon was dangerous?" "How could they be?" Anna said. "Words do not hurt." Lana stood silent for a moment unsure how to respond to the girl before shrugging. "That's true." She went silent again, unsure what else to say. She didn't really know what to talk about with the girl, in fact she didn't really know what to talk to people about in general that wasn't work or dungeoning. There was always complaining, which her friends back in her home village had done a plenty, but she didn't really think Anna was the type of person to really get complaints. Nor did she think that's what Anna's father was talking about in the first place. She was also getting very tired and having Farrah around was the only thing that caused her to forget it in the first place. "Well, I guess if there's anything you want to talk about, dungeon or not, we can chat about it. But, I think I'm gonna go to bed. I've had a long day and...ugh, I need to go buy some stuff tomorrow too. So, night Anna...and Farrah too, if you're like here and I can't see you or something." And with that, Lana made her way off to bed.

Sabrina had entered first and far before any of the others. From there came Abby, and afterwards Marshall and Gene had soon followed. With Sabrina no where to be found and Marshall having gone off the opposite way as her, it was up to Gene and Abby's own good sense if they wanted to split their already divided party further in an attempt to both scout out the area and find Sabrina, or simply follow Marshall along. With no true king to this land it was, once again, a free country with which they could decide however they pleased. As Sabrina made her way up the stairs she would notice that not too long after walking she would find a doorway, presumably to somewhere that was not where she had entered from. The girl could leave through this door or she could continue her quest of higher means better, as the winding spiral staircase continued upward past this door. And were she to go all the way up to the very end she would find...yet another door. Marshall would eventually be able to scale the pile of rubble finding that there was in fact another poorly lit hallway. It stretched in both ways as the previous floors had, though she would be hard pressed to go the direction opposite that she climbed as there was a clear lack of floor. However, she could press forward easily enough in the winding castle wall. Eventually though she would hear armored footsteps from further down the hall, though it was difficult to make out how many there actually were. But at least they seemed to be moving the direction opposite of her.

As Brian put on the seal on her forehead, something Carmen couldn't help but feel a bit dissatisfied about but didn't dare any raise objections about having the object placed on her, she followed after the man. The two of them walked through the door and found that...nothing had changed. They came out the other end as before and the room itself seemed to have not changed at all. The girl let out a defeated sigh as it seems that their options to what to do were running low. With her head hung low the girl trotted her way over to a nearby desk, sitting down on it and placing her face against the desk for a moment. The girl looked at the photo of the hound Sherlock, wondering what the great detective mutt would do in this situation. Was it possible that dogs could sniff out ghosts? She would certainly like it if that were the case but she had no intention of owning or caring for a dog to bring on a mission, and the thought of a dog getting the job done faster than her also filled her with a sense of shame. "Do you think Shiki would hire you instead?" But not so much shame that the girl wouldn't gladly give her position to the dog. Trying to make her self feel less pathetic, though, Carmen looked down and saw that there was a drawer to the desk. She had searched everything else thus far but she hadn't actually looked inside one of these yet. Of course she didn't really feel comfortable looking through someone else's personal belongings and she was certain that she was going to get in trouble for doing so, more so then if she had gotten the floor wet from the water cooler, but being at her wits end already the girl steeled her resolve and reached down. With her hand shaking, wondering if some kind of jack in the box surprise was going to pop out at her, and maybe maim her, the girl gulped down before finally opening the desk drawer. Inside she had found...mundane papers and office supplies. Letting out a sigh of relief, the girl looked down and saw something else that caught her attention. Reaching down and grabbing some of the candy, the girl couldn't deny the temptation. After all, she was going a bit stir crazy from being confined in a singular room that wasn't her own bedroom for so long. And the candy was right there. The girl looked around, knowing that there was only one other person in this room but still feeling the need to look both ways to make sure she wasn't being watched. Well, she was probably being watched by the security cameras and the ghost was always able to judge her for her actions as well. However, the allure of the sweet proved too much for the girl and she ended up grabbing one. "Mmm..." The girl let out a satisfied noise as she ate the candy and, ignoring her paranoia about being watched had gone for a second. After getting that, though, she figured that there was still someone still in the room fully capable of judging her actions. Looking over to Brian sheepishly the girl asked, "do uh...do you want some?" He sighed. "If you want to just take a break go ahead I'll keep figuring out what to do." Her eyes widened at the generosity the man was providing as she eagerly nodded saying, "oh, uh sure. I'll do just that." Leaving the thinking to him now the girl attempted to turn the computer on several times once more but found no luck. The girl frowned before turning to the modern personal computer; her phone. It turned on without issue and, while she had no idea what password for the wifi this building had, she was able to connect to the internet via data easily enough. The girl pondered how that worked but didn't seem to care to think much beyond it as she browsed through her phone on her break.