Starlit Heroics: Network of Carnage

Three had been defeated by the time they noticed Kaj and Luna.

"Shit, were we interrupting your mission?" Chamomile cursed.

"Nah, nah, it's cool. It's just your standard hunt quest. More will spawn at any moment." Rebecca said. "As all MMOs do."

As she said that, 2 more slate caps materialized out of thin air.

"See." Rebecca said. "Now just smash those original two and let's get going."

"If they really wanted to lure people in, they'd make it smell like cookies or pie," Prya said. "Or... a nice slow roast brisket..."

"I thought rabbits only ate carrots," Ven said.

"Seriously Ven? Stereotypes?"

"Ah, you're making me hungry," Elior said, holding a ball of light so he could see better. "Oh man, I hope the food here isn't all medieval like the rest of this place. I don't want to get sick because the tavern can't clean their meat properly."

"Food? What about shelter. Ugh, we're going to have to pay for inn stays, aren't we?" Prya sighed. "I hate games that charge you for healing, unless it's like really cheap. I hope we get some good loot out of these slime monsters."

---

"Oh it's fine, don't mind us!" Luna smiled and waved. "We're just taking our time."

Kaj noticed the two newly spawned slate caps. He got up and walked over to them before pulling out a sword and batting them into next week.

"Is that it, hun?" he called.

"Should be!"

Iris scoffs at Ven's carrot joke while Canopy snickers. She snaps her fingers and summons a wisp of fire over her palm. Its bright yellow light illuminates the cave. 

[Current OST: Mist Cave Theme]

The group moves deeper inside only for Iris to step in a large puddle of rainbow-colored ooze. She looks down at her feet and lets out a disappointed sigh. 

"Crap. Stupid designer brand boots better not get ruined from this..." - Iris mumbles under her breath.

Canopy raises her eyebrows and taps on Iris's shoulder.

"... Uh, Iris?"

"What?"

"It's getting bigger."

Iris's eyes widen as the puddle grows into a vibrating mass of colored sludge. It crawls up her leg and tries to engulf her entire body in its wake. She yells out as it clamps onto her skin but she lands a flaming right hook that launches the blob against the wall.

It splatters against the rock but reforms back into a oval shape. It has two dotted eyes inside of its slime body and its color changes to solid purple.

"That bothered me more than I was expecting. You ready guys?!" - Iris states as she looks back to the group.

"Yes, milady! I am at your beck and call!" - Ian says with a bow.

As he bows to Iris, a stream of green slime drips onto his back without him noticing. Iris and Canopy give him an astonished glare as the slime manifests over his shoulder.

"Uh, hello? Do you not notice the blob that's trying to eat you?" - Iris yells at him.

"... Huh? Ah! Regardless, this is no problem for me!" - Ian laughs.

"I'm starting to think this guy might have a few screws loo--" - Canopy scoffs.

Ian flips backwards and slams his back against the ground, splattering the green slime across the cave. It tries to reform but he freezes it and the floor with a slam of his fist.

"... Loose. Never mind." - Canopy remarks as her tone changes from annoyed to impressed.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Charlotte walks up to the crystal and puts her hand on it. A bright teal glow envelops her body and she lets out a mellow sigh.

"Wow, that felt niiice. What even is this thing, miss Solana?" - Charlotte asks.

"It's a checkpoint crystal. Other angels put them down here to mark locations and serve as a cheap way to restore any wounds for the road ahead. Now quit standing there and let's move." - She says with a nod.

"Oh... uh, of course." - Charlotte says with a nervous nod.

Solana hands them two long black cloaks and they climb up the snow-encrusted path. The cliffs are surrounded by dead trees and animals hiding in icy bushes, with a harsh current of cold air rushing past the trio.

Charlotte tightens the cloak around her body and shivers. Max keeps a hand on his sword hilt while Solana glares at the area.

"We have to be mindful of which path we take..." - Solana remarks.

"Aaaaaand, done!" Chamomile whooped, as their targets died and their quest was completed.

"So, are we just gonna have to grind on monsters?" Evan griped, "Because if so, I might as well go off myself right now."

Everyone turned to look at Evan.

"What? I'm kidding, okay!" he clarified, "But seriously is this gonna be a massive grindquest?"

"Not exactly, there's fetch quests as well. Experience actually comes pretty easy if you do it right." Rebecca said.

Rebecca turned to Kaj and Luna.

'Hey, you wanna hang with us? There's power in numbers, after all." she asked.

Ven whistled. "Slime porn already?"

Prya rolled her eyes and then noticed another slime heading toward them. She took her beginner's sword and slammed it down on top of it.

"Hyaa!" she yelled. The sword cleanly cut through the middle of the slime. But instead of stopping it, the second half of the slime merely grew a second pair of eyes.

"W-wait..." Prya backed away slowly. But before the two slimes could continue their advancement, a ball of light slammed and splatted into one of the slimes. Prya looked at Elior, who smiled sheepishly.

"You softened it up first," he said, shrugging.

---------

Kaj and Luna looked at one another.

"Sure," Luna said. "My name is Luna, and this is my husband Kaj."

Kaj made a slight bow towards their new group. "We have some combat experience," he said. "So we shouldn't be too much of a burden."

Iris uses a bare palm strike against a bigger slime, with the force of her attack hurling it into the distance. Its splattered body melts into the ground. 

Canopy summons a red-bladed scythe out of the air and taps the ground with the bottom of it. It summons a pair of vines that pierce the slimes and drain their gelatinous bodies into nothing.

"Well, at least they can't take magic attacks." - Canopy sighs.

"At the rate we're going, we'll reach that quota in no time." - Iris chuckles.

"Awwww, what a cute couple!" Rebecca squealed, semi-teasing, semi-serious. "But seriously, welcome to the team! I'm Rebecca."

"Ah, combat. What d'ya do?" Chamomile asked. "I mean, what did you do out of game? Oh yeah, I'm "Cam" Belmont, best monster hunter in all of Divixus."

"Name's Evan." Evan spoke quickly as to not expose his fangs.

"And I'm Shiva." Shiva greeted. "Nice to meet ya."

"Oh yay... magic..." Prya grumbled. She saw a small slime crawl its way up Ven's back. Without hesitating, she punched it hard enough to splat beneath her fist. And for Ven to yelp in pain.

"Sorry, had one on your back."

Ven socked her in the arm. "You too." There wasn't a slime there.

"There really was one!"

"Can you two stop arguing for like two seconds and help!?" Elior said.

Ven rolled his eyes and picked a medium-sized slime up from the ground. It froze between his hands, and shattered when he dropped it on the ground in front of Elior's feet.

"...Thanks."

-----------

"Belmont?" Kaj was surprised, but he followed it up with a smile. "A pleasure to meet you. We ourselves are... bounty hunters. Not sure if we can claim to be best in all of Divixus. Would certainly hate to have a common target, bet you would get it every time."

"Come now Kaj, no need for humility here." Luna curtsied. "Glad to be a part of the team. Did you have any plans going forward? We were just waiting out the game, but if what we were told when entering, it sounds like things might get a little... hostile later."

After the group splatters a horde of slimes against the cave walls, the monsters stop attacking and run away. A notification pops up on Iris's Link Gear with a distinctive ding sound effect.

"... Huh. I guess that's our cue to go attack the queen." - Iris remarks.

"At least they know when to give up so we don't waste time." - Canopy chuckles.

Iris pulls up a digital map on the Link Gear - she scrolls through the map and points towards a skull-shaped dot three rooms away.

"That's where she is. It shouldn't be too complicated since it's like a beginner dungeon..." - Iris states.

"Aw shucks, guess you've heard of my grandfather then." Chamomile laughed. "I lied when I said I was the best in Divixus. I mean I'm the best...living one but grandpappy will always be the best hunter who ever lived."

"Yeah, it's gonna get bad." Rebecca shuddered. "But as long as you have good weaponry, you'll be fineeeee.~"

"Do you always make your introductions a sales pitch?" Evan sighed.

"...Maybe." Rebecca said, smirking, "But I have two ideas. Either head back to the hideout and try to wait it out or do some quests and get swole. Either way we're probably gonna get attacked."

Ven yawned. "Well at least they're starting us off nice and easy. Let's kill the boss, get the loot, and get on out of here."

"Hopefully the difficulty curve is nice and slow," Prya sighed.

----------

"No need to let our skills get rusty," Kaj said. "Besides, if we're working as a team, it's best to see what each other can do."

"So, getting swole it is then." Luna giggled at the mention of swoleness.

Iris's group delves deeper into the cave and come across a steep cliff. At the bottom is a massive pool of glowing slime that irradiates the den with glistening rainbow lights. Canopy stares at it in awe.

"Wow! It's really pretty!" - She says with an astonished gasp.

Iris glares at the pool in horror with one of her eyes twitching.

"Only twenty, huh?"

"Oooh yeah, I almost forgot that was a monster I'm looking at. They shouldn't make us fight any more than we have to... but it could be the queen." - Canopy remarks.

"Even worse. No wonder they wanted a team of six... Hmmm. How are we going to do this?" - Iris states with boths arms crossed.

She closes her eyes and thinks for a few seconds.

"Let's - " - She states only to get cut off.

"I shall lead the charge!" - Ian yells as he runs down the slope to the pool.

"What?! No! Stop, you idiot!" - Iris yells.

"... Oh." - Canopy remarks.

She watches Iris chase after Ian down the slope.

"This ought to be fun! Come on!" - Canopy states as she follows after them.

The problem with trying to drain the ocean, was that to do that required a boat, and a sail. Group consensus was that they would wait until nightfall, find a sail in one of the shop booths in town, steal it, and then take one of the docked boats off the island. It was a bit complex, sure, but none of them really had any of this world's currency, in particular.

The wait was largely boring, with the large man resting silently, Lui fiddling with her bow, and Kaimana concentrating deeply and occasionally touching at the air. No one really thought to ask what she was trying to do, although it was certainly odd. When nightfall came, though, they finally set forward to grab cloaks and steal the sail. Despite his size, the man was a nimble thief, and so acquiring what they needed went smoothly.

And soon, they were on the ocean, riding a smooth southeasterly wind.

"So... where are we headed?" Kaimana asked, touching at the air again.

"The Forbidden Fortress. Once, I called that place my citadel. From there, perhaps we'll be able to find our way down beneath the waves."

"What then?" Kaimana knew, in theory, what the plot of her hack had been, but she asked anyway to be sure.

"There's a legend among my people of three sacred dragons, sleeping in eggs across the land, deep within elaborative dungeons. Perhaps, if we wake them, the waters will drain."

"I thought so... three dragons, placed in a triangle... those dungeons weren't finished yet... I had to playtest them and adjust the difficulty... oh boy."

"Is something the matter?"

"No, no... it's just that I think we're in for a time and a half. And that's not even counting if somebody else decides to drop in."

"Wow, a real life Leeroy Jenkins," Ven uttered, amazed at what he was watching unfold.

"I recall everyone dying at the end of that," Prya said.

"Well it's just a crater full of goo. The little goo-lings weren't difficult at all. This one's just a bigger, fatter version of them." With that, Ven hopped down the cliff after the three of them.

"...I really don't want death by slime..." Prya whined.

"We can always retreat if things go bad," Elior said, patting Prya on the back. "Er, after you?"

Prya sighed. "Let's just get this over with."

"So, there's a quest to the northwest of here." Rebecca said, going through the Link Gear, "We'll need to find a Charm Beast."

She showed the gear to the group.

"Man, that's so sweet-looking my teeth are rotting away." Evan said.

"Looks can be deceiving, it's known to draw people in with said cuteness and then drain the life from their bodies." Rebecca explained.

"...Okay then. We gotta...avoid looking it right in the eyes I guess." Chamomile said.

"We should get on our way." Rebecca said. "C'mon, Kaj, Luna, let's go!"

And the group started to head to the northwest.