A Friendly Reunion

    It's not the safest time to be out hunting at night, but the sound of trouble draws some like moths to a flame. That's why there's a mysterious, cloaked figure moving swiftly through the area. She was never that great at stealth, and she has no time for it now. Her path is leading her towards a party of newbies that have managed to setup camp in a bad place. With the gnoll attacks on the rise, someone has to watch out for these kids.

    But she's not alone. Nor is she seeking the safety of the camp. Instead, she veers suddenly to her left and plunges into combat with a gnoll raiding party of indeterminate numbers. They are low level, but the fight is far from risk free for a single adventurer of her level.

    The fight starts promising, with two of the enemies dropping in a flash. With so many others yet to be fought though, the battle appears far from certain.

    It's a quiet night. Not unusual given the dangers of this part of the forest, what with Gnoll hunting parties roaming around. Even as the the battle starts up, it's still only a light rise in volume thanks to the swift and graceful movements on display by the cloaked figure.

    It's so quiet, that it's easy to hear a disturbance coming from nearby. It's the sound of creaking. And cracking. And thundering. And a cry. And it's getting louder!

    Suddenly, "LOOK OUT AHEAAAAAAAAD!"

    A huge creature comes smashing through a tree near the small clearing that the battle has moved into. Wood splinters got flying before finally vanishing into pixels of light as the creature stampedes towards the battle. The thing is easily five meters tall, with four legs, dark grey scales and a short, stubby tail. A quick inspection reveals it to be: A Rhinosaurus. Sort of like a Rhinoceros from the real world, but a scaly lizard instead of a leathery mammal.

    Though as the Rhinosaurus proceeds to send several gnolls flying as it smashes them with its thick tree-trunk-like legs, one might notice something attached to the creature. A small, black, purple and red thing.

    It's Yuuki! She's crying out in surprise as she holds on to her sword currently lodged in the side of the big creature, apparently along for an unexpected ride.

    A sudden buck from the Rhinosaurus dislodges Yuuki's sword, sending her flying and hitting the ground in a roll. The big creature continues running, smashing through another tree on the other side of the clearing and vanishing into the black of the night.

    Yuuki groans as she picks herself up, before laughing and saying to no one in particular, "That was wild!" Once to her feet though, Yuuki notices that there are others here, "Oh..." And some of them are Gnolls, "Oh! Gnolls! Sweet."

    One of them charges Yuuki, starting to swing and thrust a rusty sword at her. Yuuki ducks, weaves and spins her way around the attacks, all the while glancing over in the hooded figure's direction and asking, "Mind if I jump in?" It's rude to kill steal other people's mobs without asking, after all.

    That is certainly an impressive entrance. Asuna rolls out of the way at the very last moment, allowing the gnoll who was charging her to get stomped into oblivion.

    As she rises her saber sweeps out, and like a sewing machine she punctures the captain in front of her again and again in rapid succession.

    Looking over her shoulder at Yuuki, there's a flash of a friendly smile. "Please do! But I'll warn you. The drops are going to smell awful." A sudden bouncing step back and the gnoll attacking bursts alight as it blunders into her last-second cast of wall of flame.

    "I'm Asuna, by the way."

    "Just like they do, right!?" Yuuki asks in amusement as she ducks low, spinning around with her leg outstretched to sweep the legs of one gnoll out beneath it.

    As she rises out of the spin she lowers her sword so the tip drags across the ground, kicking up a spray of dirt into the eyes of a second gnoll. She continues, "That's okay though. I'm not here for gnoll drops."

    A third gnoll charges Yuuki and swings. Yuuki meets that gnoll's blade with her own, before reaching out with her free hand to grab the end of her own sword. She pushes the gnoll's weapon away with both arms, before swinging the blunt handle of her sword into the side of the gnoll's head, briefly giving it the Concussed debuff.

    Finally Yuuki kicks the gnoll backwards a little towards the other two, even as a darkness seeps out from her already dark blade, wrapping around it and causing it to grow in size. Yuuki lunges forward, stabbing the now longer-reaching blade through all three of the gnolls.

    As the gnolls vanish in explosions of pixels, Yuuki grins in Asuna's direction, moving her sword up to rest on her shoulder triupmhantly as she says, "I'm Yuuki! Nice to meetcha, Asuna. I think I've heard that name somewhere before..." She stares off into the distance thoughtfully for a moment.

    "Among my least favorite monsters to fight," Asuna admits. She peppers a pair of gnolls with ice rain, and then lunges in to pierce both of them with another flurry of swift strikes. As they burst into pixels, she sheathes her weapon with a little flourish.

    She looks down at the item drop. Rusty armor. "I refuse to even carry that thing to the shop," she mutters. Asuna pauses in thought, listening to Yuuki closely.

    "So you are the Renowned Duelist! It's a pleasure to meet you. It was great to fight alongside you after all this time."

    Asuna turns her gaze to follow Yuuki's stare. "Are there more enemies approaching?" she asks softly, already reaching for her blade.

    Yuuki turns her head to stare at Asuna for a bit. Seemingly trying to recall how she might know the other woman. Yuuki's pretty sure it wasn't in a duel... Given what she's seen of Asuna's combat style, Yuuki would surely remember it. So where else... Staaaaare.

    Finally Yuuki gives up with a shrug, before blinking at Asuna's question, "Oh... Hmmm... Dunno! Let's find out." She turns to the dark forest.

    Takes a deep breath.

    Then cries out, "HEY! ARE THERE ANY OTHER GNOLLS OUT THERE!? IF THERE ARE, COME HERE SO WE CAN KILL YOU!" Well, that's one way to draw aggro.

    "Your style is direct, I will say that much."

    If Asuna is bothered at all by the unconvential approach to pulling mobs, she doesn't show it. There's a sense of unease about her, though. Like a coiled spring waiting to be released.

    Sure enough, there are grunts and growls carried on the wind. And.. "Ugh.. what a smell. If someone can teach them to shower they will be my hero."

    And then the noises get louder. There are gnolls pouring into the clearing. They are all low level, but there are a lot of them!

    "I guess I get to see more of your work," Asuna notes casually. And then she's charging forward, her weapon flicking at the enemies like a hungry flame, leaving glowing wounds with every stab.

    "I like to call it being efficient!"

    And it works! They've drawn a lot of mobs their way. Yuuki doesn't seem concerned by the numbers though, standing there with a grin on her face as she counters back to Asuna, "Funny, I was just about to say the same thing!"

    Yuuki leans forward, before charging straight into the mass of gathering gnolls! What follows is a flurry of sword and purple hair as Yuuki moves from one gnoll to the next. There's even one point where it looks like there are TWO YUUKIS fighting together, weaving their way through each other's moves at high speed. It doesn't last for long though.

    By the end of it though, Yuuki is leaning forwards, hands on her knees as she catches her breath for a moment, "Phew! This is quite the workout. Definitely couldn't have pulled this off in RL." Though to be fair, in Yuuki's case, that's a REALLY low bar.

    To be fair, Asuna doesn't even fight for a few seconds. She's just watching Yuuki. It's enough to make her tired. But there are a LOT of gnolls and she won't just sit by and do nothing. Even if it is incredibly entertaining.

    In this battle against so many enemies, the Ronin becomes utterly efficient. One strike flows into the next, a dangerous position suddenly changes with an explosion of thunder that sends her nearly ricocheting into the next cluster of enemies.

    She bounces on her toes among the gnolls and the earth shakes around her. The next barrage of attacks sends three more gnolls into a cloud of pixels.

    "I'm afraid I was not terribly athletic RL," she replies, letting loose a burst of electricity to blind the next wave of enemies. "And I sure couldn't do this!"

    Yuuki clashes her own blade against the rusty one of a gnoll, briefly replying to Asuna, "Mmhmm!" Yuuki raises her knee towards the gnoll she's locked in with, kneeing it in the gut to cause it to lean forward. She then slams the hilt of her blade down on top of the gnoll's head.

    Yuuki turns, saying as she runs towards another gnoll, "That's why we have to enjoy it while we can!" She leaps into the air, planting a foot into its face, before pushing off and backflipping into the air to avoid another gnoll's swing. As she soars over said gnoll, she slashes out at it with her sword, before finishing the flip and landing on her feet on the other side of it.

    As the latest victim joins its brethren in exploding into pixels, Yuuki turns around to face Asuna with a grin, raising her free hand in a V sign for victory.

    With the enemy dead, Asuna sheathes her weapon again. It's the same little flourish as last time. Habits die hard, clearly. She looks at Yuuki for a moment, as if expecting another shout for more to fight.

    "I think I've had enough gnoll smell to last me until the next fight. Whenever that should be." She looks thoughtfully around.

    "And our sleeping newbies should be safe until daybreak, so that's a relief." There's a sense that she's not terribly impressed by their choice of camps.

    "I'd stay around to lecture them, but they never listen." Or worse, they'd be grateful for the assist and invite her to their party! "You said while we can? I hope it's not too long. We need to get everyone out of here safely, and it isn't as fun now that we know what happens each time we die."

#emit
    Yuuki sheathes her own blade. Doesn't look like she's going to do any more shouting at this point. Mainly because it seems like they got the most of them.

    Yuuki then blinks, "Newbies?" She looks around, before asking, "There are newbies sleeping around here somewhere?" That's news to her! But at least it looks like they helped someone too, so bonus!

    "Oh right, the memory loss thing." Yuuki thinks for a moment, then shrugs, "Doesn't bother me much. Not like there's a lot of things from the other world I'm keen to keep remembering." Maybe just one or two things... But Yuuki smiles, "Besides, we can just make new memories!"

    Yuuki of course completely skips over the part about eventually becoming a Lander and dying for real. But then she's not feared death for quite some time.

    Yuuki stretches, "Mmmmmmmmhhhhh~" As she does so, Yuuki glances to the horizon a bit and notices a tiny bit of light starting to show. She awwws, "Guess I'm not gonna get that Rhinosaurus tongue tonight." She looks back at Asuna, explaining, "They're nocturnal so they mostly come out at night... Mostly. Time to head back to town for a late sleep, I think!"

    Yuuki spends a moment staring at Asuna though, as if studying her. Before saying, "You know, we should duel some time. I think it'd be fun!"

    "Yep, this was all about the newbie protection work." Asuna sighs softly and shrugs, "It's a thing. You know, the wandering samurai and all that. But I refuse to use a samurai's blade. I have to have my own bit in some of this whole thing."

    She laughs softly, letting her hood fall back to reveal her face, her hair tumbling out in dramatic fashion. "And sure, a duel would be fun! I'm curious what it takes to be number one. You can show me that. Now, though.. I have to wander off to the next town."

    And so she does, with only a friendly wave back over her shoulder.