Children Of The Fields (I)

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----------------[ Children Of The Fields I: The Quest Begins ]----------------

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    There have been some strange things going on in the fields and with that recent attack, people are on edge. They have asked for adventurers to come out to investigate the wheat fields, as there has been where the most unusual activity has been happening.

As one such farmer would explain, that people have been going missing out in the fields. Sometimes workers. Sometimes even Merchant Blades. There has even been sightings of children-- but children that do not belong to any of them.

Now, it is up to all of you to determine what is maybe going on here and perhaps even find the source of the problem.

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    There before the field is an elderly man, leaning on his hoe as he waits for everyone to arrive. His outfit is very much that of a farmer. "Hail to you all," He would at last say as everyone arrives.

"You come here to look into our little problem? I'm not sure how much I can answer, but I'll do my best to answer any questions you all may have before you enter the field."

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Schneider rides up on his peko, cape fluttering dramatically irrespective of the local air currents. What's the point of being a wizard if not to look cool? "Good day to you," he says to the farmer. "We have come to solve your problems," he declares confidently, though his main skills involve setting things on fire. His view: if Fire is not solving your problems, use More Fire.

But he's only just arriving from the Tower and has not had a chance to look into all the local conditions, and will rely on the others for helpful things like explaining what's going on in small enough words for him to understand.

    Merek walks along and to the fields to meet with the man, nodding a bit to him and people from the party. The man wears what looks like the dark attire with the beltcape about the waist, in addition to the hood which he wears as well. "Alright, it looks like we can find a way to assist."

After pulling up the menu to inspect the Lander for anything unusual (albeit not medically -- that would require physical contact), Uta begins to listen to the explanation.

As the mission is explained, the Spriggan's face goes through a full range of expressions. Attention. Puzzlement. Confusion. Concentration. Realization. Curiosity, accompanied by a finger being raised and her mouth opening as if to ask a question. Self-consciousness, as the finger is retracted.

She frets a bit, torn between asking and not asking a question, but she finally gives in, and attempts a very weak, "So, uh, this is not the tower push for floor 2?"

She hurries to add, "J-just making sure to avoid embarrassing misunderstanding. Of course I knew it wasn't. Just... you know, making... sure..."

She launches into a tense, nervous laugh.

What a terrible liar.

    Setsuna was here for the children. Well he was here because of the Landers crying out for help, but he got a more serious look when he heard about the sighting of children. So the skeleton legged man gives a bow and then looks at the others, " We hope to help at the very least. Do you by chance have any information we could use? Perhpas where these incidents take place? Also I don't suppose a cat with a top hat, an idiot with a stupid grin, or a blood sucking bitch was seen during any of these incidents?" Yes he may have a chip on his shoulder about a certain carnival.

Swiftly moving like the wind, it's the ninja-type girl known as Kotono. She moves quickly and swiftly in an attempt to reach her destination as fast as possible. She may have ridden in on a Peko and left it nearby to make a swift arrival on her own, but regardless, she's arrived.

Upon landing on the ground, Kotono nods a little. "Indeed, we're here to help," She says in a tone of voice that indicates she's very serious about this. It's a break from the usually upbeat and cheerful Kotono that those who know her might be recognize. "Whatever you can provide would be useful, and even if you can't give us too much information, it's all right. I'm sure we can figure this out."

Miho had caught wind there were something going on hin this region her tail is swishing as the smith samurai arrives. She would listne to the farmer listening to what they ahve to say. "I don't like the sound of this sir but I'll see what I can find out. When did this start? Have there been any monsters or creatures not native to the area in recent area showing up? Finally have there been rumours of any strange people appearing as of late?"

    Mizuki has finally made it to Ninetails, too late for the wave, though. She heard a village was having trouble and headed that way... but... after rough travel at night, as the sun came up, she just wanted to curl up somewhere and sleep...

    ...She's awakened by the sound of conversation. But the sun... is so warm... She closes her eyes... and then her ears perk up. Those are familiar voices... Uta? She hasn't seen Uta in ages!

    Just as Miho asks if 'strange people' have appeared recently, Mizuki suddenly drops from a nearby rooftop, landing perfectly on her feet even half-asleep, rubbing sleep from her eyes. She's in her street clothes but took the jacket off for sleeping. "What... what's up, guys? I didn't miss the quest to investigate the missing kids, did I? Uta, where have you been?"

    The farmer looks over to Kotono, "I wish I could give you more than what may already be known. Merchant blades, workers, and some village folks have been going missing."

"Though the Blades have placed a curfew to try to prevent to many problems, people still been going missing." The farmer looks out over the wheat field. "It was just before that horrible storm we lost two workers coming back home as dusk was falling."

    The farmer then looks back to the whole group. "This doesn't take into account that weird things even going on at night toward our village," He motions in that direction. "People hearing odd sounds, children laughing, shadows passin' by windows..."

His attention then moves over to Miho, as he goes to stand up straighter, "Outside of those strange children sightings. No. No one knew. I mean, beyond the passing adventurers," Queue Mizuki, "or Merchant blade guards."

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    The group seems to have a choice before them, either they can go investigate the fields, continue to question the farmer, or head for the village...

Schneider offers a nod of greeting to Setsuna, and tries to surreptitiously inspect the others, trying to remember if he's met them before. Uta looks familiar, but maybe he's thinking of the girl on the game art? Others he's seen in larger group efforts, but not in small-scale events like this, that he can recall. "Hey there," he says to the other players, smiling widely.

It looks like everyone's here to be helpful, at least, so hopefully he won't have to work out the gameworld logic, which mostly eludes him still. He's not a thinker, he's an exploder. Uta's question has him about to reply before she says she's joking. "Oh..." Is that humor? He sounds more puzzled than amused.

The farmer doesn't seem to know too much that seems immediately helpful, he might know more when we know what questions to ask. "Is anyone a tracker? Maybe you can see their tracks in the fields and we can see where they went, maybe follow them back?"

    Setsuna frowns and looks towards the others , it was a curse of investigation quests that the start point can only give them so much. After thinking about it for a moment he points to Schneider, " Schneider has a point. The field is right here and there is no reason to trek to town before finishing up the investigation here. " He doesn't really wait for the others after that , he was no leader after all and didn't expect those to follow him. He simply walked off towards the field before shouting back, "I'm no tracker but I do sometimes feel like I am a magnet for trouble. " Lets ignore the fact that it is trouble he usually gets himself into.

    Merek looks about the place, and nods while he begins to follow along with the party. He then thinks about it a moment, "Were there things about the people taken, anything that might be notable?" he asks.

Uta beams. "Mizuki! I haven't seen you in ages, either! I've been traveling a lot. All over the kingdoms. Even been meeting Doctor Prophylaxis in Tolbana, we've been working on some pharmacological research together. Let's see..." She counts on her fingers, crossed eyes looking up. "I've also been beating people up all over Root Towns... getting drowned by Fuka... Oh. I've rushed to Westelande as soon as I've learnt that Xander was killed in the tower push for Floor 6. Don't worry, he seems to be fine. Now I came here because I thought we were having the push for floor 2 of the tower- wait." She frowns, and makes confused counting gestures with her fingers. "...DUH," she finally exclaims, and slaps her face.

"So, so, so...", asks Uta. "No traces left of the disappeared people? None? No footprints? No smells hounds or cait siths or were fangs could pick u-" She points at Schneider. "Yes, that, exactly!" She continues, "Any other sounds except the laughing children? Any description on the shape of the shadows?"

Nodding a little, Kotono twirls her knives as she scowls. "This is definitely not good. We've got to take care of this fast!" The mention of laughing children causes Kotono to sweatdrop a little. "Laughing children... that..." She bites her lip a little. "Now I'm really starting to get a bad feeling about this."

    Schneider asks if there's a tracker. Mizuki raises one hand and goes to point to her nose with the other, but suddenly yawns with a mrowl-ing sound... and any cuteness of that is tempered by the sight of that monstrous maw opening WIDE showing off all those pointy teeth. Also, realizing she just did that in public seems to wake her RIGHT up. M-moving on! "I... can't track conventionally but if there's a scent trail or something..." she points at her nose. Then she looks at Uta, looking like she wants to explain... and then nodding as Uta catches the math mistake.

    And also brings up traces. "Oh, that's a good point... anything of theirs I can get the scent off, maybe?" Her ears turn between Uta and the villager. "Yeah... maybe there's a monster that sounds like children, or something..."

Miho thinks to what hte farmer has to say on this she has some ideas of what it could not be, that's still useful it will let her focus on other things. "I can hunt persay but not so much track." she admit her tail swishes a bit as she looks over to Uta for a moment. "Have the taken people dropped anything? Tools, gear? Personal itemss? Maybe we should look around the field for something like that." Also the idea of just /burning/ it to ash has come to mind too. Because fire solves everything right? "Or we can use ourselves as bait I'd be willing to be sush."

    The farmer looks to Uta, "Nope. Nothing else I can really give sadly. Some folks in the village may be able to talk about it more than myself." He looks to Schneider, then over to Merek, "You'd have to talk to folks in the village. I never seen it actually happen, well..."

The farmer scratches his scruffy old chin in thought. "There was Denis, but he was just being Denis. That boy has a nack for causing trouble... But never any harm... Kinda wonder where that boy has gone off too... Probably to make up some other prank." He shrugs his shoulders. "Anyways, I'll leave it to you adventurers."

Then the farmer goes to walk off, which leaves any questions that were not answered in the air or any further helpful advice.

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-------------------[ Children Of The Fields I: The Field ]--------------------

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    The wheat field has long stalks, the stalks easily coming up to people's shoulders in some cases. The ground is only slightly dry, but a good eye may catch footprints in the soil, but there is so many from the workers that do things in the field.

It was time to see what could be seen!

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    <> Search for any clues: Seaching vs 7
    <> Follows some trails: Tracking vs 8
    <> Something else? Ask DM.

    Setuna walks amoung the wheat field and shakes his head as he looks around, "Guy's fortunate this stuff is still standing after the whole dragon and stuff. " Holding out his hand , a ball of bright light appears in his hand as he uses it to get a close look at the ground for anything of interest. Looking up he voices, " Any children tracks shoutout." Taking a deep breath he closes his eyes for a moment as if trying to come to terms with something before adding, "Also anyone who may have issues fighting children needs to voice it now." He says what he says before he goes to back to searching.

"This is the most difficult crop maze I've ever been in," Uta casually remarks. "On the plus side, it makes tracking pretty easy." She stops, spins on her heels, and points towards the groove the adventurers' bodies have left in the solid mass of plants. "They must have gone /that way/. It's the only corridor, all the rest is a solid wall of wheat."

"Wait, what dragon?!", asks Uta.

    Mizuki listens to the villager. They have a missing prankster, too? Her ears splay slightly. You just know THAT's going to take a dark turn. In a story like this, the boy who liked crying wolf ends up eaten...

    Well, they'll find what they can find in the fields! Mizuki keeps her eyes open for anything unusual, but tunes in with those were fang senses as well... she may as well see if she can pick up on anything the others can't! An odd smell, or a distant faint sound... you never know!

Searching is one of Kotono's top skills. Even if there's not a lot to go on, she'll do what she can, no matter how difficult it seems. Indeed, there are many footprints in the soil, many hard to distinguish from one another. But after a good searching, Kotono is able to narrow down the majority of the footprints that she deduces are from the workers, and then notices a few that look different.

With a whistle, Kotono gestures to what she's found. "I think I've got something!"

    Merek lifts up a hand while he takes a moment to use his magic to begin searching for whatever he can find along the farm field while he takes the time to look about.

Schneider will go out into the fields to search for clues, nodding to Setsuna about the dragon. "I heard about that, but I couldn't get there in time. Was it closeby to here?" he wonders. As far as fighting children, he says, "I think any children we meet won't want to find us, and anything that wants to fight us isn't -really- children." So, magical disguise or the like, he's guessing. Or else possession. Though if it's possession, he thinks aloud, "If we can KO them, it's probably better."

Well it's time to start looking around for clues now as the group has head on their wy as they check out the fields, she will take some time to look around. She knows there's farmhands working aorund here. So some off the tracks might be from them. Still she'll keep looking, oddly she breaks out her Katana and lights it up with a sword art. It glows brighter allow to see better, so no she's not setting the crop on fire, really!

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-------------------[ Children Of The Fields I: The Fields]--------------------

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    As the group looks around and Uta gets completely lost, those who rolled searching will find all types of tracks from workers and some that would be from smaller shoes maybe pre-teens, including a few that are teens perhaps.

Also signs of armored boots as well, probably from Merchant Blades. In closer investigation, they will find location of 'drag' marks, but then it seems to vanish. Like they are pulled underground.

Some of the wheat has also been snapped around these locations, giving further evidence to a struggle.

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    As for Uta...
She may find herself getting further and further from the group and then, she and she alone may hear a giggle from what sounds like a young girl.

That can't be good!

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    <> Open choices - Pick what you'd like to do.

    Merek looks to the field and nods a bit, "It's possible they were taken by the undead. Kind of easy to tell with the underground," he notes. The man takes a look along that farm while he begins to try and discern any subtle differences within the ground itself, his magic looking through the whole of the place.

    Issues with fighting children? "If they're monsters now... Unless you know some way to turn them back, it doesn't matter what they were made from..." Mizuki replies.

    CAT SENSES pick up SOME kind of inhuman smell she doesn't recognize, and a faint rustling. Or is it the wind?

    "How does that work? Do undead have a burrow speed in this setting? Or do they form portals in the ground going to some underworld? ...We'd better stick together. I smell something... weird. It might have to do with this, who knows..." She tries to pinpoint the sound AND the smell.

"If there are undead around here," Kotono comments, "Then we'd best be ready for them in the event that they return." Thinking quickly, the girl attempts to search further for any possible signs of nearby undead, although at the same time she's not entirely sure what she's looking for. One thing she is doing is sniffing the air for the possible stench of rotten flesh.

Alone, surrounded by wheat, and now there's this giggle. "Oh no, you don't!", she exclaims, staff whipped at the ready in a lowered combat-ready stance. Eyes dart left and right under furrowed brows, "...you won't get me so easily, Girl from the Menu!" Advancing with increased alearness, she keeps her eyes and ears peeled, occasionally darting ahead with an air-propelled sonic boom for good measure. "And this time I finally got to /hear/ you! Although, I gotta admit, I would have expected you to sound a bit older..."

Once she's back where the rest are, she'll knee down, and feel the ground. "Hmmm. Let me try the magic detector..." She stands up, inhales, flips her staff to have the disc with the gem pointing down at the ground, and begins singing a slow, haunting tune. Meanwhile, as the staff lights in different colors at different points on the handle to match the melody, she sweeps it around, like a metal detector...

    Setsuna's eyes fall on the tracks of the smaller variety, reaching down and touching them for a moment before he stands up and speaks up, " Looks like some tracks here. " He does his best here to continue to follow the tracks throught the wheat field, stopping for a moment to answer the question, " I think it is a burrow technique or something with them being attuned to earth magic. Also yes there is a good chance we will find some undead at the end of this road if the children are who I think they are. " Setsuna gets back to work trying to track the tracks.

Schneider will look over the drag marks, and when he finds where they end, he plumbs his senses down into the earth to get a sense of what's below the ground. "Spirits of earth, lend me your senses, tell me your secrets," he commands, drawing on the power of any earth elementals to explore down below the ground.

    When Setsuna mentions he has suspicions, Mizuki asks, "What do you mean? Who do you expect they are? If you've got any critical intel that could save us some trouble if we get in a fight with these things..."

Miho has some luck fining signs of armored boots, it might be from the MErchan blade then she spots it, drg marks. Which seem to vanihs like people were pulled undergroung? That gets an idea into Miho's head. She'll take her sword and plant it into the dirt where the marks vanish focying on an earth based sword art to see if she can disrupt anything below or even maybe find where in the earth they might have gone.

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-------------------[ Children Of The Fields I: The Fields]--------------------

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    Merek and Uta do find the fact there has been some ground disturbances, magically created at that but they go down to deep to really make heads or tails of where they go, beyond just down. The same goes for Schneider and Miho as well.

Yet, something can be determined by all four of them... The victims were indeed taken down below and there are spots where it went the other way, where something rose up from.

    Mizuki sadly loses the scent along with can't determine the direction of the sound. To many people moving around. The wind and just everything is making it hard for her to get a good sense of where to go.

As others continue to look around, they now all would hear the giggling of the girl and soon a few more laughs as well. Though it all goes quiet till Mizuki nearly runs head long into a Merchant Blade!

    The man stands there looking at her, his armor hiding his face, beyond his eyes that are looking directly at her. "What are you adventurers doing out here? Hopefully not causing any trouble."

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    As Miho continues to dig around with her sword, she will feel a rumble under her. Those using magic and earth spells may also sense it first, but suddenly the ground breaks out from under Miho!

People will need to act fast to catch her before she goes sinking down below!

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                         <><> Miho - ROLL LOCKED <><>                        

    <><> Only 3 people must succeed to save Miho!
    <> Save Miho! Physical vs 9
    <> Save Miho! Magical vs 9
    <> Save Miho! Some other way
    <> Do something else is an option as well

    Merek looks then to Miho when it looks like the ground begins shifting to take that woman in. The man draws the potion from the belt, then he throws that into the ground, while he waits for a full explosion to sling the woman back upwards for anyone else that wishes to try and bring her away.

Schneider is concentrating on the feedback from his elementals, willing them to go deeper, deeper, and the disturbance on the surface comes to his attention late. He tries to weave a spell to shield Miho from whatever is happening beneath her, but he's not quite fast enough to get his spell off in time, and his shield is caught up in the erupting ground, rendering it ineffective.

    "What kind of question is that? Adventurers /save/ people, we don't cause trouble! We're out here looking for signs of whatever's causing these disappearances... It looks like it might be undead, there's places where it looks like things came out of or went into the ground..." Suddenly, there's a commotion! Her ears perk up and she looks in Miho's direction, and turns to run that way! Although it seems Miho is already saved, thankfully!

Uta flips her staff back into its normal configuration. "We're gonna need a bigger shovel." She looks around, one hand on her mouth. "Well, first we're gonna need /a/ shovel. For reference."

When she notices Miho beginning to fall down, she points her staff at the hole, and intones a breezy aria, in an attempt to cast a magical beam to create an updraft to propel Miho up. The vocalizations proceed, the crystal shimmers, and the spell is completed: a massive blast of air departs from the staff and-

-hits Uta right in the stomach, sending her flying. She lands many yards apart, with a thud. Her back glows, and her HP bar loses a few points. "...ugh, forgot that that spell shoots out from the /other/ end of the staff..."

    Setsuna looks up over at Mizuki, losing the tracks he was tracking in the process. It was ok though, he was pretty sure he was going in a circle. " A few weeks back there was a carnival ran by vampires. Landers went missing, of all ages. I was sure I put a report in..."
     In fact Setsuna had not put in his final report, only a preliminary one at best. The final report sat on his desk back in Alne and had been repurpose as scratch paper for other things.
     " Anyways I am pretty sure given the situation we are tracking down those that went missing that night. Those that are no longer landers." Setsuna goes back to trying to track , tracks a little lost in his own mind as he realizes finally he is tracking his own tracks. It was quite easy to tell to, his right boot print, obviously a size 11 worn down due to having to walk EVERYWHERE. Then he had his left foot print... a skeleton footprint, less worn due to the new nature but still size 11.
     As his attention is drawn back towards the others due to the attempted Miho-Napping it seems whatever has had his attention and quickly does his best to counter the magic in the earth with his own. Fortunately earth is earth and quickly slams his palm on the ground below him sending a wave of magic in Miho's direction.

Leave it to Kotono! With her knives at the ready, the girl rushes in fast and uses her blades to rescue Miho! Or at least assist in doing so. "Leave it to me!"

Miho has poked the beat it seems as Miho is digging about suddenly there's a rumble she senses something coming but it's too late the ground breaks under her and she's starting to sink into whatever lays below. She would soon find her tail's flailing and she's trying to dig her weapon into the earth to hold her in place and keep her from sinking. Thankfully there are people there to help her by spell and feat of power. The magic helps a lot too as she's able to be freed. At least before she ends up falling to the ground.

"I think I owe all of you ... dinner."

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------------------[ Children Of The Fields I: Blade Vampire]------------------

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    Miho is thankfully saved by everyone, even slightly by those who may fail on their attempts. The ground only stays open for a moment before closing back up.

Mizuki as she runs away however may suddenly sense /something/. The smell from that Merchant Blade was /all/ wrong as the wind moves off of him.

It wasn't human...

... It was a predator!

    The were fang would find herself avoiding a sudden blade swing that comes close to clipping her. While the sun was out, it was maybe the only thing that was slowing down the vampire merchant blade.

It was thanks to her keen sense does that group become aware of that there was now an enemy before them. Now it was time to deal with the creature!

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                           <> Player initiative <>                            

    <><> 6 Successes to defeat the Vampire Merchant Blade

    <> Combat Roll - Free Choice!

    Merek looks to the vampire merchant blade, while he takes a moment to begin shifting his weapon from the sheath. The man swings along into the creature, while he begins to fight. The man has been training a lot, it clearly looks like he's skilled while the weapon dances along.

To air is human, right?

At least Kotono sees it something like that, as she's taken to using some runes to cast some air magic and try to help defeat the vampire merchant blade. Why she uses air? Why not?

It'll really blow you away though!

Schneider is too slow to help Miho, but now that his attention is above ground, he can evaluate the threat. It looks like a threat to him. He's really only got one response to threats, and that's Fire. "GUNZENRO!" he shouts out, opting for speed over power in this case, and it seems like a good call as flames pour over the target. He won't be finding any shade there!

    Setsuna turns as they are dropped into combat, with the sudden realization that one of them must be in combat. Spinning around he finally takes note of the wanna be Merchant Knight. "I am guessing you are not here to help us." Raising his hand above his head a magic circle appears above for a moment before he strikes out , unleashing a whip of fire to try and draw the attention of the knight. "Hey ugly...over here." As he engages combat he does his best to multi-task to get an INSPECT on the knight.

    Something seems off about the merchant blade, but initially Mizuki dismisses it as lander prejudice against were fangs... Until the smell comes back, from the direction she just left! Ears turn back, and then she dives to the side, extending her foreclaws into the ground for purchase, spinning so her back legs land away and she's now facing the threat! Were fang instincts react faster than her human ones, and they're keeping her alive right now so she doesn't resist... planting her hind legs firmly on the ground and then POUNCING, roaring, trying to latch on with all claws and tear out his throat! Or at least tear off that helmet!

Miho is not in a good mood the earht just tried ot eat her but as Mizuki gets attacke she notices something, not concious but she star to move, her blade is drawn and it burst into flame as she lunges at the Merchant Blade, with her blazing Katana intending to run them though!

Uta picks up her staff, and this time she points the right end away from herself. "Let's try again..."

Her song, this time, is a more intense crescendo, whose intensity grows past what one would consider sane, and grows even more, until-

*WHAM*

The staff blasts a shockwave which flattens the wheat as it expands past, blasting everything it encounters.

Including the 'Merchant Blade'...

"Whooops," Uta comments after the accidental discharge. "...I might have accidentally invented crop circles..."

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------------------[ Children Of The Fields I: Vampire Blade]------------------

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    The Vampire Merchant Blade is weakened by the sunlight, which works out for the adventurers! Merek slashes his blade into the creature before it can parry. Kotono then uses that distraction then to blade the Merchant Blade into the air.

This is in perfect time for Schneider and Setsuna to unleashes the flames of fury upon the vampire, keeping the fire away from the wheat field -- Thankfully.

    Setsuna's whip does yank the Vampire Blade back down toward the ground, as Miho's attack goes to slash across its arm; seeming to cut it off as pixels fly into the air. Then Mizuki comes in and rips her claws directly into the monsters throat!

Then Uta's powerful magic attack slams into the Merchant Blade Vampire sending it into the sky along with several of the wheat crops!

This attack happening in the open gets the attention of some of the merchant blades, who come running over, "What in the goddesses names is going on?!" One of them barks out as they enter the area now missing the wheat that should have been there.

Oops!

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    Merek looks to the Merchant Blades, while he nods a bit. "Well, it looks like one of the people were changed into an undead," he notes. The man follows along to find a place to look into things, doesn't look like the man is all that wanting to really talk at the moment.

"So they were turned into the undead?" Kotono shakes her head. "This is terrible!" She frowns a little. "I hope we can save them!" Even if it is just a game, Kotono still feels emotions for the various NPCs.

    Setsuna turns with a whip in his hand and looks at the other kinghts. Taking a moment to inspect them before he allows the spell to dissipate. Standing there for a moment and then speaks up, " One of the lost Merchant Knights appeared as a vampire. I believe all those who have gone missing are now vampires. You can choose to do what that information you wish. " It's all he says to the knights before he seems to go back to being distracted by looking for where the giggling they had heard before may have came from.

Schneider looks quite pleased to have incinerated the vampire. A bit late, he realizes that maybe these guys would be sad to lose their buddy. He says to the Merchant Blades, "Found a vampire, killed it. Better stay alert, there might be more." Which is actually true, sidestepping the idea that maybe they incinerated someone they shouldn't have. He's less picky about his targets than maybe he should be. "Just ... uh... looking for any more clues," he explains and starts looking around.

Uta sneaks away from the area. To... search for clues. Yes. Clues. Not to avoid having to explain the suddenly flattened circle of crops. Uh-un. Why would you think that. Preposterous.

    Undead down!

    Mizuki stands up... and then realizes she bit an undead ew eww ptooie ptooie! So the merchant blades come to find her standing over a corpse that is no doubt taking juuuust inconveniently long to shatter into polygons. Oh wait, no, Uta blew it up into the sky, thank goodness.

    At least she doesn't actually have blood on her muzzle because there were only pixels, right? "We killed an undead." she replies matter-of-factly. She looks at Setsuna. "I bit a vampire? Do I get bonus XP for irony?" Then back to the merchant blades. "What about you, have you seen anything unusual out here?"

Miho thinks for a moment as the fight ends. "The one that tuend them may still be around here." Then the merchant blades show up and she grimaces "One of your number was turned by a Vampire..."

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-----------------[ Children Of The Fields I: Traps & Plans ]------------------

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    The Merchant Blades stare at the adventurers before a few seem to relax, though they seem to remain on guard. Perhaps in hearing Merek's words that one of them was changed undead.

The commander of this group tsks gently before he seems to admit it, "We have had a few men gone missing. Even during the attack from the sky, several more were turned into skeleton warriors for that damnable Undead army."

"They are also getting brave if they are willing to attack during the day like that." The commander rubs his chin. "... We may be able to use that to our advantage."

"Are you adventures--" He then pauses realizing this was not the place to talk ab out this. "We should head back to the village. I have an idea and you adventurers may be the key to the victory."

    One of the other Merchant Blades looks over to Mizuki, "What hasn't been unusual? We have undead, monsters--more monsters-- adventures blowing up crops!" Before he gets smacked on the back of the helm and a female Blade speaks up.

"I think what my friend here is trying to say is, that every day is a little hectic out here, but I agree with the commander. It is best we get out of the field if these undead are getting more brazen and discuss things back at the village."

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    The Adventurers who are searching around and successfully doing so, would find a new set of footprints, bare feet at that. They look-- Cait sith in nature? Not very heavy at least, possibly female.

Like all things though, it has gone underground, but that does say that not all these vampires that may be out in these fields are human. Which, in itself, could be concerning.

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    Setsuna stops and turns back to the knight, "Ok. We can head back tot he village for now, and then coordinate from there. " It was probably for the best, all he needed to do was to run off into some dark woods by himself and get lost until night falls and found by that which he is searching for. Yes better to just go to town.

    Mizuki feels a bit :| at being called 'you adventurers' but supposes that's fair after all the times she's treated NPCs as not people. "I meant did you find anything that might be a clue. I'd like to hear this idea..."

Uta wille eventually emerge back to join the group. And try to inspect these "Landers". You can never be too careful. They might be... /aliens/.

I mean, undead.

Still, gotta watch out for those Lizard People.

    Merek points to a few footprints, "Cait Sith, probably female, that looks like a lead we might need to think on," he mentions, while he nods a bit to the party.

Schneider did not find any other tracks, but he'll head inside to get out of the field and have a chat with these guys. with the fighting bits over, though, he's kind of tuned out. He joined the game for adventure, the complicated bits are a bit too complicated for him. He played basketball, not chess.