The crowned slime

Out there in Yamato, roughly halfway between Aincrad Tower and Carmina Gadelica Marina, an Adventurer trudges on on a dirt path, pulling a cart full of glass bottles, each of them sloshing with some differently colored substance.

And for once, that person is not Cyrus the alchemist, but a certain Spriggan wearing the MMORPG-ified version of something halfway between a martial artist's gi and a nurse's uniform. Each glass jug (the kind shaped like a bottle, not like a pitcher) she's transporting seems to have a living slime insied it. One can see the little eyes and mouths pressing against the glass, and being startled at each bump in the road.

Hand on her mouth as her eyes de-focus in the distance, to absent-mindedly take in an abandoned farmhouse she's passing by, merely admiring the scenery without stopping.

    Uta was not the only one out on the dirt trail, in fact she hasn't been alone since she left the slime lab. A shadow had been lurking from a distance watching her with contempt and finally it would appear that this contempt has reached it's peek. Crossbow bolts rain from the sky down upon the cart and in front of Uta, but somehow seems to miss her completely. A few moment laters a lone stranger begins to walk up behind Uta and the cart as he slids a new cartridge of crossbow bolts into his hand sized crossbows. The Cait Sith watches her as he approaches, not sure if the adventurer will get skittish and try to run. Finally he speaks up , "Slime Nurse Uta, you have been charged with being a nuisancce to the people of the land, for causing wanton destruction, for putting lives in danger and over all for being an adventurer who doesn't know their place. Under these charges I, Sheriff Shirin, have been tasked with bringing you in under the authority of Queen Lorelei and the Palace Land Alliance. If you will kindly put your hands behind your head and lay down this will go a lot easier on you."

The arrows wooshing right next to Uta and impacting shortly after on the ground and on the wood of the cart seem to leave the Spriggan completely unphased. She just keeps on walking as if noting had happened. Somehow her legs manage to both keep a natural pace, and avoid touching the arrows in front of her as well.

With a second or two of delay, just as Shirin begins talking, Uta finally panics and with a small squeal, she dodge-leaps to hide under her cart.

Cart which isn't exactly high enough to allow someone to hide under it, so she ends up banging her head on the boards instead. And just stay put in place while she rubs her head with a grimace of pain.

Shirin's sentence is then proclaimed, and Uta's eyes grow with increased terror at each of Shirin's words.

"Oh no..." she begins, as color begins to drain from her face. "...I didn't... I thought... I needed the empty beer jugs for the slimes, I am not responsible, nor even aware, of what whent on with drunk me as a side effect of emptying-"

That is, until the penny finally drops. "...wait, Queen Lorelei? Queen Laira Lorelei?" A short frown of concentration, then the lightbulb goes off.

She swipes through her menu, and her staff, shaped like a hybrid between a rod of Aesculapius and a caduceus, shimmers into existence in her hand. "Oh, that changes everything." She assumes a fighting stance, staff tilted towards Shirin, and begins, "Pray tell, who are the Landers who accuse me, specifically? Do you have a warrant? And I'll let you know I know my place very well: I am here just outside of Fort Ouph."

...Did she actually mean the last part, or was she being sarcastic? Knowing Uta, it could go either way.

    Shirin watches Uta for a moment as she goes through several phases of acceptance and then says, " The queens words are absolute, she has given me this task and thus it is to be done. Once you and your fellow adventurers have been rounded up we will make sure you face your accuser. " Seeing that Uta has decided not to disarm he raises his crossbow and pulls the trigger. As the bolt flies through the air it passes through one magic circle to another and another growing in size until it is the size of a ballistic missile made of light and it is flying directly at Uta. " That warning shot is all I am giving you now. Once again surrender and this will go easier on you."

The ballistic missile leaves Uta staring like a small squishy mammal caught in the headlights of a massive item hurtling at breakneck speed towards her.

Which, technically, she is.

The blast impacts, and flings her backwards to topple the cart; jugs fall, crash, roll around. Recently freed slimes wobble about, and the still unconstrained ones push around their jug like a hamster wheel.

Uta, her calves on the toppled cart, back on the ground, all glowing red while a hefty chunk of her HP bar gets eaten.

"Owwl..w.ghh...", she mumbles, as she attempts to steady herself under the clinking of crushed glass. "...ghn... -warning- shot? Well, I suppose I'ts only polite I also offer a warning shot of mine in return, then."

She plants her staff on the ground, uses it to steady herself and stand, and as she does so, she vocalizes a melody with short, clipped notes which alternate at incredible speed, a vocal pizzicato if one wants, and as she does so, helix-shaped tendrils of light and color dance around her staff, climbing from the bottom to the gem at the top, focusing there, and as enough are there-

An icy-blue bolt of lightning strikes the air just above Shirin; sharp icy shards are fired towards the ground, and Uta, who lifts the staff with both hands and, continuing her song, moves it around, ensures that the controlled projectiles hit the intended target.

    Shirin watches the magic at work before the shards of ice begin to rain down upon him. Truthfully he wasn't expecting it at first and gets cut up a bit, a few of the shards cut into him before his body accelerates and he moves as quickly as he can from the ice. So in the end when the ice finishes stabbing into the ground Shirin is no longer standing there, in fact he is not standing on the ground at all. Instead he is standing in midair as he watches Uta taking another step forward, " Adventurer Uta, you have added the crime of attacking a peace officer and resisting arrest. " A magical eye appears on his forehead, hidden by the circlet he wears, " You are here by found guilty of this crime, your sentence, repeated deaths."

Uta's voice gets caught in her throat. Her song stops, and with that 'surprise squeaky voice' you get when you least expect it (and, most importantly, when you're trying your hardest to sound intimidating), she squeals, "Y-you can stand in the air? H- oh. Ooooooooh." She focuses and points at the bottom of the "Sheriff"'s soles. "A rather interesting air technique. It's... of course! Why didn't I ever think of-"

She shakes her head. "Now, now, there. It's not us who caused unwanted deaths. We from Yamato came over the Palace Lands to help your people with the Wave of Calamity, and your kingdoms teamed up to slaughter -us-. You are clearly crafting a narrative that paints us as the bad guys while, in reality, the bad guys are the enemies we've made along the way- wait, no, I think-" She frowns and taps her lips. "I think I somehow wandered on the wrong side of the tracks of my train of thought somewhere in the middle of that sentence."

"Repeated deaths?" Uta's confused frown intensifies. "You mean, like, a lifetime death sentence? I-" She stands there, gaping. "I am furious at how much sense that makes."

She twirls her staff once again, and what she intones this time is a bouncy tune, the kind which makes one suddenly realize that disco isn't dead, it covertly fled to Japan where it started a new life under the assumed name of J-Pop. Each accented note a sharp attack which slides into a repentine upward portamento, each passage more colorful helical tendrils of light that dance on the handle of the Staff, each bounce of the music an irresistible command for the scattered slimes, which bounce along.

All of them hurtling themselves at Shirin, while Uta herself, from a safe distance, directs the monsters with arcane necromantic gestures.

Wait, no, sorry, that's disco.

Disco is not undead.

    Shirin tilts his head at Uta, not quite getting Uta, at the end of it all he does add, " You did seem to get off track on that last bit, I am sure the queen would very much like to help you get on the right track. We will start by showing you the error of your ways. Starting with using monsters," leaping off his perch at full speed he dodges the slimes with only the faintest of acid burns as he rolls through the last one as if he was a hedgehog, or armadillo, or pangolin, take your pick. Popping out of his roll he now wields his pair of hand held cross bows. If one was to inspect them they would be called 'Peace Makers by Coltan Winchester' and with a smirk he begins to rapidly pull the triggers on the crossbow, the bolts firing rapidly from their spring loaded cartridge at Uta.

"What was I supposed to do, leave them to roam the countryside?!", Uta exclaims, sweeping her hand to show the area around- no, she's not merely showing the area around, it's an Arte which cracks the ground and creates a circular depression, sloping downard, for Uta to disappear into and avoid the fusillade directed her way.

"Look, I know, the monster thing is a bit weird," she says, poking her head out once the imminent danger posed by the projectiles has passed. "All I wanted was a couple of slimes in a tank. Like a fishtank. But with slimes. Pet them every now and then. Simple wishes. It-"

She bites her lip and looks down and away, "-kinda got out of hand," she confesses, nervous, while she wrings her staff.

"Queen Laira Lorelei is in no position to act all holier-than-thou, given how the Palace Lands betrayed and tried to slaughter our people who risked their life to help you manage the last Wave of Calamity. It's a miracle nobody died!"

Uta jumps out of her trench, darts towards Shirin, and swings her staff to deliver a massive blow to the man's head. "She has no right to send me to slime sensitivity training!"

    Shirin doesn't really dodge, if anything he just puts up a rather small magic aura around him and takes the hit to the head. Sure now his vision is blurry but still the point stands somewhere something Uta said hit a nerve, and not just the one that she struck with her staff. " The Queen explained it all. You lot came to our land, you lot brought trouble to our land, you lot unleashed the wrath of many things on our land. You questioned our ways, our actions, you deemed us lower then you. You were planning invasion. You wanted another war. For my Queen and country I will not allow that. The last war brought her tears, I will never allow another tear on her face. " Leveling his crossbows he fires two synced powerful shots before he ejects the cartridges and tosses his crossbows in the air. Quickly pulling new cartridges out of his jacket he leaps up and reloads the crossbows before landing and firing 2 powerful laser beam like shots at Uta.

Uta's upper body leans all the way left, then she slide-pirouettes in the opposite direction just in time to dodge each blast.

"I for one was definitely not planning any invasion," she retors, completing her pirouette to face Shirin again. "I definitely did not want another war, and as far as I can tell, nobody I know did. Must have been a massive misunderstanding," Uta explains with a frown.

But it's no time for standing still. More blasts arrive, and Uta is quick to twirl her staff to point downwards, yell a curt "YAH!", and be shot out of the way by a sonic boom, missing the first of the second rounds of shoots by a hair's breadth, only to twirl her staff immediately after while in mid-air, point it at an angle downward, utter a second "YAH!", and be shot by a second sonic boom to cartwheel in the air in the opposite direction, only grazed by the final shot.

She lands with a THUD, one knee up, the other back, one hand touching the ground while the other, holding her staff, is raised in a fist behind her, in that pose typical of superheroes and squirrels.

"It seems like our communication is straying into hostile territory, and, well, maybe we should take a step back and try to focus on what we have in common instead. If it weren't for an obsessive twisted sense of justice, you seem like an alright guy, after all- wait, I'm doing it a gain. Restart, restart. Ahem. So, uh, did Queen Laira Lorelei tell you to capture me specifically, or just Yamato Adventurers in general?"

She stands up, twirls her staff into her standing position, and intones the bouncy tune from before, to direct the slimes towards Shirin.

She's definitely sending mixed messages there.

    The slimes come bouncing at the Shirin one by one hurrah hurrah. Fortunately Shirin is still amped from the speech about Queen Lorelei and dodges out of the way of most of them. " You need to invest in faster monsters if you want to catch me." Obviously Shirin is ignoring the single Slime chewing on his boot, as he answers the question, "The queen has issued a decree that all Yamato adventurers must be brought to heel for the good and safety of the land." WIth that said he raises his weapon and seems to be aiming for a moment as bullseye targets magically seem to appear on Uta. This may be similar to how that one thorn move imprints images of thorns on someone to cut but for Shirin it's bullseye targets. This is of coursed followed by two more sync'd shots fired towers the bullseyes.

"Look, I'm not the one who brought a crossbow to a slime fight!", Uta frowns, flicking her staff to point it acusingly at Shirin, before furrowing her brow. "I mean, it wasn't even a fight. I was just taking my experimental slimes to safety when you came up and decided to interrupt whatever it was that I was doing and I've long lost track of-" She sighs.

"Anyway, sorry, rambling there. Back to proper communication techniques."

She stands still, vertical, legs kept together, eyes closed, hands clasped except for her fingers pointing up. She looks a lot like a monk.

She even inhales, slowly, and-

The blows impact on the bullseye at this point, twice. Uta keeps her composture through all this, even as the impacts knock her HP down and her body ever-so-slightly backwards (but she manages to regain her original position immediately)

Uta exhales. "Thank you for your compelling point. Now..."

She dashes towards Shirin, and vocalizes a melody where each call, dark and oppressive, is matched with a response which is breezy and celestial. Dark and light threads of magic interwine on the helix of her staff, and once ther power melds into the focus gem at the top, two blasts of light shoot out, one red, forward, which engulfs Shirin and one green, backwards, which engulfs Uta herself. Blobs bulge on the red part, sapping the sheriff's HP, travel backwards through the gem, turn green, and replenish Uta's health.

All of this while still running, and singing... until she's -almost- reached her target, at which point she utters, "my counterpoint is-"

She swings her staff to deliver two repeated whacks, "-No."

    Shirin could feel his life being drained away and he didn't like it. It was, unpleasant. So what does he do, he runs, up up into the sky as he just by random happenstance avoids the staff attacks as he just hangs out, out of range for a moment. " Sapping one's life away sure sounds like a villians move." WIth that he unleashes a bolt down by Uta's feet causing the ground to shake. "So you were heading for shelter in Alne then? Perhaps that accursed tower? Good to know, once I am done with you I will continue that way. "

    The fight had been going back and forth, and now here was Shirin driven back into a corner and he looks like he is about to cry a little. He could feel the failure and the disappointment and that sigh, the sigh the Queen does whenever he has failed her before he can't hear that again as he stands up shaking with one health point in the bar. " You ... you ... you... you horrible adventurer." With a shakey arm he raises the cross bow and shakily points it at Uta.

"I'm not -sapping- your life!", Uta protests. "I'm just getting back what you stole!"

When Shirin's HP is low enough, Uta stops her singing. On purpose. The energy-sapping beams fizzle out at 1 HP exactly.

Uta stands there, looking at Shirin as if for emphasizing that the interruption at that specific point was intentional, states, calm, "Now, I am sure we can level our differences. Let's get rid of that weapon, and talk this out like civilized people..."

Still holding onto her staff, she spins on one leg, as if to perform an illusion turn (as in the dance move), only for it to turn out that the raised foot is going to turn into a kick, to attempt to knock Shirin's bow off. And attempt to follow with a swipe of her staff if that fails.

    Shirin pulls the trigger, of course he would he would not hesitate as the light around the arrow begins to gather. Then the kick impacts his hand and he swivels as the shot goes flying at the wagon holding all of Uta's prized possessions. Suddenly there is the wheel of the wagon going one way and then the wagon tipping and it is only a matter of moments till one might here the first slime container shatter. It is definately not the intent but sometimes the best actions happen by random happenstance.

"...And if you see Queen Laira Lorelei, tell her that Curious Cutie says 'hi'. And that she will be more than glad to counter-offer her a Slime appreciation training," Uta chuckles as she finishes her maneuver.

It is only after that she's returned to her basic combat stance that the enormity of what just happened hits her. The sound that follows can be best described as a choked grating raspy squeal: "My slimes!", Uta yells, in shock and horror, as she runs over. "My precious Jelly Babies!"

She runs over, as a waterfall of bottles ruins onto the ground, and after the destruction of the vessels, their blobular contents shatters into polygons, producing a whole collection of Slime Drops available for everyone to see.

    Shirin blinks as he watches what happens and stares for a moment but then he realizes what has happened so what does Shirin do. He walks away. Not casually, he isn't an idiot, no but by the time Uta looks back up he has every intention of being hidden by the time Uta starts looking for him. He will have to report in and sip some potions but truthfully he thinks he can salvage this as victory by the intent behind the task being completed.