And So the Hunt Begins! (Mei/Kateri)

Job Description:

The sun shone on the ancient ruins of Fiore, home to a great many wonders and artifacts. Under a tree that rest on a hill overlooking these ruins, lay a certain gray haired mage. Naturally, Dmitry Kazakov couldn't sleep, his mind racing at what he would have to be on the lookout for. At the moment, he was awaiting his guildmates who would be backing him up on the job he was here to undertake, the task requested by the 'esteemed' Magic Council itself. Apparently, the original Ten Wizard Saints, renowned as the most powerful mages in Fiore, gathered in this place to store their most powerful artifacts. A treasure hunter named Harper Goldenshine had recently found a way to navigate the ruins and was now combing the place with his band of hunters in order to find these relics, no doubt to sell to the highest bidder. 

However, Dmitry didn't have a care in the world for such problems, not all that concerned with matters of history and governance. The invocationist was here for another purpose, one much closer to home. A friend of his, Mao Nakiri, was affected by some sort of condition that had caused her to lose all of the memories she had made prior to a few months earlier. What was worse was that she had recently lost a large portion of the memories she had made since, able to keep only the names of some of her closes companions. Dmitry had attempted to find a solution among the records held within Zuo's Grand Library, but with no leads to start with, his search fell short. When he found out about this job, he saw it as a possible opportunity to find some kind of record of a similar form of rapidly progressing amnesia, one most likely induced by magic. 

The mage opened his eyes and sat up, staring out at the ruins. "Hold on, Mao," he said out loud.

"I'll find a way to fix this..."

The desert, Mei had been here before, but it was a bit ago, before she had undergone a few adventures that changed her outlook, and made her a little more jaded. More importantly though, it made her accommodated to the heat, so the weather didn't bother her at all, even when it changed to a more tropical climate around the ruins, which would normally have been just as annoying if she didn't have this body, or rather her older powers back. As she wandered through the little bit of jungle, Mei sighed and wished she had some kind of bowie knife or machete, she didn't wish to burn down the entire forest after all, but at the same time wanted to get there on time, despite leaving early in case something happened. Sadly with all of the various running around, Mei could only manage to make it just as it seemed another landed down. At least she wasn't completely late to this little treasure hunt. Sadly she didn't know Dmitry's name so she couldn't have known it was him till she caught a glimpse.

Approaching just in time to hear a little bit of what was said, not the whispers from Dmitry, but from this hooded figure who later was blue, or was it white haired? Odd, well Mei knew they were a girl from their voice, at least, but still they were a new face, means Mei would have to introduce herself to them.

"Don't bother, those two are pretty much oblivious to the concept of love, well at least with each other."

Mei stated as she appeared from the side of some of the ruins. Tipping her hat a bit, she looked at the two of them and put on a bit of a smile.

"Pleasure to meet you, though I've already met one of you, My name is Mei, and though I had met you gray hair, I didn't catch your name, oh and in case you are wondering, I've chatted with mao recently and she is doing fine."

Dmitry turned to look as the to female members of his guild arrived, one expected and the other an unannounced participant. "Bout time, Lava hands." He said as Mei introduced herself, ignoring her talk of love. The normally reclusive mage couldn't really argue, but he wasn't exactly sure how that applied to this situation. "It's Dmitry by the way," he added as he stood up. "And what're doin' here, Kat?" Naturally, Dmitry felt responsible for his friend's daughter, so he wasn't thrilled at her coming out to a job this dangerous. Still, she was already out here and more than capable, leading the gray medium to consider the pros of her coming with them. "Look, if you're gonna tag along, try not to get hurt," he said with a sigh. "You know your dad'll skin me alive if he finds out you got hurt on my watch."

With that, Dmitry began moving towards the ruins, not bothering to answer Kateri's question. "Let's go over the job." He said as he walked. "A treasure hunter by the name of Harper Goldenshine has found a way to map out these ruins. The Council says they caught wind that he's looking for the artifacts of the original Ten Wizard Saints, or whatever." Dmitry wasn't one for human customs or history. "The stooges in the top brass are worried that he's gonna do somethin' less than savory with'em, so they want us to go in and grab the damn things before Goldenshine get's to'em." The summoner didn't bother to add his own personnel objective into the briefing; that was something he could deal with himself. 

'You are surprisingly committed to helping this one,' Hati said into Dmitry's mind. 'I am a bit impressed by her.'

'Yeah, well I can figure out the why of it some other time,' he said back. 'Right now, that doesn't matter.' 

Of course, Dmitry didn't have the slightest clue how he was going to find anything that could help him help Mao, but he would cross that bridge when he came to it, as he always did. The simple truth was, his search was going nowhere and he had no intention of giving up on Mao, regardless of what she might say. His best option right now was to look for the most likely source of ancient magical knowledge, and this was it. 

"Now, the relics are the priority in this," He continued. "Finding Goldenshine himself would be faster, but also more dangerous. This guy maybe a treasure hunter, but he's got his own private army of goons, not to mention advanced Crystal-Make magic. If we can find one of his Lieutenants, they might have the same method he's using to chart out the way to the relics. Either way, we have to take down one of them if we wanna get to the Saint's vault."

Well there went Dmitry, all focused but at least Mei knew his name, still lava hands? Not a bad nickname, she'd let it pass her by without much worry or fuss. Still his fascination for being so serious could become a mood killer, and Mei didn't really like the mood to be killed except when Mei or Aiyana ended up making a horrible pun, or heck even Mao on occasion would make one, and take everyone by surprise. Perhaps that was part of the charm of Dmitry, his seriousness, but it did make Mei worry, he never seemed to really have a smile, and always seemed so into his own little goals that perhaps he might lose sight of the big picture, oh well it wasn't Mei's place to pick him apart, only to possibly pick him up if he fell or at least lead Mao to do it, since heavens know both of them didn't know what was really going on when they chatted. it was cute, but frustrating to no end.

Speaking of frustrating to no end... this little girl, could she be called a little girl, oh well Mei was going to at least think that anyway, seemed way too interested in what Dmitry was doing with this other girl. Never mind the fact that Mei was also interested, at least Mei let it go, kind of sort of maybe not, okay so this girl might have been more like Mei then she would have liked to admit, but at least Mei didn't giggle! That was one thing! Still, this girl was curious and frankly if Dmitry wasn't going to comment on it, Mei would, after all it would be helping him out in the long run, getting his brain flowing with the idea that maybe Mao could be his girlfriend since it was very clear that the two of them liked each other, potentially in that way too, just... not to Mao and Dmitry themselves.

"Yeah, she's pretty much his girlfriend, and if I had to guess by how serious he is acting, this whole trip is about her, that or he just really wants a nice little treasure."

Mei stated with a hint of mocking in her voice on the last bit, she didn't know him for long but figured that he didn't desire just some kind of item.

"And it's okay, you don't have to remember my name if you don't want too, you can just make up a nickname--- hey wait a minute what are you doing!?"

Suddenly a little pet was all over her, Mei had to quickly move her hair out of the way to avoid the little bugger getting all up in her grill. he was sniffing her, it was strange, maybe he viewed her as a threat or something? Granted Mei could be pretty scary at times as she could erupt into violence on occasion, but was never that volatile. When the little thing left her body, Mei was a bit relieved, to suddenly do such a thing it was, well unbecoming. Hopefully, it wouldn't be a habit.

"Well, hopefully if he is as cautious of the enemy as his allies."

Thankfully the whole time Mei was at least listening to Dmitry and making sure she had all of it covered he apparently was going on about the mission and who was after the artifacts, Mei already knew a bit of this, but still he was such a stickler for the objectives that Mei had to interject a little bit.

"Hey Dmitry right? just relax a little bit, if we come across any goons I'm sure we can handle it if we are cautious right, just have to work together as a team, speaking of which, Kateri right? What exactly do you specialize in, that joke Dmitry made about lava hands isn't just him saying I'm hot, though I'm flattered if he did, I actually do use a form of lava well it's mimic's it... I melt things, that's all that is important."

Entering the ruin. Mei would just follow the two along trying to keep a vigil about the surroundings just in case an ambush or a trap was placed. You never knew with these types of ruins, still Mei noticed something the girl's hair changed back to a bluish tint, interesting Mei didn't get the significance of it, but potentially it could mean something other than a fun little sense of fashion.

Dmitry sighed at Mei's words; he was getting stressed out over this whole issue and it was showing. 

"Look, if I'm a bit grouchy, it's 'cause I ain't had too much sleep lately." He said, stopping to take a look around to make sure they weren't being followed, not wanting anymore complications in his life. "I got a lot on my mind, okay? I just wanna get into this place as soon as possible." 

Frankly, there might very well have been nothing of use to him in the ruins. He didn't have any specific indicators that this place would have the answers he sought. But the simple truth was that he didn't have anywhere else to go and he wasn't about to give up on this. 

Just as he was thinking about it, a familiar sensation began to sooth him, wrapping him in a feeling that typically put him at ease. "That's...strange..." He said as he stopped in his tracks.

'So you noticed, did you?' Hati said to him.

"This place..." Dmitry continued out loud. "There're...a lotta spirits active here...If I had to guess, whatever power was here vanished and the vacuum drew them here. Call succession."

Dmitry grinned, as his newly relaxed state revealed how foolish he had been acting. How could he think that he could help Mao by getting all tensed up and losing his cool? If he was going to find anything in this place, he needed to be relaxed and level-headed. If he wasn't, the answers would slip by him.

"Alright then," he said as he turned to his companions. "Kat, you stay in the back. It'll give you some distance from anyone in front of us and give you a wide view to use those ice spells. If anybody comes up from behind, you've got Shadow to let ya know 'bout it." He turned to Mei. "Lava hands, you oughta stay up front with me. I'm gonna be a bit...distracted, so it'll help to have someone keepin' me from gettin' caught with my pants down." 

With that, the medium closed his eyes and focused on his sixth sense, getting a feel for the activity in this place. Normally, he could only feel spiritual entities and the reactions they had to enormous bodies of power. However, in a place with this much spiritual presence, those reactions were much greater in volume, allowing him to detect much smaller phenomena...like a mage. Dmitry looked to a corridor that led east, before walking towards it.

"This way."

"Alright I'll watch your back, just make sure you don't get too side tracked, I sort of know what you are going through, and believe me it can engross you a little too much, such as your tiny outburst at, my admittedly poor taste, joke."

Mei didn't know what to really say beyond that, Katerii had described her magic to an extent, still it was a bit odd to Mei, one would rely upon a weapon rather than their natural abilities... perhaps that's just because Mei always had her natural abilities, or at least as long as she remembered... the little hiccup with those different powers wasn't actually her using them anyway, but something a little more sinister in the works.

The formation right now worried Mei a bit though, while she could see everything coming in all directions, she worried that an ambush might still happen, never know with these ruins what might happen. Stealth was a worry, she couldn't see through it right now, and that meant that a possible ambush was likely... or Mei was just over thinking it. They would probably be stupid and rush them head on, and the Katerii as she seemed like the more volatile and joking type would run out and start shooting them, and Dmitry would get all serious and summon and then Mei would have to avoid friendly fire on both of them while trying to contribute to the battle. How Mei sometimes missed Aiyana, that little fluffbutt could at the very least take a hit from Mei and not care about it... maybe that's one odd reason they worked well together on a team.

"Say guy's, if the enemy manages to find us, no one try to be a hero, let's just try and figure out their weaknesses and strike them with a bit of smarts. Not that I dislike hero's but... well... I don't want to end up hitting either of you."

Dmitry grinned at the lava mage.

"Ah, don't worry about it, hands; playing things by the smarts's how I usually go it anyhow." He said about as reassuringly as a dentist telling you 'this won't hurt a bit'. "And that one knows if she tries somethin' stupid-like, I'll smack'er upside the head..." With this he turned to the girl of which he spoke oh so candidly. "Ain't that right, blue?" The tone of his voice contained a slight hint to the younger girl, whom he has had to reprimand time and time again for her impulsiveness. "And besides," He said turning back to the direction e was walking in. "These ruins're a bit...tight for my bigger spirits to move in. I'll probably have to stick to the smaller ones, like Huginn and Muninn. Not to mention a few other...tricks." It was funny how quickly Dmitry's mood could change when he entered a spiritually dense place. Whether it got better or worse, the change was always significant.

Suddenly, the mage's eyes sharpened as he felt a ripple in the spirits of this place and stopped for a moment. "Bout time they showed up." Dmitry held out a hand and closed his eyes. "We got us some company on the way folks, so get yer asses ready," he said in a hushed tone. "Ahead of us, don't know we're here from the seems of it." When his eyes reopened, his pupils were silver and his irises pitch black. 

"I invoke the Twin Ravens: Huginn! Muninn!" The birds that by this point were likely familiar to both the women accompanying him flew up onto the buildings adjacent to the group. Dmitry himself walked over to the building on his left and leaned up against it before closing his eyes and crossing his arms, focusing on what Huginn and Muninn saw.

---

HP: 200
MP: 95%

Spells Used :

The member 'Dmitry' has done the following action : Dice Rolls

'Monster Dice' :

Well, this was interesting, Dmitry was being nice... or at least more upbeat and less grouchy, and or serious. This was actually a better fit for him, though Mei didn't know how long it would last, but at least she could understand why Mao had once called him, friend. He was quite the nice guy and earnest too, a very good catch if Mao actually could get some bait. The little scene behind her however from Kateri made Mei chuckle, sometimes it paid to have 360-degree vision, if only for those kinds of moments. Looks like Mei's little guesses about them was correct, and it meant that she would have to get a little bit creative to handle any enemies that appeared.

Sure enough enemies did appear, or at least other hunters. Mei debated going and chat with them for a bit, but Kateri did a bunch of fancy dance moves and prepared herself to fire at them. Mei didn't think that would be necessary... on these targets at least, Dmitry had his birds up and was around the corner from Kateri, which meant that he would see enemies coming possibly before Mei ever would, and Kateri was in a prime sniping position in case more showed up... hmm Mei had a bit of an idea going in her head. This could work out very well.

"Hold up you two, no need to waste the effort on these bad guy's right? I'll handle this batch and get them to lure more of their friends out, that's when you guy's can attack them in the ambush. Don't worry I can handle myself against them for a bit, what's important is not just taking these guy's out, but taking them off guard."

Sighing a bit, Mei grabbed the front of her hat and tipped it down slightly, forming a small smile across her face, not at the fact that she was going to end up harming some people, but because of just how clever this plan might turn out, then again it might flop but hopefully it would be a success.

"Alright wish me luck, if it works out you'll have plenty to deal with."

Granted, Mei could end up just putting herself into the middle of all the enemies and Kateri or Dmitry could shoot/do whatever against them as she moved into position, but she didn't care, she was prepared for that. Phasing into the ground using one of her more clever spells, Mei swam through the ground till she was near where all of them were, and then exploded forth with gusto and magma raining down all around the hunters.

"I am the great god of this place, leave before you anger me further!"

She stated, with a bellow, it was a joke, mostly, Mei was technically a god, as much as a gimp cripple was a professional athlete right now, but still it counted right? Of course, Mei wasn't so stupid as to have her body actually appear, rather it was a faceless lava form, that "spoke" out against them, as Mei herself hid underneath the center of it all in the ground, that way if anyone tried to shoot her or stab her, it would simply miss and just hurt them.

Surely enough regardless if they had been spooked before Mei had done her action a few more of the bastards started to crawl out of the woodwork, this left them with their work cut out for them, but hopefully with a good sniper on the job, and a decent distraction things would turn out just fine.

---

85% MP.

The member 'That Adopted Kid' has done the following action : Dice Rolls

'Monster Dice' :

Meanwhile, just around the bend, Dmitry had to keep a hand on his mouth to keep from cracking up. Even Hati was in a fit of laughter at the spectacle.

'I can't believe that actually worked!' The wolf spirit said with sadistic glee.

'I know, people are really dumb sometimes, ain't they?' The mage responded with equal such glee. 'Now it's my turn...' Soon after that, Huginn and Muninn took flight over top of the unsuspecting fools and transformed into their dagger forms before impaling to rifleman in the group.

Dmitry then used his Arc of Destiny to appear directly next to some poor sword wielding sod, just before kicking him into the conveniently placed lava wall. He then hurled the knife that had appeared in his hand due to the skip in time between his previous and current position into the neck of a swordsmen in front of him, giving another one off to the side what he thought was an opening. As soon as the idiot thrust his blade at Dmitry's gut, the he pivoted on his left foot and pulled his body just out of the way and caught the man's arm between his side and his inner elbow, locking the enemy's limb in place. He then grabbed his would be assailant by the back of his shirt and together with the imprisoned arm, pulled the man around to catch the bullets of the gunman who had finally noticed his presence.

On the upside, the human-meat shield mostly did it's job in blocking the multitude of bullets that attempted to riddle Dmitry's fleshy body. On the downside, one bullet manage to graze his shoulder, sending his shoulder back a bit, but not quite enough to knock him the ground. He gritted his teeth a bit as he held the body up against the hail of gunfire.

"Anytime now, Kat!"

---

HP: 190
MP: 80%

Spells Used:

HP:200
MP:100

Well now everyone was jumping in and it became a huge mess of violence and pain going on up above. All Mei could really do was just focus on one thing, and that thing was to beat the few people around her already scary appearance. Frankly all they did was shoot at it, but it was a futile attempt, not that they would know that, still it was a giant lava creature, shooting a gun at it probably wouldn't do anything. She couldn't blame them, though, it was their only defense, but now Mei needed to just take them out of their misery, and sadly it was at times like this that she almost wished to curse her own abilities. It would be incredibly hard to not make it lethal. So instead she had to wash a tidal wave of it over them, a controlled tidal wave through, which is why a few almost escaped, if she didn't also produce and throw magma from below the ground to grab and throw them back towards the main wave. Effectively they were grabbed into a violent blender of magma and that finished them off handily.

Sadly a few of them were still running around, but judging from all the chaos that was going on, Mei would let the rest of the crew handle them, she wasn't in the business of taking any part of the groups fights away from them, and while she had gotten rid of a good number of them, around 11 or so, the rest were pouring in and preparing to fight against her comrades. Instead of directly attacking and possibly hitting Dmitry or Kateri however, Mei would simply throw her lava towards the doorways and block off the enemies escape routes, and wait to see if her mission partners needed back up. If they did then, she would provide, if not then the enemies couldn't escape should they try.

The member 'Dmitry' has done the following action : Dice Rolls

'Monster Dice' :

((OOC: I'm gonna take the roll below as my own task, also gonna keep Kateri separated for a while. If the roll is the boss then I'll re-roll and save the boss for later, otherwise It's mine.))

The member 'Katerii' has done the following action : Dice Rolls

'Monster Dice' :

Well, that was the shortest interrogation in history, or at least rivaled a few of them, since the guy was just disposed of without any information being given and with said interrogation all of them were taken care of, or at least the ones within the room, and Mei found it an appropriate time to come up from the ground and let all of the lava simply fade away. While the little meet up would be short, Mei found it nice to see Dmitry taking charge of the situation, meant that Mei didn't have to try and learn what kind of role Kateri liked to play, aside from shooting everything dead. While Mei could respect that, she always viewed punching them in the face was a far more enjoyable option, but whatever floated Kateri's boat and all that.

Still as Dmitry prepared to get into position, Mei noticed that Kateri behind her had stepped on a plate and fallen down below. Mei didn't even have time to warn her, and could have tried to catch her, you know if that wouldn't have meant hurting her more than the fall probably ever would. So now they were down a person, or rather a gun, and now had to face off against a bunch of bad guy's. Now Mei could do the whole song and dance against them, or she could just smack them with a few arrows and move on with her life; Narrow corridor, no room to dodge, and she had a lava body so when they fired the bullets she simply "dodged" them. Yeah, she was firing a few arrows.

You know the whole song and dance, they were destroyed in a few hits from them, well all of the hits from them, but now Mei was down a little bit of energy, still the display was simple and effective, and now the road was cleared.

"Come on let's try and find Kateri, we lack Lassy so we can't just get her from down in the well, we got to find a way around. Lead the way Dmitry, I'm going to try and locate any kind of area that leads from the underground she just got trapped in, but if I'm unsuccessful at least we will have someone focused on the road ahead of us."

Dmitry froze when he heard the sliding sound the pressure plate had made, not sure what it meant, but certain that it wasn't good. Sure enough, his younger partner soon fell into some god-awful pit with the summoner attempting to dash over and grab her hand before she was out of reach, failing of course. He slammed a fist down on the stone floor in an uncharacteristic fit of rage, almost oblivious to the chaos going on behind him, but soon regained his usual composure as he knew losing his cool now would only make things worse; much worse.

'That's it, boy,' his mentor said. 'Do what you can, but do it carefully. The last thing anyone needs is you losing control of yourself.'

'Yeah, yeah, I get it, old man.' Dmitry knew full well the ramifications of someone with his unique abilities losing hold of their emotions and he wasn't foolish enough to let them come to pass when he already knows what he has to do.

"Right," he said in response to Mei's earlier statement, rising from the ground. "We need to keep up with what we were already planning to do. If Ol' Goldy has this place mapped out, he'll probably have a way to get into the area underneath. So we're back to looking for him or somebody close enough to him to have what we need." With that, Dmitry was on the move again.


"Keep close," he said as he walked. "We don't have the advantage of a marksman anymore, so we need to keep things tight-nit to avoid anything catching us off guard." Dmitry's footsteps carried a bit more purpose than they did before, no longer in the lax state he was in when they entered. Now he was determined to get to this Goldshine guy, get Kat out of that cavern, and find some leads on Mao's condition. 

Oh right. And finish the job.

That too.

The member 'Dmitry' has done the following action : Dice Rolls

'Monster Dice' :