Feel it in your bones... literally [Job | Solo]

Well, well. That was some rather interesting information Vargas Seig had come across with. Thing is that there was a cementry in an area called the "Cursed Lands" that was host to a lot of different undead creatures. For business or pleasure, a man collected something that could be extracted from them once they were killed, and gave a nice reward to those that helped him get some. So, giving the whole situation a good thought, and having recovered from his previous wounds due to that freaking Jacob, the Devil Arms user decided that it was about time to gain some real battle experience.

It had been a long journey, although that time he had been able to legally pay for the public transport thanks to the small amount of Jewels he had managed to make thanks to the previously completed request. He checked the iLac he had acquired from a previous excursion to the Neutral Grounds... at last, he had managed to find an application that allowed him to make his "services" available to public. If only he could think of a good name for the business...

Still thinking about it, his steps had directed him towards the Silent Cementery. He had to make a large part of the way on foot, for the transport barely covered the mysterious Cursed Lands. Finally standing at the gates of the Cementery, the young man sighed as he crossed it in a lazy manner, entering enemy territory. With a quick snap of his fingers, he entered Gunslinger style. Now, then... what could there be awaiting for him?

[265]

dicin'

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

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'Monster Dice' :

It did not even take one minute for skeletal hands to begin protruding from the ground, forcibly making their way to the surface again. Slowly, but surely, the unearthly beings arose from their tombs, ready to carve out the insides of he who dared disturb their sleep. As they moved their heads around, looking for Vargas, the man in the red trenchcoat let out a laugh as he looked at them with a smirk.

-Well, they weren't kiddin'! This looks like an All-You-Can-Eat buffé! -the white haired mage stated. Upon hearing those words, the man rushed towards the skelletons, who did the same. There appeared to be, from the five that had come out to greet him, all of the same class. Well, talk about originality. In any case, Vargas smiled as he plunged into battle.

-This party is gettin' crazy!! Let's rock!!

With those words, he jumped, utilizing one of the skelletons' helmet to propel himself into the air. There, he rotated his body until he was facing down, and rapidly summoned a weapon, which appeared with a golden glare. As it vanished, a bowgun with jagged scales appeared: Valag. His approach seemed to have been unorthodox, for the skelletons were wondering what had happened. Now that they were piled together... it was a good time to strike.

-Got'cha!

Vargas would then shoot Valag, the recoil propelling him further into the air, making him recover the proper position for landing. The shell impacted on one of the skelleton's uncovered part of the arm. As they all looked at the strange-looking projectile, an explosion quickly ensued, damaging them.

Knowing that it wouldn't be enough to kill them, Vargas, from a safe distance, landed on one knee to charge his next attack.
[291]

As the cannon began to heat up in power, the skelletons regained their composure and poise and reacted to the attack. Luckily for him, their heavy armor slowed them down quite a bit, so it'd take a bit of time to get there. The Seig only hoped that the time he had hoped to buy with the previous Ruin strike would be enough. He could easily see them moving towards him, despite being late at night, for their bones reflected part of the moonlight. How that was possible, considering they had just gotten out of the ground and weren't polished? Well, a better question would be how could they move in the first place.

-Let's heat things up around here...! -he stated, seeing the cannon turn from a mild shade of yellow to red as the energy continued to concentrate, overheating. Instantly, his hand reached for the secondary trigger instinctively. At the very least, his opponents were not that smart, for they were repeating the same strategy and ran towards him like crazy, all packed up together, without separating. He had indeed picked up the aggro nicely.

Finally, he felt that everything was ready for him to attack, and awaited until they got a bit closer. Once the distance had become of less than threee meters, they'd take the full blast.
-You could use some tanning!

Pressing the trigger released the gas, which in turn transformed into a humongous short range blast that illuminated the entire area for just one second; the Demon Breath. Those inside the blast range, all of them indeed, were charred completely, coupled by the damage they had taken before, leaving nothing but ashes behind. On the other hand, Vargas slided a couple of meters backwards due to the blast force.

Once that was settled, he snapped his fingers, and dismissed the weapon, now useless until it had recovered. With that, he entered Swordmaster.

OOC: Skelletons won't rise here because the damage done surpasses 1.5 D-Rank. Also, rolling dice.

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

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'Monster Dice' :

Well, that was unoriginal, once again. The skelletons that rose after that were nothing more than copies of the original ones, skeletons with the same armor and properties that rose again from their tombs. That time, Vargas was not even going to let them get a breather. The Seig could feel the power surging from him as he summoned his wind spear, Asag. As he grabbed it, its windy aura covered his entire body, offering a bit of protection against melee assaults... it would be quite nifty against such melee-focused foes, and its protective armor would be dealt with easier if he had the cutting winds' aid.

His first attack would be to leap forward and toss the spear like a javelin towards a rising skelleton, who still was not on guard. It impaled it against the ground, with its wind aura lacerating its bones from inside of the rib cage. Vargas would then call back the weapon, which dematerialized, and rapidly returned to the owner. Landing on the now-reforming skelleton's head, the Seig would face the other four, engaging them in close combat.

While the skelletons viciously slashed at every second's notice, their apparent lack of reason was an extra aid for Vargas. However, he had to be careful not to let them surround him; in such a situation, it was imperative to extreme caution... yet this was Vargas Seig we were talking about. He was never the type to not plunge into his fights and stutter in the side lines.
A couple of swift sweeps and strikes were enough to make two of the five skeletons lose balance. Vargas would then drive the spear on the ground and use it as a pole to deliver a powerful kick, with added strength from his centripetal acceleration.

In the meantime, the Gust Aura was shredding through their armor, which blocked the cutting winds, but not the attacks that followed. After hitting all of them, he quickly spun his Asag over his head, preparing for an attack. Thanks to Swordmaster style, the enemies were sucked into the tornado, preventing the counterattack, for they were far too close to avoid the vacuum effect. Once ready, the Seig unleashed a powerful, crescent sweep of powerful wind currents that shattered the bones.

As they landed on the ground, Vargas did not lose a second and rapidly stomped on them a couple of times to ensure they wouldn't get up again.

OOC: MP: 80%
Wind Raid is on cooldown.

dicey macey

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

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'Monster Dice' :

As new skelletons rose before him, the Seig could not help but to scoff at them. You just could not be serious... really? The same things AGAIN? He took a couple steps forward from his sight, and called out for them with a gesture and a sentence. -Oh come on, give me some variety, damn it! -he complained, getting their attention with the taunt. However, he had failed to notice that there were only four skelletons rising before him. By the time he picked up on that fact and began questioning why, when they had been popping up in groups of five, he suddenly saw a skelletal hand rising and grabbing his leg, as another one attempted to swing a light weapon towards his calf. Vargas, being still a novice mage, was of course unable to react in time to that sneak attack. It wasn't like last time, when he had had freedom to dodge one.

A painful growl escaped his mouth, teeth fully clenched to make the pain fade away, as short sword cut his calf, leaving a nasty wound there. -You're not the only one who can play it dirty, pal... -the Seig smiled unconsciously. After all, fighting was one of his passions. Taking advantage of the fact that the skelleton was rising from beneath him, he quickly pierced the ground multiple times in a barrage of attacks with Asag, as the wind aura the weapon offered continued to cut through the hand's bones. As it was an uncovered area, soon it was reduced to bone meal. Vargas did not know if the amount of hits would be enough to kill that bastard, but as of that moment, he still had to focus on the rest.

The rest of them would be engaged in melee fight. Thanks to Asag aura, the partial protection offered by their armor was not that helpful. What was funny was that some of them actually seemed to have different swordsmanship skills, which made the white haired young man wonder whether they actually had consciousness, but were too dumb to try surrounding him.

Picking them one hit at a time was great and all, despite him taking damage from partially unblocked attacks and the cut from before, which was still bleeding, and honestly, it had been in a really nasty area, given that he needed that muscle to move.

OOC: HP: 85% (-10% from sneak attack, -5% from minor injuries when fighting the others).
MP: 80%
Asag: 2nd post of usage.

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

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'Monster Dice' :

As the foes began to emerge from the depths of Earth again, that time Vargas would simply send them a scoffing look while he paid closer attention to his own position. He was not going to allow them catch him off guard a second time in a row. As he watched them beginning to rise, he counted up their numbers once again, and this time it did amount to five. Oh, well, that made things a bit easier.

Seeing that messing around only resulted in him taking further damage, the D-Ranked Devil Arms user decided that it would be best to take them all in one sweep. Closing the distance with quick steps, he remembered that Asag still needed time to recover from the last Wind Raid. Darn it... there went his best shot. That meant that he would still need to deal with them by delivering melee strikes instead of any special move, taking as much advantage as he could from his Gust Aura.

Still, that did not prevent him from getting more and more hurt. While those skelletons did appear to be dumb as they came, it was clear that they were no slouches themselves. Hell, if the battle continued like that, Vargas would have trouble, should be be outclassed by any stronger foe that might come across.

He'd make use of Asag's longer range to punish each and every mistake they made, while doing his best to stay out of range, though some attacks did reach him; he even went as far as to use the whole weapon to attack, as opposed to typically when he simply used the damaging end. Well, desperate times called for desperate needs.

As the batch of skelletons was dispatched, Vargas coughed, a bit of blood coming from his mouth. Various small-sized cuts were now adorning his trenchcoat, and the calf wound wasn't getting any better.

-"Holy crap... These guys just don't know when to quit!" -he thought. Suddenly, his weapon glowed, vanishing from his hands. The Seig noticed a soul re-entering his body. Well, that was a problem. Ghoul's shorter range meant having to be more careful...
-"Heh... Let's get rollin'!"

He then realized that the bones were beginning to recompose themselves, and as such, went straight up next to them in order to deliver a couple of barefisted strikes to each one of them, shattering skulls, spines, and whatever it took in order to prevent them from re-assembling.
Sweat was beginning to form in his forehead.

OOC:
HP: 75%
MP: 80%
Asag is now on CD.

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

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'Monster Dice' :

For the fifth time that day, new skelletons came out of the ground... only that time, variety would finally come into the picture. They did not seem to be armored knights that time, but rather, something a bit different. Less prepared, and somehow, also less intimidant... however, what each one of them lacked in menacing features, they all compensated with numbers. Plus, now there appeared to be... archers as well? Well, that could get ugly. The male, thinking that it would be in his best interest to fight from afar, snapped his fingers again.

-Gunslinger! -he muttered, feeling the ethernano flow in his body changing to adapt to his new stance.

It was a shame that he had lost his Gust Aura now that Asag was out of the picture. It would've come in handy to shake off any arrows thrown against him; due to those skelletons being much weaker, Vargas doubted anything they could fire at him could pass the winds without getting sliced up. Oh, well...

-Alright, show me what you've got, mutt treats! -Vargas roared in delight, ready to continue the assault on the undead warriors.

That time, the weapon of choice would be his demonic bow, Daeva. The black weapon, with reddish motives decorating it, appeared in his hand, as quick to the call as ever. Without giving them time to react, he would dart towards the side, avoiding the first two arrows that were sent towards him. A third one made a light cut on his cheek, yet it did not prevent him from aiming upwards.

-I hope you've brought umbrellas...

The Seig shot a special arrow upwards, the projectile scattering upon reaching critical height and suddenly raining down on the foes. It was mostly aimed towards the 5 archer group, who now would have to deal with the small arrows pouring on them. It did look like those skelletons lacked the armor of the previous ones, for they crumbled under the attack without putting up much of a fight.

In the meantime, Vargas was doing his best to ignore the pain and just move around the battlefield, all while firing two arrows per shot. Dodge rolling, jumping, ducking, backhopping, even going as far as to dash towards the foes, use them as a trampoline again and attack them from above. Having disposed of the ranged ones ensure that the melee skelletons would not be able to hit him that easily. As he flew right after jumping on another enemy to prevent a hurtful land while crashing its skull in the process, a magic sphere hit him on the back, sending him flying away.

Rolling a couple of times on the ground, he managed to stop by driving the bow on the ground and using it as an anchor. Luckily, he wouldn't have to worry about the other skelletons returning, for the Corruption Arrows would take care of it.
He would then skillfully shoot at the rest of the annoying ranged attackers on the head, breathing afterwards.

Well... his strategy of not taking damage was surely going bad.
-Well... if this shit goes any further south I'm going to hit Earthland Mexico...

OOC:
HP: 65%
MP: 70%
Make It Rain is on CD.

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

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'Monster Dice' :

Well, after taking care of the skelleton groups, it appeared that, again, the barren soil would give birth to those annoying soldiers once again. Their articulations rattled as they did their best to lift the heavy armor they were wearing from the ground, all while Vargas shrugged off, seeing that those guys would probably be his opponents for the rest of the job. It had not been that long and he had already been forced to spend more than a quarter of his power; if things did not end soon he might have to run away from the area.

-Well, at least I can say that this rumour was no scam. Let's just hope that old fart pays nicely! -the Seig exclaimed, his magic creating more and more arrows that were shot in rapid successions against the skelletons. A couple of them were hit, but three of them rapidly darted towards their location, swinging their weapons in a rather mad fashion.

The Seig, now locked into a ranged style, needed to take a couple of backhops, and began circling the area. He'd need to reposition if he wanted to take the advantage... With that in mind, he took a couple of glances and saw a nearby tree that looked good enough, since the others were mostly decrepit. Hoping that it wouldn't break under his weight, the male jumped onto one of the lowest branches, and from there, continued his assault.

The projectiles flew, not allowing any skelleton to get close, albeit they did manage to advance a couple of meters. They did not appear bright enough to try finding shelter, and the white haired male thanked the gods for it. However, something unexpected occurred...

Right next to Vargas's face, something began to descend, slowly treading its path while leaving a web behind. It took him a couple of seconds to notice that there was a spider as big as his hand right next to him.

-MOTHERFUCKING BITCH!

With that shout, the male fell from the tree, and ended up with his ass on the grass, where skelletons tried to attack him. What was worse, he had fallen on some weapons, and they managed to injury him. If only he cleaned the arena between fights...

As he rose, he barely avoided a cleaver to his head, which instead cut some hair.
-Not the hair, damn it!

A couple of more arrows solved the rest, although he still couldn't shake off the feeling of creepiness from that spider. Not wanting to be under that tree for longer, he darted away, into the middle of the cementery.

OOC: HP: 60%
MP: 70%
Daeva fades next turn.

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

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'Monster Dice' :

Yet more groups of skelletons rose from the ground. Up until that moment, the corrupted arrows had done well preventing them from rising up again, but Vargas was worried. He had only a bit more of time before Daeva would fade, and while Valag was ready, he'd like to preserve as much magic power as possible.

That time, the undead foes would be all ranged attackers, and given their large amount in numbers, it would pose trouble for his bow, which had little to no area of effect damage, without counting his aerial barrage. Well, then... he'd have to see how things would fare. In a bold move, Vargas ran forward, preparing and releasing arrows as he darted through the field. However, while some of the arrows hit the skelletons, their attacks would soon prove to hard to be all dodged.

A couple of their arrows and three energy bolts hit Vargas quite hard, dealing further damage to the young man. -Okay, this ain't working...

As much as he wanted to save his energy, he'd be in trouble if he didn't dispose of the mobs quickly. The fact that they outnumbered him made them more dangerous than the all-melee focused Knights. The male would dismiss Daeva and re-summon Valag, the heavy bowgun. On one knee, the male ripped part of an arrow out of his upper right arm, and took aim.

One brave mage venturing forward from behind the formation would be the signal he needed.
-A little going away present! -the mage laughed, shooting a powerful shell from his trusty Devil's Arm.

The projectile flew, traversing the distance separating them and embedded itself on the mage's unprotected skull. A second later, an explosion erupted from within, engulfing the unholy beings and shaking the area. Vargas, without a second to lose, darted forward, delivering quick melee strikes with both his body and his bowgun's jagged scales.

OOC: HP: 50%
MP: 60%
Daeva is on CD.

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

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'Monster Dice' :

Well, well. It looked like the Knights had finally run out, for that time, the weaker, yet more flexible lesser skelletons emerged from their graves in an attempt to consume Vargas's life. Why they did not try to come all together against him was beyond his understanding, and frankly, he did not care about it. They do say, never look a gift horse in the mouth. Instead of attacking, Vargas chose to employ the time they took appearing to run away and properly position himself, that time checking for any possible arachnid fucker that would come near him.

Once he was out of danger, he shot another shell at the skelletons, hoping that the explosion would break their formation. The recoil, as usual, made him stagger a little while firing, but the results were absolutely worth the hassle: they flew away like mosquitoes, albeit they weren't dead, of course. He knew that it would take at least another shot to do so, but the main problem was that he'd need some time to reload.

Soon the white haired male would see how bad that could be. Yet another barrage of arrows was shot against him, and he was forced to dodge roll to the side, running with the heavy weapon on his hands. Magic blasts also ensued, and forced him to take cover behind a gravestone to properly infuse his ethernano into the reload system. He could only hope that the stone would hold on...

Which it didn't. Three more spellbolts would shatter his improvised shelter, with the debris that was sent away from the explosion hitting Vargas on the back. -Guh... -he let out a growl of pain, shooting another explosive shell at the skelletons, ending that group once and for all.

Great. He was beginning to feel pretty beat up, to be honest. Luckily it wouldn't take much more... how many had he destroyed already?

OOC:
HP: 45
MP: 60%

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

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'Monster Dice' :

As Vargas destroyed the previous batch, the next group of skelletons was already beginning to rise, fresh out of the oven, ready to give him a proper greeting, a couple of hugs, and possibly, a quick death shouldn't he react. The D-Ranked mage let out a whistle as he moved his head to the sides. -You don't know when to quit... -a smirk would become apparent on his lips, stained with blood. -...and I LOVE THAT!

Well, those five Knights would be able to partially resist the shell's explosions thanks to their armor... so why not give a try to the same old tactic as before? From his position, Vargas kneeled down, preparing, yet again, another Demon Breath. The cannon, as instructed by its master's mind, began the overheat sequence as it prepared a charge of its special explosive gas.

Noticing the heat, the cold skelletons would be drawn like moths to a flame, charging with all their might towards the Seig, who was still making the preparations for the move. Oh, fuck. If they were fast enough, he may be affected by the blast as well... Patiently, he awaited, his finger on the secondary trigger, ready to fire at any moments notice. Just as the skelletons were just in front of him, the attack would be ready, although at that moment, it was a gamble.

It might end up backfiring and hitting him too, from that range... but given that the attack needed some preparation, he could not release it when he would have wanted to.
With an "oh, well" type of look in his eyes, he pressed the trigger, releasing the massive, yet short range explosion, that engulfed the skelletons, never to be seen again.

OOC:
HP: 45% (if roll is <50% (1.2.3 in a 6 dice, for example), Vargas will take 15 HP damage)
MP: 60%
Demon Breath used. Valag will fade away.

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

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#1 'Monster Dice' :


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#2 'Normal Dice' :

OOC: I will assume, given the image won't show for me, that I took the damage.

Vargas's attack would be kind of suicidal, for the blast ended up charring his sorry ass as well. The explosion sent him backwards too, crashing against the same tree as before, with the spider running amok on its branches, wanting to know what that confusion was all about. The Seig was now pretty much against the ropes, with a quick snap of his fingers making a last transition to Swordmaster style. Breathing heavily, the white haired male attempted to get up as quickly as possible, as Valag fade away in his hands, also damaged from the blast and in the need to recover from the overheating mechanism.

Wiping the sweat off his forehead, the young man would see yet another horde of skelleton knights, which had honestly been the stars of the night. The undead warriors would make a final assault towards Vargas, who honestly was having a hard time coping with his injuries. He'd need to, at least, defeat those last five, and then he would go home... well, home. Wherever he'd be able to lay and sleep would be fine.

With those words in mind, and knowing that he was unable to right up attacking after changing his styles, he resummoned Asag once more, so the length of the spear would serve as, at least, some sort of shield to defend against the undeads' weapons. As they approached, the cutting aura began doing its thing, and their armors suffered the damage from simply standing by.

The first assault, Vargas would block as best as he could, given that his movements had become a bit drowzy and sluggish from all the damage to important muscular groups he had taken. While he did prevent some major extra hits, the blades, halberds and maces managed to lightly strike him more than once, further damaging his already wrecked body.

When he felt he was good to go, the mage began defending himself and returning the attacks, delivering his own strikes as swiftly as he could. Some of them were already began to avoid him, even with the armor, and he could not charge up his Wind Raid in that position.

-Tch...

The rest of the battle wouldn't go as smoothly as before. His attacks, while hitting, were duller and duller, proving how inexperienced he was as a wizard. Thankfully, the Gust Aura kept doing most of the job for him, and eventually under the combination of strikes and wind, the skelletons fell. However, the battle was not over yet.

Knowing they may reform at any instant, the Seig, now free to do so, began spinning Asag over his head for one last strike. A tornado formed over him, this time a bit slower than before, but still drawing all the bones that were scattered around towards him. Any possible enemy that could've been reformed in a 10 meter radius area was taken in by the force of the winds.

After a little while, the Seig released the crescent sweep with a howl, shattering the remainings of his enemies, hopefully for good that time. As he stood still in his final strike's stance, he'd soon break it, doing his best to maintain his balance, to no avail.

-There... I'm freaking done, old man... After you pay me, you can go die for all I care... -he complained loudly, although not meaning it, and fell to the ground while breathing heavily. No more skelletons would come to greet him that time.
-I'll get going... after a small rest.

OOC: HP: 15
MP: 50%
[Mission Accomplished!]