[Event] A Battle a Day Keeps the Monsters Away

Althea walked down the streets of River Village, slightly confused about what she should be looking for.  The Magic Counsel had called for wizards to investigate towns with mysterious magic circles in them, but she couldn’t see anything at all that even looked like one.  Navigating River Village wasn’t too hard, but the problem was in finding your way around.  Each shop sold the same things: fish, jewelry, icecream, clothes repeat.  They were all staples of the area, the village being the center of it all.  Taking a whiff of the air to pick up some sort of magic at all, Althea was determined to find the magic circles.  But, she immediately regretted it because the air was full of the thick, overwhelming scent of fish - scrambling her enough to be unable to separate the ethernanos from the fish.

Not wanting to go back to Magnolia without having investigated any magic circles, Althea scaled a nearby building, assuming a bird eye’s view of the village.  She balanced herself precariously on top of a flagpole, shielding the sun from her eyes with her hand.  Surveying the land below, Althea wasn’t exactly sure what she was looking for.  She was half-expecting it to be incredibly obvious, maybe a large crowd in a certain area or it being located in the middle of the street for all to see.  But she didn’t see anything that caught her eye, only the typical villagers walking by and the occasional foreigner.  Sighing, she jumped down, taking up the Magic Counsel’s request once more.

Then she saw it: at the bottom of the white sheet of paper was a line of small black text.  Pulling closer to her face, Althea squinted to read the writing.  “Circles located at 1543 Dace Drive…”  She said, reading it aloud.  Without another thought, Althea clutched the paper angrily, annoyed that she had put in all that effort to find the magic circles when it was printed right on the request.  It was like the Magic Counsel wanted her to get lost in a village she had never visited before.  Eyes on the street signs below, Althea moved towards the location via the roofs of River Village’s buildings.

Eventually, Althea caught sight of the location specified on the request, located right at the heart of River Village.  But, she didn’t even have enough time to survey the area for anything suspicious before she saw a bright light coming from the ground, shielding her eyes instinctively.  She reckoned that it was probably coming from the magic seals that were supposedly there.  But the weird thing was that the light only kept getting brighter as if it was headed straight for the wizard.  Then, a voice called out for her to “look out”, causing her to look for the source instead of what she was meant to be looking out for, letting down her arm just enough to see past it.  Finally, she saw the person it had allegedly came from: a redheaded youth with… wings?  They were the feathery type, ones you would expect on something like a dove, but not a person.  Processing the sight for a moment too long, they inevitably barreled into Althea, bringing the her to the ground.  She was nothing less than surprised, I mean, who randomly gets collided into by someone with wings?  Only being able to squint as the white light intensified, the wizard soon met the ground.

But then, the light simply seemed to vanish, causing Althea to blink in wonder, looking around at her surrounding whilst getting to her feet.  She would the take notice of the woman standing in front of her, strongly emanating an unfamiliar magic.  “Oh yeah, I’m fine.  My name’s Althea - but just Thea’s just alright too.  Nice to meet you Luna, and you too.”  She said, turning towards the redhead with her last words.  But, her expression openly displayed a sliver of surprise.  Not at the two new people she had just came across (although they didn’t seem like your run of the mill kind of folk), but at the mention of everyone being ‘dead’.  Realizing that she actually hadn’t seen anyone at all from entering River Village to that very moment, Althea figured that it was sadly true.  If she had seen someone, she would've asked them where the magic circles were meant to be.  Anyways, she wasn’t too happy about most citizens apparently dying, but would take the time to have a proper look around her surroundings.

Then she saw what she was apparently up against, a seemingly endless mob of staggering people and creatures whose smell managed to trump over that of the fish.  Taking a closer look at each, Althea managed to spot a multitude of hornets flying about the people, causing much confusion.  Did they attract the insects?  And why were they so huge?  Taking a closer look at the person themself, the mage noted that they were very much dead, probably being controlled by the wasps themselves.  Neither parties looked all too friendly, so Althea wasted no time assuming an offensive stance.  But before she took off to fight any monsters, she took note of Luna’s apparent transformation, stars filling her eyes as her magical power shot up exponentially.  Wishing that she could do something as cool looking, Althea focused on the impending battle.  But before she leapt into action, the girl cast a small buff spell for her newfound allies.  It wouldn’t last very long at all, but it would get the job done.

Wasting no more time, Althea charged right at a group of the foul smelling creatures that roughly resembled a rat.  As the group turned their attention to the incomer, she could see they had been gathered around what was presumably a corpse, now reduced to a pile of bones.  Yellowed teeth barred, several scurried to meet the slayer.  The first one to reach her made their way straight for her unbandaged arm, much to the wizard’s distaste.  These things had just eaten, but they still craved for more?  Unfortunately for the creature, Althea was rather quick on her feet and simply dodged to the right.  Finding the opportunity ideal to strike, she rose her left arm, bringing it down heavily on the creature’s skull, leaving it to crash into the earth.  She kept moving, doing something similar with the next one except that she kneed it into a nearby building.  Then the next, and the next.  Craters formed under the force of her blows, cracks and hisses filling the air.  Althea had only made her way through a section of the rats she had approached, many more still stood in front of her.

Cursing herself for not having too many spells that affected a large area, deciding to work on that when she could.  Doing the next best thing, the mage first cast a self buff for the spell.  After all, she wanted all of the flea-ridden creatures to be defeated as quickly as possible and her magical strength wasn’t nearly as great as her physical one.  So, she came to an abrupt stop, first taking in a deep breath.  Moisture accumulated in her mouth from both inside and out of the wizard.  Then, exhaling, an array of bullet-like water droplets shot out from her.  Taking several steps forward when the rats began retreating, Althea managed to hit many of the vermin, leaving them incapacitated.  Sighing, she recovered her breath, not too impressed by her handywork.  But, she had managed to clear out many of the rats, although a multitude still remained.  Looking around the cavity ridden town, Althea noticed that Luna had also cleared out a good chunk of the wasp-infested corpses.

It was then, in the midst of fish, holes, rats, and wasps, that the wizard realized that both Luna and the redhead had saved her in some way.  One by warning her of an incoming blast of light and the other by blocking said attack.  Either way, she decided that she might as well take out a few more creatures to thank them, so she continued with her head on assault.  Charging straight into the crowd of rats, she pummeled any that leapt up to her.  The scent of disease was incredibly strong with them, so Althea was especially careful to not get bitten.  But, this slightly hindered her attacks, bulldozing through them with a few still dizzily getting to their paws.  Eventually, she had made her way through the crowd, but had simply cleaved, not cleared.  Many of them still remained, hopefully her allies could take care of that.