Job: The Rarest Flower (Solo)

Job Info:

Priscilla read the job notice over for the third time since she picked it up from the notice board in her guild hall. Someone needed help getting a flower for medicine? She was kind of familiar with how nature worked, but not to any extensive level. She knew that certain parts of a plant could be dangerous and lethal, and another part of the same plant could hold a life saving chemical that could heal a deadly disease. It was interesting to her, but she was too lazy to actually delve into the topic of nature and how it actually worked. Looking around her, she attempted to find out where she was in relation to where she should be. Turns out she was already right in front of her destination.

"Well would you look at that..." she mumbled to herself as she entered the store hearing the ringing of a bell to signify the employees that someone had entered. A lone clerk sitting at the counter looked up from his newspaper to look at her for a moment before looking back down at the paper with a bored expression. Priscilla simply walked up to the counter and placed down the job notice. The clerk looked down at the counter, then back up at her before sighing and folding his newspaper. He set it down on the counter next to the notice as he looked at Priscilla, seemingly expecting her to say something.

"You were looking for someone to retrieve a flower?" she asked. The clerk nodded and pulled out a small picture of the flower and handing it to her.

"This is what we're looking for. It's very rare and found only in a secluded part of the forest, pretty far in as well. It'll take a while for you to find it, just don't die okay?" he said as Priscilla nodded.

"I'll come back alive, don't worry." she said as she tilted her head. "Is that it then?" The clerk nodded at her question before grabbing his paper and indulging himself in it once more. Priscilla didn't really expect much more out of him, so she simply left for the forest. A quick exchange was all she needed anyways. Socializing wasn't her forte, but it wasn't her weakness either. She just simply did not like conversations with strangers. But talking wasn't her job here, it was to get to the Spooky forest and find a flower, which is what she headed off to do.

After a short amount of time, about half an hour to be specific, Priscilla found her way to the Spooky Forest. Looking at it now, it didn't look very spooky, but she would find out soon enough why it was called that. Hopefully. Maybe it was just a name? Probably not, but maybe it was just named that out of paranoia. All the time she spent analyzing people gave her the knowledge of how to predict and understand human nature very well. More often than not, they put faith into things they really shouldn't. For example, if one person thought something to be scary, another would put faith in that without even experiencing what that other person thought was scary. This was also how rumors started, and most likely how this place got its name. That's what she assumed at least.

With a sigh, Priscilla began walking into the forest, looking around at the trees around her. She didn't see what all the fuss was about, it seemed fine to her. What was "spooky" about this place anyways? So far, nothing. About ten minutes passed and the trees began to block out some of the light, making it hard for her to see just what had happened. "At least I have a lot of shadows to use..." she thought out loud as she turned her head left and right to casually observe her surroundings. So far so good, nothing really seemed to be happening.

"I guess it was just a name after all." she said as she looked forwards to see the path split. Without much thought, she went right and continued strolling down the path, hands shoved in her jacket pockets. Her experience with analyzing and observing things meant that almost nothing could sneak up on her. Almost nothing. But that was a very small group of things. Priscilla noticed a lot of things, like how some of the trees looked like they had small scratch marks from something tiny. Or that there were quite a few bushes along the sides of the path. Or that how there was something in the bushes, waiting to pounce on her.

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

'Monster Dice' :

Without much warning, a pack of four wolves appeared and surrounded Priscilla, making her frown a bit. "Aww... and it was going so well without you guys." she mumbled to herself as she removed her hands from her jacket pockets and looked at the surrounding wolves.

"Four, moderately sized, canine, hungry, growling..." she said, spouting out obvious details about the predators. "Nothing too threatening. Well, there are four of them." she said as she put a hand to her chin. One of the wolves came at her from behind, leaping at her with mouth agape and ready to clamp down on flesh. Except it was stopped by an uppercut delivered by an arm that wasn't Priscilla's. From her back came what looked like a human arm, except at the elbow there was a plus sign, and the skin looked pale white. Otherwise, it was a completely normal human arm.

The uppercut sent the wolf flying a few feet back to where it was originally, causing him and all the other wolves to growl in anger. With a sigh, Priscilla felt the rest of her summon pull itself from out of her back. The hand from the strange arm pressed itself against Priscilla, and soon a strange looking being came out of Priscilla, although only its upper half.

"Hello Luna." Priscilla said, referring to the summon that had just sprouted from her back.

"Greetings, Priscilla." it replied in a slightly muffled, feminine tone. "Are these our opponents for today?"

"Unfortunately. Try not to kill them, they're just hungry." she replied with a smile, watching the wolves hesitate to approach her. She already felt bad hurting them, but she needed to keep them at bay or force them to flee else she would be eaten.

"Understood." the summoned creature said as it's upper half still kept itself only half outside of Priscilla's back. All four of the wolves began to close in, all of them running straight for the two in front of them. They didn't seem to care what the strange creature was, as it was probably just more food. Oh how they were wrong. A quick punch to the face from Luna to the same one as before made the wolf fly back another few feet and then realize that it shouldn't be here. It ran away as the other 3 attacked Priscilla, all of them leaping at her with mouths agape or claws outstretched and ready to dig in. Unfortunately, they were hit in the stomachs by something blunt. Priscilla's shadow had formed 5 appendages, two for the ones to her sides, and one for the one in front of her. They hit like a normal punch would, except they pushed the wolves back several feet.

"Can't get close 'eh?" she taunted, as Luna turned her head to look at Priscilla.

"You do realize they can't understand you, right?" she said, folding her arms and watching as the wolves whimpered and all ran away so it was just Priscilla again.

"Aw, don't spoil the fun." Priscilla said as she snapped her fingers and Luna sunk back into the girl's back. "And now to keep moving on..." she said as, moving forwards towards wherever it was that she was going.

The woods were getting pretty dark now, and Priscilla was having a hard time seeing what was in front of her. Wasn't it the early afternoon? How was it so dark? When she looked up, she noticed that the trees were blocking all light and forming a strange sort of canopy. "This must be where people got scared." she spoke to herself as she stared up at the numerous branches above her head. Actually, now that she thought about it, wasn't she supposed to be on a path?

"Oh." Priscilla said as she realized the path had vanished. Apparently she didn't notice the path had disappeared and just dissolved into more trees. So many trees, that there was almost no light whatsoever getting through the abnormally formed tree canopy. Little bits here and there, but not enough for her to see too well. If it weren't for her other senses, she wouldn't know where the trees themselves were at all. It was that bad.

"Great..." she mumbled as she continued to venture forth into the forest. It was too late to turn back now, she needed to keep going. Even if she could hardly recalled which direction she came from...

It had been what she assumed was an hour since she entered the "Spooky Forest", and so far things were going relatively well. She could recall the direction she came from, she just didn't know how far she was from the town. That was the part that confused her and made her a bit worried. Nonetheless, she could make the trek back, it was just that she was lazy and didn't want to. Maybe if she had enough magic power left she could just use Shadow Meld to go back faster? It was like sprinting without the actually physically moving. And she was in a shadow so no more wolves or whatever would find her. It was a good thing.

But she needed to save her magic energy for a fight if need be. There was no telling what lie just around the corner... And it was probably not good for her health.

Eventually Priscilla could hardly see at all because the woods were so dark now. Previously it had been a bit of a challenge, now it was a struggle to see something just three feet in front of her.

"Wow... How did the canopy get so thick anyways?" she asked herself, looking up and staring at the canopy. At least, she was sure that's where it was. It was more than five feet in front of her, so it was covered in darkness for her "Damn it." she mumbled to herself as she continued to trek forwards. Well she tried to move forwards. But there was a tree there. And she ran right into it.

"Ow!" she yelped. Putting her hand to her face, she felt a bruise begin to form on her forehead from where she had hit the tree. It stung quite a bit, but she would simply brush it off and keep moving whilst cursing the tree that she failed to notice.

Some time had passed, how much she did not know, and eventually Priscilla found light.

"Oh, finally!" she said as she walked towards the source of the light. It was a clearing, full of a strange looking flower. Was this what she was looking for? Upon pulling out the picture and checking, it was confirmed that it was in fact what she was looking for. With a sigh of relief, Priscilla bent down to pick a few of them, but was stopped by a rustling sound from behind her.

"Oh." she mumbled as she stood back up and turned around to face the thing that was stalking her. She hadn't noticed it was following her, but that was probably because she was too focused on trying to not run into a tree like an idiot again. At least there was light here and she could see. Fighting in the dark would have been a major pain in the side.

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

'Monster Dice' :

Priscilla watched as the dire wolf exited the shadows and came into the light so she could see it. It was alone, unlike the three from before, and seemed a bit larger and much more hostile. The other ones seemed like they just wanted food, this one looked like it just wanted her dead. Was she on it's land?

"Sorry for intruding, but I have to take one of these flowers now." she said before noticing it's legs were slightly bent. "Oh." she mumbled as she took a step to the side just in time to dodge a leap from the wolf, it had aimed itself to bite her throat open, which would not have been good. The moment it landed it tried to do so again, but this time Priscilla was ready for it. She held out her hand and five tendrils of darkness sprouted from her shadow and hit the canine in the stomach, sending it several feet backwards and onto it's side. It only growled as it got up and readied to lunge for her again.

"Really aggressive, are we?" she mumbled as she prepared for the inevitable attack. It lunged for her once more, and she attempted to strike it once more with her tentacles made of her shadow. Except the wolf dodged it. Priscilla was surprised the wolf even dodged them, and when it lunged at her she was not prepared. It leaped at her, jaws open as it was flying mid air and towards her throat, ready to tear it open.

Except when it dug its teeth into something, it was not the girl's neck. Two arms protruded from either side of her neck, taking the bite for her. Blood seeped from the wounds as the teeth dug into strangely textured skin.

"Th-Thanks... Luna." Priscilla said in a bit of a hoarse voice. There was no response, but she knew that her summon got the message. Seeing the sharp teeth just inches from her neck made her startled and afraid, but luckily she had another being to cover for her. Now she just needed to send the wolf away. Without hesitation, she used the tendrils to strike the wolf once more, once again sending him backwards and onto its side. It didn't come back at her when it got up, it just ran away.

After that little scuffle, Priscilla sighed and bent down to pick several of the flowers before standing up and turning back to where she came from. The direction was familiar, but there were no landmarks so she would just have to take intuition as advice and go where she thought was right. The dark woods were all too familiar now, as she had wandered through them, thinking and memorizing the aspects of the trees and nature around her on the way here. There was nothing new on the way back. A few flowers she had seen before, but on a much bigger bush than this one, and a couple familiarly shaped scrape marks on trees. Yep, this was the "spooky forest" all right. Not like she had gone somewhere else though, so she didn't know why she was telling herself that.

Eventually the trees started to lighten up and more light poured in from the canopy, albeit very little light. Even still, at least it was easier to see now. Soon the canopy let up almost entirely and then the trees vanished entirely. She had returned to Magnolia Town, mostly unscathed except for a few bumps and bruises and some loss of energy. But at least she was safe now. Now all she had to do was give the flowers to the man at the store and take her payment.

"I should have just stayed asleep back at the Guild Hall..." she mumbled to herself in a bit of an annoyed voice as she tread in the general direction of the store.

The sun was low in the sky, dipping halfway past the horizon as Priscilla entered the same shop as before, placing the flowers on the counter in front of the same clerk as before. He was still reading the newspaper, although she was certain he was just repeating it to pass the time. It's not like the newspaper was ever fun in the first place, more of a way to burn time. But she didn't care about it at all, she just wanted to take her payment and then go back home for the day.

"Oh? I thought you wouldn't make it back." the clerk said as he reached under the counter and pulled out a small sack of jewels. "Here's your payment then, I'll take these then and you can go about your business then."

Priscilla took the jewels without hesitation and sighed as she began walking to the door, ignoring everything else around her as she left the store and headed home. She was tired, and a good night's sleep would be good. Except a good night's sleep was more of around twelve hours of sleep than just a single night. And she didn't always go to sleep at night either, sometimes she went to the bed in the morning and was nocturnal and... Damn, she just needed to go to sleep.