Daphne Date 2, Part 3: A Chapter Full of Fighting

Josie

Everyone is gathered at the entrance of the dungeon and Josie, as per usual, enters the highest level door without a moment of conversation. They are once again in the tavern, the pile of hottie NPCs still where they left them. When the Harper voice asks about what happened, Mattie answers for the group. Everyone then gathers together and starts to plot.

Tina, actually remembering to put up Mage Armor (like a good squishy caster), goes, “Sooo, you think they’re gonna send another wave in now?”

Mattie replies as she assembles a lust ballista, “Nah. They are going to hold back, try something different. They did a decent job with the last surprise attack, but we’re ready if they just repeat it. Also, we don’t necessarily have an obvious target to drop. I think we all out-level the baddies we ran into last time? So, keep your heads on a swivel.”

Tina asks, “Then what do we do? Where do we go?”

Josie growls, “Out! We’re huntin’ kinky leather weirdos, ladies. Let’s go!”

Josie bounds out of the tavern, just to start floating in the air for some reason? She sees Skye (who was out the door to start her bonus sneak attack stuff) start to float for a moment, only to shove herself back down on the ground. Weird.

Then, baddies appear before them, each firing off a Tina special. Both at her. One was a little off aim, letting Josie tuck her legs in to avoid some of the pain, but the other one hits true. She smells burnt fur and it pissed that it’s coming off of her. Grrr.

Scarlet rushes out of the tavern door and slams down her glaive in front of one of the baddies, then starts to kick the baddie into a stumbling mess. Tina says something about “the answer to every problem” and a Fireball launches out of the tavern, straight at the enemy. Scarlet, as an oread, tanks the fireball no problem, but the baddies get crispy. Serves them right! The unstunned one starts to horny charge for Tina, only to get kicked in the back of the head by Scarlet. The baddies stumbles the rest of the distance.

The rest of Team “Too Wimpy to Get in Melee Range” fire at the nearer bad guy. Mattie’s bullet lands as a headshot that looks like it nearly snapped it’s neck. The magic spear thing Glitter fires off also hits and the baddie just locks in place?

Josie finally focuses on her bloodlust, just in time to feel some tugging. With a mighty howl, Josie shoves the influence away only to smack into the ground. Ow. Fuck. Skye looks annoyed, making the nearer baddie glow, then double stabs it real good. Scarlet seems to float for a moment, but spins around and starts kicking the shit out of her baddie. The near baddie’s head just pops, then Glitter starts her braggadocious telepathic shout, “Come on out and worship ME, for I am a mighty, sexy dragon! Hey, you, hiding one, come out and worship ME!”

Hiding one? Josie sees where Glitter is looking and one of those punchy guys are there. Josie runs up, claws already slashing. She started a smidgen too early, but hits 2 and 3 shreds him to a pulp with her arm tats pulsing. Scarlet sounds like she dropped hers. Are we done?

Tina shouting out “The other is behind the barrel of dildos!” from somewhere let’s Josie know that they aren’t. Mattie steps out, takes a defensive position and lands another big shot. Glitter fires off another one of those spear things and the baddie looks frozen again. All the melee girls converge and shred / stab / kick it to a bloody pulp.

Now that everyone is out of the tavern, they can see the weird shiny black shuttle on a patch of green by the village well? That must be where they need to go next.

Daphne

“Daphne, please tell me you didn’t schedule a kraken attack on my elf-life home town.”

The foursome is running to the docks, Aelene worrying that they don’t have time to reset her blade, Honey feeling overly conscious with her not-cloaca, and Daphne laying in her Beloved’s arms. Harper looks like she is deciding whether she should be annoyed or not.

“Ah, no. I just asked for us to visit when something interesting happens. I was busy trying to not mentally collapse because Mommy won’t let me call her Mommy and it hurt.”

Harper sighs and gives Daphne a little kiss. Almost to the docks, she says, “It’s fine, it’s fine. Glad to save everyone, if this was going to happen anyways. Do you want me to help with Calypso?”

“No, it’s fine. Tina helped!”

That makes Harper laugh. It's good when her Beloved laughs. “Good!” Then she huffs, “Alright, more baddies ahead. Time for recon or do we just charge in?”

Captain Snuggles bounds up, as quick as her pregnant state can get her, “<Okay, Jappa and the stronger casters from the academy are tapped out of magic and my guard is slowly getting overwhelmed. You four are the only hope the town has at this point. We just need you to be able to deal enough damage to the kraken to make it go away. I hope you are not just Level 1 adventurers, girls.>”

Definitely gonna have to split the party again. Aelene in the open ocean is going to be a very bad idea. Not sure how well Honey could handle swimming as well. “<Daph, you’re with me. We’re flying over to the kraken and start blasting it. Aelene, Honey, can you two help on the shore?>”

Seeing the nods, Harper summons a bronze draconic spirit. It feels like she added a bunch of oof to it. She addresses the spirit, “<Ok, we got a kraken to deal with. All you need to do is give us a ride and evade the kraken’s attack. Daph and I will pepper it with spells. We good?>”

The dragon nods and her Beloved helps Daphne find purchase on their impromptu mount. Captain Snuggles is panicking, begging, “<What Level are you?>”

The dragon lifts off and Harper shouts “<15!>” Daphne tries to watch the reaction, but the shimmering bronze wings catching sunlight blocks the view. They plot casting strategies over the short flight. Daphne chants to cast the spell she won on Tina’s date. Lightning harmlessly radiates off of her.

The kraken, filling a pretty large portion of the fishing grounds, roars, flapping around it’s tentacles. “Tentacles, just like our last date!” Daphne beams.

“Ah, actual legendary monster, so not like Cuddles the Cuddlefish. Ready?”

“Ready!”

The monster strikes first, summoning a trio of lightning bolts. Inconveniently, there are only three of them. Daphne is helpfully immune to lightning damage right now and the dragon just tanks it. Harper casts Absorb Elements to try to minimize the damage, keeps the concentration on their ride, then basically summons the sun right on top of the kraken’s stupid face. Not only did the kraken tank it, it grabs the dragon out of the sky.

Let’s try to sever this tentacle, Daphne rationalizes, chanting out the formula for Disintegrate. The jostling of the grappled dragon struggling makes her spell fire wide. Then, she’s suddenly in the air? Uh oh. The dragon, already in melee range, starts to shred into the tentacle. Then, Daphne is flying? Uh oh! She hits the water with a hard splash, her tail returning.

The kraken is so fast. Daphne is in it’s mouth before she even has a chance to orient herself. FUCK! Something stabs into her so hard. Then, it becomes incredibly dark and squeezy, her lightning investiture providing only sporadic bursts of light. And then it gets burny. FUCK! Her spell drops. Left in total darkness, Daphne only has one chance. She fires off a Disintegrate again, boring a hole through the kraken from the inside. A blast of seawater rinses some of the stomach acid off of her as the kraken spits her out.

Daphne starts to swim away. She knows it’s cowardly, but she also won’t survive another trip in the kraken’s gullet. Good news: the kraken doesn’t go for another nibble. Bad news: a bolt of lightning strikes her from above; she barely gets Absorb Elements off to try to survive it. Then, another bolt hits her; she coughs out what feels like half a swim bladder, charred and liquefied. Need to get away. Need to survive. She casts Polymorph, turning into a megalodon. She starts to swim away, faster.

Mattie

These goofballs are going to get me killed one day.

Mrs. Skye wants to scout, like a sensible soldier. The rest? The rest want to barge into the shuttle and figure things out when they get there. “I mean, the coast is clear? Surely we would see them if they were trying to hide in the mowed grass?” Blondie muses.

They loudly chit-chat on the way to the shuttle, as if they never even heard of stealth, then they see a singular gimp suit wearing guy. He’s got a BIG sword. This is definitely a trap. And Abs bounds straight into it. The big guy tanks Abs’s triple slashes like they are nothing, parrying one of them with the flat of his blade, then launches a three-hit combo of his own. Abs looks actually hurt by all of that, growling.

A couple of the punchy guys walk out of the shuttle and go... blurry. Great, that move again. Mrs. Skye, jumping into the fray, charges, casting a spell of a sort, then stabs the absolute shit out of the big guy. He curls in, gushing out some black goo. Both Red and Blondie launch fireballs at the punchy guys. One gets less fuzzy.

“Hey, Sparkles, light up the not fuzzy one! It’ll be easier to hit and they are guarding something!” Mattie fires a shot, plowing into the punchy guy’s torso.

“Okay, Mattie! I will use MY mighty dragon powers to stop the guy!” Sparkles starts growling in probably dragon and the punchy gimp suit guy starts screaming.

Then, she sees what they were guarding. Two of those spell casting sword gimps move just far enough forward to get a good view on the battlefield and they cast something. Mattie doesn’t see the asshole coming. She is pounded, her ribs screaming at her, then she takes a massive hit to the head. Mattie stumbles, trying to keep her head from falling off.

Next thing she sees, big sword guy is dead by Abs’s feet. The punchy guys by the shuttle moves up to engage Mrs. Skye and Abs, with Mrs. Skye hitting back. “Scarlet, Tina, light up the guys in the shuttle! They are powering up these shits back here!”

Red kicks another fireball. Blondie was about to throw another one, only to see that the two by the backline are stunned. Smiling, Blondie is surrounded by these cute little silver bunnies and dances around with them. The bunnies gnaw into the baddies. It’s cute, in a killer rabbit of Caerbannog kind of way.

Mattie backsteps and turns to shoot the one that wailed on her, launching a lust ballista bolt too. Sparkles growls out in dragon again and shoots out a bunch of color beams at the front line enemies? Looks silly, but kind of effective? The regular sword guys go blurry, then double team Red with a pair of sword slashes.

The frontline slugfest continues. Abs hurts a punchy guy. Mrs. Skye hurts the other. Red starts her strip dance attack against one of the sword guys. Mattie focuses more on the immediate area. Blondie keeps dancing with her silver bunnies, firing off a bolt of light at the dude by Sparkles. Mattie considers asking Blondie to bang when the group is done in here. Blondie looks so hot right now.

More dragon-speak from the dragon-girl, more blasts of colors hitting the front line baddies. In the corner of her eye, Mattie watches Red tank two thunderwaves, but the sword guys that fired them off don’t, pushing each other apart. Red whiffs on her counterattack, but it still looked funny.

The front line is making some progress. Abs dropped her foe. Mrs. Skye is chipping away at the other, seeming to try out a silvery light spell to enhance her first blow. Red, **** to abandon her stripper pole (as both of her baddies were pushed too far away from it), decides to suckerpunch the guy Mrs. Skye is working on.

The back line is making progress too. After Blondie shoots off another bolt at the punchy guy by Sparkles, Mattie aims and splatters her foe. Sparkles casts another spell and, from the body language from one of sword guys, it’s pretty effective. Sparkles cackles, “Yes, Yes! Fear the gross boys! Embrace sexy womanhood to get the gross boys to go away!” The other sword guy fires off a fireball (man, that spell seems mighty popular), which hurts Abs and Mrs. Skye, and fries the last punchy guy by the front line.

Looks like the fight is wrapping up. Abs eviscerates one of the sword guys. Mrs. Skye and Red pulls on the other sword guy, only for his head to explode. Blondie leaves the final guy just barely alive. With one final shot, Mattie ends the fight.

Josie: +47 XP (Killed 10 Level 10 monsters, x0.625 penalty [overleveled], Killed 1 Level 12 Monster, x0.75 penalty [overleveled], all x0.667 penalty [party size penalty], all rounded down at the end)

Skye: +50 XP (Killed 10 Level 10 monsters, x0.667 penalty [overleveled], Killed 1 Level 12 Monster, x0.8 penalty [overleveled], all x0.667 penalty [party size penalty], all rounded down at the end)

Scarlet: +58 XP (Killed 10 Level 10 monsters, x0.769 penalty [overleveled], Killed 1 Level 12 Monster, x0.923 penalty [overleveled], all x0.667 penalty [party size penalty], all rounded down at the end)

Tina: +50 XP (Killed 10 Level 10 monsters, x0.667 penalty [overleveled], Killed 1 Level 12 Monster, x0.8 penalty [overleveled], all x0.667 penalty [party size penalty], all rounded down at the end) [overleveled], all x0.667 penalty [party size penalty], all rounded down at the end)

Mattie: +58 XP (Killed 10 Level 10 monsters, x0.769 penalty [overleveled], Killed 1 Level 12 Monster, x0.923 penalty [overleveled], all x0.667 penalty [party size penalty], all rounded down at the end)

Glitter: +50 XP (Killed 10 Level 10 monsters, x0.667 penalty [overleveled], Killed 1 Level 12 Monster, x0.8 penalty [overleveled], all x0.667 penalty [party size penalty], all rounded down at the end)

Red sighs, “Glitterdust, why the fuck did you induce insanity in the NPC?”

Sparkles stretches taller and declares, “I didn’t make the guy insane! I merely made him think that he was surrounded by gross boys to help him want to become a sexy woman! I was doing a nice thing!”

Instead of listening to the squabbling, Mattie starts to poke her way into the shuttle. She finds the level end, but no chest. Aww... rip.

“BOO! We hit the end of the level, but didn’t get any loot.”

Aelene

“<Did she just say Level 15? That’s impossible!>” the good hoppalong captain bleats.

Aelene nods, “<Yes, good captain, my betrothed is Level 15. She keeps putting off applying her last dose of experience to improve herself to Level 16, like me.>”

The captain passes out for a moment. The shouts from the beach have gotten louder. Aelene and the good barrister Honey both dash towards the beach, only to see a male elf with barnacles growing on his face start to bellow, “<Surrender your lives and sanity, for my Lord Squishface has come for them all, ha, ha, ha!>”

Aelene and the barrister are not afraid of something called “Lord Squishface”, but the town guard sure are. Aelene charges to the nearest batch of frightened guard, preparing to protect them. Her mundane double-bladed scimitar, once so reliable, is now so frustrating. It just doesn’t deal enough damage. I mean, 2 crits isn’t enough to drop one of these things? Ugh.

Honey drones over to the taunting priest and hits him straight in the solar nexus. The taunting stops, leaving behind a painful groan. Aelene keeps swinging her blade. It takes 5 hits to drop the first zombie. Five! The small horde around her wields their rusty blades, but her bikini armor keeps her unharmed.

Out of the corner of her eye, Honey summons a giant wall of flame, directly on top of the barnacle fiend, plus some more zombies. Aelene finds the good barrister’s work more interesting than her own; she repositions herself to be able to watch the wasp-girl work as she slogs through the small horde in front of her. Honey flies up and fires off a sickly green beam over the wall. Then, she fires again.

Suddenly, Honey drops the wall of fire and summons a little tornado, sweeping up some of the zombies on the other end of the wall. The barnacle man is burnt into a charred, crispy corpse. The tornado does some work to the trio, but nothing too massive. Next, Honey summons a bunch of rocks to shoot out from the sand below a different set of zombies, and, when the rocks tumble down, surround them with debris. When Honey moves the tornado over to them, a bunch of sand if pushed into the air, and the zombies in the rocky debris field take another burst of damage.

Aelene keeps slicing through. She thinks she’s dropped five of them at this point. Honey keeps the tornado pummeling at the one group, then similarly showers the first group of zombies (which are slowly shambling towards her and the people she is protecting) with the rock attack. Looks like the good barrister finally killed one of these minions.

Aelene drops the last of the foe right as Honey starts to fire the green rays again, focusing on the less injured zombie in her tornado debris field. And Honey got her second zombie kill.

Aelene and her reflection run to the edge of the nearer debris field. One goes down easily enough, but the second raises back up from it’s lethal hit. By the time she drops it a second time, Honey looks done on her end.

Aelene: +4 XP (Killed 11 Level 2 monsters, x0.125 penalty [overleveled], killed 1 Level 5 monster, x0.312 penalty [overleveled], rounded down)

Honey: +8 XP (Killed 11 Level 2 monsters, x0.25 penalty [overleveled], killed 1 level 5 monster, x0.625 penalty [overleveled], rounded down)

The good barrister soon lands, a canned smoothie in her hand.

“It appears the fight is over, Ms, Copse-Wood. If you would be so kind as to gather the injured, I can attend to them.”

Harper

“DAPHNE!!!!!”

Harper saw Daphne hit the water. She sees the burst of blood where she landed. She casts Sunburst again, with the kraken resisting it again. Harper is frustrated at how tanky a deep sea creature is against her current big hitting spell and scared for her beloved mermaid. She sees the tentacle come to grab her from the corner of her eye; a quick cast of Shield deflects it. The draconic spirit rends into the kraken’s tentacle flesh and the sea monster apparently had enough; it flings the dragon away. Harper grabs onto the spirit’s flanks with her thighs, trying to avoid being flung off. The dragon adjusts it’s path, stopping short of landing in the water.

Another duo of lightning bolts hits. Shit. That hurts. Maintaining her concentration on the spirit, Harper keeps spamming Sunburst. The frustrating sea monster resists it again. Another duo of lightning bolts. This time, she can get an Absorb Elements off first.

“We are fucking killing this thing, now!”

With the change in orders, the dragon charges forth, rending and tearing at the kraken’s back (even if the blows were a bit more grazing than when the spirit was attacking the grappling tentacle). A feeble attempt at grappling later, and the kraken has had enough. It starts to swim away as fast as it can. Good thing Sunburst has a longer range than the kraken’s dashing swim speed. “After it! Maintain a distance of 130 feet!” Another Sunburst, and the kraken decides to swim down. One last Sunburst. Hope I guessed the position right. The floating ebon black burst of blood rising to the surface helps to ease one part of Harper’s worries. Daphne...

Harper and Daphne: +39 XP (Killed 1 Level 23 monster, x1.7 bonus [underleveled party], rounded down)

After ordering the dragon to land on the surface of the water and “doggy-paddle”, Harper dives into the ocean, trying to find Daphne. She swims through so much kraken blood and guts it makes her sick. But no sign of her beloved mermaid. She surfaces in absolute sorrow, knowing her ride is about to dissipate. The flight back to the shore is heart-breaking; the only thing that keeps her going is the slim hope that she is alive and back to where the fight started. Harper has the spirit fly as close to the surface of the water as it can. Harper bellows out for Daphne in Aquan so loudly that her throat aches. She watches the surface, hoping Daphne will pop back up. Her **** search comes up with nothing; the ocean is still. Aching for her beloved mermaid, Harper hits the shore.

She sees Aelene and Honey helping the town guard. The wasp-girl has a Healing Spirit up and examining villagers for wounds. Aelene is carrying the wounded too injured to walk to the area of effect of the spirit’s mending ability. Captain Snuggles looks incredibly frightened as Harper dismisses the dragon, resolving to go back and search for Daphne as soon as possible.

“<Ah, my lady, apologies for any offense from this morning. Please don’t go on a rampage.>”

Harper gives the hoppalong some side-eye, “<Captain, I have no desire to hurt anyone here. If it’s possible, I need some help with a search for Daphne. Can you gather whatever fishing ships that survived the initial onslaught so we can comb the area of the fight? And, before you ask, it’s dead. I killed it.>”

The pregnant hoppalong passes out. Honey notes, “Ah, Ms. O’Connor, the good captain Snuggles is not handling the situation well. Have you thought to examine your phone?”

Oh. Phone summoned, Harper checks her notifications (as they show up on the lock screen). Ok. So, Daphne got XP. That’s a good sign, right? Daphne’s location is showing up and moving, so she might be okay? Harper’s knees give way, shedding some tears of grief, some more of relief. Aelene wraps her arms around Harper and she leans into the hug.

She doesn’t know how long she sat in the sand, crying. Definitely long enough for Honey to burn through the rest of her SP healing the injured. Too long. Eventually, Daphne drags herself out of the surf, covered in acid burns and trying to hold her guts in from a couple of gaping wounds. As soon as Harper sees her, the sea elf runs and scoops her up. She kisses the injured mermaid, who moans in pain at it.

“You were right, Beloved, not a fight like Cuddles. Ow. Remind me never to be swallowed by a kraken again.”

Settling her down on soft sand, Harper starts to burn through her free cast of Cure Wounds, then an upcast Level 8 one. Daphne looks a lot better after that, her gaping mauling wounds sealing up and her skin deburning.

Harper: 5 SP left

Daphne: Healed to Full Health

“Alright. Town saved. Time to party?”