Olivia Explanations 2

I flick the window over the Olivia so she can see for herself. She nods as she takes in the information. “This makes sense. Considering everything you have told me thus far, I expected something like this with my statistics and level. The information about my physical appearance and sexual experience is slightly strange. This window is interesting however.” She concludes.

I smile sheepishly. “Yeah sorry about that. I’m not entirely sure why Gaia shows that information, but she does. In any case, that’s how my system classifies your power level.” I say. The lady of the beasts nods, waving her hand experimentally, to see if she can do anything with it. The window closes at her movement.

“Would you mind explaining your powers exactly for us? We sort of understand the basics, but we aren’t sure if there’s anything we don’t know.” I ask, and Olivia smiles at me. “Certainly. As you read in the information window, my power allows me to absorb energy from animals and monsters I have killed.” We nod, already knowing this part.

“Absorbing this energy allows me to grow in power, and subsequently take on the form and abilities of the creature I have killed. My ability is quite potent, although it has several limitations. It does not work on humans or sapient beings in general.” She explains.

“I also cannot draw energy out of a creature while it is still alive, it must be dead. My ability requires that I kill the creature myself, I cannot draw energy from a creature somebody else has slain. I am unsure if I can absorb the energy from something I have killed while in a group of people, but I do know that I must be the one to deal the killing blow.”

“There is also a limit to how much energy I can absorb, from how many different creatures. I am unsure exactly where it is, but I can feel myself getting closer to it. With the last creature I absorbed, I feel I can only absorb a couple more before my body cannot handle any more.” Olivia explains.

We all nod, processing the information. “Can you tell us what all your forms are?” I ask. “Of course. You have seen most of them already. The first form I took, the gorilla like creature with four arms, that is a creature called a Tetramand. It is a purely physical fighter, good for an extremely aggressive style. It has an increased resistance to physical attacks.”

“The stocky, rounded creature that could roll into a ball? That is a Pelarota. Another purely physical monster, although this one is mainly good for defence. It has increased general durability, and I have found that the ball form it can take is useful for battering at opponents.” Olivia continues her explanation.

“The flying creature is called an Aeroray, although I believe that to be a very uncreative name for it. It is not a very powerful form, it lacks in durability, magic resistance and general offensive power. The mana beams it can use are effective at range for what they are, but do not pack anywhere near the same punch as the Tetramand does in raw offence.” She says, almost seeming disappointed at this.

“The real advantages of the Aeroray are its flight capabilities, aerial manoeuvrability and its incredible eyesight. It is very useful for information gathering at long range, and general swiftness in any given situation in which speed is useful. Chasing something down, escaping at short notice and other such things.”

“The last form I showed you is something called a Petradon. It is a strange name, but I was not the one who named it. It is my most powerful form overall and is the one I absorbed recently which gave me a boost in power. It has enhanced durability and is an apt melee fighter.”

“It is equally capable of using magic. Through its abilities, I can form my arms into weapons and create and to a limited extent, control crystals. This means using them as ranged weapons, similar to shurikens, and creating barriers and shields. I have not experimented with the Petradon’s abilities all that much, and as such, I am unaware if this is its full set of capabilities.” Olivia continues.

“There are two other forms that you did not see. The first one is something called an angler shark, which is exactly what it sounds like: a cross between an angler fish and a shark. It is mostly useful due to the fact that it allows me to breathe in and travel through water efficiently, as well as fight underwater.”

“The last form that I did not show you is a mundane lion. Absorbing this lion was how I first discovered that my powers existed, and the abyss as a whole. It was on a safari trip that went wrong, and to make a long story short, I managed to kill a lion that attacked me. I won the fight by a hair’s breadth, but I survived.” She recounts, smiling at the memory.

“Do you think you could absorb one of the creatures in my dungeons? That would be really useful if you could.” I suggest my first thought. Olivia shakes her head in response. “I highly doubt that. I can try, but I do not believe the attempt will yield any successful results. As far as I am aware, the creature in question needs to be a naturally occurring one.” She replies.

I nod, thinking about what the best way would be to proceed. “If I may, would you be able to take me into one of your dungeons? I wish to see for myself how they operate and what your power around this can do.” Olivia asks. “Sure, we can do that. Anybody else up for a dungeon run?” All of my girlfriends agree.

Skylar and Paige because they want to test how much they can level up now, Mia because she’s always up for a fight and Ivy because she wants to be there to heal any of us if we get hurt. That settled, we all put on our armour and go outside to enter the dungeon. After a quick discussion, we go with the giant rats dungeon, which is pretty much our default for anything new.

Just before we enter the dungeon, I make sure to actually give Paige the mark of love. She reached the relationship score threshold overnight, and the both of us are quite happy about that. We waited because we wanted to see how the talk with Olivia would go, and now that we’re about to go grinding, it doesn’t make sense to wait any longer.

The dungeon itself is pretty uninteresting. Olivia, of course, is extremely interested, especially when she discovers that the enemies in my dungeons actually drop items. She raises an eyebrow at that discovery. The test as to whether or not she can absorb dungeon enemies turns out to be a negative, which makes sense to me.

Olivia’s ability is already bonkers broken, and her being able to absorb enemies from my dungeons and take on their powers would be even more so. What we do find however is that her presence is a huge advantage to us. Our group composition is a little weighted towards mage damage dealers and it’s nice to have somebody who can take on different roles.

With Olivia in our group, we effectively have a tank, a melee damage dealer, a long range support and a mage of sorts, all in one. She can’t do everything at once, but the fact that she can switch between so many different roles at once is hugely useful to us.

Olivia being a tank means that the rest of us can chip away damage at the boss. Olivia being a support means that she can assist any separate situation on the battlefield if any one of us is struggling. Olivia being a melee damage dealer and/or mage means that she can add to our already pretty substantial damage output.

The addition of the lady of the beasts into our guild is a net positive all around, and it’s incredible to see just how efficiently we can deal with the enemies, with her around. Skylar and Paige are still struggling a little, but with that gap on its way to being closed through the increasing of their potentials, I’m almost wondering if dungeons are going to start being too easy in future.

With the dungeon run done and Olivia’s curiosity about them sated, we once again sit down at the table to talk about what the plan is moving forward. A quick observe of Skylar and Paige reveals that they both levelled up, once each, which is nice.