Thank Gaia It's Friday

The plains had never been so alien to Greenpaw, but such was the confusion that preceded an by a human.

He waited now, there in the bushes under a lone tree that had grown, unnaturally gray and rigid, between two malformed hills. The tree itself would not camouflage him, for it lacked leaves and all save two branches, from which menacing light-bearing fruit seemed to grow. This was not the verdant field of Juulesii; here was a dead, and ugly place, of hard earth blackened and only these solitary bushes serving as vegetation.

Greenpaw rested on his haunches, and resisted the urge to scratch his slightly larger, good ear. The spear in his grip and the buckler tied to his left forearm were both made from ironwood, light and durable... but they felt so heavy, now. Greenpaw swallowed hard and sought the enemy. He was of the Juuvak, a race of rabbit-like humanoids who could stand seven feet in height if fully erected, though they seldom were. Theirs was a shy people, wary of foreign places and faces, and happy with their primitive, nomadic life in the known valleys. They knew nothing of magic, save its corrosive evils, but were in fact natural scryers, able to look far afield for threats with what they considered a sixth sense of clairvoyance.

He peered about even now, seeking the enemy down the narrow paths of stone and steel of this treacherous new place. He had come with Skythumper and Leafdie, his seniors in the hunt, and both had fallen before the invader... or the one who called them, since none of them must have intended to hunt in so lifeless a world. Surely neither thought they could be felled by the manling who came to them.

Greenpaw (Almiraj off-shoot)
Level 12 Warrior
HP: 550/550
MP: 210/300
The male Youngblood of a hunting pack of the Juuvak, a hornless variant of the Almiraj that have adapted a natural magical ability, opposable thumbs, and long, powerful bodies. Even this youngster is a formidable warrior with a natural talent for clairvoyance.

The creature sensed it almost too late. Greenpaw leapt from the bush, and shot his spear at the tiny peephole, a tear in reality, that opened there in the bush. His spear's tip barely missed the spying eye within. Satisfied, John opened a larger tunnel, one he could step through, and appeared at the opposite end of the 4-way stop. Greenpaw knew a mage by his garbs, for the Juuvak only wore raiments when they rose to power among their elders. Mages, by their hubris, wore raiments upon raiments, and here too that truth was plain: a vest upon a shirt, tucked into pants, worn over shoes and under a circlet of silver, and even clothes for the evil human's hands. Greenpaw would think so many layers would make the mage slow, but even he knew better than to judge a human by its trappings.

Mage and rabbit-man faced one another across the warped version of a street crossing in northern Springfield. John had taken the entire block into his parsed reality after Tara had assured him it would be safe to do so; with all his grinding in barriers around his neighborhood before this, he had spent more than enough time for her to catch her sleep in his temple, and afford a moment to be dropped off at her safehouse.

Even now she "asked" (more demanded) that she be excluded from John's last hunt... and so only Fairy and Captain Woofroot followed him out of the portal.

"Khii kukri!" There was an obvious intelligence in the creature's black and gold eyes, and his brown coat bristled.

Was that speech? What did he say?

<I don't know every backwater primitive language there is, you know,> Fairy spat.

<I've never so much as heard of so hideous a creature,> Alysha offered. <The others are not yet conscious enough to help, either.>

"Fine, I just want to wrap this up anyways." John crossed his hands, and both vanished as his strikes blasted the youngblood's hip and shoulder from outside the lad's view.

Serpent's lunge deals 334 subdual damage!
Serpent's lunge (quickcast) deals 334 subdual damage!

A dizzying pain and a ringing in his ears left Greenpaw disoriented, but his feet still carried him to charge at John with a single, impossible leap across the street. Fairy dashed away, and Woofroot tried to resist his standing orders to stop leaping in front of John, but John stared and waited for the blow. The spear struck true, blasting through his vest and shirt to dig into his flesh.

Greenpaw's spear deals 101 piercing damage (reduced from 140 piercing damage).

Even after four points in Paragon Body, and everything besides...

It was not enough, of course. Fairy swooped in and blasted sandman dust into the warrior's face, but to no avail; he stepped back and away for another lunge, his face glittering with the ineffective remains of her spell. He raised his spear to try and stab John through the face.

Your (Copycat) sandman's slumber is ineffective!
Your (Copycat) sandman's slumber (quickcasted) is ineffective!

Damage resists AND immune to sleep? I figured he'd have less since he's so much weaker than the first two-

<Quit dicking around and hit him again!>

John tried to dodge the spear this time, but was still nicked across the cheek for half as much damage again. The rabbit grunted, but not in disappointment as John figured: looking down, he watched as a bush sunk wooden, bushy teeth into Greenpaw's big left toe.

Captain Woofroot bites Greenpaw for 2 damage!

Greenpaw readied to bat the creature away-

John dashed forward, and Greenpaw's body jerked to a stop. "That's enough."

Serpent's bite deals 157 subdual damage! Target has been knocked out!

The youngster's body slumped forward, and John caught his heavy weight before easing him down next to his spear. As with his brothers, John unfolded the left, flopping ear and, beneath the dull green glow of an oddly unwarped streetlight, placed his brand upon the creature.

Greenpaw (Almiraj offshoot) was captured!

Rabbit hunters encounter defeated!
+4,900XP
+$200
+All captured equipment transferred to temple
+3 life essence
+1 bottle of Almiraj spirits

Man, really not what I would've expected for 'rabbit hunters'...

John squatted once the creature's body had fizzled into purple light, and began to meditate under the watch of his summons. Woofroot loyally stood guard while Fairy flew high, scouting the zone for any straggling encounters. The road would be quiet when they left the barrier, given the time of day, but here the silence was alive, present... foreign. John's zen was broken only by thoughts of Lily's description of barriers, and what these three new captures might tell him, along with the small host of other beings now residing in his temple. He opened his eyes once he was fully healed and reviewed his sheet.

He looked over his new catches, each one a bit more alien than mere elves or demons: three of these rabbit-folk, though he could get no read on them as of yet. A stringy, but potent goblin warlock who turned out to mostly use his health to cast spells (much to John's irritation), a small bear apparently made of some kind of web-like substance simply called "nether-silk", and not one, not three, not even five, but a full nine creatures with heads of lizards, wings of ravens, and the bodies of dwarf-like men and women who, upon learning he was a summoner, had all volunteered to be branded (a surprising shift in attitude, given that they were prepared to mug him at knife point). He might've felt less weirded out by the last ones if their data wasn't so depressing. He pulled one up at random, and confirmed it was the same as when had checked them all last time:

Giggle-foot (abandoned experimental living bomb)
Level 8 Fused Creature
HP: 210/210
MP: 12/12
XP: 0/1500 (TP: 0)
Str 10, Agi 12, End 20, Int 10, Wis 8, Cha 13, Lib 14
Skills: apathy aura lvl5, mana bolt lvl1, sense life lvl2, suicide bomb lvl8
A creature bred in a lab beyond scrying to be a living weapon: a grenade of flesh that could mute all concern for self-preservation in its victims before exploding. Oddly cheery, all things considered. Quite happy to be of use, and especially as something not explicitly requiring .

More depressing questions for the Abyss and its denizens... but these were mere side-effects of his real goal: to find someone for his triage, and to assemble formidable summons... ones that he didn't necessarily want to sleep with, as had become a habit even he could not ignore. He had spent the whole night focusing on grinding (experience)... and while two levels seemed alright for now, he was still far and away from taking on someone like Yarrick again. Maybe I should've asked about those one-star bounties...

<You should've avoided joining yourself to so unknown an organization in the first place, John Newman.>

A bit late for that... John eyed the false, warming sky of the barrier. They had been there for at least an hour... so surely the sun was threatening to rise properly, now. "That's going to be it for tonight."

He looked to his present summons with a smile.

Captain Woofroot
Level 1 Sapient Plant
XP: 0/100 (TP: 17,803)

Fairy
Level 12 Fae Daemonica
XP: 0/4,750 (TP: 49,233)

John nodded his approval, particularly at Woofroot. He bent down and patted the creature on its quivering leaves, and it lost all restraint, bounding onto John and licking his face with glee. Fairy sneered at this display, and a deeper grimace when John rose to pat her on the head afterwards.

"Fuck off, Master."

"You're right: let's go home."

"Y-You know that's not what I meant, you cum-faucet-!"

So went their exchange until John dismissed his companions and stepped through the false, spinning concrete tile in the alleyway between warehouses. The sun was indeed starting to rise properly, and John knew he'd have to go straight into his bath from here if he wanted to make the bus. With a quick stashing of all his gear, he was left in naught but his underwear before he opened a peep-hole into his bedroom, found it thankfully left alone by his mother, and blinked on through. The peep-hole closed, leaving naught but the dust of another version of the same alleyway to prove he had ever been there. Not a living soul witnessed this...

... save one. A long, black braid followed her as she slowed her mid-morning walk when she caught a scent of it: power. Curiosity brought her towards the cold, lonely streets of the warehouses near the river. It was on that curious route, from across the street upon a sidewalk which she half-consciously strolled, that she spied someone distinctly dressed begin to undress in an alley. She nearly ran off in embarrassment until she noticed the clothes were simply vanishing... and that the half-followed trail tugged her towards the slowly unveiled young man. A student? Impossible; she'd have felt something like this before. She quietly crossed the road, tip-toeing just out of sight of the stranger. She more felt his presence than saw him, at first, but now the glint of her oily hair was part of the mouth of the alleyway where the stranger had stripped down to his underwear.

With barely twenty feet between them, she could soak in the very cuts of him. His body seemed chiseled, impossibly sculpted, and the aura that felt so attractive before was now an inferno that threatened to eat her alive. This was no student, but he couldn't have been much older than her, possibly even younger. It was the presence of a god made flesh... handsome, young adult flesh, as if he had stepped out of a Firesmith forge for her pleasure and hers alone. She clutched the concrete corner, and watched him, ate him with rapt and ravenous attention; with those glinting, hungry, hazel eyes. If he noticed her, she would turn to salt; if he didn't notice her, she'd soil her underwear as she squeezed her thighs together, all but burning her flesh with the friction. He was impossible.

He was... perfect.

His thoughts were far and away, and so he hadn't noticed her, even as she carved his visage into her heart. She watched him open a hole in reality, and barely had a moment to process what she was seeing before he vanished along with that hole. Her vision was gone; that impossible man, who might well have never existed but for the pressure of his presence, too real for her to deny, had fled. But she would never forget the sight, the very feel of him. She would have to retreat home, possibly even end up showing late for her particular school... but if this was not some mad dream, then she'd happily dare tardiness every day to take in that same sight.