Holiday Dinner Hunt [Event]

It was a cold winter day, and Saiko found herself in the middle of a field. She was not particularly happy about it, as despite the common idea that necromancy was all about the cold and dark she much preferred the warm and dark. It was only because she had been hired to help some chef guy collect some random rare ingredient for some super special dish that she was here at all. With the promise of a free meal, it was hard to say no.

That is why she stood in this field holding her doll Suki, hating whatever cosmic force had created winter. It was almost as bad as summer with all its sand. Not that she was alone in her misery, for she had dragged not only the chef along to identify said super special ingredient, but her freakishly tall student as well. Rhia claimed to be an expert at navigating the woods, so Saiko had thought maybe the student could be useful for once.

Given the current circumstances, that hope had apparently been far too, well, hopeful. Sure they had found the ingredient they had come for, yet that was not the only thing they had found. Now standing before them was some kind of horrific monster. A monster that did not seem entirely pleased about their presence in this specific location.

“Never leading again,” Saiko said to her student with a side-eyed glare.

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The member 'Saiko Akai' has done the following action : Dice Rolls

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'Normal Dice' :

Sigurd took in a mouthful of sugar-aerosol mixture from his candy cigarette, blowing out a sweet mist into the frosty winter air. In contrast to his company, he didn't mind this kind of weather. In fact, he felt strangely at home in the cold. His long coat and warm hat certainly helped. Regardless, the former mage was now doing whatever he could to manage his blood pressure given the distressing situation he now found himself in.

Naturally, as someone without any magic talent, when Sigurd had settled on gathering some highly sought after but hard to find ingredients, he knew the smartest move was to hire some muscle. These woods were known to contain the odd vulcan, giant insect, or even stray bandit. Though Sigurd was quite strong for a non-mage, it was better to have the help in case he ran into a strong bunch of monsters or a particularly magically-gifted mage. Not to mention, it'd be a shame if the Kolaktobourico Nuts he had come here for were damaged in a fight, given that he'd have to wait until the next Winter to harvest more.

Of course, he could have never predicted this. The shadowy goat-headed creature that stood before them, arm outstretched as if to demand tribute, radiated strength and malcontent. His intuition sharp as ever, the chef knew the trio wasn't likely to get out of this without a serious fight.

"Hey, you, wizard types. This seem like something you can handle or should I start running?" he said, making sure to stay behind the presumably capable mages. He glared holes into the back of Rhia's head, cursing her for leading them into this field while he took another drag of sugary air.



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The taller of the two women, Rhia, knew it was going to be chilly today, so she made a couple concessions to her normal attire, she wore a solid cream colored flannel shirt under her typical red vest, cream knee high socks and to finish the winter look she wore her winter cloak, which looked nearly identical to her normal cape, but included a hood and was an inch or so longer.  This did very little to cover her thighs.  The walk to this location was beautiful; the group walked up and down several more hills than they expressly needed too, but the view was worth it every time. They crossed the same stream, three times, the second time was the most fun, there were so many cool little fish.  All in all, the walk probably took them three hours, or five, and they could almost not see town. The redhead kept her hood down, humming while she picked through the field with Shisho and Mr. Siegfried.  

”I’m glad I found this job, it’s comfy, safe, not in a dark gross crypt, and it comes with a nice warm meal. Aren’t you glad too Shisho? It’s so pretty out here.” Her senior mage of diminutive stature’s response made the taller woman recoil back a bit. I don’t understand… I successfully navigated us to the stuff we needed we’re all safe, I’ll bet Sempai had a nice time.  The redheaded woman stopped poking at the ground to think for a second before turning back to Sempai. ”You agree with me right Sempai? It was a fun walk here right?”

Her charge, Mr. Siegfried’s words were a bit concerning, not not hugely so, as the two mages were hired mostly for protection. A large grin crossed Rhia’s face, she stood and tossed her cloak, the right half swung around her back and doubled up behind her. By the time her cloak settled she was facing the man left hand on her hip right hand pointing into the sky. The monster’s presence, not really registering.  

The red headed woman’s right hand dropped to her thigh holster and left went to her belt. She drew the Caster and flipped it the grip it by the barrel while her left hand removed a trio of shells from her belt and rotated her forearm until it was completely vertical. She timed it so that her elbow would catch the lever releasing Caster’s breach. She drew both hands in front of her, the motion allowing her to slide a shell into the Caster’s chamber.  She deftly flipped the Caster in her hand locking the breach as it lined up with whatever that horned thing was. With her left arm cocked back and right arm fully extended forward she was ready she spoke. I’m so cool!

”Listen buddy, stay where you are and put your hand down, or you’re in for some pain. And uh... Mr. Siegfried, no need to run, just try to stay out of the way, and don't freak out, maybe put more effort on the don't freak out part.” Despite the constant issues, and disapproval of Shisho and Sempai, Rhia still didn’t like starting off with the really lethal spells, most people are reasonable, or at the very least, they can be made reasonably compliant with the reasonable application of pain.  The creature either didn’t notice or didn’t care about anything Rhia had just done and said, but it also didn’t move. Yet.

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“You suck Maggot,” the doll in Saiko’s arms said when Rhia asked her a question. Sure the ammothurgist had led them to the location of what they were looking for. That was not the problem. The problem was the big, not terribly friendly looking creature staring at them expectantly. Saiko was used to not terribly friendly looking creatures, many served her. She just preferred when they worked for her rather than against her. Obviously she could not read the thing’s mind, but she had a sneaking suspicion that Rhia’s words would do little to stop it from turning aggressive.

And sure enough, when no one moved forward to hand the creature something it made out something between a guttural scream and the bleat of a goat, then slammed its heavy wooden staff into the ground. The moment it began moving, so did Saiko. She ran quickly to stand behind her student, who was conveniently sized for use as a meat shield. Suitably covered, and expecting the chef to keep himself alive for a few seconds, Saiko began to draw on the shadows around her.

First came the skeletons, crawling out from the shadows cast on the field from the surrounding trees. A pair of wolves, three bears, a weretiger, and a trio of humans made up their numbers. Behind them crawled out a half demon looking zombie and a human sized doll with angelic wings attached to her back. Saiko’s summoning did not stop here, with her most basic spell. The air shimmered as spirit after spirit appeared in midair. A full ten ghost warriors, five ghost archers, and the wispy form of a spectral mage appeared led by her Chained General. A ghost that looked like an ancient Dongxia strategist with shackles around his wrists.

Her army summoned, she sent them to attack the goat thing. Said goat thing had not been waiting idly during this though, as he had similarly been summoning spirits. Small goat looking spirits had sprung up around the trio and when one of Saiko’s undead approached it, it exploded something black all over. Coal maybe? Whatever it was, it had sent the ghost it had struck back to the Underworld.

“Don’t approach them!” she called out to the others.

Where the goat creature was, her undead seemed to be faring better. At first at least. Skeletal claw, translucent blade, and spectral arrow all found their mark. But even as her undead unleashed attack after attack the wounds simply closed again after. Even when her spirit mage launched a lightning bolt at it, its burnt flesh soon recovered. No matter how much damage she seemed to do to it, the creature healed just as much. She had more undead she could summon, the Shackled all waited at the edge of her consciousness to be called into battle. It would be a waste of mana to summon them though if this creature was capable of just healing whatever damage it was done. It did not help that she had to divert some of her many undead to deal with the lesser goats.

“Must be some trick,” she muttered, mostly to herself.

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The explosion of action that had started up in the field the gathering party stood in was fairly overwhelming for Sigurd, who had not seen this level of action in quite a while. Right from when the goat creature began its horrid bleating, Sigurd had moved to take cover behind a bush. Not helping his anxiety, however, a skeletal wolf had leaped over his head.

“O-Oy! You didn’t tell me you were a bleeding necromancer!” Perhaps a brighter man would have been able to piece together the possibility from her general vibe, but Sigurd had blissfully wished whatever magic his guardians were packing it would be left dormant. A peaceful nut picking adventure it seemed this would not be, as he noted Rhia was locked and loaded with whatever magical boomstick it was that she was wielding. At the very least, his companions both seemed like experienced and talented mages, with a bit of flare that Sigurd couldn’t help but appreciate.

Despite his admiration for their skill, he felt a shiver go down his spine looking at the undead horde that Saiko had brewed up before he retched involuntarily.

“Jeez, just please keep those accursed things as far, far away from me as possible,” he stressed hurrying to cleanse the taste in his mouth with another puff of candy cigarette before he felt a tugging on his knapsack. One of the goat entity’s summoned minions, a smaller one, seemed to be interested in the pouch where Sigurd had stored the sought after nuts.

He heard Saiko’s warning not to approach them a bit too late. By the time she had warned the group, he had already planted a foot directly in the face in the devilish little thief. With the sound of rushing air, it had burst into a flurry of jet black coal. The speed at which it flew from the creature’s remains was fast enough that a few shards pierced through his trench coat, impaling themselves some few millimeters into his skin. Not only that, these coals were heated from the friction of the explosion, each wound stinging with heat.

“Agh! No kidding about keeping your distance from these things. Don’t worry, I’ll die before I let them take our hard earned nuts! You two just figure out how to put that thing down and I’ll be fine protecting myself and the goods.”

Plucking the shards of coal from his person, Sigurd felt his skin grow goosebumps. Looking to his left, Sigurd locked eyes with the ghostly form of a reanimated archer. His whole body recoiled as he added, “Saiko, if you have a second, maybe all your little friends could go stand on that side of the field? It’ll give me, uh, more room to… defend myself.”

Sigurd backed away slowly from the specter as he saw another goat spirit minion making its way towards him, a look in its eyes that betrayed a craving for the very same nuts that its comrade had perished trying to steal. His limp holding him back a bit, Sigurd ran as fast as he could away from the enemy while fishing around in his knapsack for something useful he could throw from a distance.

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Senpai’s words rolled right off Rhia, at this point being called a maggot was just par for the course, besides, she already forgot all the other non-maggot words, they probably didn’t matter.  The goat thing didn’t NOT follow the redhead’s orders, sort of. But that thing definitely broke it in spirit when it screamed and summoned a bunch of exploding minions! Rude. Aaaand this is why I said something about not freaking out, Shisho’s… Things. Just as she had predicted the veritable horde her mentor could bring up on a whim could be a bit distressing.  And he responded as most do.

”What did I say about not freaking out?!  It’s… never mind, they’ll leave you alone.”  One of those small monsters exploded taking out one of Shisho’s… her summon.  Those things are generally durable, I might want to  Her train of thought was interrupted by the small necromancer’s warning I was just thinking that!  

The wannabe cowgirl dropped her aim from the large goat thing and punted the weird little thing that got close to her, the impact wasn’t that of a kick, more of a heavy shove with her foot.  She lined up her shot and focused on the shell inside the Caster, it expelled its stored mana.  The barrel of the Caster started to glow and rapidly grew brighter, Rhia braced herself, a fist sized ball of ice sped from the Caster with a thundercrack, the monster exploded on contact raining the area in hot bits of black.  I’m glad the recoil works better on this caster. Quickly, she worked the breach with her left hand, grabbing the spent shell and sliding in a new one, not fast enough though, as her charge was already under attack.

”I’ll keep the rest of them off you Mr. Siegfried!  Oh, my advice for Shisho’s… friends, they’re actually competent, just don’t look at them, I don’t.”  two more of the small things decided to break off and go after non-Shisho magic things, namely Rhia and Mr. Siegfried.  She lept backwards away from the one bearing down on her, triggering her current shell mid air. Just as before, a ball of solid ice rocketed into the thing.  The impact knocked the creature to the ground before it exploded.  Less recoil didn’t mean no recoil, because without being firmly on the ground she noticed the difference immediately, and immediately is like right away, it’s like super fast, faster than falling down. Like when you’re feeling fine and then boom you’re on the floor and it’s like, you don’t even remember that happening.  Immediately is faster than that.

Immediately she noticed the difference, because she was no longer going to be landing on her feet.  The redhead worked her breach again, snatching the shell before it could be launched, shoved a fresh one in and locked the breach once more.  Done loading she braced for impact and tried to turn the momentum tinto a roll, it mostly worked but she ended up on her stomach.   Good enough!  Thankfully she was still facing her charge, the prone woman triggered her final ice bolt, it’s store mana burst forth like thunder, slamming into the creature coming at Mr. Siegfried  from behind.

The woman picked herself up, and decided she was safe for a bit.  The breach worked again and ejected the shell into her hand.  ”I think we need to thin out these little things before we can think about taking on the big one.  Also, I need a few seconds to recharge.  She cupped her three spent shells in both hands, extended in front of her.  The space between her fingers glowed steadily brighter as she focused mana into them.  This was imperfect, but expedient, the normal method to recharge the shells was much more efficient, but she didn’t have the time to re-press every shell.

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“Didn’t ask,” Saiko said to Siegfried when he complained about her being a necromancer. Most of Confidence International knew she was a necromancer by this point, she was not exactly hiding it. Heck, she had gotten pointers from Cillian on the subject, and she was fairly certain Siegfried worked there. Maybe. She did not actually pay attention to what other people actually did for a living most of the time since it did not directly affect her.

Her convenient meat shield had flamboyantly wandered off to do her weird movements like usual, so her zombie took the position instead. With the goat man currently occupied with the ghosts and skeletons attacking it, Saiko’s only real worry was the goat spirits. These at least did not seem to be too big a threat as long as she took them out from range. Their apparent desire to explode the moment someone approached helped in that regard. The trouble was that they were being summoned at about the same rate as her own undead leaving things a stalemate.

“Need to carry more,” the young necromancer scolded, annoyed that the small repreve her student had bought was gone the moment she had to stop to charge her shells. Well, at least she was more useful than she used to be. Progress was progress Saiko supposed.

Deciding it was time to pull her strongest spirits into the battle, she reached the connection at the edge of her mind to the Underworld where the Shackled waited. Reaching out to one spirit, one made up of two separate souls, had an immediate effect on the world around her. A mass of bones erupted from the ground creating two columns. The bones then crumbled away to dust revealing two women wearing death mask face paint. The Soulmates. Taking the place of the zombie so it could join the front lines, the large orange haired woman of the pair took up defending Saiko from attacks. At the same time the slimmer, dark haired spirit unleashed her magic on the goat creature eliciting a howl of pain as its soul began to burn.

This was not the only member of the Shackled she called, as a church bell suddenly rang out across the field. At the bell’s toll, a beam of radiant light appeared for a moment before vanishing leaving behind a ghostly nun with bandages wrapped around her eyes. The Devout began to pray quietly to herself event as a bunch of the goat spirits began to charge her. Before they could get close enough to explode, a burst of radiant light flew out from her body in all directions searing the spirits as it passed and leaving the area around her empty.

After that most recent batch of enemies was dispatched, Saiko noticed a change in the lead goat. Its wounds still healed at a remarkable speed, but now there was a noticeable lag in the healing. That is until it summoned more of the lesser spirits and its wounds would seal almost immediately. “Small ones heal the big one!”

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Sigurd appreciated the dedication with which Rhia was providing covering fire. It would have been unlikely that the retired mage could keep breathing room between himself and the aggressive goat spirits, and he was beginning to lose his breath. Perhaps, even if he was no longer interested in working as a professional mage, Sigurd should have been more deliberate about staying in shape. Or perhaps even he was beginning to feel the effects of his recently dropped smoking habit. Either way, the chef was grateful to have the help from both of his hired hands, despite his revulsion at Saiko’s necromantic ways in particular.

It seemed, thanks to the ghastly yet holy-magic-empowered nun said necromancer had conjured up, the field had been mostly cleared of the annoying, living coal bombs that had been so fixated on stealing Sigurd’s nuts. The blonde watched as the tall goat seemed to begin showing signs of injury, before its pace of healing resumed the rapid rate that had made it seem invincible. Saiko’s assessment made sense to him. Somehow the little ones were passively healing the big boss. A scholar of summoning magic, Sigurd could immediately make sense of this. He thought of his own former summons and the many varied effects he was able to utilize with them, and took a moment to admire the coordination that Saiko’s summoned companions fought with. Particularly, the Soulmates ability to fill different niches while working in tandem with each other made Sigurd smile. As much as necromancy made him recoil, he appreciated a good summoner when he got to see them in action.

”Hey Saiko! You getting bored yet? Does this freak know how to summon anything except these suicidal goats?” Sigurd ran as fast as his legs would let him and planted a punt directly into the side of one of their enemy’s minions, sending it flying before it exploded into a shower of black, ”Maybe it could actually learn a thing or two from you about creative conjuring.”

Sigurd reached into his pouch and pulled out the satchel of nuts that they had gathered, holding it high over his head an clambering onto a fallen log.

“Any goat demon that’s looking to a sample a taste of the infamously delicious kolaktobourico nut, come on over here! This is a once in a year opportunity you little freaks, and it’s first come first served,” he glanced over at Rhia, slight panic in his face as a swarm of the demons dropped their individual quarrels and began converging on him, “Hey gun mage! These spirits seem to fall pretty easy to your shells. I kind of jumped into this plan assuming you’ve got a large radius blast somewhere in your back pocket, so please tell me you do!”


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The red head’s hands were tied charging her shells, the light emitted from between her fingers continued to grow brighter, it didn’t take a lot of focus so she surveyed the area.  Those little creatures are everywhere, and Mr. Siegfried can barely defend himself.  It’s a good thing Shisho's… things, are so selfless or we’d be in even more danger.  Need to do something about our client being at such a disadvantage, I’ve never tried to get a non magic user to use my Caster, it should work, the magic is stored in the shell.  Maybe if I get a few moments near him I can get him to try it out.

”Hey Mr.-” She was cut off by her partner’s flagrant, no, there is a better word for this, flamboyant summoning methods. I think she does it on purpose, I somehow doubt two columns of bones needed to erupt from the ground to materialize those two, and the toll of a large bell was definitely there for flair.  That little girl… I think I've been a good influence on her!  Style is so important.  She didn’t have much time to watch the fresh, somehow less awful to look at, things began efficiently going about their tasks, as Sigurd was now doing something crazy in response to Shisho’s revelation. We do have to kill the small ones first. But really!? Making himself into bait!?

With all that going on, the sound of three minorly offset clacks went off, the sound wooden or metal balls make when they collide, that sound, times three, and larger.  This signified the shells had completed their recharge.  She flicked her left wrist and caught the shells, one between each of her fingers and drew her Caster.  She gave it a couple spins, actuated the breach mid spin and reversed the direction.  The taller woman stopped the Caster spin, and slotted the shell from between her pinky and ring finger into the chamber, snapped the breach  shut, and that catches us up to when the brazen, blonde man’s plan went into action.  

”I’ve got something for the job, but you aren’t going to like it!” Rhia Shouted as she slid her Caster back into its holster and drew a large orange weapon. This thing terrified Rhia, it’s method of operation was entirely different than her Caster, it actively fatigued her to fire it, not entirely unlike those black shells.  But it’s effective. ”I need you to count to three, and by the time you hit three, you need to be under something sturdy, like that log you are standing on.  This. Will. Hurt.”  She tried to speak loudly and clearly, stressing the last few words.

Ok, the user manual said there was a safety latch on the side, got it  She flipped open the latch and locked it in place.  The Jack-O’-Cannon began to whir, faint white motes began to accumulate near the protrusions from the sides of the gun and get sucked in like a vacuum. Rhia braced herself and aimed for a point a couple feet above where Sigurd had been when she had started.  Just as she said, after three seconds of charging, the thing burst forth with a massive glowing pumpkin, no it was carved, a jack-o-lantern. Oddly, the thing looked to have been carved into a winking kissy face, odd.  By this point Rhia’s view of the area had been completely obscured, and she had no idea what the maximum range on this thing was, so she dove to the ground herself.

Jack-o’-BOOM:

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Saiko was a bit too busy fending off goat spirits to respond to Sigurd's comment about being bored, though she probably would not have answered anyway. Vocalizing her feelings was not exactly something she did often. This did not stop her from being pleased by his praise of her undead summons. Her student could learn a thing or two from this guy, even if he was kind of useless in a fight.

It was a shock then when he suddenly decided to run in like a maniac drawing the spirits toward him. His dying would be only a mild inconvenience when it came to her free meal, but it still did not seem like something a sensible person would do. Relying on Rhia to do something right seemed even less sensible. Imagine her surprise then when her student pulled out a range new weapon and shot a giant orange fruit at the goats. A pumpkin, she believed it was called? There had been a lot of them with faces just like this one during Halloween.

Well, why the gun fired giant fruit was a question she did not have an answer for. The what was it for question was much more apparent as a giant explosion wiped away a bunch of the small goats and blew her student off her feet. Even from where Saiko was standing she could feel the heat and power of the blast. Well, she figured Sigurd was probably gone now as well, but as long as she could find some pieces of him she could bring him back as a zombie. His sacrifice would not be forgotten.

More importantly, between the fruit explosion and her own ghostly nun’s holy nova most of the spirits had been wiped from the field. As evidence of this, the lead goat thing was now showing signs of lasting damage. His staff continued to send her own undead back to where they came from, but blood seeped from wounds that no longer closed immediately. Now seemed the perfect chance to focus on bringing him down while all her undead continued to keep his spirits from filling the field again.

Reaching back to the Underworld, at first nothing seemed to happen. Then suddenly a black arrow shot out from empty air, impaling itself into the goat. With a shimmer, a long eared spirit appeared wielding a bow, only to vanish again a moment later. Then another arrow struck the goat creature, and the moment it did the first one exploded into a shadowy blast. Try as it might, the leader of the goats could not stop the dark ranger as she vanished between each of her attacks. Perhaps his minions might have been able to hit her with their coals, but they had been safely neutralized.

Her powers could control one more summon, so she used it to continue pressing the attack. This time there was an unsettling giggle that filled the air, and without any warning a little girl stood in the middle of the field. The little girl smiled eerily at the goat man, and when she did it started scream bleating in pain. Soon after random wounds began to appear across its body where no weapon had struck him, and he collapsed to his knees. He was not yet dead, but he was clearly close.

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Sigurd braced himself for impact as the gunmage fired a projectile from her secondary weapon. The goat spirits converging on him, he began to count down from three, as he had been instructed. At the same time, he couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow at the shape of the object that had been launched from the barrel of the magic weapon. A jack-o-lantern? Sigurd hadn’t seen a festive gourd like that in such a long time, and had fond memories of carving them with his siblings. Was it a gag weapon? A carved pumpkin hardly seemed like an appropriate weapon for dealing with—

DOOM!

As the explosion engulfed the goat spirits, Sigurd had just enough time to process what was going on and chuck the satchel of nuts as hard as he could to the side before ducking behind the felled log he had been standing on. Though protected from the heat and any shrapnel, coal from the goats included, both the man and the log were lifted into the air by the force of the blast. Sigurd did his best to regain control of his movement, but it was mostly in vain. He was hurtling through the air. The man had experience as a mage, and had an aptitude for magic, he wasn’t as squishy as your average Fiore civilian. Still, he had a few permanent injuries, and had already suffered quite a a bit of damage in this fight. So, when he slammed against a tree, log soaring narrowly past his face, and slid down to the forest floor, coughing and sputtering, he knew there was no way to rally from the impact.

His vision came in and out of focus as he tried to catch what was going on over on the other side of the battlefield. It seemed Saiko’s undead were finally able to draw some serious blood from their enemy now that all the smaller spirits had been cleared from the battlefield. Hopefully they were able to keep it so occupied that summoning more of the suicidal little bastards was a strict impossibility. Sigurd looked over to where he had launched the satchel of nuts, now unprotected from any offending, hungry goat.

The chef rolled over, and waved an extended thumb at the two mages, so they knew he was alive, his clothes were certainly torn and dirtied, and he was bruised and bloodied. A long day for someone who hadn’t seen a battlefield in at least a few years. The strap of his bag had completely torn from the force of the blast, leaving it several feet away from him, scorched and smoldering. He knew he had brought some first aid supplies, so once the enemy was dealt with, he could get patched up before they made their way out of the forest. Even still, his injuries weren’t so grievous that he needed immediate medical attention to survive, thanks to Rhia. Since she had given him the warning about the blast, he was able to take the necessary actions to prevent anything more serious than a few broken bones, Not to bad for a retiree, eh? he chuckled to himself, further inflaming the pain between his ribs. He crawled to the edge of the field and leaned his back up against a tree. Closing his eyes, he felt himself begin to lose consciousness.

If that girl tries to cast a raise undead spell on me later I swear to God… he thought to himself, drifting off to let his body rest, genuinely believing in Rhia and Saiko’s ability to put the goat thing down before any danger came to him.

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No sooner had she hit the ground the pumpkin detonated, Rhia was glad she had voluntarily gone down this time, the concussion and heat were pretty intense.  Being crushed under than force knocked the wind out of her and the heat singed her cloak…That was quite a bit more force than I had anticipated, I hope Mr. Siegfried’s alive, he looked like he could take a hit.  It’s a good thing my hood was up, could have fried my hair.  ”Holy crap! Is everyone… Alive out there? Big Bada Boom… Am I right?  The red head  had to cough after every few words, as her lungs were still recovering and words hurt right now.  She was quite a bit louder than she intended, likely from her ringing ears, but her feigned enthusiasm got through alright.  

The taller, cloaked and mildly battered woman picked herself up, she left her Jack-o’-Cannon at her feet and stumbled towards the large goat monster, it looked a bit worse for wear.  But at least her two companions were… Probably alive.  Looks like Shisho got a bit serious, I don’t think I’ve seen her use those two, they don’t seem to be enough.  She took a deep breath and pinched the bridge of her nose, it wasn’t really helping with the anxiety for what she was about to do.  I’m gonna do it, it’s going to suck.  You can do this Rhia. You feel great.  You can win. You. Can! DO! THIS! ”AAAAAAAAAAAH!” actual words seemed to have escaped her, but the guttural scream seemed to have finally done it.

The, now hyped, redhead no longer struggled in her slow walk towards the large creature.  She drew her Caster, ejected the shell into her left hand, slid it into her belt and drew a black shell.  That’s when she stopped.  ”I’m firing an eraser at that thing Shisho!”  The redhead yelled in front of her, keeping her face directed at the large goat monster.  She spread her feet out to shoulder width, through her left hand to the left parallel with the ground, shell in hand and right arm straight down in front of her.  Rhia started spinning her Caster by the guard, and rotating her right arm to her left in a wide circle.  Her whole body turning to the left as her right arm went left, then turning right as it went right.  When her arm finally completed a full rotation, pointing down once more, she dropped to her knee and slammed the black eraser shell into the open chamber and locked the breach shut.

”Here goes Shisho!  If this doesn’t work, the rest is on you.” Rhia shouted as she stood up. She put herself into an uncharacteristically solid firing stance and lined up her shot.  As if anticipating her intent, the Caster extended, exposing spiraling vents along the barrel.  She triggered the shell like the rest, but instead of the stored mana exploding out, it pulled mana into itself a little from the air around it, but the vast majority was coming from Rhia.  An internal mechanism started to glow and spin up.  This was similar to the Jack-o’-Cannon, drawing her mana to fire, but way more intense.  She felt that intensity drop off suddenly, signifying it was ready to go.  She pulled the trigger and an intense, thin, but momentary beam of light shot silently from the barrel.  It created a singularity the size of a grain of sand at the point of impact, the thing’s sternum, it flashed bright and compressed space within a three foot radius before flickering out.  Nothing should have remained in that sphere.  

”You’ve got this.” She was able to mumble along with a weak thumbs up.  And that’s when Rhia blacked out.  The Caster, glowing red and venting superheated air, collapsed to its normal shape upon hitting the cold ground.  It landed a couple feet from where the cloaked redhead crumpled in place.

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Saiko’s freakishly tall student once again showed off how sturdy she was by getting up after that blast and jumping right back into the fight. Normally she did not pay too much attention to the other woman’s antics in combat, she did have a tendency to make lots of super weird movements every time she did anything. In case case though the small necromancer did not fail to notice when she said she was going to use her “erasure” shell. The moment before it was fired, her undead closest to the goat man jumped back. It did not actually matter if they were caught in the blast since she could just resummon them, she just did not want to expend the mana if the attack failed.

Thankfully the blast did not fail, and in gruesome fashion the goat creature was spaghettified into the small magic sphere. Once the creature was gone, silence filled the field. Apparently without their summoner the handful of remaining goat spirits could no longer remain and had disappeared. Deciding it was safe, she let all of her undead go back except for the Devout. This ghostly nun followed after her as she walked over to where the two adults had collapsed leaving a small child to deal with the aftermath.

With a silent command she had the Devout cast a healing spell on each of the unconscious mages. Unfortunately it seemed like Sigurd had survived after all. Which meant she would not get the undead personal chef she had wanted. Drat.

Once they had been healed, she kicked her student in the side as hard as she could. So the equivalent of a light nudge. When that did not seem to work she just shook her head in annoyance. “Useless.”

Not wanting (and being fully incapable of) carrying them anywhere, she summoned one of her bone golems. It wrapped one of its boney tentacles around each of the downed adults while Saiko walked over and picked up the bag of nuts and hung it from one of the golem's bones. Everything gathered, she and her golem began making their way back to the capital and the kitchen Sigurd had been at when the whole job began. After all this work she was getting her free dinner.