Isecant - Party based LitRPG-lite / Progression adventure

Horace stayed back but with a clear view of the battlefield. Loading the turret ready for combat with defence down and poison shells.

Wardi activated his shadow dive ability. The Kaha release caused him to emit a brief pulse as the ability activated, and he disappeared into the air. Ready to unleash a sneak attack. Rhua used her strength boosting 'War Cry' ability as she charged at Broekslang.

He's nimble for such a hulking mass, though Wardi's Prancer abilities are second to none. His sneak attacks repeatedly go off whilst his after images, created by his other ability, shadow weaver, took the blows for him. Rhua is trying to turn him to her, but he's a bit more aware than most targets to fall for that.

Lucy and Larry try to chain together powerful arts through Channel casting, a testament to her knowledge and experience as a Haberdashphylacterist. It was also impressive that Larry had it in him to do something so advanced. Holding their hands to the side, they levitated as the power increased. Multiple orbs began forming in the air, rotating around, in front of them, glowing as they are closer to setting off.

Broekslang slaps Rhua and manages to get a blow on Wardi as he spins, but he quickly composes himself. Broekslang sees the art, taking the brief window of opportunity to jump onto the greenhouse.

"HELLO, HANS NICE, TO SEE YOU HIDING IN THERE, BE A GOOD SPORT AND TAKE AN ART OR TWO FOR ME, THE GOODS ARE NOT PLAYING FAIR."

"Larry, we need to stop and use low-tier spells for now!"

"Understood, Lucy!" Larry said with a panic in his voice.

I say to the others, "Get him off that greenhouse. If Broekslang breaks the glass, it may cut Hans from the shards shattering."

Rhua took the initiative to charge at Broekslang, jumping up and colliding with him. He had braced for it, ready and fell back towards the house again, but was largely unfazed.

"That tickled! Let's do this again sometime!" His voice no longer barking shouts at us.

"Oh, will you shut up, I'm tired of you!" Rhua shouted as she smashed her shield into his face.

We piled into him, punching, slashing, blasting, nuking with Arts. It quickly wore him down, and it also seemed that whatever turned him into the hulking mass wore off, and he was reverting to his normal size. He lay there bleeding and panting on the floor, eyes black and blue, bleeding from the mouth.

A slug-like creature crawled out of his mouth, causing Broekslang to go into a seizure on the floor. Writhing around, it seemed aware that another potential host was nearby and tried to crawl towards Wardi, leaping at him.

"A manipucent! That explains his crazy behaviour changes. It's not safe to be freely roaming around," Larry said as he wrote a seal onto a scroll, then pulled a jar out of his backpack to use on the manipucent, trapping it inside. You think you've seen everything in this world, I thought.

"This is only the fourth time I've seen one of these in action, but it's a first to see it being used on someone of an elite status," Larry seemed to be a bit taken aback.

"What's up, kid?" Wardi asked, patting him on the head.

"Well … this has all been difficult to process, I feel like I'm panicking, this is all so much." He said, putting his head in his hands, beginning to sob quietly. Horace walked over to Larry, wrapping his arm around Larry's head, then gave him a thumbs up with his spare arm. Attaboy, I thought.

I walked over, gave him a light little nudge and spoke. "It's alright bud, happens to the best of us, you did a damn good job out there, keep your head up high." Whilst we were tending to Larry's crisis, Rhua convened with Lucy in the background.

"The barrier is fading now that Broekslang is returning to normal. I can feel the mana fuelling the spell is waning. Lucy said with a smile on her little cheeks.

"We should go check on the ladies of the manor and try to get help for that young man upstairs, then send him on the way with Larry, whilst we get things in order Rhua said. Rhua began heading inside whilst Lucy came over to tell us the plan. Larry, now calmer, was happy to wait for us with Hans at the garden gate.

I went looking for Lady Von before I joined the others walking up the stairs, and called out to her in the armoury.

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"Lady Von, are you there? Broekslang is back to his old self again"

"Thank the heavens, good sir!" A voice spoke aloud from one of the armoured figures in the corner.

"We just have to clear up before you head out", I said before they began taking off the armour. There are traps still kicking around, so it's best you let us adventurers remove them. I'll close the door to be safe," I continued, trying to reassure them.

Rejoining my party members up the stairs, I told them to stop for a minute. I took out a dampener potion and threw it around us before I spoke again. Splish-splosh-splash, terrible sounding noises these things make when activated. "We need to address the elphunt in the room. What are we going to do with all the victims in the entrance hall? We are not a clean-up crew"

"Figured we were just going to ask Lucy to use her Arts, to be honest, it's the simplest method," Wardi said with sad tones.

"I will not do that, there must be an investigation!" Lucy protested, firm in her words. Don't think we'll be going down that route, then, I thought to myself.

"Lady von thinks her husband just lost the plot a little bit, I don't think she knows that he had a couple of baker's dozens up in the loft baking away in the not-so-great type of baking way.

Wardi said with a raised brow. "That is a little bit dark, mate."

"True, but it's 100% accurate and you know it."

"Let's just make BLINDFOLDS, it'll do TEMPORARILY,"

"Aye, we can trick the ladies using the guy upstairs to mask the scent. Bring him down, he's probably out cold by now anyway, then we can head out of here with the ladies in tow, say there are sight traps in place, and we need them to be blinded." Wardi did well with his thinking cap on this idea.

"It's so stupid that this just may work," Rhua said. Reaching the room, Larry told us he put Calder in, suddenly panic ensues when we realise he's no longer there, and it appears the blood has mysteriously disappeared that was near where he lay.

"Well, that was unexpected. Do you think he made it to safety? "Lucy expressed a dumbfounded look on her face.

"No way, he was on the edge before we found him. It hasn't been that long between finding him and coming back." At this point, we all had to shield our eyes as an extraordinary white light burned through the entire building.

It must have been the same light as from the other night, the one that the townies had been talking about. Wardi used his Lightfoot ability and ran out to find the cause of the light.

"ALL THE BODIES HAVE GONE! THERE'S JUST A RANDOM LITTLE GIRL ON THE FLOOR DOWN HERE."

The pace picked up drastically upon hearing this news, and when we finally reached the room, not just the bodies, but the blood was gone, and there in the centre of what looked like circular markings from an art that had activated was a young girl.

Rhua and Lucy rushed to her, but she was unresponsive; they looked at us, worried. Lucy tried to cast Bountiful Flow, the healing Art. Words came, but her Lùth didn't work. "I-I can't cast any arts!?"

Rhua used a soother salve on the girl, the thwonk sound it made as it activated and began squelching…nothing happened.

Panic and tension are starting to build in the room, it's heavy in the air. I search my bags for wakey-wakey salts, shaking the bottle when I do, then throw it at Rhua.

"If that doesn't wake her, then I don't know what will," I said.

Rhua popped off the cap, held it close to the young girl's nose…nothing happened, and Rhua looked down at the floor, shaking her head.

"Is she dead? Wardi said softly to Rhua. "I don't know but what else can we do?" Rhua replied to him.

"There's NOTHING to be done, l-l-l-leave this p-p-place, my dessert is f-f-f-finally there."

An eerie screeching and cracking wall of voices came from the gaping hole in the ceiling. Large, thick tendrils began to slowly creep out, spreading across the ceiling and down the walls. With almost no time to react, Calder or what remained of Calder, was on the floor in the entrance hall, all but a small portion of his face was gone, just a sliver on the left side visible with a fraction of hair and his eye. The transformed side of his face was made up of many eyes, honeycomb in arrangement and milky in colour, as if its soul had already parted us and gone to the next life.

He began shaking violently and spoke more ominous words.

"S-s-so many of you here, a dessert platter is very unexpected, y-y-yet so welcoming!

His bones were cracking & snapping as he did so. His outfit was torn to shreds as more tendrils tore out from him. His skin began turning whiter and whiter, becoming a pearlescent white in colour, almost ethereal in appearance. It reminded me of the servants of Serilia, only…not quite meant to exist in that place either? Its tendrils began growing thorns as big as shortswords, which began smashing the walls.

Rhua activated three different abilities: 'Bulwark, Phalanx, Prism Mail' Looking like a humanoid light bulb with all the defensive enhancements active, she jumped in front of us. Her physical shield raised up, and further ability shields formed in the air.

Tendrils quickly wrapped around the first shield, and the creature in front of us unleashed a force from its terrifying eye, shattering our first line of defence as if it were paper, taking control of the broken pieces and launching various shards at us.

"YIKES!" Rhua shouted as she was pelted with attacks from all angles.

"D-did it just break all the abilities and use it against us?" Lucy shouted whilst retreating to the staircase.

"Don't use anything that the thing may be able to reuse!" Rhua followed up in response, and Horace began trying to synthesise something else, scared the creature would use his own ammunition against us.