Open On the hunt

[Roland Rutledge]

Isulus wasn't exactly how Roland remembered it. For some reason in his mind's eye, he pictured a serene forest, overflowing with nature and beauty as far as the eye could see. But as he trekked his way through the overgrown brush he couldn't help but be annoyed by the area. Large mangled tree roots ran rampant through the forest's floor, blocking straight baths forward, and making the footing unreliable. At first, he had tried making his way around them but found himself running around in circles making no progress forward. With no other choice, he claimed up on and over them, entering into the lower level of the canopy and forcing him to hop from tree to tree. It was a lot of effort, and to make matters worse the heat seemed to be trapped in the upper foliage causing him to sweat profusely making it necessary to stop and refill his water meter quite often.

Thankfully, it seemed the game had re-introduced alchemy during his time off the server. So a quick potion of hydration was something easy enough to produce in a material-rich environment such as Isulus. Stopping for a moment to take advantage of a nearby fruit tree he couldn't help but reminisce of the times he spent in a drunken stupor in this game, laying for hours in blissful fields without a care in the world.

"And that's exactly where we went wrong. You wasting your time here ruined our life." The voice in his head interrupted.

Every time Roland heard that voice, he felt a wave of guilt and nausea. It reminded him of how frail he really was, and brought a question as to whether or not he truly existed. At least here, in the middle of nowhere, he could face it head-on, rather than arguing with it inside his head.

"You made your own decisions. It wasn't me, or this game that sent you to prison." Roland said out loud, not that it mattered, the voice would hear it even if he had just thought it.

"No, it was your instance in staying in here as long as possible that got me caught. All for what? To save a few kids? I've lost everything because of you, I'm not going to let you do it again. Get moving. Keep following that thread." The voice said referring to the long strand of ribbon that shot out from his chest aiming deeper into the forest's depths. It was what had caused Roland to investigate the area, a new feature apparently called a Fate Thread. Supposedly it tied you to someone or something with which you shared a fate. What that fate wasn't something Roland could determine, but when he had come to the edges of Tangleweaves he saw it for the first time. The voice in his head seemed to think it was related to their mission, and Roland wanted to know more about what this ability meant so they followed it.

Taking a careful jump, Roland landed on the next set of branches before jumping again and again, and preparing to yet one more time but found that he could not. Checking his footing, he saw his boots were stuck firmly to a span of webbing that ran across the branch. To make matters worse he could *feel* something shift above, something huge streaked across the upper layer of the canopy. Quickly Roland cut himself free and jumped to a new branch seconds before a strange multi-limbed winged creature the size of a building flew down slamming into the spot where he had just been caught. "The hel-" Before he could even process it, the monstrosity howled and let loose a stream of smaller spiders from its mouth aimed right at Roland himself!

 

[Alphabet Chocolate]

One moment she was at Finweald, trying to figure out how to get to Lake Horatio to fish for sushi and then bam! She was stranded on mushroom planet. Seriously, Alpha did not remember this place being so...fungi-y since the last time she went. Although, her memory might be a bit wonky. Probably blocking out the traumatizing memories, that giant mushroom (was it a mykosis, mushroosis, or mycolossus?) was, quite frankly, horrifying.

It brought her back to better times, though. The mushroom eating, not so much. The adventuring, though. The action, the thrills, the feeling of fighting with her friends by her side.

"Huh," Alpha glanced down to see her fingers shaking. Maybe a little adventure would do her some good, it felt like her bones would jump out of her skin. "Where would I get some fun around here?" she looked around, ducking underneath a giant mushroom here, and looking up a fruit tree over there. A smirk slowly cut itself across Alpha's lips. It'd be awesome to look around the forest from there, and it looked like a fun climb to take her mind off her sweaty palms.

Alpha hand snaked to her waist and pulled out her dagger. Stabbing into the trunk of the tree, Alpha used the handle as leverage and pulled herself up, wrapping her arms around the tree and digging her fingers into the bark before she pulled the blade out and stabbed it in further up. "Almost there!" she grinned as the top of the tree became clear to the eye to see.

With a deep huff, Alpha stretched her arms towards the sky. "Hello world! Alphabet Chocolate is here!"

Her scream seemed toecho through the forest and a spark of mischief crawled its way to her head. "You're all losers! You hear me?! Losers!" she laughed. "Weak in the name of---what's that?"

From a short distance away, Alpha saw the silhouette of some sort of...multi-legged monstrosity? Yeah, this just wasn't her day, was it? First, she was all alone. Second, there's a thing out there that made her want to hightail it out of there. Look, Alpha was brave, yes, but to a limit. And the two things she feared were being alone and spiders, and that thing very much resembled a spider.

She prepared to run away, her legs hanging off the branch as she tried to figure out the best way to jump off. She pulled up her screen, clicked the button for investigation mode, and as she looked down, she noticed a name at the corner of her eye. "Rudolf?"

The world stopped around her as she noticed the familiar figure in the distance, recognizable anywhere. Cornering him: the beast. "OH SUGAR HONEY ICED TEA, RUDOLF! RUDOLF! OH MY GOD, RUDOLF!" she called, but she couldn't get his attention. "Oh fudge it!" Alpha leaped from her perch and, with a wave of her dagger, sped up the time around her. The distance closed and, as Rudolf's face grew clearer and clearer and Alpha's eyes stung a bit more, the thing made its move.

"Aww no, Rudolf!" she wouldn't make it in time. Honestly, even if she did, what was she gonna do about the spiders? She might've cared about Rudolf, a lot she might add, she'd die for him. But spiders was where the line was drawn. She raised up her arm. "Rudolf, you gotta go fast!" she yelled, magic pooling around her as she wrapped Rudolf in time magic. Hopefully, it'd give him a little speed boost against those spiders. If not, well, at least Alpha would have a corpse to bury this time. Hopefully.

Memories flashed by her. Supporting Rudolf was a bit nostalgic, and she couldn't help the curve of her lips or the wetness in her eyes. "Live, you purple-haired, red-nosed Rudolf man!"

 

[Tetsunosuke]

Isulus. This place is basically the entrance for those who intended to move towards the region of Tangleweaves, but anyone had not ventured beyond this area to map the region, nor did anyone managed to find Yladia again amidst the turmoil within their neighbors, for maybe a good reason. If the great city of Vintergard fell prey to the airships that they do not know from where they originated, they would not stand a chance given that they had joined forces with the people that had erected it against the Kingdom of Falderen. Tetsunosuke set out to find out the situation for himself, and maybe file some more examples of wildlife for the MIT in the future.

The vegetation within the region of Isulus had been overgrown to a point that Tetsunosuke could not use the land vehicle transformation of his mech, and so he then proceeded in the aerial mode. As he was flying low enough without crashing through the trees, Tetsunosuke scoured for some significant fauna in the region, specifically, a big enough species that would cause adventurers a lot of trouble. All he saw was some common animals, some plants that the MIT had already known anyway as being dangerous, and the occasional beastfolk, Yladian, and myconid hunting parties. But then, he saw it: from a first glance it looked like a spider, but its physical characteristics looked really different from the typical chitinous form that he had commonly seen. It looked like it had caught up with an incoming prey, what looked like to be a warrior that had gone through many battles, with yet another person standing behind his back, who looked like she was trying to do support duties for the warrior. Tetsunosuke then immediately transformed his vehicle into battle mech form, which looked like a giant samurai warrior and landed at the front of this monstrosity, right beside the warrior, and drew a short sword on its back.

"Sengoku-class, Takeda Shingen, deploying! Are you all right there?" A voice boomed from the mech, what seemed to be a youthful one.

 

[Roland Rutledge]

The stream coming from the monster's mouth was pitch black and caught unaware as he was Roland couldn't react in time as he was suddenly immersed in a thick swarm of biting, crawling, and otherwise nasty dime-sized spiders. He saw his health quickly dropping, and a handful of poison status effects appear in his UI as a thousand venomed fangs bit into him as one.

"Live, you purple-haired, red-nosed Rudolf man!"

The words knocked him out of shock as the time dilated giving him a moment upon which he reacted on pure instinct alone he kicked forward and bolted across the sky as his form became that of pure chronomancy empowered lightning, that ripped and zipped and zagged around the tree branches, burning away, and otherwise discarding the disgusting creatures as he did so. He had forgotten he could even do that. Perhaps a byproduct of it being one of the last skills he had acquired. "Or maybe, that one was just me" the voice in his head offered, but he shook it away, as he looked for the owner of the other voice from before. Only one person had ever called him that nickname, but that'd be impossible.

Before seeing anyone else, his eyes landed on @Tetsunosuke who seemed wildly out of place with his samurai mobile armor. Had he crossed over from another game? Either that or this place had gone through a lot of changes since the last time he had been logged on. Regardless the machine seemed far too large and too slow to stand a chance against the creature. "And what exactly do you know about mechs anyway?" the voice interrupted again, but Roland ignored it and yelled at the man, "Run! This thing is dangerous! And fast!"

Either the noise or the stunt from behind attracted the winged creature back towards him, and it came barrelling down towards him from the sky, giving Roland his first chance to see the creature in clear daylight...

Credit to @Vale

Even seeing the creature up close, Roland had no idea what it was. It had the features of both an insect and a reptile. Despite its wings, he was sure it wasn't a dragon, for some reason dragons didn't exist in this world, just every other flying reptile you could think of including alligators. Regardless, each of its arms seems to be razor-sharp, as it used them as blades, easily cutting through the tree's think car-sized branches as Roland hastily hopped from surface to surface, having no time to worry about a counter-attack. He had built up a lot of poison resistance from his alchemy "training" but the venom from before was beginning to take a toll on both his stamina and his health, slowing him down significantly.

Unbeknownst to him, his mad dash earlier had taken him in the opposite direction of @Alphabet Chocolate but with the chaos that was occurring and his frantic moves to avoid his opponent, he finally got a glimpse of her. "Impos-" he stuttered, not even able to get the word out of his mouth before he was forced to dodge again. Had she managed to break free from Vermilion's control? Or had she been trapped this entire time? It would explain why she hadn't logged out. Thousands of possibilities ran through his mind as he was forced to keep moving and moving, but slowly but surely he felt the rhythm of the fight. No, on some deeper level he realized it wasn't that, it was that he now had a purpose other than some inane mission. He wanted to find out what happened to Alpha. He had to.

He just happened to have a massive, multilegged, reptilian, insectoid creature standing in his way of that.

No big deal.

 

[Alphabet Chocolate]

Okay, yeah, Alpha knew that there was a winged...spider...thing, but really? Rudolf noticed Mr. Gundam Ripoff over there but not her? Hello, your long lost BFF is over here! No "I miss you" or "Hello" or even a "Thank you!" Did Rudolf forget all his manners since they last saw each other? Alpha seethed, swiping at her eyes with her cotton sleeve. "Hey Voltron!" she yelled, pointing her finger straight at him. She pushed down on the wonder bubbling in her at the sight of the machine. She had more important things to focus on. "I challenge you for the title of Rudolf's best friend!"

Then, with her declaration made, she turned back to the fight. Just looking at the thing sent shivers down Alpha's spine. Spiders. If there was one thing in the world she could choose to hate, it would be that, although the dragon part made it look a tad bit cool. Just a tad. She might not be touching this thing with a ten-foot pole but she'd be darned if she let Rudolf get eaten, even if he was a rude, inconsiderate, awful, ugly jerk! Maybe she could sacrifice robo-boy to the thing instead and then Rudolf and her can have that big, happy reunion. But then Rudolf would be like: "Oh no, Alpha, why'd you do that?"

Then Alpha would have to be like: "It was to save you, my besto friendo!" But then Rudolf would be angry at her and then they'd break off their friendship until another world boss, like Azachnius or something, tries to destroy the world and then they'd have an epic teamup and be friends again to save the world. Or something like that. Which would be cool, but the time in-between would be awful, so ritualistic human offering was off the table for now.

So Plan B: Temporary Teamup it was. "Okie dokie Voltron-okey, the challenge is to save Rudolf! Whoever saves him the most wins!" And then Alpha jumped in after them, sliding into the shadows. It was one of the cooler things she had learned since the day nearly everyone disappeared. Peering through, Alpha felt almost disappointed. Rudolf seemed to be moving slower than she remembered him being. Was he injured? Or did he just get fat since the last time she saw him. It was awfully common to go to a family reunion after a few years and learn that Uncle George ate one too many Slim Jim's since he was last seen. Rudolf must've really let go.

Well, no amount of time magic would help Rudolf at this rate. If you feed a turtle steroids, it's still not gonna outrace a box with legs. So, Plan C: Illusions. Stepping out of the shadows, a distance behind the spider thing, she waved her hand, her finger tracing the air in the shape of a piece of wavy spaghetto. Then, two Rudolfs appeared beside the man himself in a puff of smoke. "Don't worry Rudolf! Er..." she looked between them. "Whichever one of you is the real Rudolf!"

 

[Tetsunosuke]

As the Takeda Shingen descended, Tetsunosuke then assessed the situation around him, but was then interrupted by the person he was saving, telling him to retreat, since the monster he was battling with was too strong and too fast. How was he... "Retreat is not the way of a hero! I will save everyone no matter the cost!" ...God damn it. Whenever he was in a mech and what looked like a kaiju arrived, he could not stop blurting out phrases that would remind someone of a tokusatsu hero. But not losing his resolve, he then drew one of the swords from the sheath on the back of his mech. But as he then resolved to try to at least guard the man from the arachnoid monstrosity that was trying to chase him down, it then saw it chop down entire trees, and so he was at an impasse so as to what they should do to fight this one. Or at least run away from it.

That was when he noticed a person who seemed to be yelling at him. Really? You are arguing about friendship now? Right in the middle of battle? What about... "How about I also offer you friendship? With the power of our combined friendships we will defeat the enemy!" ...God damn it again with the cheesy lines. Now he really had to commit. More so, that person who was battling with... "arachnosaurus". Yes. Arachnosaurus. That's what's he's going to name this one. More so, that person who was battling with the Arachnosaurus was going straight towards that woman, and so he had to move fast. While that woman then summoned an illusion of the man that was battling the Arachnosaurus, the mech then moved towards the woman, and while she was under the mech in between its feet, he then drew another sword, and then crossed the swords at his front. "You shall not pass beyond this area!"