Private Eastern Brisshal Sitting Stones

[Corsair]

Corsair woke to bird song. She felt calm. Immensely so. Her mind was like a still pool, sheened over with the light of rising sun.

There was a jacket over her. Over them. Brutus was sleeping beside her, a massive pillar of reliable, dependable friendship. She paid him little mind. There was something she needed to do. She searched for it amidst her still and stagnant thoughts.

Slowly, like algae growing along the side of a submerged root, she moved from under the jacket. The leather was heavy. Was this his heavy armor? As she slowly became aware of more of her surroundings, a voice inside her called out, drawing her back inside.

Corsair snapped to the front. She felt fantastic. Her hunger and thirst bars were barely nudging half, but there was plenty of time before a well deserved rest, and an absolute treasure trove of quests to hand in. She searched her pockets, and then the pockets of the coat. Nothing.

She nudged Brutus, gently at first and then more roughly. "Brutus. Where is my spider? I have to get this spirit out of me."

@Brutus Dahlgren

 

[Brutus Dahlgren]

Brutus stirred slightly, groaning slightly as his eyes fluttered open. This...this was not his bed. His eyes shot down to where he had cradled Corsair, her purple eyes looking up at him expectantly. Had he...slept in game? He had no time to contemplate the ramifications of what that would mean for his IRL time, he was concerned with more pressing matters. He adjusted slightly and his entire body lit up with pain, illiciting a soft "Fuck" from his lips as his vision flashed red. His thirst and hunger bars were flashing on low, his mouth felt like a desert, his stomach like a vacccum, and his body like a punching bag. Taking a deep breath, he fished through his inventory and pulled out <Bloodless Wolf Spider Half (L)> and <Bloodless Wolf Spider Half (R)> and gingerly set them in Corsair's outstretched hands.

"Mornin Cor, how'd you sleep?" He managed to ask with a slightly raspy voice. He reached into thin air and his waterskin appeared. Raising it to his lips he found it to be bone dry, much to his disappointment. "Fuck."

 

[Corsair]

"I'm wonderful, thanks to you," she said, taking the halves and putting them aside. "Here. Take these," she said, giving him the last of her corn. In return she took the water skin and held it under her hand. Calling from the spirit still inside her, cool, clear water formed in her hand, spilling over as she cupped her tiny hand and funneled what she could into the mouth of the flask.

"And there is your water. I assume you slept poorly? This is far from your usual bed." She stretched, and there were several mechanical pops and creaks as her metallic musculature slid back into place.

She sat down across from him and, taking up the halves the spider, set to work repairing it. It was a patchy job, done with whatever materials she had on hand, and when it was done the spider was down to six legs. One had been severed completely, and lost in the fight. The other had been repurposed as welding material to seal the ring cut around the body.

"Good as new," she said dryly. She looked around for her frog, but the last place she'd seen it was attached to Brutus' ear. "Do you have Fujitsu?"

 

[Brutus Dahlgren]

"You know." Brutus drawled, shoveling uncooked corn into his mouth and crunching on it. Gods he would murder for an actual breakfast right about now, this felt like the worst hangover he'd ever experienced cranked to fucking eleven. "It could have been worse honestly. Body of metal or not, you make an alright pillow in a pinch" He reached under the collar of his shirt where he could feel the frog mech suction cupped to his chest nibbling his pectoral. He peeled it from skin, which brought equal parts discomfort to him and elicited a low supersonic growl from the creature as he handed it over to his partner, bartering it for some water. "Glad to see you're in better spirits, you uh...kinda went apeshit there for a sec."

He poured some water into his mouth and sloshed it around, letting is moisturize his dry mouth before swallowing. He watched he work intently, sipping water and chowing down. They were most certainly going to spend some of their reward money on food, and booze, and maybe painkillers if they had any running around.

 

[Corsair]

"Oh yes, I'm very versatile," Corsair said, as she took Fujitsu the frog from Brutus. She gripped the barely moving spider in her other hand, and there was a stream of pale pink pink smoke as the now bloodied wolf spirit moved from one construct to the other.

The spider began to writhe, crawling around in search of something to bite. Corsair calmly put it away into a little drawstring bag at her hip, which she cinched and tied shut. "Lots of work to be done with that one," she said.

Then it was Sam's turn, and she closed her eyes, pulling out the deep, deep spirit that had settled in her body. The puddle spirit flowed into the frog body, and suddenly Corsair could relax. She no longer felt like she was trying to fight against her own head for dominance. "I. Well, yes. That was the 'ace' I was telling you about before. I can certainly defend myself if it comes down to it." She held herself up high as she talked, as if made proud by the face that she'd almost torn the throat out of the rogue menace.

"You look terrible," she said, as he guzzled the water and uncooked corn. "Let's get some breakfast. My treat."

 

[Brutus Dahlgren]

"Thanks." He quipped, groaning as he slid a hand down to the ground to try and push himself off the ground. Everything ached, everything groaned, and his hastily cauterized cuts looked like they were threatening to tear back open at a moments notice. "Yeah, Mr Spider-dude needs to go to puppy school and get some training. He's uh...very feral." He rolled his eyes, which somehow also managed to hurt.

"As for your ace...well it sure as fuck managed to work." It took a moment, but he was finally on his feet, swaying slightly as his vision blurred a bit and his balance threatened to send him back to the ground. "It sure as shit bought us the W there. Fucker was like...using the iron in the wolfblood like armor...if I hadn't." He grit his teeth and steadied himself on the standing stone for a moment as the whole world began to swirl. "If I hadn't remembered what you said about...pyromancy and physical resistance...we'd be waking up at a spawn point"

 

[Corsair]

Corsair put a hand out to steady her friend, slipping Sam onto his shoulder as she did. The little frog was far more docile now that the hungry wolf spirit was gone, and he exuded passive healing across Brutus' body. At the very least it would help with his eyeball pains.

"I think it was your giant cannon and flaming blast that won us the day," she corrected, as the pair started their trek through the forest. "Honestly I don't remember a huge amount about what happened once Fujitsu took over, but I'm pretty sure I just set you up for the big hit. That fire and fury? That was all you, hero." Corsair smiled, a rare moment of genuine, unguarded happiness.

They had done it. The haemomancer had been completely destroyed. That had been the hardest task on their list and somehow they'd finished it before anything else.

Back in town Corsair steered them for the Bee and Cheese, the nearest and cheapest tavern. They hadn't claimed their bounty just yet, and Corsair was sure that Brutus would be looking for quantity over quality.

 

[Brutus Dahlgren]

"I refuse to take all the credit. You opened me up for the shot, and told me how to take it. It's like eighty percent you, all I did was pull the trigger." Her smile had caught him off guard, like someone's halogen headlights on their lifted Ford Pickup truck, it was blinding. It was also infectious, spreading to his lips as well as they staggered to town. "If I'm a hero..." he paused and turned to her tussling her hair. "Then you are too."

Back in town they drew quite some attention. He was bloody and beater, she...actually didn't look that much worse for wear honestly. His health bar had slowly pulsed upwards with the help of Sam, and his pain had slowly trickled away from him. By the time they were seated in the bar, he could almost see straight.

Almost.

The waitress hovered over their table, looking rather concernedly at the giant, who simply shot her one of his award winning smiles and a thumbs up. "Go ahead and scramble me a dozen eggs, five flapjacks, and stack a plater with as much bacon as you can physically manage." He ordered, looking dizzy. "And if you wouldn't mind as well, I know this one is a little...weird. Could you have like...a barback or something go look for Old man Stankins? Tell em Bruce is..." he yawned. "Tell em Brutus is looking for him over here, got new about the wolves and the blooddude."

 

[Corsair]

Corsair chimed in before the confused waitress could hurry off. They'd been here before and the woman was used to her not ordering anything, but this morning she could feel she slow drain of her bars. "And if you can bring me the grease from the bacon, and maybe anything that gets burnt while we're here? And if nothing gets burnt just some bacon for me, and really blacken it up. Make it snappy. The bacon, that is." The waitress gave her a horrified look, but Corsair held her stare until the woman looked away. "And orange juice. All pulp. That's all." The waitress left, unhappy.

She felt electrified. The long rest at the standing stones had filled her with life and it was like she was looking at a bright, shining world. "So we're heroes," she said, nodding. She liked the sound of it. "GunDame make their first real stamp on the world. We'll have to go back to finish that damn list of vegetation for Gertrude, but I almost don't want to." She shook her head, "How much was the bounty for the Hunters Guild? We figured out what was causing the attacks too, so we can claim the bonus. The haemomancer was," she pulled the folded papers out of her bag and found the quest posting. "850 gold pieces upon proof of death and receipt of corpse by the city watch."

 

[Brutus Dahlgren]

Brutus' eyes widened. "Uhh..." he pauses, drawling for a moment. "I didn't uh...grab his corpse..." He cleared his throat. "Was too busy carrying you and Fujitsu..." he blinked for a moment, the realization of what happened donning on him.

"MOTHERFUCKER." He smashed his hands on the table, causing the silverware that had been placed before them to jump a bit. "God fucking- SHIT. We're gonna have to go back with the guard and hunt down that fuckers body and hope it didn't despawn or some piece of shit scavenger got it."

That was one way to deflate the moment. But soon Old Man Stankins, the leader of the hunters guild and ex captain of the guard came sauntering in. He was a weird mix of...Aragorn style ranger aestetics met long ranger. He had a cowboy hat, handlebar mustache, black leather armor adorned with rusty metal studs, and a crossbow hung on his shoulder.

"Brucie." The man called out, swaggerin over. "I hear you've got news bout them there wolves in the forest eh?"

 

[Corsair]

Corsair waved a hand at Brutus. "It's fine. With the amount of blood and magic there no sane creature will go anywhere near that corpse, and I doubt a quest objective will despawn."

"And worst comes to worst, we can claim that we killed him and when there are no more attacks we'll be proven right."

Old Man Stankins entered, and Corsair felt surprisingly reassured that a man with such rugged style and obvious power was in charge of the town's largest guild. The waitress dropped off the first round of breakfast in from of Brutus and Corsair stepped in to handle the talking. "The wolves shouldn't be a problem anymore," she explained. "We found one already dead out near the gully to the West of town, and tracked its killer to a cave in the hillside. It turns out there was a haemomancer killing the wolves off for their blood, and that's what drove the rest of them into a frenzy."

The waitress returned, dropping off a plate of blackened bacon and a glass of orange juice as thick as oobleck. She took a sip, chewed, and swallowed. "We killed the haemomancer," she explained, "so the wolves should be back to normal now."

 

[Brutus Dahlgren]

"That sounds mighty fine," the man drawled, looking over the two of them and the feast before them. He didn't even bat an eye at the strange feast the android had taken. "I don't spose either of you has any proof on ya? Just to be sure?"

Brutus sighed and looked to the old man. "We uh, were in kind of a bad state at the end of the fight. We're still recovering, but when we're recharged team GunDame will be out there to grab you your proof and bring it on back. You have my word."

The man turned to look at Brutus and raised an eyebrow. "Team GunDame eh? I like it, very uh..." he drawled. "Inspired. Tell ye what, I'm gonna pencil this in as a job well done, and if any one comes in bringin in a Hemo mancer head or somethin, I'll chalk em up as vultures takin up your work. Get me the head within three days time and I'll go ahead and have payment for both the wolves AND the varmit dropped off." He turned back to Corsair and tipped his hat to her. "Gmornin to you ma'am, hope you two have a lovely breakfast and a blessed day." With that he was off, leaving Brutus to begin wolfing his food down like someone was about to steal it.

"Tell ya what." He managed between bites. "Whoever coded that man needs a raise, cause he's gotta be the most immersive motherfucker I have ever met."

 

[Corsair]

"It may not be significant proof," Corsair said, once Brutus finished his explanation of their troubles. "But if you'll have a look at as for a moment I'm sure you can see some circumstantial evidence." She indicated the vast red splotches that had stained her entire outfit. "I can assure you that none of this blood is mine, and very little of it is Brutus'."

Once the man departed Corsair finished her drink and settled in to watch Brutus feast. "Maybe he's a self-insert," Corsair suggested, taking a bite of her ashen bacon. "He's lovely though. Wonderfully designed, and that accent sounds right at home here. Thought I guess the fact that he seems to intensely immersive might have wrapped right back around to pull you out of the experience," she added.

"Very glad he's on our side. You must have sweet-talked him quite effectively before this for him to just side with you like that! I haven't spent a lot of time talking to the NPCs in this town though," she admitted. "I prefer my information more directly, as I'm sure you're aware."

 

[Brutus Dahlgren]

"You might be the brains." Brutus slurped down a tall glass of juice. "And we share our weight on the combat side of things, but I am most definitely our charm." He waggled his eyebrows. "When you're offline doing whatever it is you do IRL, I like to go off on little side tangents. Nothing ever too serious since I don't have my lovely ace in the hole, but I do a lot of side content. From my experience there's about..." he paused and counted on his fingers for a bit, swapping hands and then shaking his head.

"About twenty or so radial quest givers in this town. Between them and the Questboard they provide most of the living repeatable content in this town. There might be a couple fixed one off quests for players, but for the most part the system seems fairly...dynamic. I've spent a lot of time helping them out, whether its small potatoes or if I need to recruit a local newbie to drag along. These jobs pay next to nothing, but the reputation you earn with the people, well, that's priceless." He scarfed down two more pancakes before continuing.

"Old man Stankins has like, three kids and nine grandkids. HIs grandson Tommy has a cat that loves to go missing, I shit you not I've found that furball in some of the weirdest fuckin places. Tommy's momma, who's Stankins' eldest daughter, often asks me for help weeding her garden and gathering wood to fix their fence which finds some of the wildest ways to break. Seriously, it's like a rube goldberg of weird shit that happens to snap those pickets." Munch munch, sip, swallow. "It aint much, and it doesn't put a lot of gold in my pocket or give a lot of EXP, but its honest work and emotionally fulfilling. It's also gonna help us fuel our reputation"

 

[Corsair]

"You're laying important groundwork," Corsair said, noting the constant, supportive role that Brutus was playing in their establishment of GunDame. "We get plenty of EXP and gold from the quests we do together, don't we? If you're happy to continue with such simple grinding then I'm sure we will have become household names in this hamlet within a week."

Restless, she rose from the table as soon as Brutus had finished his meal. She dropped a few coins onto the table and waved a polite goodbye to the waitress, who was already on her way to clear their plates. "Let us return to the gulley and claim the body of the haemophile."

Fifteen minutes walk and they were at the body of the drained wolf. Another ten and they were through their makeshift hiding spot and at the mouth of the cave.

"Still here," Corsair said, filled with vindication. The halves of their opponent lay where they'd fallen. His upper half sunken into the scorched ground, and his legs tossed up against the cliffside like a heavy pair of pants. Around them the accumulated blood and gore lay thick on the ground, and though no wolves had come to claim this cannibalistic prize the air was thick with flies. "Do we need the body or just the head?"

 

[Brutus Dahlgren]

Brutus covered his mouth and nose with a rag as they approached, his breakfast threatening to make a second appearance given the rank thickness of blood in the air. The morning heat hadn't done them any favors, and the man had released the contents of his bowls upon death. The resulting cocktail of flesh at the starting stage of decomp, shit, and an ocean of blood was overpowering for his bestial senses. The giant retched a bit and pinched his nose shot.

"I-" another retch. "Think we just need the head."

He wasn't sure why, but for some reason he was half expecting the man to have gotten up. Like this guy was going to be some long term BBEG of their forest ventures. Maybe some creepy blood cult would revive him, or the goblins had been using him to gather reagents for some fucked up macabre ritual. But no, here he was, dead as fuck. He would turn to Corsair and raise an eyebrow.

"Do you...have anything to cut it off with?"

 

[Corsair]

The heat of day had transformed the lump of flesh and blasted blood into a mound of nightmare fuel. Flies parted as she knelt down next to the body, though they quickly returned to their grizzly feast. "Just the head," Corsair repeated.

She didn't have a knife, but she had the next best thing: an augmentation. Being a magia had many perks, and with a few taps on her palm she activated a blade embedded in the side of her hand. The buzz of charged magitech filled the air, and she sliced cleanly through the rotting flesh of the haemomancer's neck, taking only two passes to reach the spine, three to saw through it, and just one to slice through what little tendon and skin remained.

Corsair tore off his head and stood up, her hands and legs now covered in gore. In life she'd had little interaction with serious injury, and now missing smell and taste she had even less to anchor her to realistic violence. It was all just a game. And each gory task took her one step closer to victory.

She held the head out to Brutus. "Here. Let's get back to town."

 

[Brutus Dahlgren]

Brutus tried his best not to retch as Corsair brutally sawed through the mans neck with all the skill and ease of a butcher carving up a pig. The smell, the blood, the flies, all were liable to make his breakfast come up. Instead, he found himself clutching his mouth forcibly blocking the smell from his nose and clenching his lips shut. When she extended the head towards him, he gingerly reached forward with a free hand, took it, and instantly banished it to the confines of his UI.

"Jesus fuck Corsair." He grunted as he quickly shuffled away from the day old disaster., "I know you can't smell or taste, but you really just...cleaved through the fucker with no problem eh?" He found himself dumping some water on his hand to clear the bloody gunk from where he'd touched the head from and shivered slightly.

"You've gotta be like...a cop, or a surgeon or something IRL if that shit doesn't effect you."

 

[Corsair]

"Biomechanical intelligence and applications," Corsair said, the blade retracting into her hand like a single, silver claw. "Once you've spent months implanting an artificial nervous system in a vivisected frog them operating on anything dead loses its impact."

While it was true that she couldn't smell any of the blood or muck that squished under under her feet, she could almost smell the mint. A phantom memory from the scented wax balm she used to rub under her nose while working in the lab. Some days she missed the ability to taste, but Corsair doubted she would ever miss her sense of smell.

They returned to the village in short order and delivered the head to Old Man Stankins, who seemed less than pleased that it wasn't at least bagged or washed. But, he was a professional, and also informed them that there hadn't been any wolf attacks reported by the villagers overnight. "Wonderful. Just as expected."

Their reward was substantial, as expected, and Corsair let Brutus hold on to the money. "So what are we getting first?" she asked once they were out in the street. "A shower or furniture?"

 

[Brutus Dahlgren]

"So you're...a basically a robo surgeon." He squinted, turning to the robot. "Ironically fitting."

The walk back was peaceful, easily one of the nicest parts of the whole day. He had to pretend Corsair wasn't just casually manhandling the man's capitated head. Splotches of vile black coagulated blood would occasionally dribble from the viciously torn stump, threatening to send Brutus' breakfast out of his stomach. It was strange to see how easily she manhandled it, although her sense of smell was gone, it sill made him worried to ever piss her off.

Brutus rubbed his chin for a moment, debating the android's question, really thinking it over. "I could definitely go for a shower right about now. I know you can't smell, but I probably stink, plus can you imagine how nice that would feel after the hell we've put ourselves through? I'm not sure if you have like...muscles to soothe or if they're just like...servos or something." He would shrug. "Sounds like a nice reward for a job well done eh?"

@Corsair