World Tree MUSH

    The Tree has many myriad and countless worlds... But it's always when a new world blossoms that heads turn and people pay attention. Be it for gain, greed, ill reasons, or good, whenever a new world appears, the rumor mills churn.
    As it stands, this world seems to be of a more... Fantastic bend; full of elves and dwarves and dragonkin and demi-humans. Magic is plentiful and technology is only beginning to bud.
    Word has spread of a darkness that envelops this world, the armies of darkness left by a Demon Lord are in full power and cause havoc, chaos, and destruction across the lands.
    The several kingdoms of the world have banded together to fend off the Demon Lord and his forces as best they can, but it's been a bleak looking series of battles... As it stands, with the constant threats on the roads, the Adventurer's Guild of this world has put out feelers to other worlds, offering rewards and recompense to anyone that can help at least make things safer for the people of this world.
    As it stands, a caravan of elves have left their forest in a wagon train headed for the great tree and city of Dorn, as the Blossom Festival approaches this year, and the roads have seemed a little too quiet for the past few days...

    Beep, beepbeep, bwoop. BIM. "Noice."

    That's Stelle in the back of one of the wagons, having joined up at one of the layover stops to provide security. The grey-haired Trailblazer is an odd sight, her clothes, mannerisms and even that strange beeping device she keeps messing around with are all Other to this world of fantasy.

    She also doesn't appear to be armed, which probably doesn't allay any fears the elf caravan may have of ambush.

    Marceline is good with quiet! Or too quiet. She can fill some of that with the sonorous thrum of her weirdly electric-sounding bass guitar. Course, she's claimed one of the wagons as a place to perch while she plucks away at the four strings with gloved fingers. A wide-brimmed straw hat keeps the sun off of her head.

    So far, she's mostly kept to herself, not really wanting to mix up with anyone to maintain her gloomy air. Doesn't do much to make anyone feel like she's worth having along but she's here and presumably she's getting paid and getting fed.

    Don't need much else!

    In many ways, this world is a lot like Matsu's own. The young healer feels more at home here than she has in many other worlds; a foreign country, but not an entirely alien society. So she's happy she convinced the clan elders to let her sojourn here on a fact-finding mission. Not far behind the caravan, a smaller entourage makes its way, fancy and foreign. Inside sits the snow-haired, crimson-eyed Phoenix Maiden herself, grumping slightly at the need to travel 'high profile' like this. Carriage rides are long, and boring. Well, alright, the scenery is kind of nice. The weather is better than Arashi-no-Moto this time of year, that's for certain.

    Laying in the back of the wagon is a certain dark clad commando. Ghost lingers, laying like he's taken a nap for the ride while his rifle sits beside him and his backpack. Despite this, he's more alert than you may think. He's like a wolf in the wilderness, alert enough to respond at a moment's notice if something goes down, but still at rest.

    Just ignore the fact he has sunglasses on over his mask right now.

     Standing atop the lead wagon, chest puffed out, shining green eyes scanning the horizon, bright crimson cape fluttering in the gentle breeze, is none other than the black cat hero Mao Mao. With his hands on his hips, he takes a deep breath and says, "Ahh, smell that? That's the smell of adventure. Mystery, danger, intrigue, and at the end of it all... a big, FAT reward!"

His surprisingly booming laughter echoes among the caravan, almost daring any nearby villains to /try/ and raid these wagons. Bandits or Demon Lord, he dares them all to come and add to his growing legend.

    The weather IS quite nice... It's a sunny and warm spring day, and while most of the elves keep to themselves; especially with people like Ghost amongst them in the wagons, some are a bit chatty.
    An elf girl by the name of Lifiel, a girl with blonde hair and green eyes, perhaps only a hundred years old or so at best, has been expounding excitedly to anyone that will listen about the upcoming Blossom Festival in Dorn.
    See, the city was apparently built around an utterly gigantic tree that blooms once every several years, and when it blooms it blesses the whole region with a full season of prosperity.
    "You know..." Lifiel considers, "It was on these very roads that we were attacked a few years ago by orcs. ... We were saved by a catgirl demi-human and a girl in a bear cloak. ... I wonder whatever happened to them." She wonders...
    Just as an arrow comes whizzing past her head and embeds in the wagon.
    Lifiel jolts and dives back inside the covered part of the wagon for cover as the train comes to a stop thanks to several logs that have been pushed into the road.
    It's the perfect spot for an ambush...
    It IS an ambush as several pink-skinned figures with porcine features and snouts emerge from the trees, wearing tattered hide armor and wielding rusted weapons who start laying into the wagons with intent to kill the riders and take what they can.

     Sure enough, they're waylaid by bandits, and Mao Mao wastes no time barking orders. "Circle the wagons! Anyone who can't fight, stay inside the circle for cover! Anyone who can, with me! Hahahahaha!" His laughter is quickly interrupted by an arrow, which he catches a mere inch from his face and breaks within his fist.

Jumping down from the top of the wagon, he immediately takes off toward the nearest pigman and draws his golden-bladed katana, light reflecting off of it in a visible arc as it begins slicing towards those rusted weapons. Aiming to disarm rather than kill, because it's just cooler that way.

    The sound of an arrow prompts a quirk of Matsu's eyebrow. She sits up a bit, tension finding its way into her posture, while the attendant seated with her has a rather less subdued reaction. "W-what was- was that an arrow?"

    As if in answer, a horde of porcine bandits begins to emerge from the treeline. About half a heartbeat later, a hand reaches out, draws a tiny arcane sigil in the air, and then swats at it, unleashing a fireball straight at the nearest of them.

    "Karin. Remain in the carriage." So declaring, Matsu Shuzenji opens the side door of her carriage, and with a few careful steps, makes her way down out of her ride and onto the road. "If anyone is injured, please bring them to me. I am a healer." Her eyes dart to the orcs, and she adds, "And also capable of burning alive any pigman who approaches my charges." Despite her words, she could probably use a bodyguard or two.

    THUNK. TWONG.

    An arrow embeds itself in the wagon frame, and that brings Stelle to alert. She tucks her phone into a pocket, and with a practiced hop, she gets out the back of the wagon and with a quick motion, summons her bat as she rests it over a shoulder.

    Pigmen come out of the treeline, and the Trailblazer looks unimpressed. "Anyone order the bacon platter? Or is this a free gift." she taunts, stepping toward the line of orcs at a casual pace.

    The moment that arrow buries itself into the wagon, Ghost is alert. He reaches for his L403A1 and flicks the safety off, removing the lens covers from the scope. He vaults out of the wagon with rifle in hand, taking aim at the treeline. "Hostiles, at the treeline." His carbine barks with munitions that nobody in this realm could've conceived. 5.56 from a precision marksman carrying a weapon made by KAC is nothing to sneeze at, especially when that marksman is Ghost.

    Eartwitch. Marceline sits up from her weird, near-weightless recline at the sound of an arrow taking flight and impacting one of the wagons. "Whoah, dude. Hey, get-" Looks like Lifiel doesn't need to be told to get out of the way of oncoming arrows. Snort. "Not your first time?" Her tone is only mildly teasing; the orcs aren't really a major concern to her. One final note and she flips the axe-shaped guitar to grip it by the neck.

    "Kay, so-" She squints in the daylight glare and frowns, "Pig-dudes? Yo, you guys for real?" Moving smoothly and with care so her hat doesn't come loose, she swings and bats at the oncoming orcs, slashing and kicking with heeled boots to defend her wagon, at least! She manages to get enough of a breather and she'll totally grab one of the orcs, all those crazy sharp teeth flashing...! She wants the orcs to SEE!

    That sure was an arrow.
    And no, it's not Lifiel's first rodeo. But no sooner than the orcs come pouring out of the treeline, the wagons circle up to form a defensive perimeter and make things easier for the defenders.
    Several elves draw swords and bows, ready to lay down their lives to defend their friends and kin, and they won't be going down without a fight.
    Though in the initial onslaught several are immediately brought to Matsu with arrow wounds as soon as she says 'I am a healer' after her fireball drops an orc by pelting him in the face, leaving him rolling and thrashing.
    The bark of Ghost's carbine makes things halt briefly, the weapon itself and the thunderous sound it makes spooking both defenders and attackers as another orc is dropped while Marceline takes to defending the wagons from closer assault.
    Mao Mao and Stelle take the fight to the attackers, the golden katana batting away crude axes and swords as...
    A lone figure in a hooded travel cloak emerges on the road, approaching the fracas at a calm pace rather than turning and fleeing at the sight of combat.
    The figure draws their long blade, a plain and simple steel sword, in one hand, and a shorter sword in the other and-- lunges into the line of orcs.
    In a series of quick movements and flashing steel, several orcs go right down in a bloody display.

    Ghost has read the Lord of the Rings. He's seen the movies. He's also played himself a bit of D&D and seen some orcs before.

    This...this is NOT what he was expecting real orcs to look like. They're more like pig men, it's weird to him, but they're just as lethal as you'd expect orc raiders to be, meaning the 141 operator is quick to find cover at the wagon when the arrows fly.

    He opts to cover Stelle and the red cat thing, taking precision shots to thin out the herd before they can overwhelm Stelle and Mao Mao, at least until suddenly the lot of them begin to fall apart into chunks.

    No time to question that, he aims at the stragglers and pops at them with single shots.

    Stelle, even after battle is joined, continues to slowly approach. Mao Mao's fancy footwork, Ghost's marksmanship firesupport and Marceline doing... Marceline things.

    Then a mystery fighter enters the fray and Stelle shrugs her bat off her shoulder... even as arrows thunk into her body from the orc's back line... the shafts splinter, the heads fall out of the holds in her clothes they leave behind, bent and misshapen.

    Then. Stelle runs. She runs straight for the front line fighters, and LEAPS over their heads with a casual ease. Hitting the ground running she closes range with the archers. "I. Just had. These clothes. FIXED!" she snarls in a cold rage, slamming her bat into any part of orc archers she can get at.

     Those orcs who have their weapons knocked away are immediately struck with hard, precise blows at various vital points. A punch to the solar plexus here, a chop to the neck there, a hilt bash to the nose for good measure. Ghost's rifle fire causes him to pause and look back for a moment, allowing one of the pigmen to get in a cheeky kick that knocks him onto his back.

"Augh! Hey, I was distracted! Very rude!" he growls at the orc, rolling aside to avoid a lethal axe blow and then gracefully sweeping its legs out from under it before kipping up onto his feet again. He's about to remark on Marceline's scare tactics next when... a mysterious newcomer in a hooded cloak arrives. And they're dual wielding? And they're GOOD AT IT!?

Baring his teeth, Mao Mao's voice goes down a full octave as he grumbles, "That showoff is stealing my thunder..." Another orc tries to attack him from behind, but without even looking, the black cat hero rams his elbow into its chest, knocking the wind out of it... and breaking a couple ribs in the process.

    The arrow-wounded elves are brought over to Matsu, and she sets to immediate work. Her clothing is immaculate, intricate, of fine tailoring and fine materials, marking her unmistakably as some manner of nobility; and yet, she doesn't flinch from the chaos of the battlefield nor the sight of blood. No, she immediately takes stock of those being brought to her, and after barking a series of short orders- "Him, over here. Set her there against the carraige. Bring me her too. That one can-" -she sets about healing the worst-injured. The waves of warm, soothing flames do their work quickly, easing pain and mending flesh. She fully intends to send these wounded either to safety or back to the battlefield, whichever best suits them.

    Marceline doing Marceline things. While standing on one orc's face, she bites the poor dingus she snagged ahold of. She could sip the dude to a dessicated husk but no; we're flexing here. She blanches that pink to a dreary grey and then flits back and delivers a kick to the bit fool's backside. He'll live, so long has he doesn't get wrecked by someone else. Or his surviving buds.

    Still, she sticks close, blocking arrows and swords with her axe or her body if she must, though she's absolutely hampered by trying to keep under her hat. She loses that and she may be in a lilbit of trouble! "Hey, there's someone-" Oh. They're taking it to the orcs? The warning dies in that moment and she goes right back to brawling any orcs foolish enough to come into range of her or her bloodied musical greataxe

    

    These are more along the lines of 1st edition D&D orcs, Ghost might not have played that far back, when they were pink pig men. They turned green somewhere around 2E.
    But that's an absolute sidenote as the horde comes. There's a lot of them; and the elves that Matsu heal do their best to return to the fight.
    It's intense, the raiders *really* want to lay into the carriages. Though there's *another* pause when Marcy drains the pink tone from an orc's skin, which seems to shake the attacker's resolve.
    But what really causes them to lose cohesion are the sheer amount of numbers they're losing. Between Ghost's marksmanship, Mao Mao's ferocity, and Stelle's unbridled anger at the archers, the orcs are bleeding losses fast.
    It's then that the hooded figure lays on the pressure even more, longsword flashing, short blade dancing, they suddenly take out the biggest of the orcs in several quick and well-mastered strokes.
    No sooner than the big one goes down... It's a rout.
    The archers are the first to turn tail, before the remaining orc fighters limp their way back into the trees and flee into the woords.
    Flicking blood off their blades, the new combatant sheathes their paired swords and approaches the wagons.
    "I have to say that was a much more coordinated defense than the last time." She says-- because that is a feminine voice, before she pulls her hood back to let long black hair spill free. Slitted blue eyes blink in direct sunlight now as feline ears twitch and she sets a hand on her hip.
    "You offworlders are pretty impressive." She says, tail flicking behind her as she approaches, silvery adventurer dogtags denoting her as a fairly high ranked member of the Adventurer's Guild.
    "... Mau, is that you?" Lifiel squeaks, peeking her head out from the wagon she was hiding in.

    "COME BACK HERE! I'M NOT DONE WITH YOU YET!!" bellows an absolutely livid Stelle, swinging her bat wildly as she charges off in pursuit of the orcs... at least until they hit the trees and scatter.

    Rage subsides quickly, when she has no target to direct it at. She turns back and dismisses her bat, the black metal club dissolving into motes of blue-white light. Once she's back with the group, her dour and emotionless face regarding Mau curiously.

    Even when the tide seems to turn, Matsu's focus remains on her task... although crimson eyes do dart upward, briefly, to watch the hooded figure work.

    But only once she's seen the last of her patients back to health does Matsu straighten herself and regard Mau more directly. "I could say the same of you," she replies; one hand comes up to knock behind herself on the door of the carriage, two sharp raps and a soft, "Karin, it's safe," and then as her attendant hesitantly descends, the tiny girl with nerves of steel folds her hands together. "Shuzenji-no-Matsu, Phoenix Maiden and head of the Shuzenji Clan. Your timely assistance allowed me to save lives, and for that I am grateful."

    Somehow, it's only now that her eyes catch sight of both Marceline and Stelle. "...ah. The two of you are here. I hope you've been well." Ghost and Mao Mao are given curious looks, but not much else.

    Marceline isn't one to shy from a fight but she doesn't really feel any need to keep one going when it's clearly over. Intimidation accounts for the lion's share of her contribution and she's completely okay with it. Bonus, she didn't have to scramble back under a wagon since she kept her hat! Win! She assumes a relaxed hover, dark green eyes flicking over to regard this newcomer.

    Cat ears. That'll never not be strange! ... Talking animal people are perfectly normal though, sure.

    "If that's your bud go say whassup!" Stell gets a smirk when she comes back, though and she leans close, "Dude, I'll help you steal new threads later. I know a place!" Her gaze then rotates to Matsu and she flicks a string on her bass. "Eh, being's usually good enough for me." Well? She won't commit to that! "Guess that was you that kept all those bloody elf-peeps coming back. Nice."

"But who had the boom stick? That sounded like some of Becca's biz."

    Ghost reloads his rifle once the orcs are all done. "We're clear. Situation's been handled." He approaches Matsu and checks on the wounded, trusting the priestess to do her job. He notices the catgirl that approaches, emphasis on GIRL. Cat ears on cute girls is sure a new thing to him.

    "Nice bladework, luv." He says, approaching with rifle slung. "Name's Ghost."

    "You might not be done with them, but the orcs sure are done with us. They're like nastier versions of goblins, you kill the biggest one and they run away with their tails between their legs." Mau points out to Stelle. 
    Then Matsu gives a formal introduction.
    "Ah..." Awkward. "Yeah, clearing the roads is usually Steel rank adventurer work, but I figured I'd check in on Lifiel and her family while I was in the area." She says before giving her own introduction: "Mau, daughter of Miu, of the village of Middleston."
    That's about as fancy as it gets.
    Then she's eyeing Ghost.
    "... I haven't seen a *gun* in..." She trails off. "... A long, long, time." But then she shrugs. "Thanks, though."
    She does seem to be the elf's bud, though, considering how Lifiel hops down from the wagon she was in to gabber at Mau excitedly a mile a minute, which prompts an amused chuckle from the catgirl as she pats the WAY older elf on the head like a kid.
    "Anyway, if everyone's mostly alright, I'll help escort you all to Dorn. The Blossom Festival won't be for a while, still, but this is probably the safest time to make the trip while the Demon Lord's army is gathering."

    Ghost quirks an eyebrow but doesn't press it. "Not a problem." He says curtly, clapping Mau's shoulder. "'s good you made it when ya did. Otherwise we'd be neck deep in these pigs." He'll have to ask about a Demon Lord later.

    This place is very, very weird.

    Approaching Matsu, he kneels beside some of the wounded. "I've a medkit in my pack, these people need anything?" He offers.

Marceline doesn't say much for a minute. She does, however, wander close to Ghost. With one gloved finger outstretched, she silently attempts to poke the operator's shoulder. "Just checking."

    As Ghost approaches closer, Matsu gives him a much more appraising, borderline-wary look-over. But she doesn't seem to have issue what she sees, as she ends up only shaking her head faintly at the much taller man. "They will be fine. My healing is very thorough. I would recommend some rest for those who immediately returned to battle, however." Then, her attention turns back to Mau. "I see," she replies, before turning her head slightly to look at her attendant again. "Karin. Please give the adventurer a small token of our appreciation." The red-haired young woman starts a little, but then hastily nods. "Y-yes, my lady!" And just as hastily, she steps forward, drawing out a few gold coins. "The Lady Shuzenji offers this in gratitude. This is our first journey to your world, and you've helped us in time of need."

    Matsu leans slightly around her attendant, then adds in a much less formal tone, "There's more in it for you if you'll tell me about this world along the way." It seems she speaks the language of adventurers, in both senses.

    Matsu earns a nod from Stelle, then the Trailblazer regards Mau. "Stelle. Trailblazer from the Astral Express." she says by way of introduction, before she heads back to the wagon. I'll be in here if there's more angry pigmen to bash." she adds, hopping back into the wagon and.

    Beep, beepboopbeep. Beedleboop.

    Unfortunately that seems to be it for the angry pig men. So Stelle can play her games uninterrupted when she climbs back into the wagon.
    For now, though, the Demon Lord is something to be asked about later, because when Ghost claps Mau on the shoulder she does offer a sharp-toothed grin.
    "Yeah well you all seemed to be handling yourselves well enough before I showed up."
    The gold coins however are accepted with a nod of the catgirl adventurer's head, stowed away for later.
    "Thanks. So where do you want me to start, because it's about another day to Dorn and there's a lot to tell." She says to Matsu.