Pest Control #5 [Keita]

Guest · Thu Sep 23, 2021 4:55 pm

Guest

It seems it would take a couple of days for the neutral guild they were taking requests to gather further information about that layout of the sewers to where the humanoid rats lived, Shichiro figured he'd kill some time by going back to that tall sky scraper that was infested with normal rats instead. He never thought he'd be so glad to see normal rats after all he's been through. It'll be boring and he'll know what to expect but at least they wouldn't be holding guns and wielding magic like the ones he's encountered so far in that farm house with the dead person and the half eaten rats. Closing his eyes and shivering, Shichiro had been laying in a bed of the room he had decided to pay for instead of just hanging out with Keita. He figured he would just meet him at the place of interest so they could get started on the rat clearing activities. Climbing out of the bed, he made his way into the bathroom to freshen himself up and get dressed properly to go and to go take care of the first task he had initially started with his four squad members. Right now, it would be just him and his cousin for the most part. Oh and of course his trusty companion Panther Lily. Making his way to the building, he palced his hands into his pockets and began to hum while daydreaming, avoiding collision with most things in his way. He's done this so many times he's quite proficient in the autopilot of his body.

Guest · Fri Sep 24, 2021 2:51 pm

Guest

Keita was currently in the process of stretching, the wide stretch causing him to yawn at the same time, and give him a bit of a strange feeling one would get when they stretched too much in the morning. After shaking his head and finishing up his stretching exercises, he walked towards the door of his fairly small apartment that he had been renting when he was staying here, as he now knew that he was going to stay here for a while so decided to actually rent an apartment instead of staying in hotels and bed and breakfasts. As he walked outside, he glanced at the small map of the city that he had gotten from one of the local shops, as he had not been to the location that he was going to go and meet up with his cousin Shichiro in a long while, and so he did noit know the entire route by heart. He had been looking at the map since yesterday, and now he knew where to go, but it was always nice to have it on him so that he could reference it from time to time if he needed to.

He walked down the street, and he was fairly early, simply because he had chosen a route that would bring him through a market district, that had a lot of small shops set up selling snacks, and this early, breakfast items. He was too lazy to actually go out and buy some groceries to make his own breakfast, and so he was just going to grab something quick and portable on the way, which in this case it was a breakfast burrito. He then made it in front of the building he was supposed to meet Shichiro at, looking around for him.

Guest · Fri Sep 24, 2021 5:44 pm

Guest

Arriving at his destination, he had already found his cousin at the scene of the building they were initially clearing out of pests. It seems he made it here before he did and started to look around for him so he tried to make himself as obvious as possible while waving towards him as he walked over. As soon as he got to the entrance of the building, he greeted his cousin and began to speak to him. "Oh hey Keita, glad you made it. Remember this building? Seems like the work here is never done and continues to grow even as we speak. At least the floors we've already down haven't been re-infested yet so I guess that's a good thing. Well, I remember clearing out the basement floors already so I guess we can pick up where you and Seika left off in the upper floors. By the way, what floor did you guys complete already and what floor was next," Shichiro had asked his cousin.

Since he was down doing the basement floors one through five, he was left out of the loop on what was going on in the upper floors so he didn't know what was going on up top. He probably should have asked all of this sooner but it never came up and figured he'd get to it when he'd get to it and that time was now. Panther Lily was riding on the shoulder of his human companion and was currently keeping vigilance for anything out of the ordinary.

Guest · Fri Sep 24, 2021 6:17 pm

Guest

It was pretty quickly that Keita found his cousin when looking around, and luckily he didn't have to wait for too long before his cousin actually found him. As they convened together in front of the building after Keita waved back at him, his cousin started to spek to him about the mission. His cousin was saying that the floors they had already cleared did not need to be cleared again, which was nice, but Keita wondered why the infestation did not spread back down to the lower floors when they left and did not come back for a while. Shichiro then asked him what floors they had left off of previously, as he himself had been clearing out the basement. Keita nodded, and tried to remember, but it was pretty damn long ago. He was sure that the two of them had at least cleared up to the third floor, but he thought that Seika was on the fourth floor before they left. “I’m not entirely sure, but I think that Seika was on the fourth floor when we had to leave the last time, and I’m not sure about the floor below, or the second floor, as I had to leave the third floor through the window.” Keita would tell his cousin, before stepping cautiously into the building. He remembered that the stairs on the right side of the building that he used last time had been partially destroyed when he was running last time, so he started to use some earth magic to mend them, making it easier to get to the higher floors.

Guest · Fri Sep 24, 2021 7:03 pm

Guest

Listening to his cousin's reply, Shichiro had learned they had done at least three floors, or so he said he recalled. He and Seika were alternating floors so Keita was unsure if the second and the fourth floors were done though so he figured it wouldn't hurt to double check. Nodding, Shichiro had followed his cousin in and figured he might as well check both the second and the fourth floors and instruct Panther Lily to begin work on the fifth floor. Walking towards where the steps were, Shichiro and Panther Lily waited until Keita was done mending the building stairwell as best as he could since it was quite unkempt and abandoned. Somebody did buy it after all this time in order to knock it down and make some sort of shopping center but that's none of their business. All they were hired to do was come here and clean up the rats.

He wondered why they didn't just knock it down anyway with the rats in them but he had heard a story they tried that last time and the rats had survived and apparently swarmed all the nearby buildings and streets, scurrying for a new place to call home. Instead, they decided to take the long approach and just higher some people to clear them out. Well this was fine as he got paid a lot of money for something as simple as pest control. Maybe he should quit being a knight and just be an exterminator. "Hey, when you're done with the fixing of the stairs, let me know and I'll go up and check both the second and the fourth floors," Shichiro had told his cousin.

Guest · Fri Sep 24, 2021 7:54 pm

Guest

Keita immediately walked over to the stairs and started to fix them, and Shichiro agreed and told Keita that he should tell him when he was finished up with all that so that they could check the floors on the way to their destination. Keita nodded and a large brown circle of earth magic appeared below his feet and then below the stairwell on the fight side of the building. Soon the ground slowly started turning into a malleable clay like material, the small pieces of rubble and chunks of building that were near the destroyed stairs becoming a type of liquid as well, before all pooling under the stairs. The stairs then started constructing themselves like a pyramid, as they rose out of the ground fully complete already, and only needed to raise themselves to meet with the other stairs.

After the two sets of stairs met, Keita made sure that the one that he made attached to the ones that were there previously by molding it over the pre-existing stairs, before the stairs suddenly hardened. Keita walked a few steps to the stairs to check, hitting it with his foot and then walking up and down a few before looking back to Shichiro. “Alright it’s all good, we can go to the upper floors now.” Keita would say, before carefully taking steps up the stairwell before reaching the second floor. There, he calmly looked around and tried to see if there was any movement, before giving a thumbs up when it seemed clear.

Guest · Fri Sep 24, 2021 8:18 pm

Guest

Waiting a little while longer, Shichiro placed his hands into his pockets, waiting for his cousin to finish mending the stairs. In the end, he had just decided to watch him work his magic, literally, as he formed some clay in the formation of some stairs and just heated it up so it was solid enough to walk on without them sinking into them or falling over. Keita then told Shichiro he was done and once he got the confirmation, they both walked up towards the second floor of the building in order to check the floors that were said to be previously done. Keita had given a quick peek on the second floor to see if there were any rats remaining from the last time they were here. He had then turned around and given the okay to Shichiro which was good enough for him to be quite honest.

He decided next he would go up to the third floor and check to see if there was anything that might have been left or missed in regards to the rats or to the side objective where there may be some kind of valuables for them to take and keep for themselves. Traversing through the entirety of the third floor, Shichiro didn't see anything in the way of treasure or rats so he figured it was cleared out of both by his cousin the last time they were here. He was glad nothing new had moved in when they were away for so long. The prevention teams that came in to maintain the floors afterwards must have been doing quite a good job.

Guest · Fri Sep 24, 2021 9:18 pm

Guest

After Keita gave Shichiro the signal to head up, his cousin immediately went up a floor or two and started looking through it. Keita would not slouch either, and as he had already been on this floor, he decided to give it a quick once over by wandering through it and looking around to make sure that the enemies were truly gone and had not returned to this floor. As he did so, he noticed that it was essentially the exact same as when they had left the last time, and this time it even seemed that no one wanted to come up here, as there was no sign of anyone or anything being on this floor in a while, at least a couple of months. As he noticed that, the preliminary check of this floor was complete, so he headed back to the stairs and started to climb. He had seen that his cousin was checking out one of the floors, so he simply went one floor higher, making sure to check his surroundings when he did so as to not get ambushed when he was heading up the stairs. He checked the small area around the stairwell when he walked there, and noticed that it was a large hallway that led to some sort of large room after the hallway. There were a couple of other doors to his left and right as he walked down the hallway, and as he looked into them, some of them were storage rooms, and others were simple small offices. He then proceeded to the large room ahead.

Guest · Fri Sep 24, 2021 10:52 pm

Guest

Now that he was done inspecting the third floor, it was time to move to the upper levels of the building in order to continue from where his knights left off of. Moving up one floor, it seems Keita was currently already on this one despite not being able to directly see him. Well if he had gotten this one covered, he'd just continue up the ladder in order to see what kind of trouble he could get into and find out what kind of rats he had to go and exterminate. He hoped it wasn't any of the magical powered ones with human weapons because that was kind of a pain in the ass to deal with. Moving to the fourth floor, Shichiro decided he'd check this one just in case there was something that might be left behind. Lo and behold, there were rats. Letting out a sigh, Shichiro had instructed Panther Lily to go up on the floor above him and see if there was any rats up there. He figured he'd handle the situation that was here. Panther Lily simply nodded and did what was needed before hoping off of the shoulder of Shichiro and heading further up the stairs. Letting out a sigh, he knew what he had to do but did not know if he had the strength to do it. Chuckling to himself, he thought that was a funny little joke he had been seeing all over the place and thought he would repeat it to himself. Well enough fun and games, it was time to get to work.

Guest · Sat Sep 25, 2021 1:22 am

Guest

After slowly making his way towards the large room, Keita suddenly stopped when he was about to enter it. The hallway that led to it was wide enough to where two people could comfortably walk side by side with each other, so the double doors that led into the large room gave off that it was in fact larger than the other ones that only had a single door. Keita stopped, however, because he had gotten close enough to the doors that he would notice that they were slightly open, and upon looking through, he almost could not believe what he was seeing. As he looked through the opening in between the doors, he saw what was a huge room that appeared to be as large as a gymnasium, which did not seem to make sense, as the floor above this one should have only been around fifteen feet up, which was impossible if the room plan for this floor was correct.

Keita peered into the room. And saw quite a few of the horrid rat creatures in the room, wandering about what seemed to be an old laboratory with plants seemingly overgrown everywhere. If Keita could not see the obvious floor tiles that denoted this as some sort of laboratory, he would have thought he went through a portal into some sort of jungle. Still, as odd as it was, the room was not large enough to where he could not see the other side, so he could vaguely see where the room ended through overgrown plants. He looked around, and luckily for him there was plenty of dirt around, and he could start clearing out this room without needing to worry.

Guest · Sat Sep 25, 2021 5:31 pm

Guest

Now that Panther Lily had left Shichiro to the floor he was currently on, it was time for him to get to work. Shichiro had his Sacrificial Shield on his back and decided it was best for him to take it off and actually wield it. There were currently seven rats in front of him, luckily of the normal(?) kind. Normal as in they don't wield weapons or magic. they were still bigger than the average rats he's seen though, more ferocious too. Well, this wasn't the time to compare rats, he would get ready to defend himself as the rats took notice of his presence. Placing his shield in front of him, Shichiro would prepare to charge and unleash a widespread area of effect arcane spell. it would be a bit slow but if he could finish it in time, he might be able to clear out the rats in front of him.

Meanwhile, Panther Lily had traversed up the steps in order to get to the floor above the one Shichiro was in. Pushing the door open, Panther Lily would peer inside to see if there was anything else out of the ordinary. As far as Panther Lily could see, nothing out of the ordinary was lurking nearby but he was only between the doorway. Entering said floor, Panther Lily looked around to see if there was anything more he could see. Drawing his blade, he would be readying himself for any potential attack as he had to remember he was currently the same size as these rats, maybe a bit smaller in his base form.

Guest · Sat Sep 25, 2021 5:37 pm

Guest

Looking over the strange room, Keita made sure to memorize the spots that the giant rat-like creatures were, as they looked like they were simply wandering around. This was not entirely the case, however, as Keita soon figured out by observing them for a few minutes. It seemed like each of the rat creatures had their own space, and whenever two of them would encounter each other, hissing and some squeaking, if you could call the strange guttural noises that would happen between them. It was obvious from watching them that they were very territorial, but not enough to attack each other on site, and a lot of warning would be given to each other before they attacked. It seemed that these particular creatures had been living here together for a while, hissing at each other and simply nibbling on the roots and the flowers of the plants around them when they were hungry.

They were still really dangerous, however, and so they would definitely need to be cleared out, as the building wawa not there, and if they made it outside, they would definitely hunt down and kill humans. Keita thought of his plan of action quite quickly, and thought that the direct approach would be the best. He immediately started some earth magic, which summoned a terracotta soldier. The soldier was equipped with a spear, and immediately started to gain the attention of the rat creatures. The room was large, but not large enough to where it could hide from them, and so the rat creatures immediately started rushing towards the soldier, and the soldier walked off to the side to get ready for their attack and to distract them as KEita made his way around to the other side of the room.

Guest · Sat Sep 25, 2021 6:10 pm

Guest

Now that his blade was drawn, Panther Lily was ready to react to any sort of detrimental situation he might come across. Walking further into the floor, nothing was different from the rest of them other than its layout. He eventually made it to what he deemed was the end of the floor to what looks like it could have been an office once upon a time. He had stumbled onto a sight similar to one Shichiro had seen the first time they had arrived at this building. A couple of rats were eating the fresh corpse of another rat. it must have been the weakest of the trio and so it was turned into food to feed the rest of its pack or siblings, whatever they were to each other. It seems food in this building was scarce and they had resorted to cannibalistic practices but this was fine with Panther Lily as they had just lessened the work for him and his companions.

Meanwhile, Shichrio was a floor below Panther Lily in the process of charging one of his spells in order to take out one of the rats. Holding the shield steady, he could feel the rats clawing at it as they tried to break through and get a chance to attack him. If they tried to shift around the shield, Shichiro would simply maneuver it so he could continue blocking their attacks further, soon he was almost down with his spell charge. It was only a matter of time now.

Guest · Sat Sep 25, 2021 6:20 pm

Guest

As Keita made it over to the other side of the room, the terracotta soldier he had summoned was busy dealing with the rat creatures, and was taking almost no damage from their constant bites and scratches. Luckily for him, the rat creatures on this level were fairly weak, and it seemed the stronger ones were on the upper floors to begin with, he just was not sure about the strange horde of them that seemed to almost combine into one entity that they had seen last time. It was nowhere to be found and it seemed that nothing of the sort would happen again any time soon, which Keita was relieved about. As he was watching the soldier fight off the rats, some of them started to die under the spear of the soldier, and soon Keita got to the back of the room, behind the rat creatures to flank them.

Keita started to use his magic, another pair of brown circles appearing, one below him, and another near the rats. Soon, a bunch of earthen shards came out of the dirt on the floor, cutting and piercing through the lunch overgrowth of plants and skewering into the bodies of the rats. He kept the attack a lot weaker than normal, so when the earthen shards hit the terracotta soldier as well, they only left shallow white marks on it. The spikes did not kill the rats completely, but hindered them enough to where the soldier easily finished them off. After that, Keita started heading towards the stairs again to go to the next highest room.

Guest · Sat Sep 25, 2021 6:58 pm

Guest

It was time, the charge was complete and Shichiro was ready to unleash what he had expended in mana and concentrated into a ball of energy. The ball was located in his right hand as he held his sacrificial shield steady with his left. He'd then raise his right hand into the air as far as he could, producing a mental image of the rats he saw in his head so the offensive magic spell would target them specifically to try and minimize as much damage as he possibly could to the old building they were currently in. He didn't want to risk blowing up the building and making additional holes as they already were. Hearing the screams and the screeches of the rats, Shichiro would assume he had gotten most of them if not all of them. Keeping his shield steady, he placed his right hand back onto the shield in order for him to lift it and move it around properly in order to move freely once more.

Peeking behind the shield, he'd see if all of the rats had been chilled or at least incapacitated so he could take his time dispatching them properly at his leisure. Looking around the room, he had indeed kill five of them, incapacitated one and one was wriggling around in what he believed to be excruciating pain. It was still screeching and howling as it attempted to move but it seemed the back of its legs had been blown off. Shichiro couldn't help but give a sadistic chuckle.

Guest · Sat Sep 25, 2021 7:06 pm

Guest

Keita had finished off all of the rats on this floor, as the floor was simply one large room and some closets that seemed to only be used for storage. Anything in the closets were already either destroyed by the gnawing of the rats or simply ignored for being something that they could not gnaw on, so Keita simply left the floor. He decided to skip a floor, as he believed that the two of them were simply going to alternate floors before leaving, clearing out as many of the rats as they possibly could before they were tooi tire to do anymore, and so Keita headed to the next floor once he passed the one that Shichiro was on. As he walked to this floor, it almost seemed like a maze, as he could see the hallways where the stairwell emptied into three directions. He supposed that he was just going to go ahead and slowly make his way through the rooms.

Keita quickly summoned a smaller version of his terracotta soldier, this one only a foot tall, and had it go in front of him. It was still large enough to attract the attention of the rats, but not big enough to mess with his vision or anything of the sort. As he was walking through, he would open doors and have the soldier go in first, clearing out any of the rat creatures along the way if he needed to. The doors seemed to be the rats' personal living quarters, and so he was trying to also keep quiet.

Guest · Sat Sep 25, 2021 8:01 pm

Guest

When he was done having a little laugh about the dark comedic sight in front of him, he figured it was time for him to wrap this up cause there were many more floors they needed to do in order to complete the task. He only needed to do enough work in order to fill a quota so the more work he puts in to fill one, the more payment he'd get from the neutral guild. he was hoping to get at least two jobs worth of payment and if he, Panther Lily, and Keita with his summons each took a floor, they'd get a lot of work done in no time. For now, he'd just focus his attention on the rats in the front of him. With five of them dead, he'd only have to kill the remaining two that were still breathing.

He decided to dispatch the one in pain only because the screaming was a bit irritating to listen to for long periods of time. With a quick charge of an arcane bolt, he'd aim it at the rat's head, throwing it, putting the thing out of its misery. Afterwards, he had gone towards the other that was completely in capacitated to which upon further inspection, he had noticed this one had half of the side of its body blown away and it was on the verge of dying anyway. Still, he didn't really want to wait for it to die so he decided to put this one out of its misery too while it was still unconscious.

Guest · Sat Sep 25, 2021 8:26 pm

Guest

The second floor filled with the maze-like hallways seemed like it was designed with some sort of experiment in mind, and now that Keita was thinking about it, it seemed like each floor above the first one was like that. Each of the floors that he had seen had been some sort of gimmick of some sort, from the huge room to the strange maze that he was in now, it seemed like things were progressing but he was unsure what the purpose of this mega building weas, and why there were so many rats here. He wondered if the rats were released into this building on purpose initially to serve as test subjects for the strange experiments that were designed here that were based off of the rooms themselves. Keita was thinking this as he was taking a small break in one of the corridors.

He was currently using his earth magic to send out some seismic waves which he could read in real time, so that he could not only see the layout of this floor and a sizable chunk of the lower and upper floors, but he could also track the movements of each of the rat creatures. He wondered why he had never tried this before, it would have saved him the trouble of hunting all of the creatures down on the lower floors. Still, there were still exactly three rat creatures on this floor, but he was determined that this should be the last floor so he could go and talk to Shichiro about what the building could have possibly represented.

Guest · Sat Sep 25, 2021 9:02 pm

Guest

Looking around further on this floor, Shichiro had to double check and make sure that was all the rats on this floor. Fastening his sacrificial shield on his back once more, just over his hips, Shichiro began to traverse through the floor he was on in order to find some more rats that he may or may not have to deal with. It didn't take long before he found two of them playing tug of war with the tail of another rat they may or may not have killed. Must be slim pickings for these rats or so Shichiro thought to himself. Nevertheless, it doesn't change what he has to do as soon they won't have to worry about food anymore, or anything else for that matter.

Once more Shichiro had conjured and fired an arcane bolt at one of the rats causing the other one to accidentally pull on the tail too hard making it roll backwards a few feet. Shichiro would attempt to repeat this process again but to his surprise, this rat wasn't exactly willing to fight him like the other feral creatures. Instead this one had dropped the tail it was fighting its dead rival for and attempted to scurry off. Huh, maybe these things did feel fear after all. Once again, it didn't change what he had to do so he chased it down and made sure to dispatch it properly. In the end, he did it in the same way he did the other rats in with a simple arcane bolt. He figured this was enough to at least his first pay check. He'd then exit the floor and continue going upwards in order to begin work on the second one.

[Exit.]

Guest · Sat Sep 25, 2021 9:30 pm

Guest

Keita was walking back to the stairwell so that he could go and find Shichiro to tell him what he had figured out, or rather, just the hypothesis he had. When he was walking, suddenly some sort of rat creature flashed in the sides of his vision, and Keita quickly brought up a small shield that manifested and wrapped around his forearm. As Keita blocked, the rat creature suddenly slashed the shield with his claws, and the shield was cut in two quite easily. It gave Keita the distance and block that he needed to get away from this creature, and soon he heard the creature scurry into a small hole that was on the side. This made Keita sweat a little bit, as he was simply not fast enough to fully respond to the creature, and when he was thinking about that, the creature attacked again, and so Keita simply covered his entire body with stone, and soon he was cut.

The cut was shallow, but the creature came into view again, and another magic circle sent out a pulse, and Keita was shocked to that the rat could not be sensed with his tremorsense. The rat lunged at him again, and so Keita simply jutted spikes out, becoming a porcupine, stabbing the creature. The creature squealed in pain, before rushing towards the whole again, and Keita was simply too slow to catch it. His tremorsense saw that the hole went upwards, and so he rushed upstairs, desperate to not let the creature leave alive.
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EXIT

Pest Control #5 [Keita]

Thu Sep 23, 2021 4:55 pm

Fri Sep 24, 2021 2:51 pm

Fri Sep 24, 2021 5:44 pm

Fri Sep 24, 2021 6:17 pm

Fri Sep 24, 2021 7:03 pm

Fri Sep 24, 2021 7:54 pm

Fri Sep 24, 2021 8:18 pm

Fri Sep 24, 2021 9:18 pm

Fri Sep 24, 2021 10:52 pm

Sat Sep 25, 2021 1:22 am

Sat Sep 25, 2021 5:31 pm

Sat Sep 25, 2021 5:37 pm

Sat Sep 25, 2021 6:10 pm

Sat Sep 25, 2021 6:20 pm

Sat Sep 25, 2021 6:58 pm

Sat Sep 25, 2021 7:06 pm

Sat Sep 25, 2021 8:01 pm

Sat Sep 25, 2021 8:26 pm

Sat Sep 25, 2021 9:02 pm

Sat Sep 25, 2021 9:30 pm

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