The writhing worm-like vine creature thrashed beneath her foot as Miria pinned it down and used her other foot to rip it in half, finally splitting with a soft squelching sound. She repeatedly beat it's companion with her club as she worked, the saproling making soft squelching noises as it tried to bypass her guard and get a bite in. Finally she dropped her club and grabbed it in both heavy arms, one of her lighter ones jabbing a kitchen knife into it's back and dragging it down lengthwise to cut the thing open. It's struggles soon stilled, and she sat back to regard the death notifications.

[Saproling Defeated! +8 Essence]
[Saproling Defeated! +9 Essence]

Finally. These little bastards aren't as offensively capable as the others, but they're a lot tougher and a lot more numerous...

She stood up and searched the room, before slipping into the bedroom and pausing as she looked at the wall, her eyes tracing the gleaming metal hanging there.

...Is that a sword? Shit, it is. ...Is it a *good* sword? Well, let's find out...

She walked up, lifted the object off it's supports, and began examining it, testing the edge first against her chitin, then against her skin, then giving it a test swing or two.

...Not very sharp. And it seems a little heavy, and the balance isn't great, so far as I can tell... Seems sturdy enough though, and it has a lot better reach than my club. I'll give it a shot. ...To bad there's no sheathe, though.

She gave the room a cursory search to check if it contained the swords sheathe and didn't find anything, before finally sighing and returning to her apartment to sharpen her new sword, finding it didn't hold an edge as well as her kitchen knives, but still well enough to be dangerous.

Well, that's the last apartment on this floor. Let's see, that's eight apartments per floor, and the building is three floors, mine is the middle one... Should I search above or below next? Sixteen apartments left to search either way. That was my fourth fight on just the middle floor - that would suggest eight more fights if the trend holds? I'm currently at 11 out of 22 HP - Only lost 3 more in those last two fights, got another point off a level of strength, and I could buy a level of Vitality if I wanted for five more... Still probably can't do both floors without risking running out of HP though...

She bit her lip, considering the options as she stood in the hall.

...I'll barricade the stairwells first, then try and clear the top floor. Then decide whether to go after the bottom floor, or loot the place, or what, assuming I don't find any other survivors...

A couple of quick stretches and she set to work again, a careful check finding the stairwells clear and the elevator nonfunctional, as one would expect with the power out. She returned to the apartments and started checking over the furniture, looking for heavy solid pieces, and began pulling them aside and disassembling them as necessary so that she could take them to the stair well and make them into a barricade. Nothing impenetrable, but something that would at least slow down any intruders and hopefully leave them making noise before they got to her.

Good enough. For now, lets see about that top floor...

She pulled aside a section of one of barricades so she could open the door to the stairwell and crept inside, trying to make as little noise as possible as she climbed up and let herself into the top floor hallway. She peered down it before opening the door, but it looked quite empty. She took a careful sniff, waving her antennae, and then her eyebrows rose in surprise.

...Is that, like, scented candles? Well, I'll be.

She crept closer, sniffing at the door the scent lead her too, tracing her antennae along the cracks, something about the resulting smell sending a quiver through her.

Yeah, scented candles, something floral, something mammalian... Is that human skin? Seems about right...

She moved on down the hall, checking the other doors. None of them smelled particularly strongly of monsters, so she returned to the door with the intriguing scents and knocked, holding her weapons aside as non-threateningly as possible. "Hello in there! Anyone alive?" she announced, and was rewarded with a strangled feminine yelp and the patter of footsteps up to the other side of the door. She couldn't help but grin as the mammalian and floral scents intensified, and she heard the faint creak of the door as someone leaned against it, probably using the peephole.

"W-who's there?" came the response, a nervous feminine voice speaking from the other side of the wood, the tremor in the voice making Miria instinctively stand taller.

"The name's Miria," she continued. "Want to open up and have a conversation? I'd love to meet you." she said, before cursing herself internally for the last statement.

"...I dunno. What's with the sword? I hear girls with swords are trouble." replied the girl behind the door, voice a bit teasing this time.

Miria scoffed, though she couldn't keep herself from smiling a little. "Hey, it's not my sword! I mean, well, I looted it, okay? I've been fighting monsters for like, a couple hours now, and I wanted something long and heavy and sharp. Besides, maybe you need a little trouble, hmm?" she said, leaning forwards and subtly thrusting her chest out. "I would have expected you to be more interested in my other features anyway, what with the extra arms and all."

There was a pause, and then the door opened, the girl on the other side of it peeking out through the crack, looking Miria over again, before closing the door to release the chain so she could open it properly, revealing herself - and the series of blossoming flowers in her hair, an arc of smaller ones above her forehead like a tiara, with a single much larger one blooming in the center of her mousy brown hair. "...Yeah, well, I figured you didn't choose them. But go ahead and come in, we might as well talk." she said, before stepping back and gesturing Miria into her apartment...