kajarainbow

Just a heads up that I decided to change Ghaan's prophecy, since in its previous form it was only causing problems for me. Instead, I changed it to things I'm excited for. Here's the current prophecy:

Ghaan spoke, and time became confusing.

"You will travel to the end of the world."                "Go south, not west."         "Hold true to your kindness, no matter the temptation."

"The ocean itself tests you."          "A shard of reality and unreality."              "Remember who loves you even when all else is forgotten."

                                                                                     "You will not return to the life you led before now."

The moments crashed upon each other, muddling the order of the proclamations, yet Aono could make out every sentence distinctly. Then time returned to normality.

Aono was nestled on Samu's lap, having gathered herself into the round blob shape of a regular slime. Her eyes shifted around watching the crew at work as they prepared the chasm ship for departure and helped the last few passengers board. Sardu was busy doing workouts in a spot on the deck she had found that was out of the crew's way. Godswar was watching the sky from the deck, her long rabbit ears turning this way and that. And Noim was sitting with his legs crossed, meditating with a serene expression.

The longer she lived as a slime and the more things she experienced as one, the more distant the memories of what it was like to be human were becoming, to the point where she could feel that she was on the verge of losing HUMAN's blessing that made it easier for her to stay to the shape of a human. The more she had pushed her body in the emergencies she had experienced, the more she found that the limits on what she could do weren't quite the same. Reach impossibly far to catch someone falling? Surprisingly easy.

Not that it bothered her. She would still be able to turn into the shape she was accustomed to and preferred, but she was more comfortable with the amorphous nature of her body. Just this morning, she had wondered why Sardu was having trouble reaching a particular point on her back, then had to remind herself human arms weren't as flexible as hers. And was that a thought! Sometimes it was easier to not bother with the small details like elbows and such.

[table]You have lost HUMAN's blessing. HUMAN wishes you well in your journey through life as a slime.[/table]

There it went. Aono considered again what to do with her unspent points. Her level up points were spent in the usual Agility/Control/Resolve allocation and she already had thrown her stat points from the Master Vanquisher and Under-Equipped Master Vanquisher (that last one for killing a Master without proper preparation, in this particular case with an undersized party) accomplishments into Luck. Her level up ability point had been spent in improving her ability to heal complex organs so she could fix Sardu's eye. But she still had a couple of ability points from those Accomplishments. And another one for surviving a Master's ultimate ability being fired directly at her (a thought that made her shudder, if Mari hadn't sacrificed themselves to protect them, Aono would have died right there and then).

After some initial consideration of her options, she picked the Reactive option for Summon Slime which would immediately summon her slime allies without taking up any of her attention or time whenever she became aware of danger. It would still consume her mana, but it would greatly improve her ability to react to unexpected danger. As for the other two ability points, she sent one on the Resilient option to enhance the ability of any slime she conjured to absorb and bounce back from damage. Hopefully she coud create slime walls or something to protect a little against enemies' ultimate abilities.

The last point ... she allocated it toward the Damage option, an all-round modifier to increase the damage her slime abilities would deal. This was not an modifier she had originally given serious consideration to, but seeing how hard the Master Ray had been to kill had changed her mind. If they'd been able to down the Master before it began taking lives left and right, maybe...

Aono drove that thought out of her mind. What had happened had happened. She could only try to prepare for the future, and it was clear that she hadn't done enough damage to the Master Ray. Future strong opponents, particularly Elite and Master monsters, would likely be a challenge to kill as well. Not that she was in any hurry to fight a Master again; there were good reasons the Master Vanquisher and especially the Under-Equipped Master Vanquisher accomplishments were so rare.

..oOo..

Slightly surprising Aono, Godswar and Noim stayed all the way to the end of the chasm. "I'm going back to the Outer Lands," Godswar explained, "I feel I have earned enough levels and battle experience to return to aid my clan with taking back their homeland and making the rivers flow with the blood of the monsters that despoiled those lands. I will be going further to the west, where I will catch a series of boats to where my clan reside in the center-west parts of the southern Outer Lands. It is possible that we will meet again if you ever go to that region. But for now it is time to say farewells."

"Good luck," Aono said, "Maybe we'll meet again like you said."

Noim said, "As for us, I have been curious about some old texts written by Faaaun the Seeker of Revelation that were reportedly found in the Burning Desert, and after discussion amongst ourselves, we agreed that it was worth investigating."

That was east of the route Aono and her lovers were planning to take. Thoughtfully she said, "So Godswar is going to the southwest, you are going to the southeast, and we are going directly south. Though you won't be going as far south as Godswar and us."

"So it is," Noim said, "Regardless, we all wish you a good journey."

"Goodbye to both of you, it was a pleasure fighting side by side with you despite the situation," Sardu said quietly with her arms crossed.

"Goodbye and take those, they'll help in a pinch once and there're instructions attached!" Samu said as they thrust a couple of mysterious devices into the arms of each of the parting hunters.

"I thank you for the gifts," Godswar said solemnly while Noim had a slightly wry smile on his face as he took his own gifts and tucked them away.

Then the time to disembark came.

..oOo..

"I have bad news," Tamu said with his brows furrowed. "That Azure conditioning machine we brought? It apparently turned into metal slurry."

Aono blinked as she looked at the squirrel who had gone off to a corner of the inn room the three were staying in to check the device's condition. The box they had put the machine in was open, so Aono got a clear look of the strangely melted looking metal filling the bottom of the box with half-melted springs and cogs and other machinery pieces mixed in. "Any idea what might've caused it?" she asked.

"An automatic destruction of some kind from what I can figure out with my abilities," Tamu explained, "It's hard to tell with it in this condition, but I think it triggered after we were out of the Azure Empire for a certain length of time."

"That's real news," Sardu said, "I've never heard of a self-destruction mechanism like that. Usually it'd be something like needing a certain action to be performed on it periodically to keep it from self-destructing. I used a few such devices while I was working for the Iron Empire."

Tamu sighed as he looked the remains of the device over again. "My abilities tell me it's not that, or at least it's not an action performed manually upon the device. It might be something like exposure to the emanations of other machines like it, but that's just a guess."

"So our proof is gone," Aono said with a frown, "Which leaves only trying to forcefully persuade the Empress and any other powerful Azure members so we'll need to gather those levels while we're in the Outer Lands."

"Even then, it likely won't be that simple," Sardu said, "Are you prepared to kill if it comes to it?"

"I'd rather not, but if I had no option... I don't know if I'd be able to do it or not. I know we said some things in the heat of the moment when we first found out about the conditioning program, but," Aono trailed off and sighed.

"I see." Sardu nodded. "Will you at least do what's necessary to protect yourself, if they try to kill you?"

"Yeah..." Aono said, "I will at least defend myself."

Tamu pursed his lips. "Why're you asking those kinds of questions, Sardu?"

"So I know the limits of what you two will be willing to do and what you will find acceptable. I don't want to alienate you two cuties..." Sardu rubbed her forehead. "Look, I'm not going to pressure you into anything, but I want to know so I can work with both of you better."

Tamu looked at Sardu intently. "So you would be willing to kill if it was just you?"

"Yes," Sardu replied, "I have less hesitation over that kind of thing, we've discussed that. You know my past. But whether it's a good thing to be like that, probably not... You're definitely better people than me, cuties."

Suddenly Tamu caught Sardu in a fierce hug. "You're just as good as us! Maybe you're a bit more bloodthirsty, but you aren't a bad person!"

Aono joined the hug as Sardu protested mildly, "But some of the things I've..."

"I don't care, my love. What matters is that you're trying right now," Aono said decisively, "Look, if we manage to get the levels to defeat the Empress and she still isn't cooperative, we'll figure out what to do then."

..oOo..

It was when Juul was listening to the wind for secrets, filtering through the many voices in the air, that she caught wind of a very interesting conversation. A group talking about the conditioning program and their increasingly obviously naive plan to stop it. But the good nature that naivety showed and their reluctance to kill told Juul that those were good people. Which she hated. Those were the worst of the cases she had to deal with. The more unscrupulous opponents to the Azure Way were easier to deal with, even if her heart still ached with each one she took care of. Really, Juul would rather not kill, particularly kill people like those three.

Yet there was a slim change of their plan working, of them successively reaching level 20 and actually managing somehow to defeat the Empress and getting enough people to overturn the Azure Way. That would lead to the deaths of many who could be saved by constant expansion and conversion. Thankfully the trio had left their window a crack open while holding their conversation. They weren't the highest priority targets, but she could quickly take care of them then return to seeking any secrets on the wind that might reveal a clearer path to her higher priority targets.

A plan formed in her mind as she heard them talk about sightseeing at Edge's Overlook. Said plan would be simple enough to execute and let her take out two of them quickly so she could focus on taking out the third then vanish before a response arrived. There was a possibility of the plan failing, but even in such a case she should be able to withdraw from the scene quickly and inform the other Azure agents of her failure so any stronger agents near the trio's route could take care of it. Of course she would inform said agents of the targets first before setting out to carry out her plan.

It was a simple, strong plan for committing hideous yet necessary murder. If only she didn't have to kill such gentle people. Tears fell from her eyes as she steeled herself for what she had to do.