Stories : Holo's first Cultist's Refuge run!
Tera tale by Wintersdawn, 2012-05-01T19:57:00.0000000. Reads: 370
Introduction
Chor Tempest has already braved the confines of the Cultist's Refuge many times, but it's poor Holo's first time, and she's heard that it isn't a walk in the park~ Fortunately, her friends are there to help her out, and joke around a little!
Chapter 1
A chill ran down Holo’s spine as usual as she requested to be teleported into the Cultist’s Refuge to join her group. Chor Tempest had already braved the new dungeon many times before, but it was Holo’s very first time. As she felt the all too familiar, but still so welcoming feeling of reality crashing back into existence, she opened her eyes slowly. Her jaw dropped at what she saw. To her, this was probably one of the greater dungeons she’d ever seen. If it could even be called that, she thought, gazing over the scene before her eyes. As she looked up, a random shining ball of light soared its way up and arced, coming straight down for her. It landed on her before she could react, and had already instinctively mashed her feign death skill, noticing after the fact the little green numbers of health popping up above her.
She got up slowly to the sound of laughter down below, where Yukari, Eila, Reisen, and Kyouko had been watching her impatiently. Kyouko had tossed a heal at her to get her attention, and her reaction was too much for the four to handle. Holo slowly approached them, blushing wildly, slightly humiliated, but more upset than anything.
“Holo, the Wise Wolf, right?” Yukari asked mockingly, trying to stifle her own giggles. Holo’s ears perked up indignantly as she turned away to collect her quests, trying to grasp a center of calmness that she was all too sure didn’t exist at the moment. Absently she noted that there were only a few quests, including the story line, far less than the previous dungeons had offered. She didn’t care too much at the moment, she had to come up with a way to counter her first impression to the three people she had just met. First impressions were everything. She had already missed the summon, and having to admit not knowing where to go, had to ask for help the entire way there. How could a goddess have to be so dependent on others? She dismissed the thought before it was drawn into the fire and ignited more anger, which she was barely controlling as it was.
Eila had finally stopped her giggle fit and tried to regain control of the situation. “All right, its Holo’s first time everyone, so we’ll have to do a few extra things this time around.” She said, her cheeks flushed from the amount of laughter she had only just quelled. Eila was the only one of the four Holo was comfortable with, so instinctively she closed the gap between herself and her friend to help keep herself calm, and followed her up the center path of stairs, the only one of which who’s door was actually open. As She followed Eila in, she jumped as a massive row of spikes abruptly emerged from the ground, inches to the left of where she stood, once again her reaction drawing laughter from the others.
“Oh, by the way Holo, avoid the spikes!” spouted Yukari. Yukari had spoken to Holo a few times before, and seemed rather nice, and helpful, too. She had confirmed that Holo was using the right glyphs, and instead of going against her, helped her achieve the most fitting for herself and what she thought as the best, as well. She even helped out a friend of hers with a warrior’s rotation of skills, of which her response was, “Stab the mob, stab it some more, stab it harder, then stab it again.” However, now that she had met her in person, she was a bit annoyed, more so over herself for not noticing things on her own, but also for Yukari, and everyone else, having to call her out on everything.
She shook her head slightly to clear her mind as Eila rushed forward into the single group of enemies in the room. They guarded a pillar of some sort, but Holo didn’t really care. She drew her bow back and aimed her shot to the mass of grouped up hostiles that Eila had rounded up and released her draw. The amount of numbers that showed up was always impressive; however it was about all she could do in an area of effect point of view. Yay archers, she thought to herself. She settled for laying a trap in the midst of the angry mob and abandoned the aspect of single targeting each one, and instead focused on the Wraith that for whatever reason thought it would be clever to fly around in pointless circles. Thankfully, she could maintain almost constant max damage, even while on the run.
The group as a whole didn’t last very long. Reisen, an adorable bunny who wielded an axe even larger than herself, along with Yukari’s complex rotation of stabbing, stabbing, and harder stabbing, made quick work of the minions, and the Wraith had stopped moving long enough for the three to nuke it down whilst Eila kept it all anchored down. Kyouko tossed out a few heals casually as they exited the room. Holo followed, ignoring the loud noise from back near the entrance, only because the others had paid it no attention either. As they traveled to the next room, Holo couldn’t take her eyes off of Reisen. The blade of her axe was as big as the tiny Elin, and she casually walked around like it wasn’t even there. She wondered how much strength it took to swing it, let alone do the intricate slices and arcs that she had seen her perform.
In the next room, Holo noticed a line of barrels next to each line of enemies. Knowing already what they were for, she wanted to find out for herself anyway. While her group fought the first few enemies, she snuck off to collect the contents of the chests that lay around the area that she had been requested to, and when they had come to the first group of barrels, she idly inched close enough to shoot one. As her arrow struck the closest barrel, she jumped backwards as it exploded, causing a chain reaction of explosions that followed along the path of the barrels. Every single hostile next to one was instantly knocked back, and angry. Holo smiled as innocently as she could, and dramatically pointed at Eila, putting her at fault playfully. Eila hadn’t even noticed until the skeletons had gotten back up on their feet, and had come rushing for Holo. She taunted them all at once, and they redirected to her right as they were about to trample the poor wolf. Huddling tightly in a corner, Holo did not lift her eyes until all was quiet, and she was greeted with the four of them crowding around her, staring.
“Is it alive?” Kyouko said teasingly, poking Holo gently with her staff. She lost her balance and fell over, landing on her bottom. She already knew her cheeks were as flushed as her hair.
“What did you expect me to do?” she asked frantically, pointing up to her health bar among where her and her groups status bars lie. “Archers don’t have any health.” She said, making a funny face to emphasize her despair. It was true. She had several thousand less health than even Kyouko did, and almost five thousand less than Eila.
“Excuses!” spouted Yukari, lending her a hand to help her up. She was already beginning to like this group of friends, and had decided to add it to her so far nothing but positive experiences that she’d had with Chor Tempest. Yes, they were confronting her, but it was playful, and merry. She hadn’t had this much fun in so long as she had had in the last few weeks. She gladly accepted Yukari’s hand and heaved herself up, retrieving her bow and calming herself.
“Glad to see you trust my abilities, Holo.” Eila said to her, mockingly, sticking out her tongue as she did. It was just in jest, Holo knew, but she decided to take it seriously. She knew of Eila’s skill, and decided she didn’t have to worry after all about things coming after her and trampling straight over her low health pool. And so the next thirty minutes went by the same. Eila pulled, Holo awkwardly found a way to pull, Eila pulled again, Holo pulled several times, she herself not even knowing how or why, and then Eila finally just tactfully pulling things away from other groups. Kyouko thought it wise to just hug Holo wherever she went to keep her safe. Holo, failing to understand why, constantly inched away from her every moment she got, the maneuvers they performed resulting in the two doing constant, awkward circles around Eila.
Eila just stared at Holo, sighing. “I’m going to have to start using my leash on you, aren’t I?” she asked playfully. Holo’s cheeks flushed yet again, and her ears twitched. She stopped moving, and let Kyouko lock her spells onto her without putting up a fight any more. The rest of the instance went by smoothly, until Holo once again began spastically running around in random directions, straight into groups of even more enemies, flailing her arms wildly and trying to run away, though the results ended up with her running towards them instead.
“I didn’t mean to, I promise!” Holo screamed out apologetically, panicked slightly at her dwindling health bar. She was running the complete opposite way she was willing her body to go, and it was deeply confusing her. Eila fought to keep control of the tiny scorpions, but they seemed to have their own idea of who they wanted to nibble on, despite the amounts of hate that Eila pumped into them, their desired targets of choice being mostly Reisen and Holo. After several minutes of absolute chaos, the last of the tiny scorpions and their mistresses fell to the ground, perished.
Eila, her cheeks flushed with anger, and a gleam in her eye, romped up to Holo, grabbed both of her shoulders firmly, and stared straight into her eyes. Holo’s ears had fallen flat, and her tail was tucked closely to her own body at Eila’s advance. She stared back submissively as she awaited her demise. Eila took a deep breath before starting. “Holo, I love you, but these scorpions are the absolute worst little devils that have ever spawned from hell. Please don’t ever pull any more than you have to. Ever.” She delivered promptly, putting an intense amount of emphasis on her last word. She released the trembling wolf and authoritatively began stomping through to the next room.
Yukari put her hand gently on her shoulder, barely holding in the laughter that Holo was becoming all too familiar with. “By the way, dear, the scorpions confuse you. It reverses your movement!” she told her, giving reason to Holo’s random movements that she had little control over. She lowered herself to the small wolf’s ear and whispered, giggling, “The look on her face was so priceless!” Eila, being a fox herself, had heard this comment. Her tail flicked violently, and she raised her chin a little, pounding off up the stairs and aggressively leashing one of the two lancers that awaited their arrival.
A short time later, they faced the last boss. Reisen reached over and lifted Holo’s jaw to close her mouth, and she shook her head, coming out of the daze she had been in momentarily. She glanced at Eila, who of course looked completely indifferent. How they could just casually stare at this giant thing with its massive swords, she did not now. She was terrified. She recovered quickly though, and cleared her head to prepare for the aspects of this fight to be told to her. She watched as Eila just up and ran up to the boss, and she realized that they weren’t going to tell her how it worked, at least not yet, when it made the most sense. Should have figured, she thought to herself as she drew her bow and proceeded to begin nuking her target. In seconds the boss turned itself towards her and she turned tail to run as he chased after her in circles. Reisen and Yukari met each other’s gaze, and Kyouko sighed heavily as she ran over, already getting ready to drain her mana keeping Holo alive. Yukari shook her head with her arms crossed and she spoke to Reisen. “We should have told her, ya’know? Probably would have made sense.” She added absently.
It took Eila quite a bit of effort to get the boss off of Holo and back onto her, and as soon as she did, she gasped as he ran to the center, multiplied himself by seven times, and one shotted her before she could even react. Holo’s eyes went wide, and Reisen and Yukari leapt into action, making quick work of the duplicates. Reisen took over tanking, using her massive axe as a shield, while Yukari began trying to damage the boss. Holo snuck over to Eila’s body and began resurrecting her, the boss only just barely missing her with a massive leap as the scroll finished its job. Eila was back in her feet in an instant, and just in time to rescue Reisen and give Kyouko enough time to get everyone back up. As soon as Eila pulled the boss back into place, it happened again. He multiplied, one shot Eila, squashed Kyouko, and dashed straight for Yukari. The three friends were able to down the mirror images, and began rotating the boss randomly in between themselves, desperately trying to kill him. Yukari had snuck away to resurrect Kyouko, and it seemed as though Holo had stolen their targets cornflakes, because he was on her like white on rice. Now that Yukari was back in action, she finally took his attention, and Kyouko was able to keep her alive long enough for the three to shave away the rest of his remaining life.
Victory was attained, and Holo walked over to Eila’s corpse and playfully began poking at her. A small chat bubble appeared over Eila, and this time everyone laughed with Holo, instead of at her. Eila was rather annoyed at having died twice, and threatened to put a leash on Holo for poking her as soon as she was revived. So Holo desperately tried to plead Kyouko to cancel her scroll, but to no avail. As soon as the spell completed, Holo fled out of the room and back to the beginning of the dungeon as fast as her legs would carry her, Eila close behind in pursuit.
Holo was able to get a huge lead, and thinking that Eila had given up, calmly slowed down to turn in her quests. Upon turning in her last one, a light sprouted brightly from her chest, and two wing like protrusions made of light erupted from her body. She had leveled up to thirty eight! Eila had arrived just in time to see it happen, and snuck behind Holo while she clapped excitedly for herself. As soon as she got close enough, she pulled out the end of an intricate red collar, the clip of which was already fastened to the long black leash she held in her other hand. She quickly threw the collar around Holo’s neck and sealed it before she could resist, and took a few steps back to await her reaction.
Dread filled Holo’s mind as she turned around slowly to look at Eila. She dropped down to her knees and tried to give the best puppy eyes she could, but Eila crossed her arms as she looked down at her, tapping her foot impatiently. “Not until you learn to better behave yourself! Or at least until I get bored.” She mentioned absently.
Holo gave a sigh and stood slowly as Yukari, Reisen and Kyouko arrived from behind Eila. Yukari’s expression caused Holo’s cheeks to flush and her ears to lower aggressively.
“Aww, she’s so cuuute~ what’s her name Eila?” She asked obnoxiously, striding over to Holo and playfully petting her between her ears. Holo snapped warningly at her before sitting down facing away from everyone, her tail flicking violently.
**** **** **** **** To be continued~ **** **** **** ****
She got up slowly to the sound of laughter down below, where Yukari, Eila, Reisen, and Kyouko had been watching her impatiently. Kyouko had tossed a heal at her to get her attention, and her reaction was too much for the four to handle. Holo slowly approached them, blushing wildly, slightly humiliated, but more upset than anything.
“Holo, the Wise Wolf, right?” Yukari asked mockingly, trying to stifle her own giggles. Holo’s ears perked up indignantly as she turned away to collect her quests, trying to grasp a center of calmness that she was all too sure didn’t exist at the moment. Absently she noted that there were only a few quests, including the story line, far less than the previous dungeons had offered. She didn’t care too much at the moment, she had to come up with a way to counter her first impression to the three people she had just met. First impressions were everything. She had already missed the summon, and having to admit not knowing where to go, had to ask for help the entire way there. How could a goddess have to be so dependent on others? She dismissed the thought before it was drawn into the fire and ignited more anger, which she was barely controlling as it was.
Eila had finally stopped her giggle fit and tried to regain control of the situation. “All right, its Holo’s first time everyone, so we’ll have to do a few extra things this time around.” She said, her cheeks flushed from the amount of laughter she had only just quelled. Eila was the only one of the four Holo was comfortable with, so instinctively she closed the gap between herself and her friend to help keep herself calm, and followed her up the center path of stairs, the only one of which who’s door was actually open. As She followed Eila in, she jumped as a massive row of spikes abruptly emerged from the ground, inches to the left of where she stood, once again her reaction drawing laughter from the others.
“Oh, by the way Holo, avoid the spikes!” spouted Yukari. Yukari had spoken to Holo a few times before, and seemed rather nice, and helpful, too. She had confirmed that Holo was using the right glyphs, and instead of going against her, helped her achieve the most fitting for herself and what she thought as the best, as well. She even helped out a friend of hers with a warrior’s rotation of skills, of which her response was, “Stab the mob, stab it some more, stab it harder, then stab it again.” However, now that she had met her in person, she was a bit annoyed, more so over herself for not noticing things on her own, but also for Yukari, and everyone else, having to call her out on everything.
She shook her head slightly to clear her mind as Eila rushed forward into the single group of enemies in the room. They guarded a pillar of some sort, but Holo didn’t really care. She drew her bow back and aimed her shot to the mass of grouped up hostiles that Eila had rounded up and released her draw. The amount of numbers that showed up was always impressive; however it was about all she could do in an area of effect point of view. Yay archers, she thought to herself. She settled for laying a trap in the midst of the angry mob and abandoned the aspect of single targeting each one, and instead focused on the Wraith that for whatever reason thought it would be clever to fly around in pointless circles. Thankfully, she could maintain almost constant max damage, even while on the run.
The group as a whole didn’t last very long. Reisen, an adorable bunny who wielded an axe even larger than herself, along with Yukari’s complex rotation of stabbing, stabbing, and harder stabbing, made quick work of the minions, and the Wraith had stopped moving long enough for the three to nuke it down whilst Eila kept it all anchored down. Kyouko tossed out a few heals casually as they exited the room. Holo followed, ignoring the loud noise from back near the entrance, only because the others had paid it no attention either. As they traveled to the next room, Holo couldn’t take her eyes off of Reisen. The blade of her axe was as big as the tiny Elin, and she casually walked around like it wasn’t even there. She wondered how much strength it took to swing it, let alone do the intricate slices and arcs that she had seen her perform.
In the next room, Holo noticed a line of barrels next to each line of enemies. Knowing already what they were for, she wanted to find out for herself anyway. While her group fought the first few enemies, she snuck off to collect the contents of the chests that lay around the area that she had been requested to, and when they had come to the first group of barrels, she idly inched close enough to shoot one. As her arrow struck the closest barrel, she jumped backwards as it exploded, causing a chain reaction of explosions that followed along the path of the barrels. Every single hostile next to one was instantly knocked back, and angry. Holo smiled as innocently as she could, and dramatically pointed at Eila, putting her at fault playfully. Eila hadn’t even noticed until the skeletons had gotten back up on their feet, and had come rushing for Holo. She taunted them all at once, and they redirected to her right as they were about to trample the poor wolf. Huddling tightly in a corner, Holo did not lift her eyes until all was quiet, and she was greeted with the four of them crowding around her, staring.
“Is it alive?” Kyouko said teasingly, poking Holo gently with her staff. She lost her balance and fell over, landing on her bottom. She already knew her cheeks were as flushed as her hair.
“What did you expect me to do?” she asked frantically, pointing up to her health bar among where her and her groups status bars lie. “Archers don’t have any health.” She said, making a funny face to emphasize her despair. It was true. She had several thousand less health than even Kyouko did, and almost five thousand less than Eila.
“Excuses!” spouted Yukari, lending her a hand to help her up. She was already beginning to like this group of friends, and had decided to add it to her so far nothing but positive experiences that she’d had with Chor Tempest. Yes, they were confronting her, but it was playful, and merry. She hadn’t had this much fun in so long as she had had in the last few weeks. She gladly accepted Yukari’s hand and heaved herself up, retrieving her bow and calming herself.
“Glad to see you trust my abilities, Holo.” Eila said to her, mockingly, sticking out her tongue as she did. It was just in jest, Holo knew, but she decided to take it seriously. She knew of Eila’s skill, and decided she didn’t have to worry after all about things coming after her and trampling straight over her low health pool. And so the next thirty minutes went by the same. Eila pulled, Holo awkwardly found a way to pull, Eila pulled again, Holo pulled several times, she herself not even knowing how or why, and then Eila finally just tactfully pulling things away from other groups. Kyouko thought it wise to just hug Holo wherever she went to keep her safe. Holo, failing to understand why, constantly inched away from her every moment she got, the maneuvers they performed resulting in the two doing constant, awkward circles around Eila.
Eila just stared at Holo, sighing. “I’m going to have to start using my leash on you, aren’t I?” she asked playfully. Holo’s cheeks flushed yet again, and her ears twitched. She stopped moving, and let Kyouko lock her spells onto her without putting up a fight any more. The rest of the instance went by smoothly, until Holo once again began spastically running around in random directions, straight into groups of even more enemies, flailing her arms wildly and trying to run away, though the results ended up with her running towards them instead.
“I didn’t mean to, I promise!” Holo screamed out apologetically, panicked slightly at her dwindling health bar. She was running the complete opposite way she was willing her body to go, and it was deeply confusing her. Eila fought to keep control of the tiny scorpions, but they seemed to have their own idea of who they wanted to nibble on, despite the amounts of hate that Eila pumped into them, their desired targets of choice being mostly Reisen and Holo. After several minutes of absolute chaos, the last of the tiny scorpions and their mistresses fell to the ground, perished.
Eila, her cheeks flushed with anger, and a gleam in her eye, romped up to Holo, grabbed both of her shoulders firmly, and stared straight into her eyes. Holo’s ears had fallen flat, and her tail was tucked closely to her own body at Eila’s advance. She stared back submissively as she awaited her demise. Eila took a deep breath before starting. “Holo, I love you, but these scorpions are the absolute worst little devils that have ever spawned from hell. Please don’t ever pull any more than you have to. Ever.” She delivered promptly, putting an intense amount of emphasis on her last word. She released the trembling wolf and authoritatively began stomping through to the next room.
Yukari put her hand gently on her shoulder, barely holding in the laughter that Holo was becoming all too familiar with. “By the way, dear, the scorpions confuse you. It reverses your movement!” she told her, giving reason to Holo’s random movements that she had little control over. She lowered herself to the small wolf’s ear and whispered, giggling, “The look on her face was so priceless!” Eila, being a fox herself, had heard this comment. Her tail flicked violently, and she raised her chin a little, pounding off up the stairs and aggressively leashing one of the two lancers that awaited their arrival.
A short time later, they faced the last boss. Reisen reached over and lifted Holo’s jaw to close her mouth, and she shook her head, coming out of the daze she had been in momentarily. She glanced at Eila, who of course looked completely indifferent. How they could just casually stare at this giant thing with its massive swords, she did not now. She was terrified. She recovered quickly though, and cleared her head to prepare for the aspects of this fight to be told to her. She watched as Eila just up and ran up to the boss, and she realized that they weren’t going to tell her how it worked, at least not yet, when it made the most sense. Should have figured, she thought to herself as she drew her bow and proceeded to begin nuking her target. In seconds the boss turned itself towards her and she turned tail to run as he chased after her in circles. Reisen and Yukari met each other’s gaze, and Kyouko sighed heavily as she ran over, already getting ready to drain her mana keeping Holo alive. Yukari shook her head with her arms crossed and she spoke to Reisen. “We should have told her, ya’know? Probably would have made sense.” She added absently.
It took Eila quite a bit of effort to get the boss off of Holo and back onto her, and as soon as she did, she gasped as he ran to the center, multiplied himself by seven times, and one shotted her before she could even react. Holo’s eyes went wide, and Reisen and Yukari leapt into action, making quick work of the duplicates. Reisen took over tanking, using her massive axe as a shield, while Yukari began trying to damage the boss. Holo snuck over to Eila’s body and began resurrecting her, the boss only just barely missing her with a massive leap as the scroll finished its job. Eila was back in her feet in an instant, and just in time to rescue Reisen and give Kyouko enough time to get everyone back up. As soon as Eila pulled the boss back into place, it happened again. He multiplied, one shot Eila, squashed Kyouko, and dashed straight for Yukari. The three friends were able to down the mirror images, and began rotating the boss randomly in between themselves, desperately trying to kill him. Yukari had snuck away to resurrect Kyouko, and it seemed as though Holo had stolen their targets cornflakes, because he was on her like white on rice. Now that Yukari was back in action, she finally took his attention, and Kyouko was able to keep her alive long enough for the three to shave away the rest of his remaining life.
Victory was attained, and Holo walked over to Eila’s corpse and playfully began poking at her. A small chat bubble appeared over Eila, and this time everyone laughed with Holo, instead of at her. Eila was rather annoyed at having died twice, and threatened to put a leash on Holo for poking her as soon as she was revived. So Holo desperately tried to plead Kyouko to cancel her scroll, but to no avail. As soon as the spell completed, Holo fled out of the room and back to the beginning of the dungeon as fast as her legs would carry her, Eila close behind in pursuit.
Holo was able to get a huge lead, and thinking that Eila had given up, calmly slowed down to turn in her quests. Upon turning in her last one, a light sprouted brightly from her chest, and two wing like protrusions made of light erupted from her body. She had leveled up to thirty eight! Eila had arrived just in time to see it happen, and snuck behind Holo while she clapped excitedly for herself. As soon as she got close enough, she pulled out the end of an intricate red collar, the clip of which was already fastened to the long black leash she held in her other hand. She quickly threw the collar around Holo’s neck and sealed it before she could resist, and took a few steps back to await her reaction.
Dread filled Holo’s mind as she turned around slowly to look at Eila. She dropped down to her knees and tried to give the best puppy eyes she could, but Eila crossed her arms as she looked down at her, tapping her foot impatiently. “Not until you learn to better behave yourself! Or at least until I get bored.” She mentioned absently.
Holo gave a sigh and stood slowly as Yukari, Reisen and Kyouko arrived from behind Eila. Yukari’s expression caused Holo’s cheeks to flush and her ears to lower aggressively.
“Aww, she’s so cuuute~ what’s her name Eila?” She asked obnoxiously, striding over to Holo and playfully petting her between her ears. Holo snapped warningly at her before sitting down facing away from everyone, her tail flicking violently.
**** **** **** **** To be continued~ **** **** **** ****
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