night's progression on the map appeared to be going smoothly. if only the raw data was considered, then alongside the party's string of loot, perhaps the answer to that question was yes, things seemed to be going alright, after all.
the reality was a little more complicated. the trees were growing sparser, by now, though it would've been difficult to tell to any outsider that wandered in without night vision. they were larger gaps between them, for as night were to look up to re-verify their time of day, it was because the height of the trees were extending beyond their usual means just prior. but that should've also meant that, from the sect of the jungle where they came from, the darkness shouldn't have been this all-occluding. where was the ambient light? why did the void stretch so deep?
she couldn't tell. and neither could she reason the look of the mesoursine they had bumped into just moments before.
how much further did they have to go? the more night examined the map, the more irritated she got, realizing the black of the map info's absence blended into the ambient night, and so too did it take on a strange appearance in such a low light environment. the duo were walking, easily taking long strides, and as much as night had wanted to consider the loot they'd gotten for any seemingly useful materials, right now all she wanted to do was figure when to tap out, excluding the use of teleport crystals for the time being.
"day, stop walking for a moment."
a strange request, and day did pipe curiously at it, but she stopped nonetheless.
"what's up?"
"i need to borrow your cloak to look at this."
day simply tilted her head, frowning only for a second. "okay." her hands reached to grab the hem of her poncho, lifting it to reveal the black turtleneck underneath.
it wasn't a miracle that night hissed and began to raise her hand, then, once she realized the flaw in both her speech and her map. "wait-- no, not like that!"
and day stopped. "huh?"
"keep your cloak on! why would i ask for it to be off in the middle of a forest like this?!" night met day's gaze if only to emphasize her bark back, just as the cloak was lowered, slow. "we're literally in the middle of a danger zone!"
day paused, blinking just as calmly. "because my combat capability is completely made up and my numbers don't matter."
was that sarcasm? a beat passed, just as night was about to question it, as day looked to the interface with an underlying eagerness. "how does this cloak help?"
"part of the map is coloured in a gray or black if it's unmapped," the player responded, eyes turning back to the interface once more, struggling to cope with a rough estimation of the distance to travel while talking. "and it stopped earlier, but i think the marker's shifted a little. so against a white backdrop..."
"...it would be a little more readable."
night nodded in return.
so the estimation: she still wasn't sure.
the marker stopping had almost tipped her off that the area seemed to work a little differently. instead of a moving icon whilst the player shifted too outside of the forest, perhaps within it, there were certain points of depth. hence, the game was spelling out how the environment worked simply through the interface as they advanced. then surely, this was a clue that anyone could've deciphered through wandering the woods as they did, right?
but if given that the game was running off of waypoints than position, the map data wouldn't be incredibly useful despite an eagle-eye's view of the forest, given that intricacy of their surroundings wouldn't be captured. that, and she wouldn't be able to estimate when they'd clear the area out -- and so much for her reputation on behalf of the rest of the 'front liners'.
(not that she thought she should care about that, though.)
eventually, night waved the interface away, grumbling, to the light chuckle of her companion. an eyebrow raised, and a sour mood, night couldn't help but ask -- "what?"
"you like what you see?"
"the map? no--"
and her eyes went back to check where the interface was. nothing registered in the first place. then day shifted, hand holding herself beneath the cloak and where the cloth hadn't folded was exactly the spot she was using to verify the data--
night simply recoiled, skin prickling. day shifted her weight onto one foot. "i-- i wasn't looking."
"oh, you don't have to hide it~"
"no, you know i wasn't looking--"
"well, i thought the map was a nice excuse..."
the player shook her head, taking in a deep breath to calm down -- one problem traded for another, and she knew how to keep herself in check with this one. so, instead of arguing further, she directed the two of them forward. "let's just keep moving. and for the record, if i'd wanted to look at them, i'd simply directly ask."
"oh of course you would--"
so they continued, day's arms slung over the back of her head, grin towards the would-be sky. and night's gaze scanned the path ahead of their steps, before it drifted to the side, and she caught a glimpse of some round objects where what little light that would've been reflected in the area was caught on its edge, gleaming round like mirrors.
the moment night started to approach them with a -- "this way," day started to lower her arms.
"wow, night," she said, following. her tone was hushed, eyes narrowed with the spark of her weapon flaring up. "you sure have a knack of walking right into danger this time."
the player would've asked, but the weapon summon was all she needed to see in order to draw her own, too. a roll of her neck -- at least it would've been drops to hand over to their client for analysis, if not crafting, and then it would be part of the order fulfilled.
night struck first, at the tell, despite not knowing where her foe was going to be. but she figured it to be the orb of light, and the snake that jumped at her struck back, along with several others that had happened to find themselves lurking in the same spot.
a roll backwards -- and so too did her secondary lunge. a single-handed side sword of light that cut through the dark, enough to illuminate just barely the lack of skin that their opponents had. translucent, and in the flash night could've caught the innards of their foe -- and the sight was gone, once the first of the pack had been culled. a loose step from the construct treaded what she was certain was the head of a second serpent -- but ask night and she would've been sure it was on purpose. because as the snake rose up on its belly, it was a prime target for night to chop another creature down.
the third burst in the air, from an upwards cut once it was raised, too, jaw lowered further than night had initially expected -- and two canines fell from there, only picked up by the outstretched hand of her companion. the fourth had sent night stumbling backwards, it coiling around her legs when she hadn't been paying attention. and in her concern, she faltered, in time to see it lunge towards her in her moment of weakness, though she recovered faster than it expected. one pierce, clumsy despite, and it too shattered into pieces, leaving only the interface to contend with the efforts of their skirmish.
so she examined the loot, the very same her counterpart brought over, thought kept it with a gesture. some bone fragments, which were labelled of their brittleness, before night decided to save the last of her examinations for a later time.
day's hand on her shoulder spoke of yet another threat.
a "what is it?" whispered to day, with the latter turning her sword into a mace. night followed her gaze to the tree trunk, noticing an odd silhouette there, too, that was obscuring part of the tree from view. almost as though it was a wire mesh model of demolished ruins, incomplete, structured out from the floor like coral.
night drew closer to it for inspection. then tripped on something -- that was when day's hand grabbed her back, fingers on her collar, and the player did her best to balance herself on two feet once more. where she was standing was a hole, dug through the dirt, with walls similar to the skeleton of the structure they were looking at moments earlier.
"i have to admit," night spat, trying her best to search the ground for more signs of hidden pitfalls, "this is starting to feel more like a trap than an actual target to strike."
"i meant the wave of creatures coming up behind it, actually." day glanced to the baskets and the pitfalls, lost in pause. "there's going to be a lot of them. and sure -- the plant's going to consume part of that horde--"
"that thing is a plant?"
"-- but i'm pretty sure they're capable of scurrying out of it without an issue."
night but blinked, trying to estimate the foreign creatures' time of arrival.
"with that mass of materials," day reasoned absentmindedly, "i'm also sure you could show up that client, whoever they are."
the system was right, but night was thinking instead of when and how she got so... showboaty all of a sudden. then she retracted that statement, remembering that this was oft how day was when they were at odds -- now, on said scouring trip, it made sense that they would've had to evaluate their results together. even if it was under the player's name only upon submission.
night shrugged her concerns off. part of it was in trusting her doppel, but the other was in trying not to juggle the mental load of their situation in the moment. there were many things to consider, regarding what to deliver -- the best thing, bistro would've said, albeit a smidge too haughtily, was to deliver herself back safely from the unknown. and if they were going to take out the stampede (or whatever) it was beyond hurtling themselves towards this way, then so be it -- no traps in the environment. which meant the auxiliary baskets had to be eliminated first.
the player swung her blade, attempting to send her attacks by range -- but day was more practical and precise, letting out a whistle as she swept through the ground. it was almost as though through her speed alone, she would've been able to uncover the pitfalls, partially covered by moss and leaves, by closing the gap between herself and the floral threat.
but it wasn't enough, as night would soon find out. multiple attacks from various angles, and the player had to stop on occasion in her shifting, simply because she felt a misstep, ground giving way. moving with caution gave her an advantage, and she took it, hurtling down stem after stem after stem.
more bones only added themselves to her inventory. and then she could feel the massive threat that day had warned her about earlier.
once most of the structure had been eliminated by the trunk, the entire field looked as though it had been snapped to a clean, undisturbed wilderness instead of the burrow-filled mess it had been earlier. sparkles, too bright in the lasting dark filled the air, but barely provided enough light amongst the trees to spot the small figures shifting in the dark. she only noticed them once the first few scouts scampered over their feet, and night nearly screamed, falling over and getting caught by her ally by two arms holding her up once again.
"they're just squirrels, night!"
because they knew the player couldn't tell, not so quickly, not in the dark. and squirrels were never meant to be in abundance in a single location, so when they came crashing over the party like a wave up to calf height she understood how such tiny figures could've been monstrous. two eyes, glowing gold in the dark were finally seen as night hobbled towards the source of the flood, day holding onto her with every step, and the king of squirrels looked exactly like a writhing mess out of nightmares, but still distinctively a giant autonomous unit in itself.
now she wasn't so sure if she would've been fighting to fill her inventory with scraps of hides to the brim. part of her wondered if a massive crowd of singular prey, of this scale, would've had a disastrous impact on the ecosystem, but something in her gut fought for otherwise.
to fight against the grain instead -- that was what she chose to focus on before thinking about its ecological implications. and day, too, followed up once night had her blade brandished, choosing to tackle the enemy with a number of skips and leaps than a regular run. mace in hand, she chased that shifting figure that faded into obscurity, leaving day the deer in headlights -- just how she liked it, centre of attention.
one swipe wasn't good enough to catch the all-knowing, and it took two before the first few squirrels fell from their positions on the beast. the thump of steel against a material like flesh but with the resistance, too, of plated metal felt incredibly dissonant to night as she kept her eyes trained on it, her feet not finding the bodies of the fleeing rodents as it contacted the ground instead. particles? it was too early to tell, definitely a technological feat only capable by cardinal. so likely.
with one combatant on each side, the mass of prey was definitely at a disadvantage, if it didn't react as cognizant as they were -- day pushed forth with a swing of the same mace, dismantling part of its hind legs that started to reform with even more squirrels latching onto the core body. and that was also the question too, as night continued forward too with an attack of her own. if the ones at her feet were particles, then it made sense that they shouldn't have been able to interact with the main figure, what consisted of multiple creatures, most of the smaller units almost inoperable to the larger frame. because there should've been eyes -- a lot of them, similar to the king, and yet they proved only useful part of assembly. and she definitely should've been able to cull them whilst they were waiting for their turn to reform, join as part of the mass. why couldn't she?
instead of thinking about the alternative ways of eliminating the threat, ahead, however, night should've been considering how lucky she was, that the sea of squirrels hadn't also been targets, for given the mass of individual actors they surely would've been overwhelmed before spying the amalgamation, worn down by the scouting units on their own. whilst she wasn't paying attention, giving the squirrel strikes off her blade, it started to separate, sinking into the sea, and she'd almost unleashed a blow where the other had been found on the other side of the would've-been creature.
day ducked, just as night had cancelled her strike, fighting the system in her actions and that gravitational pull. and instead, that feel of something looming over her from behind sent a chill down her spine, only to be replaced by a harsh blow as a flash of white slammed night to the side, a liquid light reforming, meeting another clash of equipment, where the player couldn't see in her tumble.
down on the ground. but night got up quick. a shield had been held to their opponent's claws, seeming almost blunt a strike, and the squirrels started to dissipate in formation just as a second figure was appearing behind day.
but of course the construct knew. a simple glance exchanged, and day pushed off the tumbling batch of rodents, in time to move for night to deliver her blow instead. one clean cut of white was simple enough to halt it from getting back up.
so another started to reform elsewhere instead -- and it would've been quicker, but stardust was beginning to rise from the ground. perhaps that was the key? not that night was certain, but it couldn't hurt to try. day's shield bash scattered a number of their forces before night took another start to push it back into the ground. the squirrels, understandably, seemed to be floundering.
what came rising out of the ground from that point on were echoes of the original form they'd seen before. multiple thinner arms, squirrels stacked high, managed to build themselves from the fading crowd -- multiple of them were struck down, but few had managed enough to nick night for a number of strikes. battered around in an arena, arms closing in, the one she trusted around her wrist pulled her out of the fight -- "don't corner yourself," thrust her out of the ring before slamming out an exit for herself.
night rubbed her head as she stopped herself from the mess, the waves -- this was too annoying. "we have to end this quick." and a closer into the root of an arm after day had leaped over it, leaving an opening for night to haul the edge of her blade across the flat of the ground, trying to get as many squirrels possible from that point up.
no stopping her momentum -- if she'd lost it once more, night would've thought better to retreat. so she leaned into her swings, changing course with the shift of her head. instead of a singular quick strike, she went for a prolonged series, one set she was certain any formidable and likeable foe would've appreciated, that upfront and personal closeness, the dance almost enviable from the stolen glance out of day's peripheral. so to match, not to be taken for the lesser entity, the machine threw out her shield in a pelt of light against the arm swarm, willing her weapon's edge to morph yet again, growing, to something stranger and unseen before. wasn't large enough to steal her mirror's attention -- for that wasn't the point.
chakrams that tore into the pillar of squirrels, layer by layer, dispersed of the kin in a growing shower of stars. and to boot, it should've been a martial arts technique, but her heels too were outfitted with enough edges to damage the mass beneath her.
from one source, to another, each of them dodging the sudden growing tail inhumane and hadn't even seemed like a squirrel's part -- that growth a last surprise once night had polished clean the last slashing claw that missed all but air. overhead sunders were the best tactic, there -- and though she'd presumed the same for the tail as she jumped right in to demolish it, the easiest maneuver to perform was a low cut into an upper, which wouldn't destroy the end of the almost serpentine figure the rodents had cut for themselves.
not one to worry, that night, once her shadow was part of the field. and not one to stay out of the spotlight, either, in the final curtain call -- for as the squirrels started to drop, within the player's own recovery period, what miniscule amount of them were quickly blasted to a nearby trunk, leaving a gash mark from those round bladed weapons of day's.
their victory call were a sigh, and the distant shatter of crystals.