Climbing Higher [OPEN, Party of 2]

[Lucretia Odovacar]

The days past as she continued exploring the spire.  She could hardly believe that she was already more than halfway up the building while very thoroughly studying the floor plan.  Lucretia was right, it did start deviating from the actual floor plan as she went up.  It was fortunate that she had the ability to sense these creatures.  If she had to fight more often than she ended up doing so anyway, properly looking at the map of this place would take months.

As she climbed, she was getting increasingly curious about what was at the top.  Part of her figured it would just be more stores, but given how dangerous the place was and how much the creatures seemed to want to defend it, perhaps it was something special.

[Kate Minola]

Kate felt a little weird, maybe she was indeed intruding Lucretia's privacy? She'd followed her when she spotted her going into the creepy spire. Kate had wanted to explore the place a bit for some time but she was always just way too chicken to go in alone. Sure, Lulu (she only thought of her as such, she would never dare presume to call her that without her permission!) was a support-type but it was still nice to have the comforting presence of even a silent person around. Besides, Lucretia would probably need a damager backup - this place was probably not a playground.

"Um, Lucretia? How long have you been... er, mapping the place out?" Kate asked her through thoughts. "This place is huge. I don't think the... er, real building is quite this big on the inside."

Not only was it huge, it was damn creepy too with shadows clinging to corners and creating strange shapes that she didn't really feel like looking at too closely.

[Alice]

Maaaaps? More like flaaaaaps.

Morrigan
Null: Wind
Resist: Slash
Weak: Pierce
Skills: Brave Blade, Rainy Death, Magarula, Recarm

[Lucretia Odovacar]

By now she had been exploring this place so long that between her knowledge of the layout of the building and her ability to sense the creatures around, she practically didn't even have to look up from her map.  Lucretia sensed the human long before she even got close to her, so it was no surprise to her when the other user finally decided to speak up.  She just shrugged as if she had been looking at her the whole time.

"About a week," she spoke using her actual voice instead of her telepathic voice for once, though she still didn't look up from the map.  "Looking around right is really slow.  It will likely take me another week or two to finish."

Then, she sensed a demon moving abnormally fast though the nearby hallway.  There was still sometime to move out of the way, but given what she knew about the other user's build and reflexes, it seemed unlikely that she would be able to relay the message and still leave enough time for the user to understand what she meant and get to a reasonable hiding place.  Oh well, it was a single creature and this other user was more offensive-based, and she had reached the area she was trying to investigate today.  She could easily continue her investigation and heal.  It's not like her damage would affect the outcome of the battle that much anyway.

"Youkai coming from the left very fast.  Get ready."  This time she spoke using her mind.  "Do not use slashing or wind attacks, use pierce.  Its attacks are not that dangerous."

It was a shame that it resisted slash given that was that user's primary source of offensive power if she remembered correctly.  Oh well, that bow would certainly make quick work of it, and Lucretia herself could continue looking around and listen for any grunts to know when she should heal.

[Kate Minola]

Kate nodded at Lucretia's response, then tensed when her body language shifted - just a little bit. It seemed that she had sensed something. She listened to her instructions when she began retreating and nodded briskly.

"Understood. I'll take care of it. Please keep a lookout for any interfering foes," she said calmly making a quick decision, readied her bow with an arrow nocked but not drawn.

Using slash was out, but Kate knew that wasn't the only offensive option Antiope gave her, and she had come to understand that her Persona's ability strengths not in all-out-assault, but standing ground and bringing the fight to the enemy.

When the demon burst into their location, Kate bit her lip. It was very fast, a winged humanoid in dark, crow-themed armor, armed with a sword and looking very determined to strike her down.

Kate drew back her bow and took a deep breath. The demon flitted around hesitantly for a moment, trying to confuse her or possibly outmaneuver her aiming skills. She charged when she thought that she had gotten beyond Kate's aiming, but when Kate let go of the bowstring her arrow flew true and stabbed the she-demon right in the shoulder. The arrow pierced straight through the armor and actually knocked it backwards with an expression that almost resembled surprise.

Kate loosed a second arrow but that did miss as the demon flew under it and swung its sword, unleashing a wave of power that rushed to Kate and struck her. She braced herself for it and although it hurt, it didn't fell her. She stood straight again, started to move and fired another arrow at the demon while running diagonally across the space to evade another such swing. Her arrow struck the thing in the chest just it raised its sword and called down a hale of spectral arrows out of nowhere. While the attack connected, Antiope appeared out of nowhere with her shield raised and the attack bounced right off Kate. It seemingly returned back to the demon, who was knocked flat down with a frustrated cry.

Kate struck it again in the shoulder, pinning it to the ground but it loosed a powerful blast of air right at her. Kate shrugged, raised her arm over her face and stood her ground. It staggered her, how cold and cutting it was, but she didn't go down. Antiope's regenerative abilities helped her bounce back, although she was sore and was probably going to feel that in the morning.

Kate nocked another arrow and fired, penetrating the creature's helmet and knocking it to the ground where it died with a frustrated cry that sounded vaguely avian in nature.