[PP-F26] Slimostasis?

[Cordelia 0]

Consciousness came to Cordelia in droves, like ripples that lapped into crashing waves. Each heartbeat of existence marked a surfacing thought, and each thought expanded into a new and foreign feeling in her body. The fatigue, the exhaustion, the way her limbs felt like lead weights on her body. It was almost as if she was waking up from a deep slumber after nights without reprieve. And yet, she couldn’t open her eyes.

A dream, she surmises. Surely this was a dream, Cordelia thinks, but who dreams of nothing at all? 

There was no fantastical scenery to behold, nor was there the presence of a loved one she had lost along the way on her journey. She simply existed in a space that was nothing but everything at the same time. Confusion seeped into her addled head, and suddenly everything about this existence felt wrong. Her nails felt foreign on her body. Her skin felt too clammy to be natural. Everything felt wrong.

Suddenly, she drops.

Every nerve in her body jolts at her consciousness being suddenly sent into overload, and she instinctively gasps for air only to have something viscous fill her lungs. This was no dream. Cordelia shakes as she struggles to claw herself out of the gel-like prison, to no avail. She had not dreamt of the weights on her limbs, and whatever was holding her there had no intentions of letting her escape any time soon. 

Well, shit.

[Pinball 1]

A woman trapped in a gelatinous cube wasn't on this year's bingo card. He wished he could have said that he'd seen stranger things over the years, but he wasn't sure that he had. 

The woman in the slime had a green cursor above her head. She was a real player. More than that -- though he couldn't quite remember how, she seemed strangely familiar. Pinball stood there for a moment, debating his best course of action. He could always reach in to save her, but what if it was a trap? He could try to cut her out, but would she take damage? And what if (however unlikely it might have been) he decided to pull her out and she just died instantly? Pinball frowned. While kind of funny in a morbid way, he thought that it was probably best if he had a witness before he tried to do anything. 

He sent a message to Lessa. 
    >To: Lessa
>> found someone trapped in slime on the 26th. 
>>> blond/white hair. young. looks asleep. or paralyzed. 
>>>> maybe you know her? 
>>>>> coordinates attached. 

As Pinball sent the message, he suddenly got the feeling that he was being watched. He glanced back at slime girl and squinted. 

She hadn't moved, had she? 

[Lessa 1]

   >To: Pinball
>> This is a joke, right?
>>> You know what, nevermind.
>>>> I'll be right there.
>>>>> PLEASE don't touch anything.

She ran the entire way, her heavy armor clanging, and Riker loping along at her heels. The entire trip, questions swirled. Who in the world could be trapped in the slime? Why were they there? What could these new slime-traps mean for the future of the game? Would they spend the rest of their time in Aincrad looking over their shoulders for rogue, murderous slime monsters? And then, of course, there was the less important but still present concern - why in the world would Pinball reach out to her? Their relationship had always been cordial at best, and while Lessa cared for the man, she wasn't sure she considered him a close friend. The last time they'd spoken had been last winter, when he'd sent his annual "merry christmas" message. Apparently, a murderous ex-boyfriend really throws a wrench into any kinship. Though Pin had reached out to explain that he and Bahr were on better terms, Lessa wasn't sure how much of it she believed. The entire situation had been traumatic, and she hadn't been the one on the pointy end of Bahr's sword.

She schooled her face into an expression of mild concern, attempting to hide the complete confusion as she finally came to a stop at Pinball's side. "You weren't kidding," she said by way of greeting. "That is a girl trapped in slime." Her wolf familiar picked his way closer, sniffing hesitantly at the gelatinous blob, which gave Lessa an idea. "Did you try inspecting her? Maybe that will give us something?" Even as she spoke, the woman called up her HUD, scanning the slime prison. Nothing.

"It's like the slime is blocking me from really seeing her," Lessa mused aloud, taking a few steps around the slime like a boxer circling his opponent. "But I'll be honest, she does look kind of familiar." The white hair and fair complexion tugged on Lessa's memories, but there was something slightly off about her appearance. That, and the slime made it feel a bit like she was looking through muddy water. "I wonder if I can just-"

A green health bar suddenly populated over the slime, as if Lessa had finally looked at it from just the right angle. And the name attached to it froze the blood in her veins.

"It's Cord!" Lessa cried out. "Pin, it's Cord! We have to get her out!" Her movements held the same panicked desperation as her voice as she fell on the slime, gauntleted fingers raking through the green goo like a child in a sandbox. Had she been thinking clearly, she might have stopped to consider the risks involved with violently tearing Cordelia from the slime. What if it was somehow keeping her alive, and dragging her away might cause her harm? What if the slime were a living thing, and fought back? What if she was doing the wrong thing? But she wasn't thinking clearly. She dug and dug, only distantly aware of Riker and Pinball taking up position on either side of her. 

Spoiler

Name: Lessa, Guardian of Aincrad True Tier: 9
Level: 33
Paragon Level: 57
HP: 940/940
EN: 126/126

Stats:
Damage: 23
Mitigation: 55
Accuracy: 2
Battle Healing: 47
Stealth Rating: -5
REC: 8
HM: 8
HLY: 8
Equipped Gear:
Weapon/Armor/Trinket: 
  - Arcael's Might (T4 THSS - DMG DMG DMG HLY)                                                        
Armor/Trinket: 
  - Empress Armor (T4 HA - HM HM THNS THNS)                                                             
Shield/Armor/Trinket: 
  - Neutron Star Necklace (T4 TRINKET - ACC ACC REC REC)

Combat Mastery:
  - 

Combat Shift:
  - ST Shift

Familiar Skill:
  - Rending Familiar

Custom Skill:
  - 

Skills:
  - Battle Healing R5
  - Charge
  - Energist
  - Fighting Spirit
  - Heavy Armor R5
  - Straight Sword R5

Extra Skills:

Inactive Extra Skills:

Addons:
  - Ferocity
  - Iron Skin
  - Stamina

Mods:
  - Emergency Recovery
  - Impetus
  - Justified Riposte

Inactive Mods:

Battle Ready Inventory:

Housing Buffs:

Guild Hall Buffs:

Scents of the Wild Totem:

Wedding Ring:

Crafting Profession:
 - Blacksmith[465exp] R6
Gathering Profession:
 - Forager[0exp] R1

 

[Cordelia 0]

Panic swelled in her stomach as her consciousness fell back into her confused body. Her five senses invaded her mind in a way she had never experienced before. One moment she was feeling nothing and another she was feeling everything. 

Cold, was her first thought. Chills traveled up her skin like ocean water in the winter. Can’t move, was the next. She couldn’t tell if something was physically restraining her or if her motor functions just ceased to work. Nonetheless, she was as good as stuck. Her eyes were open, as far as she could tell, but all that met her vision was murkiness. Shadows of something moved beyond the veil, but figuring out if that was something her mind was playing on her with or not was something she quickly gave up on.

What if I’m just stuck here forever? She thought miserably, Surely, I’ll go insane by then. If she could sigh without getting a mouthful of slime, she would. There were so many things she wanted to do in her life, both in and out of Aincrad. A hundred floors and I won’t even be able to see seventy percent of them, she internally wept, suddenly feeling sick now that a life of nothing was now a prospect of her future. She would never be able to say goodbye to the people she met along the way. She would never get to tell–

Cordelia couldn’t even finish her thought before everything around her completely collapsed. The efforts of Lessa, Pinball, and Riker must’ve struck some kind of metaphorical switch within the slime, causing it to basically implode on itself and burst into globs of green goop. After the initial shock and explosion, all that remained of the big slime ball was its nasty green parts littered everywhere and a lone figure. Cordelia lay in the middle of the disaster, coughing out bits of the slime as she propped herself up on her arms. 

“Holy–” she began, voice hoarse as she took gasps of the first actual air she’d had in forever (even if it was completely unnecessary in this God-forsaken game). “– FUCK!”

[Pinball 1]

Lessa arrived quicker than he'd expected her to. 

Pinball stepped aside and let her have her space. He felt a bit out of place. Lessa seemed a lot more invested than he was in this strange discovery, but wasn't that why he'd messaged her? Pinball watched as she peered deeply into the slime, searching for anything she could use to identify the player's identity -- 

-- and with a start, she'd found it. Cord? Cord? Who was Cord? Pinball didn't remember anybody named Cord -- though the face trapped in slimostasis did seem mildly familiar -- but Lessa certainly did. She wasted no time digging up frantic chunks of the slime, her familiar immediately moving to assist her in the endeavor. Pinball hesitated and then moved to help as well. In the back of his mind, again, he wondered how messed up it would be if they freed the player's head only for them to explode into a million crystalline fragments of light. 

But that was (thankfully) not the case. Nearly as soon as they'd started digging, they must have triggered some response in the slime that caused it to practically implode on itself, reducing its shiny green mass to just a few neat chunks of discarded goop. Pinball stepped away, allowing Cordelia the space to breathe, and for Lessa the chance to speak. He felt that Lessa was much closer to this discovery than he was. 

[Lessa 1]

Lessa thudded to her knees, the slime squelching beneath her in a most unappealing way. Instinctively, Lessa slid an arm beneath Cordelia's thin shoulders, lifting her upright, and supporting some of her weight. The woman coughed and shuddered, and Lessa let her gaze sweep over her guildmate while she waited for her to catch her breath. No visible wounds, thank goodness. And another look at her bar showed full health and no afflictions. Why, then, had she been trapped in the weird cocoon?

"Hey Cord," the Guardian greeted gently once Cordelia's sputtering had slowed. "I've got you. You're alright." What a strange thing to say - Lessa had no way of knowing if Cord was actually alright. But the reassurances still fell from her lips like a cooling and familiar rain. For his part, Riker laid down at Cordelia's feet, tail thumping rhythmically in the slime. Bits of it clung to his espresso-colored fur, but if it bothered him, he gave no indication.

Lessa glanced up at Pinball, then back to Cord. "Pin found you," she stated, as if suddenly feeling the urge to explain Pinball's presence. It felt odd for her to take center stage when she had only been called in as a reinforcement. "Do you, uh, have any idea what happened to you?"

[Cordelia 0]

Vision came to her in patches of bright white, forcing her to blink several times before she could make out who was holding her upright. “Lessa?” Cordelia croaked, surprise evident in slurred words. Whether it was out of relief to see a long-time friend after so much time or relief to be finally free from the most traumatic experience she’d ever had, tears immediately started to seep from the corners of her eyes. She sniffed, rubbing her weeping expression with her wrist before wrapping them around the woman in a wordless embrace. Lessa’s presence was always comforting, then and now, and Cordelia took no shame in indulging herself when she needed it most.

As she pried herself away from her friend, still weeping, she looked up at the mention of a familiar name. Bleary eyes locked onto the visage of the once infamous Pinball. It’s been a while since she’d last seen the guy, and if it weren’t for his reputation, she was sure she would’ve forgotten him by now. Cordelia wasn’t one to let a good deed go unnoticed, but hesitation held her tongue from giving him a proper thank you. However, the weariness faltered as she briefly glanced at Lessa. If a person like Lessa could trust him, then she figured he was alright enough. 

“Thank you,” she muttered hoarsly, eyes casting downward as she bowed her head in gratitude, “for not leaving me there.” 

Lessa’s question had her words and thoughts faltering. She pressed a palm against her forehead, as if to instinctually soothe an ache that didn’t exist. “I don’t… I don’t remember,” she stammered, squinting at her lap in frustration as she failed to recall much of anything before the events of waking up in the slime. “I was staying with Baldur for a while, but…” The memories of her temporary residence at the dojo of her mentor were clear as day, but anything after that became muddy like foggy water. “That’s all I can recall.” 

“I don’t even know how long I was gone,” Cordelia muttered bitterly, now keenly aware of how she failed to stay in contact with most of her friends and acquaintances even prior to getting stuck in this predicament. “Did anything happen since I last saw you?” An air of fatigue and apprehension lingered in her expectant question, as if she wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the answer.

[Pinball 1]

How long had she been gone? 

Long, by the sound of it. Or not long at all. Time in Aincrad was weird, and that went without saying. On some days, he could have sworn that a decade has passed. On others, it felt more like two. From what he understood, everyone experienced it different too. Nobody seemed to have the same answer, but the common consensus was just that: time in Aincrad was weird. 

Pinball let the two of them talk. After freeing Cordelia, Pinball had backed up, giving the two space to talk. His head was down now, his arms crossed as the two women embraced. He was glad, he thought, that he could help reunite them. But Pinball felt out of place. A glance here, a moment of hesitation there... that was all that he needed to know that it'd be a lot easier for them to speak freely without the shadow of a killer looming over them. 

He'd give the two of them room to breathe. Without so much as a word, Pinball slipped out of the room and was gone.