DEGARUTA! Episode 05

DEGARUTA! Episode 05: The District of the Damned! A Ghoulish Turnabout!

  The commotion caused by the impromptu hero summoning and the magic attacks from the vampire create enough noise for the Paladin Erica to locate the duo with some guards as back up. While the guards are no match for the vampire physically, Erica uses her holy symbol and prepares to cast 'Turn Undead.' The Vampire realizing what is about to happen hisses and then flees the scene by turning into mist and vanishing.

	Erica attempts to push Xavier and Mike into joining her in pursuit of the vampire, but after coming to terms with the fact that their genius plan immediately failed, and being unarmed remain speechless for a few moments. Regaining their bearing and realizing that pursuing the vampire is now a lost cause, they attempt to share their notes of the experience with Erica.

	Erica is puzzled by the idiotic series of events that took place and eventually led to the death of Neil, who otherwise seemed like a pretty nice guy, and that they managed to summon another hero to back them up. The hero summoning ritual was said to have been lost for millennia except for the few places where the ritual remained engraved in the stones. She is also quite alarmed when Raptro re-materializes out of thin air.

	The two introduce Raptro to Erica, who is then annoyed by the fact that he cannot understand her and she cannot understand him. They tell him not to worry about that as he can figure that part out on his own time. He demands to know what the hell is going on and why he is there. The 2 heroes explain to their new sidekick that they summoned him as back up, and when given the opportunity to determine his cheat skill they opted for immortality. However all things being in balance this required he lose any skill buffs he might have otherwise picked up as well as the magic language comprehension modification that comes standard with Hero summoning.

	Raptro is visibly upset as immortality doesn't mean the same thing as invincibility, and rather than being unstoppable they have basically turned him into 'Tails' from Sonic. Done arguing and thoroughly confused all the way around, the party returns to the Inn to compare notes and prepare for the next battle which will occur in a few hours as the guards begin sealing off the Quarter as the sun begins to rise.

	Raptro registers as a member of the party at the guild, and while he is pissed that his stats are effectively garbage, he is happy he at least gets to pick his own job class and once synergized with it will receive a slight stat boost. However he is angered to learn that even though he chose the Monk class, he did not instantly learn any martial arts. This day has only gotten worse and worse, especially when learning that his job class means he can't use any real armor.

	Now properly equipped, and after having Erica bless their respective weapons to temporarily make them Blessed Blades, and turn small vials of water into holy water, the group with Zentaro head to the sealed quarter. The plan now is to hunt the vampire during the day when they should be sleeping, or are otherwise weaker. Mike leads the party to the best of his recollection to the building where he first encountered the beast, blood stains from Neil's death still cover the ground even though his body was taken away by the guards.

	They inspect the building floor by floor, but find nothing. The vampire had blocked out the windows with boards and otherwise appeared to be just staying at this residence. However Zentaro and Raptro discover a hidden basement underneath the stairs. The party moves down with Xavier taking point, much to his chagrin. Erica tells him to check for traps, which he completely forgot he could do as a class ability. He immediately detects, and is successfully able to disarm a trip-wire trap that would have flung an acid vial at them.

	Moving further down, they find notes and diagrams, as well as signs of more gore and violence. Mike studies the notes and his cheat skill activates, allowing him to grasp the jist of what was going on. He tells his friends that they appeared to be trying to activate a summoning ritual of some kind but he's not sure what kind, only that it would be big. Erica confirms what he is saying and hypothesizes they are attempting a “Gate Ritual” to allow a large number of something to travel instantaneously to Doskel.

	Just then, Erica's sense undead skill activates and she notices that there are several Zombies entering the room from a concealed underground entrance way. The party draws weapons and makes short work of the initial undead, but more begin pouring out. Zentaro advises the party to retreat since they could be overwhelmed indoors like this. They escape outside, but it is now worse. The Guards responsible for guarding the area and sealing it off are now either missing, blooding carcasses having been eaten by monsters, or fighting off the horde of undead towns folk.

	Xavier suspects that the Zombies may have been hiding in the quarter the whole time, and if they are trying to do a gate ritual, maybe the zombies are part of it and they accidentally forced the Vampire to fast track the plan. The party make a formation and begin fighting the Zombies, the three summoned heroes doing their best to keep their distance so as not to get bit or scratched, not sure if the zombie virus can even spread that way in this world or not. Raptro only able to fight with his fists begins thrown holy water flasks like grenades, Xavier pulls out his Sword and attempts to chop away at them. But the Horde continues to grow.

	The party complains that it feels unlikely that the vampire has been able to turn this many townspeople to zombies without someone noticing people vanishing wholesale, meaning these my be the products of a summoning technique. Something the vampire seems to specialize in. As a result the horde may never end, deciding to back off for now, the party begins moving slowly towards one of the checkpoints set up with full barriers to seal off the area. After fighting for what feels like hours, they finally make it to safety. Mike asked why she didn't use Turn Undead on them, and she explains she only has so many uses a day, and she needs to save at least 1 for dealing with the vampire.

	They decide they may need the help of someone that specializes in fire, or maybe to request the aid of some kind of ranged magic user. However it is during this discussion that Erica makes an observation, what happened to Xavier? Finally the rest of the group take notice and realize that the Rogue is no longer around. They knew he was there with them while they were fighting through the horde, but somewhere between the various alleyways, and the checkpoint he simply vanished.

	Instead of with his friends Xavier found himself gagged and bound, being carried away by what looked like a zombie but had more meat on his body. The creature looked at him as he made gag noises, and explains to him to shut up or he'll feed him to the brainless shamblers. Xavier noticing the numerous zombies around him that all seemed to be ignoring him. The creature explained it wasn't a zombie, it was a ghoul, a bit different. And that thanks to him and his friends his mistresses plans are being forced into the final stage early, but that he's going to be a big help on that front. Xavier silently hopes to himself that his friends are just around the corner and will help him out of this soon.