". . .acting like impulse-driven children. I don't want to see you trying this on me ever again. You're liable to be sliced in half next time."

Buffy and I just nod our heads. I'm trying to keep myself from smiling, and from a short glance to the side, she is too. Our prank worked almost too well.

"Now that we've got that out of the way, grab the stuffed pumagator and follow me."

Magnifica just starts off walking toward the cathedral while Buffy and I glance down at our unfortunate prop.

"We can return it on our own, Magnifica. We won't even blame you for the damage, honest."

Buffy cringes at the sight of the thing. It's split right down the middle and losing the dried-grass stuffing that kept it lifelike. It was her friend that made it, so she's probably trying to figure out how to apologize.

Magnifica stops to look back at us.

"What? Return it? You borrowed that thing? No no no, we're off to find Hera. I want to see the look on her face when we pull this on her."

. . .

Oh, right. Of course. I did mention that Magnifica is almost as bad as I am, right?

". . .Just how do you think we're going to use this when it's split completely in half?"

. . .

"Oops? It was a beautiful counter though, right?"

. . .

"Fine, we can put this off until we find another pumagator to stuff. Shouldn't be hard to find on today."

One hand on her chin, she begins to pace, talking out loud.

"But we'll need to do minimal damage to the skin for something like this, which means that we should get someone with precision to take out at least one of the beasts. That's quite a bit of work though, and really the head is the most fearsome part. Probably much easier to just stuff a head and mount it. . ."

"Help me out with carrying this back, Omni?"

Buffy gestures to the leaking skin.

"Of course. See you at lunch, Magnifica."

"Huh? Oh, right. later."

Turns out that making sure we had all the bits of the pumagator was harder than we thought. There were bones in the grass, acting as supports so that the animal wasn't just a blob. Considering the skin was almost in two pieces, that along with the grass was falling out by the time we got it back to Buffy's friend.

Considering that it was her plan in the first place, I took the first opportunity to skeedaddle after the talking bit started. Sitting through another irate tirade of blame was not on my agenda.

What was on my agenda was more sword practice before lunch. I didn't want to exhaust myself, but I could rest while we were eating, and I needed to have a good feel for the blade if I was going to rely on it.

There wan't any magical resonance or sword-beam switch that I could tell, just a rather sturdy sword that shimmered a bit in the dark. The lightshow of its creation had ebbed to something less eye-catching as time went on. It was still sharp, balanced, and light, but the runic lines that were along the blade were as intense as a day-old glowstick by now. If they did anything special for the sword, I hadn't found out.

What I had to do was not break in the sword like a pair of shoes, but to train my body to its weight and make reacting with it instinctual. Seeing Magnifica wake up and not a second later pull her giant, glass-looking sword from her side to bisect the "enemy" that threatened her made me painfully aware that my reflexes were a bit terrible. Is it dumb that I aspire to cut whatever wakes me up in half? Probably.

Danger aside, I spent an hour or two on sword-swinging as the sun rose towards its peak.

"Alright, everyone. Most of you here are familiar with how these trips go from the raids that Hera has been leading. Now that we have a better grasp on the area, and since the local monsters have been cleared out, Hera decided that we needed two raid groups instead of just the one that she leads."

Magnifica is standing in the semi-circle our guild mates have formed, just on the other side of a smothered campfire. A few people are still yawning, and everyone is scooping stew into their mouths.

"For those of you who are new to the raiding parties, the guild, or just need a refresher, I will be laying down the ground rules."

She held up one finger.

"First, I am Magnifica, your raid leader. My word is law and those who do not follow it will be left to the pumagators."

A second finger went up.

"Second, while there hasn't been any traditional loot like in a game, any worthwhile items will be distributed between the raid group as equally as possible. Where equal distribution is impossible, which is likely, the split will be given weight by merit. This means that dangerous jobs are going to have a better likelihood of spoils."

Pointing at a man with black-hair who had his hand raised, Magnifica interrupts and talks over him.

"Yes, Will, we thought about using a point-based guild-economy for distribution of items in an auction held afterwords, but with the long respawn time and the fact that everyone is woefully under-equipped right now, getting items back into working hands is a priority."

"Third,"

Another finger.

"We will be bringing all the meat back for the cooking pot, assuming that it's just pumagator and rabbit meat. If they say they don't need it all, you can bargain for a steak or two for yourself. Vegetables or fruit probably won't make it back unless it has to be cooked, but we are going to distribute it in the group fairly if we find any."

She lowers her hand.

"That is all the rules of conduct. As for assigning roles, we're going to run things standard. Combatants are in a circle around our healer and support mages."

She points to Doctor Lewis with his cheshire grin and a freckled girl with slightly dirty-looking hands.

"They will be keeping us alive, so try not to let them get hurt. Neither of them has instant healing, so think of them more as after-battle triage."

"I'm sure that most of you know Omni, who woke me up this morning asking to be our scout. Him and Will are going to be ranging in front and behind us respectively, checking in every hour or so."

She points to myself and the dark-haired guy who tried to speak up earlier.

"If either of them comes running out of the grass screaming, get ready to fight something. If they run past us and doesn't stop, start running after them."

That's. . .encouraging tactics. It gives me so many ideas for pranks, but I should wait until things are a bit safer to try them out.

"Now, it looks like you're all mostly finished eating so we'll do a quick roll call on names and then head out."

She points to the first person on the left of the semi-circle, a blonde, athletic looking guy.

"Name's Greg, PHD in Hydroponics. I went by Gorg in-game, played a lot of Orc warriors."

He hefts up a thick spear to make his point. It's more of a pointed tree limb, but it will probably work.

Next is the freckled girl from earlier.

"Hi, I'm May, Biologist, and I've got a kind of plant-control ability. I'll be trying to trip monsters up with grass."

Interesting. I wonder if she could fix Greg's bent spear, but that's a question for later. . .

"I go by SilverTooth,"

The next guy smiles, showing off a fake tooth that making his nickname obvious.

"I'm a fairly good swordsman, I think."

True enough. He's one of the people that actually gave me a run for my money a few times in duels. He focused more on combining magic and swordplay, in-game from what I remember.

"Jim Lowe, went by Flash in-game, and I'll be electrocuting things."

He shoots some sparks from his fingers in a suitable mystical way. He played quite a few wizards from what I remember.

Next comes Will.

"Will, same as in-game, and I got short range teleportation for my power."

He doesn't show it off, but it sounds useful, especially for a scout.

"Baron."

He nods to us. A few people look confused when Buffy immediately starts talking after his introduction.

"I'm Buffy the Red. I haven't died yet, so I'll be hitting things with a stick this time."

And now it's me. I stand and make a bow.

"Some of you may know me from my-"

"That's Omni, he has a sword."

And with that Magnifica steals all the air out of my sails. I had a whole speech prepared too!

"Next."

The heavy-set man with a mustache that sat to my right speaks up.

"Call me Arnold, and I have a kinetic punch and years of physics knowledge to put it to use."

. . .

What does kinetic punch even mean? Shouldn't a scientist know how useless saying something like that is? Aren't all punches kinetic? In game-terms, it probably means something like a really powerful punch, but he didn't specify, so it could also be shock-waves or. . .

". . .and that's all of us, so lets move out. Omni, you lead."

Humm? Oh, we're done with introductions, I missed three people on the end, but that probably isn't important. To my right is Doctor Lewis, and I know what he's about. The other two must have had a short introduction. They both have spears like the first guy, and they look like a couple, so it might be the Sams? Whatever, adventure calls!