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Valentine moved as swiftly as possible his eyes always scanned the surrounding area as he ran. Eventually, they had to move up toward high ground, which Valentine found highly favorable. They moved through the use of an emergency escape to get to a higher elevated position. Valentine watched as Pori glanced in the direction they were to continue traveling toward. [break][break]

Valentine raised an eyebrow when Pori stated that she hadn't seen the usual patrol, which made her worry. Valentine nodded to Pori, "indeed, we do, since there's only a bit more time till the safest entry point, I should start my scouting now, I'll see if I can find the patrol while I'm at it, if their patterns changed something else might be at work," Valentine said, bending to take a knee in the shaded area she had found for him. [break][break]

Valentine giggled a bit, "my plan is pretty farfetched honestly, I want to end it in one go, and if that doesn't work, then blow it up. Though the most destructive option is most definitely a last resort. We don't need the backlash an explosion would net us, anyways I'm going under now," Valentine said an easygoing look on his face, as he shut his eyes and let his astral form float free from his physical, he rose into the area and began his scouting. [break][break]

[attr="class","landtag2"]Pori[TAGGED]

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Valentine was wondering just how to go about this plan, if either of his two plans would work, if they would weren't any form of actual completion, any form of actual win from the threat at hand. All he knew was there was a giant slime, and this slime could present a threat, better to take care of it now than to let it spread, especially as he still needed to get the lay of the land in order to search for his sister.[break][break]

Now he also had to scope out of much of this place not just in the hopes of finding his sister, but also to help Pori complete her map. It would be of great help to both of them if they were to actually have well-mapped out surroundings in which to use as a guideline, and checking the changes of the surroundings would alert Valentine and Pori to anything new that may or may not happen. It was a good way of getting the advantage in unknown lands, thus as he crouched down on one knee, leaned his head down to keep it from falling any which way, and squared his shoulders just in case he had to get back to his body and move in a hurry. He took a deep breath and off he went. [break][break]

His astral form was always something of a delight the way it could move omnidirectional with willpower and thought alone was something he always enjoyed, and something that took a good amount of hours training to get used to. At first, he could only move upward, and downward and could only move his body as if he was running around, now he could quite literally fly around or rather he could in his astral form.[break][break]

Valentine levitated his astral body upward, floating around the sky, trying to glance around with his birdseye view. Alas, he was still human so that was only but so much he could see from afar, making his way toward the hardware store, Valentine saw nothing, no signs of life, no slimes, no nothing, it was eerie. He didn't trust it, but he wasn't psychic at least he didn't think he was, nor was he omnipotent, all he had to go off were his astral eyes and ears, so he turned around going to opposite way to scope that area out as well. [break][break]

Valentine peeked at the scene, it seemed the musician had met his end, he swooped back in to check on the large slime, harmlessly slipping his astral body through the theater's door out of curiosity, had the slime eaten the musician? He didn't know all he could do was listen closely to see, regardless of what happened, Valentine would only stay there momentarily to scratch his mental inkling before zipping his body out of the theater and back toward his physical body, before waking. [break][break]

"Well, if we're being honest I didn't see any danger ahead, but I still don't trust it," he said, his lips moving before he raised his head and his eyes opened. He turned to glance at Pori as he spoke and stood up.[break][break]

[attr="class","landtag2"]Pori [TAGGED]

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"Didn't you just eat?" Valentine questioned as he glanced at Pori, though he couldn't lie, besides the bread and drink he had, his stomach was still relatively empty, he could go for a meal as well, but he didn't think that this time was the correct time to do such. Valentine figured that it possibly had something to do with the girl's class, she could become a slime after all. Considering that slimes from what he could see and knew of from video games, well they were practically bottomless pits of acid. Perhaps Pori was too, but if that was the case Valentine felt for her. It would suck to live with an insatiable never-ending hunger. [break][break]

Then before he could speak again, Pori ran to the edge of the building, jumping down. His eyebrows jumped up in shock, his eyes went wide as he ran toward the edge to see if she was okay, only to see her land relatively unharmed. She used her whip to knock down the ladder from the side and Valentine was impressed at her accuracy and skill with the weapon, but he was also annoyed. Pori had decided to take an area not previously discussed. Sure he had scouted the area, but he had only done this area at the very beginning. If anything was to occur then he wouldn't have seen it coming, which rather annoyed him, especially with how accustomed he had become to his class.[break][break]

As he climbed down, Pori asked him a question, Valentine turned to meet her, but then saw her glancing somewhere else, he turned to see for himself only to see one of those murky-looking slimes. He sighed before speaking, "I did initially, but not when I returned, it's possible that thing snuck through a crack to get here or something in the meantime." He said, turning to glance around the rest of the alley. [break][break]

Valentine nodded to Pori's words, letting her take his hand before he spoke himself, "yeah let's get away from here, lead the way you know this area better than I do," he whispered, as he grit his teeth. Hopefully, this slime wasn't part of a hive mind or something and would have to manually report back to the large slime, that would at least buy them time from being caught. [break][break]

[attr="class","landtag2"]Pori [TAGGED]

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"No, not any living anyway," Valentine said shaking his head from side to side, his long silver dreaded braids swaying from side to side as he did. He tried to push the eerie thought of the lady's skeleton and what had happened to the guitar-wielding boy from his mind. He didn't mind not being able to help either of those people, that's just the way the world was nowadays, but at this point, he had felt he had seen enough death. Too much death, hell his tutorial was full of undead and people dying left and right. Valentine wondered what would happen once his mind stopped caring about such, would that make him a sociopath? What mental repercussions would that have? As it stood he already found it too easy to push the thoughts of dead people out of his mind, even if they did tend to pop back up on occasion in similar circumstances that triggered them to appear. [break][break]

As they jogged and looked back, the slime was gone, "I guess it's not, maybe it's reporting back to the big slime?" Valentine questioned, he didn't know how slimes worked, perhaps Pori had more insight about them. He spoke again, "Maybe we should hurry?" Valentine said increasing his now walking speed. Jogging wasn't necessary, at least he didn't think so, but a swift walking pace was still necessary for his mind. Not to mention jogging would make it harder to come to a halt if they had any issues along the way. [break][break]

"Meh, shit happens," Valentine said with a shrug to Pori's apology as he pushed away any residual annoyance he felt, he sighed as he shook his head once more, "I have no clue what's going on with that big slime, or slimes in general but as far as I know this area looked safe." He said, as he then stated, "we should, hopefully," he said with a sigh. This whole ordeal, all this damn walking, why couldn't he have gotten a class that gave him a vehicle or let him physically fly? [break][break]

"We need a couple of car batteries, some jumped cables, and some matches and some copper wire and pipes!" Valentine said with a smile, he was no engineer, but he did know how to jump a car battery. "Oh and a lighter and some oil," he said with a smile. He figured the young girl would be able to put at least half of what he had planned together in her own mind. If not and she'd ask for more details he'd be sure to explain, once they arrived.[break][break]

[attr="class","landtag2"]Pori [TAGGED]

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"I could see it still in the theater, but as it stands we already know those slimes can slip through cracks and stuff, who to say the big one can't as well?" Valentine said, thinking back to the large slime, everything he had seen. All the actions he had seen from the slimes so far, the big slime being within the theater, the boy with the guitar being attacked by the slimes, swarmed by them. Sure they could have a pact mentality, but these slimes were clearly diffrent, and the way that big slime had eaten that woman. It was too big of a target, much too big for her to not have seen and tried to run away from. Why was it held up in a theater all on its own? [break][break]

"I feel like those slimes are more intelligent than we give them credit for, we'll have to be more careful dealing with them moving forward," Valentine said, hoping that they were almost at the hardware store and that it would have everything he needed and then some. [break][break]

Perhaps he could find a generator as well, he had no intention of using it against the slime, it would just be nice to have power temporary basis whenever he scouted out new areas in diffrent cities considering technology and electricity weren't working outside of safe zones. [break][break]

[attr="class","landtag2"]Pori [TAGGED]

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Valentine thought about Pori's words, visibly mulling them over in his mind as his eyes seemed distant. "That's all we know so far though, we don't know how these things can change or evolve, but I'll trust you and take your word for it, Pori." He said giving a small smile to try and ease some of the tension. Valentine wasn't sure of how monsters fully worked, if these slimes were simply a different breed that had been created when the world went to shit, or if they were like some slimes that appeared in video games. The kind that changed based on what they ate, the kind that adapted...[break][break]

"As big as it was, I don't even know how it got trapped inside, honestly as huge as it was, I feel like it could probably just break out of that theater whenever it wants, if not squeeze out." Valentine said, putting one foot after the other before speaking again, "it's why I feel like it could probably be more intelligent than we give it credit for. It's like it's using it as a base or something, but the fact is that it was still in there last I checked. So hopefully it stays there because it just makes our task easier," he said with a shrug.[break][break]

Then Pori posed a question that made Valentine's thoughts twist into a knot before being unraveled slowly as the mental blocks fell into place. "You mean like a mini event? I don't know I haven't run across one of those yet, but possibly. Wouldn't we have been notified about it through our menus though?" Valentine said, his mind turning back to when he was with Saint Claire in their tutorial, how they had first been notified about it before it even happened. [break][break]

Then the slime appeared again and this time it looked like it was going after Pori, Valentine muttered "crap," before turning to Pori, as the slime was clearly intent on attacking her. "Do you think you can handle it, Pori or should we run?" He asked, especially as he knew that if worse came to worse, he could always teleport away. The same couldn't be said for Pori, at least that he knew of so far.[break][break]

[attr="class","landtag2"]Pori [TAGGED]

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Valentine was taken aback by Pori's words, what she said about her tutorial was... That was strange and new information that Valentine quickly shoveled away. So far he had thought that every tutorial had been similar to his own, kill monsters, take out mini-bosses and then beat the main boss while completing some type of objective. "Why the fuck was mine so difficult then!?" He wondered, from having to play twisted game chutes and ladders and undead, ugh. Why couldn't he have gotten something easier if that was the case? Valentine didn't know how the criteria for tutorials were picked out but the thought of it nagged at him. "Ah, gotcha, well I've heard that for bosses and stuff that pop up in the wild, sometimes notifications are given, sometimes even small quests and missions can be given too," Valentine said shrugging before quickly following with "at least that's what I overheard," he said as he continued forward. [break][break]

Having spent time in The Hub Valentine was able to take in all the information he could when people would pass through, meeting with people to help look for his sister had also proved to give him some insight as well. [break][break]

Valentine moved further away from the slime and Pori as it lunged for her. "Just be safe, don't die!" Valentine said his voice trailing off toward the end. Valentine was shocked that Pori just took off, choosing to split from him to lure the slime away, he figured it would be better for them both to attack it and try to subdue it. Nonetheless, the girl had already run away there was nothing he could do besides make things more difficult. As she lured the slime away, Valentine hightailed it toward the hardware store. [break][break]

[attr="class","landtag2"]Pori [TAGGED]