"You sure know how to torture those poor little Pandarens, eh?" Pei commented as she watched Kraft furiously type on his tablet and keyboard from his throne. It was quite rare of him to work so hard out in the open for people to see. And yet he somehow had the time to display the expression of a bored sloth, as his hands typed in speeds that made it hard to follow their movements.
"Sure, but half the credit should go to Jin. It was his initial idea, I just improved on it. Since I placed one stupid Loompa Oompa monster in the sea, I had to make sure that the underlings are sea to land compatible…or at least sea compatible. Otherwise, they would have just drowned or become easy pickings for Jin's customers to kill. Where is the fun in that?" Kraft argued and Pei corrected him.
"They are the Ooofpa Loopa, stop confusing me. It is already difficult to differentiate the real Loopa Ooofpa and now the customised dungeon monster Ooofpa Loopa." Pei said while folding her hands.
"Again, blame Jin and not me. He was the one who switched the placement of words in the name away. I'm merely following him." Kraft yawned a little but his eyes were still squinted, staring at the miniature screen with utmost concentration.
"What kind of monsters are you putting in to terrify our customers, anyway?" Pei questioned once more.
"The Bone Spirit Demons are a very interesting set of specimens. While we did not technically capture them the traditional way, I did however have some of the Night Foxes take the liberty of sealing a few up during our time and been studying them during my downtime. Why of course, I had to give credit where it's due since the bulk of the specimens were captured by the Valgs, you know those creepy looking four legged monsters of Maeve and Mab? The Feys of the Winter Court? Yes? No? I still remembered how impressive it was for Jin to call those parasites out to play. I mean, they were almost a tit for tat against the Bone Spirit Spirits. Being unnatural parasite themselves, they would not be latched upon by the Bone Spirits no matter how they try. It was as if Jin had the sense to bring out a swarm of parasites to pit it against another. But seriously though, those Night Foxes of mine did play a part catching them too, just out of sight of Jin's. Anyways, I am blabbering too much. Where was I? Oh yes. With the main host gone, they would not have lasted long in any astral plane setting. Fortunately, this issue had been solved by tying it down to a new master." Kraft was speed talking that Pei knew that he did not have time to filter his words since he was concentrating on the raid instance bug fixes.
"Anyways, the System, as usual, was very accommodating in providing them with the necessary requirements to keep them alive when I unsealed the bunch… long story short, they turned out to be quite the exceptional spirits despite their abysmally low rank in the Hell Plane." Kraft continued to babble on without any care as his mind was in tune with what was on the screen while he multi-tasked and talked with Pei, to quench the latter's curiosity.
"So the time you asked to borrow my medical tool box back then… Were they the reason why?" Pei realised it and connected the dots. "Did you even sterilise it after use?"
"Duh. You always accuse me of being haphazard and somewhat irresponsible, but do you really think I want to give you a reason for me to suffer your wrath unnecessarily?" Kraft took a glance at Pei and returned to what he was doing.
"The System can show Bellator Pei a record of Original Bellator Kraft sterilising the tools according to the standard protocol you've set." The System reported while intervening in their conversation so as to ensure that there was peace and understanding between the duo.
Although he made it look easy, it was nonetheless a delicate time for Kraft to clear the Demopolis City Raid Final Boss Instance's real time errors and bugs along with the help of the System before the Raid Dungeon Instance would enter Phase one of the fight in full force.
"Fine, I shall believe you without the video. Still, since you 'borrowed' it your usual way, can you tell me what exactly you are doing with those Bone Spirit Demons as compensation." Pei used the excuse of Kraft simply leaving an IOU on her table where the tool box had been to squeeze out more information about the current Raid.
After all, she was a little worried that Kraft's tendency to 'make things interesting' might explode the raid's difficulty into something that the Pandarens would be unable to handle and that was definitely not what Jin would have wanted.
"Psssh. Fine. No need to come up with those excuses, I would have told you anyway, as long as you would have addressed me as your rightful El Presidente." Kraft teased her for a brief moment before he turned serious again.
"As you know, the Bone Spirit Demons have the same astral plane alignment as Moloch, Wolte and King Baal. Only unlike those three big a.s.s lords, they are pretty much the lowest tiers of 'demons' within their astral plane if you want to call them that. Calling them a byproduct of the Hell Plane's energy wouldn't be wrong after all. Point is, they lack the capability to live without a constant supply of Hell Plane's energy to feed on. To them that energy would be the same as our oxygen…erm wait no. That is a little too far-fetched, maybe something like humans who would be unable to live without the sun." Kraft explained as he continued to type but suddenly noticed that he had overlooked an error. He stopped talking for a few minutes as he tapped his up arrow furiously to reach that error and held down his backspace button to clear it before replacing it from scratch with a new line.
"Grrr. Should have just said oxygen and not broken my train of thoughts. Sigh, anyway. Yes, the Sun. Aside from all those theoretical bull crap we say about the sun, without its energy, mankind would feel kinda shitty, to put it mildly, right? Let's not even mention how all plants and stuff would die without it and the other blah blah. It might not be the best analogy, but they have the same needs as us and without the energy of their plane, they would go bonkers."
"To compensate they subordinate themselves to a higher tier entity like the Loopa Ooofpa. Since he is a manifestation of hunger, greed or whatever he represents, that one big oaf provides that energy to them, allowing them to move freely in another realm plane." Kraft continued as he pressed enter waiting for the debugging function to work, awaiting the System input if there were any other problems with it.
"Isn't that the same as oxygen. You should have just used the oxygen analogy." Pei squinted her eyes as she replied.
"No, the sun is indeed better. Without oxygen, humans would die rather quickly, but without the sun they could actually survive, at least for a longer period of time. For them it's the same, my experiments lead me to the conclusion that they should be able to survive in our worldly plane for more than a week or so without the powers of the higher entity as long as they latch themselves onto a creature for its bodily needs, and subsequently transforming the body it hitched on into part of its new identity."
"In layman's terms, they can survive by becoming parasites and possessing some other entity. But even so, the constant loss of Hell Energy makes them weak and due to the misalignment of this Plane's energy and Hell Energy, it kind of makes them dissipate into thin air if left alone and no other external factors included." Kraft becoming so scholarly for a brief period of time made Pei reminisce all his rational arguments from when they were younger. It made her remember the days why she tolerated his behaviour and enjoyed his company.
"If we are going that route-" Pei was about to continue questioning him until a sudden loud noise came out from his tablet.
*Ping!* "System reports no other faults in the current raid instance."
"Meh, that was easier than expected. Should have added a few more surprises. Oh well…" Kraft shrugged his shoulders as he quickly browsed the very last line as confirmation and pressed the enter button in a very satisfying manner. "There we go. Should be all done for now." He commented as he stretched on his throne before swiping the tablet away for a while.
"You should stop worrying your pretty little head about this whole Bone Spirit Demons info dump. Just enjoy the fight and the surprises I have prepared for them. System, please make sure to send me a clip of everyone's reaction. Time to do what really needs to be done. After all, those Dungeon World citizens aren't going to poison themselves, right?" Kraft unbuttoned his El Presidente blazer and threw it at his throne to go out to work.
"For you to actually go to work, you're working yourself off to carry Jin's burden, eh?" Pei noted with a bit of concern.
"What can I say? I pity my master. He works so hard but yet still finds a way to bury himself in extra work. Besides, he did put me in charge for this Demopolis Raid. Finishing things with anything but an E for Excellent rating would bring shame to the name of us Foxes." Kraft said as he rolled up his black shirt's sleeves and from his storage ring, his ever iconic coat emerged from it.
"I also can't leave out those two rascals. The way things have been going, made it seem that me and Zeru are the only ones working overtime." Kraft coughed while mentioning the Sword Saint himself. Before teleporting away, he tidied his coat and checked that he had his trusty phone with him even though he did not need it with all the System channels.
"Come to think of it, System any updates on our Sword Master in the Flower City with all the Banned Emperor conspiracy nonsense? Wait, no. Don't tell me yet. Or else I will be distracted to go into the Flower City myself to find out more." Kraft asked as he made a mental note to mess with him after they both completed their missions. (Oh but to trust the Fox to behave on his mission? That would be something out of the ordinary and very unlikely to happen.)
