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melynen · 4 years ago

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Sweet Surprises - 00Q

James Bond returns from a mission from Finland tired but cheerful and armed with a little something sweet — well, several somethings, really — to make up for the long absence from London and his boyfriend.

Q is still at Six when he opens the door and steps in, dragging his luggage after himself and bending down to receive Aziraphale’s enthusiastic greeting in the form of eager little chirps and lots of headbutting. Crowley, ever the more wily one, is sitting by the coat rack and staring at him with wide, unblinking bright yellow eyes. James picks Aziraphale up, abandoning the suitcase by the door for the time being, and takes his time with cuddling him and telling him how much he has missed him and his brother before putting him down again and getting ready to wait patiently until Crowley deigns to come get his share of the cuddles.

He saw Q briefly after his debrief with M when he was dropping off his kit at Q Branch (and simultaneously locking himself and Q behind closed doors in Q’s office for a delightful fifteen-minute long I’m-happy-that-you’re-back-again interlude), but other than that they’ve been apart, both busy with their own obligations. Q did promise to leave earlier tonight, though, so at least there’s that. In return, Bond promised to have dinner ready and waiting, and he has big plans for dessert as well as dessert.

Finally, Crowley decides that he’s waited long enough and makes his way over to Bond. He accepts the pets as his due and looks personally offended when Bond doesn’t immediately dig out the cat treats that he knows Bond has hidden in his suitcase. Bond chuckles and shakes his head.

“All in good time, darling, all in good time,” he tells Crowley and gets an annoyed-sounding mrrrouw for his troubles.

“Cheeky Crowley,” he says affectionately, and watches as Crowley shows him his behind in retaliation.

Laughing to himself, Bond begins hauling his suitcase towards the bedroom. Both cats follow him there, naturally, because if anything, Q’s darlings are persistently curious. They sniff at each and every item Bond removes from his suitcase, from dirty laundry to the book he’d been reading in the evenings and his souvenirs to Q. When Crowley spots the cat treats he gives Bond such a betrayed look that Bond cannot help but soften and open the bag, offering both kitties a piece to see if they like it.

When they both paw at him for more, followed by a chorus of pitiful meows, Bond gives them one more piece each and then reseals the treat bag. “That’s enough for now. You’ll get more in the evening when Q returns,” he tells them. “But perhaps you’d enjoy these while waiting?”

He unearths two cat toys of different shape and colour — one is a green turtle that Bond had picked because its colour reminded him of Q’s eyes, and the other is a purple bunny — and puts them down on the bed. They’re both filled with catnip, and there’s a rubber ball inside of them that makes them jump into random directions. The clerc at the local pet shop had shown that to him and assured him that they would offer the cats hours of fun. Bond is a bit more sceptical, but he’s willing to try. If nothing else, Q’ll be happy that he’s been thinking about the cats while being away from them.

Aziraphale is the first to snatch the purple bunny away, leaving Crowley to lightly poke at the turtle with a curious paw, just as Bond had expected. They seem to be rather taken with their new toys, and Bond watches fondly as both cats carry their prey away from him and disappear from the bedroom.

That gives him ample time to finish unpacking, deal with the laundry and arrange Q’s souvenirs neatly on top of the coffee table in the living room. He’s looking forward to seeing Q’s expression, as he’d only hinted about the surprise that would wait for his boyfriend once he’d find his way home for the evening, appealing to his curiosity to encourage him to hurry home that much sooner. Q’s a curious man, not unlike his cats, and Bond has learned to use it to his advantage.

As one part of the surprise is a recipe that he’d received from his Finnish contact, along with the sweets that go with it, Bond glances at his wristwatch and estimates that he still has at least three hours before he can reasonably expect Q to arrive. It’s more than enough to make dinner, bake the biscuits using the recipe, and take a shower afterwards.

The dinner would be relatively simple: his famous homemade lasagne he knows that Q loves, along with freshly made bread and a side salad. The biscuits would be easy to make yet delicious, his contact, a young woman in her mid-twenties called Lumi, had assured him. The latter he does know from experience, having tasted them one day while visiting Lumi; he’d asked her for the recipe before he’d left, hoping to be able to make them for Q in the future.

Lumi had been more than happy to help, and had presented him with the translated recipe the very next time they’d seen one another, written in her neat handwriting. She’d also asked to hear Q’s opinion afterwards, which Bond had easily promised. (He’d told her quite a bit about his boyfriend during downtime, and she’d even helped him look for some souvenirs for him. Privately, Bond thinks that she might even have fallen just a tiny bit in love with Q’s voice as she’d been given an earpiece of her own and had thus heard him speak several times. At least she’d gushed about his voice to Bond more times than he’d cared to count.)

Bond carries the recipe to the kitchen, and remembers to also bring along the bag of the Dumle sweets that it requires. He reads through the instructions carefully, smiling amusedly at her little personal notes sprinkled in between the text, and then gets to work. He does exactly as the recipe tells him to, and ends up with three baking trays full of lumps of batter that would, hopefully, turn into thin, crispy biscuits in the oven.

His first tray yields rather… interesting results, but luckily his second tray gives him biscuits that at least look like biscuits instead of this funny, stuck-together arch-like creation he’d managed as his first attempt. Bond snaps a photo of it with his mobile after putting his final tray into the oven, all the while wondering what he should do about it. Break it into smaller pieces by hand? Most likely, even though that would not give him the prettiest of results.

Once finished with the biscuits and with the bread dough rising under a kitchen towel he’d brought to Q from Greece, Bond sits down on the table. With the cats reappearing and curiously watching his every move, he sends the photo of the first failed attempt to Lumi, and receives a very amused reply from her within minutes. I did warn you, it says, followed by a laughing and crying emoji. At least your boyfriend should get a chuckle out of it, she then continues, sounding a tad more comforting. And the taste won’t be affected either way.

Then there’s a five minute gap, before she sends one last message: I hope you’re better at following directions while cooking than when you’re baking, tacking a winking emoji at the end of the sentence.

Bond shakes his head, amused, but he does end up sending her photos of both the bread and the lasagna once they’re finished and waiting to be eaten, just to prove to her that he definitely is.

Q arrives five whole minutes earlier than Bond had estimated, and he all but drops his bag and outer layers right there by the door in his haste to greet Bond with a long, passionate kiss. Bond, who has just finished setting the table, wraps his arms around Q’s waist and lets himself be walked against the closest wall by his eager boyfriend. He’s perhaps a touch amused at the sudden display of possessiveness from his generally more submissive lover, but he has nothing against being the less aggressive one for a change.

“Someone’s eager,” he purrs, grinning, when they finally pull away enough to take in some much needed air.

“I’m impatient,” Q corrects him, leaning closer to place a gentler kiss against the corner of his mouth. “And perhaps a little bit desperate. But can you blame me? You’ve been gone for five whole weeks, and I’ve barely seen you at all today.”

“I am fully aware of that,” Bond says. He brings one hand up to Q’s hair while his other hand that’s still around Q’s waist tightens just a bit, and enjoys having access to that lovely mess of curls again. He’d missed it, and everything else about Q, like he’d never missed anything ever before.

Q smiles softly at that. “I missed this,” he murmurs against Bond’s cheek.

“I know you did,” Bond says teasingly. “Though as much as I’m enjoying this now, the dinner is ready, and I’m sure that you’ve not eaten anything since breakfast.” At Q’s decidedly guilty look Bond snorts and gently pushes him away.

“Right. Come along then, darling, and let me feed you.”

Q comes willingly, allowing Bond to lead him straight to the dining room. There he proceeds to practically inhale two big portions of lasagne, a heap of salad, and several slices of bread, along with three glasses of the fine red wine Bond had bought for the occasion.

Pleased, Bond eats his share of the food and regales Q with a few selected tales from his mission, those of which he hasn’t already shared with Q on the phone. Q’s the best audience he could ever hope for, laughing at exactly the right places and saving his eye rolling only to where it’s definitely needed.

Afterwards, Bond clears the table while Q takes care of brewing them a pot of tea. (Q’s skills vastly exceed his in that department, and Bond has decided it’s best to leave the task to Q’s capable hands most of the time.)

Bond has hinted at a special dessert, and Q’s visibly brimming with curiosity, but he’s trying to keep it contained for the time being. At least until the tea is done, Bond hopes, and brings out their tea mugs.

Only, the mug he hands to Q is a new one, a Moomin one he’d brought to him from Finland, and he tells Q exactly that.

“Oh, thank you,” Q says, accepting the mug and turning it around in his hands to see it from all sides. “It’s lovely. Is it Sniff? And he has a cat, too.”

Bond nods. “You’re correct. I had a hard time choosing the right character for you, but the cat was certainly a deciding factor.”

Q smiles. “I did guess. And I do like it a lot. Thank you, James.” He leans closer again and presses a light kiss to Bond’s cheek, which makes Bond pull him closer with wrapping an arm around his waist. Careful of the mug Q’s still holding, Bond captures Q’s mouth in a deeper kiss, one that lasts until the tea pot whistles and forces Q to reluctantly pull away again.

While Q prepares their tea, Bond goes to get the plate of biscuits he’d assembled earlier (he’d stashed the broken ones away for later and used only the ones that he’d actually gotten right) and brings it with him to the living room. Q follows soon after, careful due to the hot teas and the fact that both Aziraphale and Crowley have reappeared and are trying their best to make him stumble and fall. Or perhaps they just want attention, as Q has been focusing most of his on Bond tonight, which tends to make the kitties jealous.

Bond waits until Q has placed the mugs down on the coasters on the coffee table and sat down next to him on the sofa, with the cats sleeping wrapped up with each other on the other sofa, before he wraps an arm around Q’s shoulders. “Are you ready for your dessert, darling?”

“You know I am,” Q replies, smiling, and turns to take a proper look at the plate of biscuits. Bond can tell that he’s curious about the rest of the souvenirs, too, but he’s too polite to outright ask. Well, right away, anyway.

“I baked the biscuits for you,” Bond explains, “using a recipe I got from Lumi. She made sure that I had the right sweets for it, and that I’d have extras for you to try on as well.”

“That’s very nice of her.”

“Go on, then, try one,” Bond ushers him.

Q has a biscuit and then another one, and he ends up feeding Bond bites from the second one when he notices that Bond hasn’t yet eaten any. (Bond did have a few of the broken pieces earlier, and he’ll eventually confess all of that to Q, too. But later. Tomorrow, perhaps.) When he’s done and is playfully complaining about his sticky fingers, Bond solves it by licking them clean himself and making Q flush and poke him on the side with his free hand while he’s at it. Bond still considers it a fair trade-off.

Afterwards, once they’ve both finished their teas and Q has washed his hands because “That was hardly hygienic, James!” although Bond digresses, Bond finally gives Q his souvenirs.

There are several bags of different kinds of Finnish sweets (including a box of salmiakki, the salty licorice that most of the Finns seemed to love — although Lumi had assured him that it was an acquired taste she herself couldn't stand) as well as a high pile of Fazer chocolate bars in all the flavours they had available, all of which Bond had chosen with Q’s famous sweet tooth in mind. There’s also a selection of homemade berry preserves and powdered berries Bond has bought straight from the people who’d made them, three packages of flavoured Nordqvist loose leaf tea, and two bottles of alcohol: a bottle of cloudberry liqueur and another of Koskenkorva vodka, both of which are typical Finnish alcoholic beverages. At least according to Lumi, who should know these things.

The final souvenir is a pair of knit woolen socks that were actually made by Lumi herself. She’d made another pair for Bond, too; Q’s pair is green like the colour of his eyes and adorned with cats, while Bond’s is bright blue and decorated with miniature replicas of his trusted Walther. Bond had laughed when he’s seen them, but he appreciates them greatly, and he’s looking forward to seeing Q wear his.

“Well,” Q says, sounding amused at the amount of sweet things that Bond has brought back, “at least we don’t have to buy any jam for a while. Or chocolate. Please tell me that you left something for others too?”

Bond huffs. “So perhaps I got a little overboard.”

“A little!”

“Hush, you. The selection there is rather extensive, and I didn’t want you to feel left out.”

“And I appreciate it,” Q says. “I really do. But having you back home with us is more than enough.”

“I hope that you’ll like the socks at least,” Bond says. “Lumi knit them herself.”

“They’re adorable and I love them. Do remember to tell her that when you give her my thanks.”

“Of course. And I will expect to see you wear them, too. But not right now. There’s something else I’d rather see you wear.”

“Which is?” Q asks, raising an eyebrow.

“Absolutely nothing at all.”

“Really now? Well, I suppose it can be arranged,” Q says, his eyes sparkling. “If you’ll follow me…”

Bond smiles as he gets up and follows Q to the bedroom. He’ll send Lumi the promised text later. Much later, if everything goes according to plan.

#mely writes fanfiction #00Q #007 fest #teambondvillains #recipes #mi6caferecipes

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baconpal · 6 years ago

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talkin bout fire force

shit boys it’s been too long time for another unprompted juvenile rant about manga, click keep reading if you’re insane and keep scrolling if you aren’t

So Fire Force anime starts in just about a week and I decided to just read it all instead of waiting for any anime. It took a while to read all of it and now I just kind of have a lot to say about the manga, the anime, and the author. So here we go.

I actually have a lot of good things to talk about, but I’ll get the bad shit out of the way first:

THE WRITING

idk his name it doesn’t really matter since he’s made like 2 things he’s just the soul eater guy; his art style has always been charming and the action scenes keep improving but his actual narrative writing is real bad. I’ll talk about the characters themselves since I actually think FF’s characters are a ridiculous improvement from soul eater, and the setting/aesthetic are on point as well but the plot is just as bad if not worse than whatever soul eater was.

The story is riddled with what should obviously be throwaway characters that keep being brought back and doing something evil and unexpected because it’s a shounen manga and if you aren’t being betrayed then the plot isn’t moving forward, or someone introduced as an obviously villainous character just kind of agrees to be friends in a couple chapters. This is used as a constant cycle of introducing both a set of “evil” and “good” characters, then one of the old “good” sets of characters does something evil and the newest “evil” guys turn out to be good. It’s not interesting or shocking to have a character you can’t even remember come back and act like they’re important, especially if it’s repeated over and over.

FF pretends to have some kind of politic overtones where religions and businesses and such act as their own entities and betray each other and prey on the civilians, but you see absolutely none of the impact anybody’s actions have on the world despite ridiculous things constantly happening and world shaking truths being brought to light over and over, nothing happens. Villains will also have ridiculous unbeatable abilities but then just be ignored, such as making zombie apocalypses or controlling minds and such. This is also likely a concession of being a shounen manga, where you can’t expect readers to read every single chapter, and usually on a week to week basis, so every chapter needs to have its own big shit happening, even if there’s no plans to follow through on anything.

The worst part about the writing is how much stuff that the reader didn’t know about and has no idea what it is is passed of as some shocking twist when it’s introduced. This mostly happens with powers and with new factions. There’s a ridiculous amount of times where a new group steps in as the bad guy like mentioned earlier. But for the powers, there’s so many things layered on top of an actually acceptable power system that just seem to cause a DBZ type of escalation of power without the fight scenes actually becoming that much crazier at all. On top of the simple 2nd/3rd generation fire fighter powers, the main character is meant to utilize the adolla burst, the adolla link, the preacher’s divine protection, the okay hand emoji that makes you go fast, the breath of life, and superfire fighting. None of that means anything to anyone and are just used as “MC needs to be better at something but only temporarily” over and over. It’s similar to Maka and Soul’s deals with the devil in soul eater except much more common and with absolutely no downsides.

Also not the fault of the writer himself but there is not ANY good translation of this manga out there holy shit. There’s so many incredibly obvious puns and connections and choices of words to be made that are just entirely ignored, the typesetting is always awful, and no name for moves, characters, or even the title are ever agreed upon. It took until the official release titled “Fire Force” before people stopped trying to call the manga “Burning Firefighter Squad of Fire”.

THE ANIME

Just a bit more bad to say before I go into all the shit about this manga i actually like. The anime looks awful. A lot of anime does right now, very little of note has been coming out or seems to be coming in the future, which is usually the case but its not getting better and that sucks!

But specifically the fire force anime, following up after soul eater, has absolutely none of the visual charm translated from the manga to anime, the voice casting is absolutely abysmal, and there’s nothing to give me hope in it, not enough to even give it an episode most likely. People might try to defend David productions because woah man I love jojo!!! but they’re pretty fucking bad at animating anything. The choice of color is gross and the visual effects are bland, which is a bad place to start for a show that will contain tons of fire and other bombastic effects. Big shame.

OKAY ONTO THAT GOOD SHIT

CHARACTER DESIGN

The visual designs in soul eater were cool if a bit janky, and the actual concepts for characters were far from astounding, usually being able to fully describe characters in single words and not having much development outside of combat abilities. But Fire Force has some of the most tight characters I’ve seen in a while, they’re all simple and focused with strong thematic elements.

Ya’ll know me, hopefully. I really appreciate simple designs and simple characters. Complicated does not equal deep, and simple does not equal shallow. The characters in fire force will usually embody a concept, or a concept and its exact opposite, and be never waver from their design. I’ll talk about em for specific characters when I get to em but even lots of minor characters are very well focused and I appreciate it.

SHINRA

The main character, and while his grocery list of special abilities and “chosen one” kinda shit is annoying, he starts of as a very strong introspective of the weight of your actions vs the impression you give of in the eyes of society. The easiest way to describe it is through the very obvious identity struggle he goes through of wanting to be known as a “Hero” but instead being “The Devil”. All Shinra ever does is selflessly save peoples lives and put himself at extreme risk, he tells everyone and their grandma that they can call on him when they need a hero, and yet his visuals consist of a dark haired punk who constantly smiles a sharp toothy smile, his ability that he uses to fly in and do kamen rider kicks with spews fire from his feet in the shape of pointy wings, and this fire puts a heavy shadow over his face, giving him a monsterous siloutte. It’s not at all subtle that he just looks as evil and menacing as possible, and so his reputation is constantly negative no matter how kind he is. It’s not explored all that deeply but it is still a strong contrast.

ARTHUR

What a fucking idiot. What an absolute buffoon. This stupid fuck functions as a very simple gag character by being nearly too dumb to function and living in a made up reality as a fantasy knight, but is also able to exist as one of the strongest characters in combat. His ridiculous power is handled in a much more engaging way than Shinra’s. As instead of layering multiple chosen one abilities on him, he becomes weaker or stronger depending on his suspension of disbelief. The more in character as a powerful knight he becomes, the stronger he is. It’s a clean way to make a funny delusional characters struggle actually mean something to the people around them, instead of being left to his own devices or constantly told to fuck off. And while I said the plot isn’t very good, the smaller character beats can be very powerful. For example, It was already pretty easy to just accept Arthur as he was, but his family situation is explored late into the manga, and it’s shown that he began to live in fantasy to escape from his families arguments and poor living conditions. His parents take advantage of his disconnect and abandon their home with him in it, leaving all their responsibilities to him with a note saying he’s now the king and has inherited their castle. This pushes him to an even more absurd degree of fantasy in order to just live out his life knowing he was unloved and unwanted. It very understated how you can make a character that’s mostly used for jokes still be very easy to connect to and empathize.

TAMAKI

This one is likely to be the hottest take made from me here today, but this is the most interesting character in this series for a variety of reasons.

Visuals out of the way, the fire fighter outfits everyone wears already look cool as shit and big puffy coats just get me goin, this girl absolutely rocks it on top of having twintails and a cute face. That’s not objective in anyway this is just a character designed to bait specifically me and its fucking working, okay? The writing is the actually interesting part.

So something that’s usually not even worth talking about is fan service. Show of a girls titties cus its what dudes in their teens want to see, its free (You)s for shounen manga, and soul eater was full of it. It was pretty bad in soul eater and could come at jarring and unneeded times for characters that didn’t seem to exist for any sexual reasons. It was a very poor way to include fan service.

Fire Force also begins in a similar spot, the 3 main girls that are around in the beginning chapters are occasionally seen changing or in a bath or covered in water or whatever, with one particularly bad spread of them with the classic no nipple no vagina bodies all standing together in a shower. Its awkward and stiff and even as a fan of anime tiddie it just wasn’t worth having.

But then that wildman just does it. He creates one single character to put literally every single ounce of horny energy in to. A character who exists to fall over and get her tits pushed into someones face, but pushed to a cartoonish extreme. It sounds silly to try to pass off fanservice as funny, but it is. It’s so ridiculously intended and impossible and always varied that its actually fun to see her do something stupid and for something to happen. Sometimes its just her ass landing on a dudes face (god i wish that were me) or her body being exposed and drawn in pretty high detail. Sometimes instead they get an entire dude stuck in her shirt after just tripping in a way that is not not being sexual to the reader at all since you see absolutely no skin. She’s simply destined to be put into lewd situations in universe, not in regards to the manga itself. For an example, here she is just standing completely still, and suddenly becoming naked, drawn in a distant, goofy way:

It’s stupid. It’s definitely still fan service, but it’s just ridiculous. And that’s way more interesting than having every girl in your series randomly get naked at some point. Despite being insane it still works on boys, as Tamaki is the most popular girl in the series by far, ranked as the second most popular character consistently.

Tamaki also leads to the single best chapter of the manga where a horribly designed throw-away assassin who was beaten by her returns for revenge, but just ends up as a short, self contained, well paced comedic story of love.

And guess what, she’s still interesting outside of being funny and having fan service. Her cartoonish luck is essentially treated as her actual power, and her fire cat abilities aren’t explored too deeply during most of the series, but this is done for a greater purpose of essentially spitting in the face of high stakes. Tamaki easily witnesses the most deaths in the series, and most of them are cruel and unusual. She witnesses children being killed by a man who inspired her, she sees people she just met be beheaded in some gruesome shots that aren’t anywhere else in the series, and she gets involved in all sorts of life threatening situations. She still just falls over and gets naked. She’ll have fairly serious fights where she tries her hardest or the people around her are completely serious, and without bringing any direct attention to it she still ends up showing skin. There’s a point where every single character is at risk of dying at once to a trap set by the enemy, and Tamaki quietly laments over how she’ll be the only one to survive. She is completely aware of her ridiculous luck and her complete immunity to stakes, which is honestly just great.

Even beyond that, Tamaki is slowly being built up as more and more of an actual character, she has a short backstory section where her own hard work and effort is basically ignored by everyone around her, as if her success in life is only a result of her good luck, which is a feeling that hits very close to home to me (fuck you if you’ve ever discredited someones hard work because they’re “””””talented””””). And in the most recent couple of chapters, shes made an active effort to train alongside Shinra and Arthur, who both value the improvements they can make to themselves through hard work. No other characters in the cast make conscious efforts to improve from their status in the way Tamaki does. She moves up from a joke character to now trying to stand along side the main character as a useful and though out character. It’s a genuinely wonderful character to have been developed and the best thing I’ve gotten from this author.

VISUALS AND COMPOSITION

Okay enough about the characters, the last little thing I wanna touch on is just some of the absolutely bonkers kinds of compositions in this manga. One of the villains has an ability that is explained incredibly poorly. Pretty sure it’s just a time slowing ability that has nothing to do with fire but whatever. The pages where he uses the ability have this absolutely sick warped look to them that plays with the panels in a way that couldn’t be depicted in any other medium. Just look at this shit.

Every panel has a different background and yet still describes a single cut in time. It might not really mean anything, but that’s fucking sick dude.

Another pretty interesting one is this one kid named Nataku, who has an ability forced onto him by a maniac with a motif of stars for eyes, who dies immediately after. This event is shown to have absolutely traumatized him not because its directly said, but because this dead character appears constantly in panels with this kid, sometimes taking up the entire background to yell at him, or being an almost impossible to see spec lingering behind him. Nataku is also drawn in this strange sketchy style where he seems to be melting, and sometimes melds into shapes that resemble this dead character, such Nataku’s mouth becoming the fucking eyeball of the dead guy, star pupil and everything. It’s just such a specific and horrific way to depict that kind of identity trauma and it really stuck out to me.

I’LL SHUT UP NOW

And ye that’s about it. It was a lot of rambling and there are still lots of little things i like about the manga, good designs and cool fights and stuff but i just wanted to talk about the things that were really noteworthy to me.

It’s been a long time since I’ve spent 4 hours just typing about stuff but if you actually read any of this, on this dead website of all places, you’re cool. Hope you found something interesting too.

#Fire Force #juvenile rant

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forged-through-trials · 4 years ago

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I needed to decide what to do with Mephala’s Ebony Blade. Though powerful and sharp, I didn’t really want to use it. She was right when she said it was a gross reminder of what she’d done... what she’d tricked me into doing. A community was destroyed because of her, and I wanted nothing to do with that! Then, I remembered Mercator Saccus over at “A Fighting Chance.” He was looking for rare weapons of myth and lore, and this sword fit the bill. Given his knowledge of, and interest in, such weapons, I surmised that he might know what he was doing and had all the proper precautions in place, so I left the Ebony Blade in his care, for now. Hopefully he can take this wicked sword and do some good with it.

That done, I retired to my room at the Merchant’s Inn, where I had a lot of thinking drinking to do. Ah, cheap beer, you chase away the bad feelings I get from thinking about my part in ruining an innocent community. That was the rest of my day, and might have been the rest of week if Ruin hadn’t intervened. He insisted that I needed to get out there and get some work done. Seridur and Baron von Zarov were still at large, and I was the only one who knew or cared about their crimes. The guards wouldn’t do anything about them; both were too powerful to touch. It was up to me to prove they were vampires and guilty of preying on the innocent. So I put the bottle away for now, and we packed up. I needed to get out of the Imperial City for now. Hitting the road wasn’t as much fun as hitting the bottle, but would have a similar effect on clearing my head and improving my mood.

We took one last look around the city on the way out, and admittedly I did get to appreciate the more positive effects of my efforts. In Talos Plaza, we were privy to the sight of the Akatosh fountain flowing once again. It was refreshing to see that at least some of the things I do are a net-positive to people. I might prefer booze, but clean, sweet, non-corpsie water is a boon to everyone in the Imperial City.

Here we are, in the Imperial City, and there is where we’re going; Bravil. While Bravil is not the prettiest city in the Empire, I could use the training Kud-Ei could provide. I’m sure you, Gentle-Reader, would appreciate my gaining a mastery of Illusion the next time I go diving into a dark cave. So, back on the road again. We crossed the bridge toward Weye, and there moved south. It was south of the city, practically across Lake Rumare from the Waterfront District, we found...

...an Alyeid Well. These can be used to recharge magical items, so I asked Ruin if I could borrow his sword, and dipped it into the well to recharge it, before handing it back to him. I then stood between him and the well, and struck a pose. Trials: “Hey, Ruin, you know who really built these things?” Ruin: “’Who really,’ you say?”

Ruin: “...I don’t get it.” Trials: “...curses! C’mon, then, let’s go find someone who will get my hilarious and totally topical humor. There has to be someone in this province who will!”

A little further down the road, we nearly stumbled over a dead Argonian. Something tells me he probably won’t get my joke, either. Searching him, we learned his name was “Jeel-Otah.” He bore a note on his person, as well as an old and rusted key. Examining the note revealed that it was addressed to “Raminus Polus” at the Arcane University. It concerned the search for a magical artifact called “Eleidon’s Ward,” and it’s possible location in an Alyeid Ruin infested with trolls. It is being held by a conjurer, called “Crassus”. Ruin: “What is the story with these Conjurers? Why do they seem at odds with the Mages Guild?” Trials: “Oh, that was explained to me at the guild hall back in Anvil. “See, they’re exiles from the Mages Guild, and greater society at large, due to their trafficking with Daedra. While most conjuration spells that summon Daedra only last a limited time, and keep the Daedra on a short leash, they’ve conspired to cast more complicated and long lasting spells that grant the Daedra more autonomy. These spells require the sacrifice of innocent lives to maintain, so they’ve, obviously, been forced out of the Guild, and out into the wilds where they will attack anyone on sight to use them in their dark rituals.” Ruin: “I see. So they are no better than bandits, and prey upon the innocent. Then like bandits, we should show them no quarter. “This would also mean that ‘Eleidon’s Ward’ is ours for the taking, provided we can find Crassus and defeat him. There may be some reward for recovering it.” Trials: Septim Signs appeared in my eyes. “Ka-ching!” Ruin: He stared at me, brow furrowed in worry and confusion. “...you should really get your eyes checked. That isn’t normal.” Trials: “Yeah, they’ve been doing that ever since my first unsuccessful attempt to cast Night-Eye on myself.” The Septim Signs roll over to be replaced by Frowning Emojis.

Almost directly south of the Imperial City, we found an old, ruined castle. It piqued my curiosity, so while Ruin cautioned about getting involved in things without properly assessing all angles, I was just too intrigued to resist, and approached. The sign on the door, read: “The Archeology Guild”. Huh, I’d not heard of them. They don’t have any halls in any of the major cities. Could this be their only headquarters?

We barged on in, and were welcomed by an Argonian in fine robes. Teav: “Welcome to the Archeology Guild. My name is ‘Teav’, and I’m the resident gemologist.” Trials: “Oh, so you study Rooms of Nakeness?” Teav: “That’s a gymologist.” Trials: “Then you study fruit paste?” Teav: “That’s a jamologist.” Trials: “Alright, you study moving pictographs, then?” Teav: “That’s a GIFologist!” Ruin: “Eww, you both pronounce it as ‘jeef’?” Trials: “...” I scowled at him. “Tread lightly, Ruin. That’s a hill I’m prepared to die on!” Teav explained the purpose of the Archeology Guild; they are a peaceful institution dedicated to unearthing the ancient mysteries of Tamriel. He did mention that he was in charge of hiring new recruits, and that they were currently looking for new members. Teav: “Are you perhaps interested in joining?” Trials: “Sure! I’ll take any paying gig, and collecting shiny things from the ancient past sounds right up my alley!” Teav: “Now, we have certain requirements for membership. We’re looking for specialists. To that end, would you happen to be experienced with ancient Elven history?” Trials: “...uh, well I know they all used to work for a fat guy in a red robe.” Teav: “...” He shook his head, and sighed. “I’ll take that as a ‘no’. “How about ancient languages?” Trials: “I can speak Pig-Imperial.” Teav: “...strike two. How about, do you know anything about cartography, geology, or gemology?” Trials: “I’m still not even sure what that is. It’s when you study old fairy tales, right?” Teav: “...that’s a Grimmologist! “Listen, you’re a nice enough lass, but we need professionals. We don’t have a position here for a complete greenhorn.” Trials: “Hey! I’m no greenhorn! I’m in the Fighters Guild, and made it to the lofty rank of Apprenti--iiii--wow, that sounded better in my head than it did out loud.” Teav: “Hmm...” He cupped his chin and hummed in thought. “Still, it’s nice to know you’re not a novice at muscle-work, and... well, much as I’m loathed to admit it, we’re all a bunch of nerds here, and could use someone big and stronk to keep the monsters, bandits, and jocks away from our dig-sites.” Trials: “...” I sweated softly as I grinned. “Oh, yes, yes, I’m big and stronk, and totally not a loser who gets my tail kicked on the regular.” Teav: “...” He raised a brow at me, suspiciously. “Well, let’s see how you do on this first job. First, I want you to meet the rest of the guild. Introduce yourself, and see how they react to the idea of having some brawn on their side. Afterward, I’ll have a proper job ready for you.”

#the elder scrolls #oblivion #modded #let's play #roleplay #ask blog

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