#yeah he’s very good in combat being able to cast magic at a distance but he just won’t SHUT UP

[shrekshugebadussy]

finally got to the celebration night after saving emerald grove, but i’ve been figuring out what all i can do and how to make astarions approval go up and i’ve been failing quite a bit at the start bcuz i kept wanting to play hero 😭 but then it became a standstill and recently i’ve gotten it to go up some, and i went back to before the celebration so technically speaking that hadn’t happened yet, but when i started before i reloaded, astarion turned me down 🥲

but what i’m getting at is that several hours of play before now gale one night wanted me to try magic with him. i didn’t know this would turn romantic like and even tho i let it go on for a bit bcuz ya know, magic! but then i called it a night when he asked me how i felt. since then his approval of me shot straight up and he has the most approval of anyone else in my party. now i’m afraid that bcuz i let it go on too long that i’ve lost my chance with astarion 🥲 i’ve spent almost 24hrs of play so far i don’t wanna have to redo a bunch of fights and shit 😭😩🥲

[darkacademicfrom2021]

The Dark Team (part 4)

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The cold chains immobilizing your whole body were the thing you first noticed once you woke up. When your eyes finally opened, you observed your surroundings carefully, silently. Barely opening your eyes, just in case. Your teammates were equally tied up by your sides, and Bucky was unconscious. Loki, on the other hand, was looking around less confused than he should have.

“Oh, you did this”, you spat suddenly, realizing what was going on. Of course he would betray the team; it was all you knew about him, and history did not disappoint.

“What?” he asked, now confused. “I certainly did not. I’m trying to figure out where we are”.

“Yeah, and you want me to blindly trust you on this one? What did you do to Tony? A dumb potion or…”.

“He doesn’t need me and my magic to act idiotic, he manages that himself”, he said. Once he actually got to talk, he wouldn't stop, would he? “But if you need me to, I can try to make him even dumber, then he would have some idea to form a Dark Team. Oh, wait”, said sarcastically.

“Be free to give us your input on the crew, come on, don’t be shy”.

While you two argued, Bucky was gaining consciousness again.

“Look who decided to get up from his nappy”.

“Shut up”, he managed to say, looking around. He quickly realized where you were. “Fuck. I know this place”.

“Do enlighten us”.

“Loki, I swear to God, shut up or I’m gonna shove my metal arm through your…”.

“Where are we, Buck?”, you interrupted impatiently.

“This is a Hydra base”.

“Oh fuck”.

“Great”.

You started making escape plans in your head in record time, but then you realized; maybe you shouldn’t escape. Maybe you should arrange some plan to make the mission done from the inside. The chances of the stick being there were bigger than somewhere else.

“That’s a better idea”, resonates Loki’s voice in your head. You screamed, not expecting his magic. So he has telepathy, you thought. You looked at him amazed, and he smiled smugly. You realized, if he can access your head, then he could’ve heard…

“Oh yes, I’ve heard it all, dear. But don’t worry, I’m used to it. Many people find me... how did you say? Extremely attractive?”.

You blushed and looked uncomfortably to the roof, trying to get the plan straight, ignoring his mockery. But he kept going.

“Comparing me to a british mortal man, though… I don’t appreciate it. A Nordic God is way better in every sense”.

Your blush turned to bright red paint all over your face, and he chuckled. Bucky was observing the interaction fascinated. For him, you were two idiots who looked at each other weirdly and reacted to that. But as much as you tried to avoid him, he kept talking in your head.

“It’s alright, darling. I like to be praised, even at the strangest moments. Can’t believe you went for a plain ‘hot’, though. I think I’d be worth at least a ‘so hot my brain is melting at his only sight…”.

“Oh my God, shut up!” you shouted, interrupting his egocentric rant.

“What the… he didn’t say anything” said Bucky, even more confused than before. You were quite a pair.

“Yes, y/n, I didn’t say anything. Are you hallucinating? Did they poison you?”.

“I’m gonna choke you with those chains as soon as I get my hands free”.

“I would love to see you trying”, he challenged.

“Guys, can you pleeeeaaassseee focus?”, said Bucky, losing his patience.

“I’m trying to focus on making a plan,” you whispered. “It would be much easier if you two shut up for the love of God”.

“How could you not predict our ship would get hijacked? Aren’t you the brainy of the team?”.

“James, don’t make me spit on your face”.

“I’d suggest whatever ‘plan’ you’re thinking that would get us out of here, do it faster, because I don’t think they’d leave us here alone much more time”, said Loki.

“What? You afraid of some little mortal kidnappers? I thought, for a God, it wouldn’t be so hard to take them down. Unless you’re full of crap. You know, once in my life I finally think I’d be alright being on charge of the mission, you two had to be here, ready to ruin...”.

“Are you still planning on choking me? Because that would do wonders to my ears, to finally stop listening to you”.

“Can you two stop flirting?”, interrupted Bucky. “I didn’t think the worst thing about getting kidnapped by Hydra would be not being alone".

"But here we are”.

Bucky ripped the chains off him and freed you too, leaving Loki tied. The God didn't complain, and instead made the chains dissolve with a spell. You looked around again. A plan started to form in your head and you followed your instinct through it, knowing it’d lead somewhere good at some point. After a few minutes of complete silence, you finally have it all figured out.

“Tiny genius has an idea”, announced Loki, who apparently was reading your mind the whole time. You looked at Bucky and he nodded, as he made his way through the room, destroying every camera and microphone he was able to find.

“We’re listening now”.

“Alright. Look”. You took out of your pocket a whiteboard marker and started scribbling nonsense on the tiles of the wall. Loki and Bucky shared a concerned look. You explained the whole plan, head to toes. It included explosions, illusions of dead bodies and infiltrations of high risk throughout the building. But they didn’t seem fazed at the difficulty of the idea. “Any questions?”.

“Yeah. Do you always carry a whiteboard marker or just on very dangerous missions?”, asked Bucky.

“Oh. No, always. Anyways, what do you think of the plan?”.

“I think you’re nuts”, said Bucky. Loki was paying very little attention and you doubted he even heard your plan. You sighed.

“Look, Barnes. My poor self preservation instincts are what got me in this Stark internship in the first place, so if you’re gonna insult my nuttery consider how far it got me”, you answered, pointing at him with the marker. “And you, did you even hear it? What do you think?”.

“Oh, yes. I think you’re out of your mind”.

“Are you kidding me, Loki? You did worse things”.

“But I support your idea. It 's madness. It’ll work”, he added, and you smirked.

“Well, it’s better than the alternative, at least”, accepted Bucky. “So, we have an escape plan, but we don’t have an actual plan to get the mission done, you realize that?”.

“We can figure it out once we’re out of sight from the Hydra toys”.

“You know, I don’t know what is it with you, Steve and Sam, but you guys never have plans, and it gets on my nerves”.

“I have a plan, I always have a plan, Buck. That’s my part of the job. Just… trust me, okay?”, you asked.

“You’re getting kinda hard to trust”, he said crossing his arms.

“I trust you”, added Loki after long seconds of painful silence. You felt the need to ask him why on Earth would he trust you, when not even your best friend trusted you on this one. But he looked at you with a glimmer of certainty in his eyes, and you didn’t want to push it, or make it vanish.

When everything was already set, Loki made the highly realistic illusions of your dead bodies (it even gave you chills, but you wouldn’t admit that, of course not). Bucky ran his hand through the pavement floor at the same time that you threw your watch against it, causing an explosion. You three flew away from the impact. You realized you haven’t thought this part very thoroughly, since they could obviously take the impact (a God and a supersoldier, why wouldn’t they?), but you were a mere human mortal with no superpowers or super suits.

You couldn’t look around as you fell from the building, since the remains of the room were falling apart, and the smoke and fire from the explosion were overwhelmingly close to your eyes, but you could sense you still had enough time to find the button on your suit to get the parachute on. You just had to find the damn button, that it was…

Loki grabbed you instantly, covering you with his whole body before the impact, making sure you didn’t even get a scratch. Then you realized you maybe didn’t have the parachute back-up plan under control, after all.

“Well, that was bigger than I had anticipated”, you said, getting up from Loki’s tired body and brushing off some ashes. He stayed there and sighed. “Now we know where we were. 5th floor, apparently”.

“And now we’re not even inside the building, as we needed. Great. Smart”.

“You know, I’d say this is a win. We’re not being held hostage now, and we have enough time to recalculate the plan from the outside. Less risk of getting…”. But you were interrupted by the cocking guns of the seven guards surrounding you.

“No, please, let them finish their sentence”, said Loki sarcastically, still laying on the smashed floor. “getting caught, were you gonna say?”.

“Well, yes. But I think, given the current circumstances, that you’d differ”.

“What could possibly make you think that?”.

“Not the time, guys”, cut Bucky, getting up and knocking down two guards. You fought with one of them. Loki didn’t even bother in body-to-body combat, and casted them away, fading their bodies into thin air.

“Where did you take them?”, asked Bucky.

“The explosion”.

“Are you stupid? They’ll notice the bodies are fake!”.

“No, not the past explosion. The current explosion”, he explained, and behind him you heard a building collapsing in the distance. You didn’t even ask. What for. Honestly.

After a while of walking around and not really getting anything from it, Bucky finally asked:

“So, the watch. Is it normal for you to keep explosive reactive components in there, or was that just part of a very premeditated plan we weren’t aware of?”.

“Oh, it was just a precaution I have. In case of emergencies”, you explained. They decided it would be better to not ask you why and how could you possibly keep pulling weirdly necessary things in the strangest moments. Why would they bother. Honestly.

You touched your earbud, trying to communicate with Stark. He was supposed to be in the line at some time around that, but, well, you didn’t have your watch with you anymore. Gladly, he answered. He said he was getting the coordinates to a hotel room, and he’d take you three to a different place than the anticipated, far away from that Hydra base. You needed time to establish, refill energy and make a better plan. Better than blowing things up. You had some time to spare now that you were temporarily presumed death.

[foursideharmony]

The Cat, the Prince, and the Doorway to Imagination (Chapter 9)

Summary: It's time to end this...

Pairings: Platonic/familial LAMP/CALM, Platonic/familial DLAMPR

Content Warnings: Swordfighting, a wee bit of blood, swearing, total exhaustion

Word Count: 2,738

Read on AO3: here

There was no obvious way to cross. Roman stopped with his toes nearly brushing the surface of the water. “JADIS!” he called across the distance. “Usurper! I, Prince Roman, do hereby challenge you!”

For the briefest instant, a paper-white face appeared in one of the high windows of the castle, displaying a subtle but unmistakable expression of pure disdain before its owner moved out of view again.

Roman was crestfallen, but Virgil moved up alongside him, saying “Pfft, rude.”

“I would have thought she'd be thrilled to take out her vengeance on me.”

“I'm sure she is...but she wants to do it on her terms. Why answer an open challenge when she can wait a while and then ambush you when you least expect it?”

“Well, she's getting an open challenge whether she wants one or not. I just have to figure out how I'm getting to her.”

Logan tossed a pebble out into the water. It made a very satisfying plunk, with rows of even ripples. “The water is at least a few feet deep. I recommend against swimming or wading—immersion in liquid that supports a large quantity of floating ice is almost certain to cause hypothermia.”

“Maybe we can somehow get the ice chunks to line up and form a bridge...?” Roman suggested, but he didn't sound confident.

“Can't you just make a bridge? Or a boat or something?” said Patton. “Now that you're back to being the Creativity we know and love?”

Roman made an exhalation that was halfway to being a sob and said, in a voice with a hairline crack, “I suppose it can't hurt to try...”

He closed his eyes, cupped one hand beside the other as though sheltering a tiny flame, and focused all his power on making something, anything, that would enable them to cross the water. Please...I'll accept anything...a raft...a rope...come on, please!...

He couldn't even say who or what he was begging, but whatever it was...it answered. Roman knew his attempt had worked—more or less—when he heard Patton snicker behind him. He opened his eyes and turned around.

Roman hadn't known what to expect, but he definitely had not expected a buff-colored mushroom the size of a dinner table for eight, with Logan examining it curiously and Remus poking the spongy substance and giggling. Roman blinked at it several times before the irony hit him, at which point he abruptly doubled over with guffaws, bracing his hands on his knees in order to keep from falling over.

“Roman? You...good?” asked Virgil.

“I finally made a mushroom!” Roman wheezed. “After all that angst back there...”

“Roman, what are you talking about?” said Logan.

“I'll tell you guys later,” Roman said, straightening up and rubbing fresh tears from his eyes. “For now...” He unsheathed his sword and severed the mushroom's cap from its stalk almost effortlessly. It landed at the water's edge, floating high. “All aboard who's coming aboard!”

They all fit easily enough, though they had to crowd together to keep their feet from getting wet. Roman took up a perch at the side of the mushroom facing the bank, braced his boot against the earth, and shoved, casting them off. Their peculiar vessel spun gently as it drifted toward the White Witch's castle. Now and again an ice chunk would approach, and whoever was closest to it would kick it away, altering both the spin and the drift in little ways. It took several minutes before the mushroom grounded itself in the far side of the lake.

The portcullis was closed, its iron lattice too tight to admit anything larger than a loaf of bread. But Roman was unfazed. He had made a mushroom. He whipped his sword through the air a few times, and a man-sized section of the bars simply collapsed. He led the other Sides through the courtyard—now empty of statues, as though Aslan's spring had freed the petrified creatures without his direct involvement—and down the corridor to the White Witch's throne room.

They were expected.

Jadis sat enthroned, flanked along the dais by the captains and lieutenants of her armies, a fair sampling of the horror monsters Roman had brought to the Stone Table only that very morning. Many of them carried spears, axes, and clubs. Maugrim paced along the floor in front of the dais in an oddly catlike fashion, his eyes never leaving the party as they entered.

“And here he is!” the Witch declared as though Roman had been the topic of conversation in the room. “I knew you would not be long in returning to me, Prince Roman. And you've brought your fellows with you! Tribute, perhaps? They will look lovely in the courtyard.”

Roman marched to the middle of the hall and leveled an accusing finger at her, eliciting gasps from the assembled creatures. “Usurper! Pretender to the throne of Narnia! Why do you still sit there? You have lost—Aslan has returned, your endless winter has given way to spring, and I...” He swallowed. “...I have purged myself of your malign influence.”

“An influence you welcomed,” Jadis said smoothly. There was the faintest hitch of breath behind him, and her smile broadened. “Why, Roman. Did you not tell them how you came to be the White Warlock?”

“Not yet,” Roman said, trying to sound casual about it. “Don't change the subject. The jig is up, Jadis, and you will quit this castle, take your followers, and leave Narnia forever.”

“Or?” she prompted. Her voice was like a shower of slender icicles pattering down from a shaken branch.

“Or face me in single combat. Me, Jadis. The one who stole your power, stole your very being, into myself, when you were on the brink of victory. Duel me for the right to say what will become of you and your armies.”

Something unprecedented happened.

Jadis laughed.

It was nothing hearty or prolonged, just a quick scoffing exhalation, but it was a laugh. “Or perhaps I shall simply ignore your demand, kill you all, and carry on as I have. Aslan's return means nothing with no candidates to place on the thrones of Cair Paravel.”

“You may find that difficult,” Roman said through gritted teeth, “if I drop the scenario right now and all this vanishes.”

“Oh shit, he's going meta!” Remus stage-whispered.

“Watch your language!” Patton scolded.

“Is that an extreme measure?” Logan asked.

“Are you kidding, Five-Eyes? It's the last resort for a creative type! He's talking about scrapping the story before he gets to the ending!”

“Bollocks!” shouted one of the lieutenants, a goblin-esque creature. “If he has that kind of power, why even offer a duel?”

“My reasons are my own,” said Roman. “The point, Jadis, is that you are being offered a chance. You're a proud woman, but suicidally proud? I don't think so.”

All Narnia held its breath as the Witch considered. After a moment that seemed longer than it was, she rose to her feet. “I accept. We shall duel here, and at once. It begins as soon as I descend to the floor.” She began to walk down the steps of the dais, directly toward Roman.

“Weapons only! No magic from either of us!” Roman said hastily.

“Agreed,” said the Witch with the confidence of someone who is stronger and has longer reach than their opponent. She drew her long stone knife from the sash at her waist.

“No one is to interfere!” Roman added, fighting the urge to back away.

“Agreed.”

Jadis's foot hit the floor, and she charged.

Roman launched into motion himself, and met the charge.

That first blow, stone blade meeting steel, threw up a shower of sparks too bright to look at. The Witch pressed Roman until his boots skidded on the frozen floor, and only by reacting immediately, breaking the blade lock and flinging himself to the side, did he avoid being stabbed then and there.

He rolled onto his back—and she was on him, forcing him to block again, one hand grasping the hilt of his sword, the other awkwardly pincering the blunt edge of the blade. He managed to get his knee up and threw her off, over his head, while ruthless physics sent him slipping in the opposite direction. He scrambled to rise and got as far as a sitting position just in time to see the Witch roll, turning her tumble into a graceful slide, one leg bent under her and the other extended off to the side, her arms counterbalancing.

Elapsed time of the duel so far: perhaps six seconds.

Lewis really undersold her, Roman found himself thinking lightheadedly.

And now the spectators were finding their voices. The prince's spirits lifted when he first heard Patton crow “You can do it, Roman!”...but in the next instant, it was drowned out by the gibbering howls of the Witch's followers from every side of the room. That was all he was able to register before she came at him again, her knife lashing the air in a pattern almost too complex for him to follow.

Almost...Somehow, he managed to parry every strike and even offer a few ripostes. The very end of the sequence gave him an opening to lunge and swipe—she dodged the blow handily, but his sword sheared off a lock of her coal-colored hair. She shrieked with rage.

“Yeah! Shave her bald!” Remus cackled.

“Not helping!” Roman barked.

But it hadn't really hurt either. The prince was getting the hang of fighting on the slick surface; his footing became surer, his movements more confident, his strikes more forceful. The Witch was taller and stronger and had the home-field advantage, but Roman had the superior weapon—two feet of folded steel compared to eight inches of carved stone—and with his insecurities about the arena ironed out, it began to make a real difference. She could lunge at him with inhuman speed and grace, but if he brought up his blade in time, she had to pull her blow lest the knife break on the sword's edge...and that instant of hesitation would give him an opening. The tide of battle turned, and Jadis began to be driven back within her own throne room. The shouts of alarm from her followers were nearly deafening.

(It was at this point that Maugrim, who was nothing if not loyal, began to slink around behind the rows of spectators, looking for a chance to rush to his queen's aid. He thought he found one and tensed to make his move—only to find himself physically stopped by an arc of steel wrapped around his neck exactly as though he were a wayward sheep. He turned to snarl at the interloper and was greeted by a slit-pupilled eye as frightening as any in the White Witch's armies.

“None of that, naughty puppy,” Janus said in silken tones. “No interference, remember? I'm sure your mistress would much rather you strive to keep her honor intact.”

Maugrim's hackles went up and he prepared to overpower Janus through sheer bulk and muscle, but then...)

A gasp went up from Jadis's followers, followed by an immediate hush that blanketed the entire hall. Roman had disarmed her, sending the stone knife tumbling end-over-end across the chamber. She desperately ducked his sword and scrambled to retrieve her weapon, but it struck the wall point-on, digging deep into the frozen surface and sending out cracks that spread rapidly until a section of ice the size of a mattress was sheared off. It barely missed her as it crashed to the floor and shattered, the impact throwing her off her feet.

She looked up into the tip of a blade. “Yield,” Roman said coolly. “You are defeated.”

“You mean to let me live?” Jadis said with a bitter smile. “You know I would not do you the same courtesy.”

Roman winced almost imperceptibly. “I have caused enough death in Narnia. Yield...quit this land forever, and take your creatures with you.” When he got no response, he thrust his sword at her face, drawing a single drop of blood from her chalk-colored cheek.

“I-I yield,” she said, wide-eyed.

Roman half-turned to address the room, keeping his sword trained on his downed opponent. “You have all witnessed her surrender!” he declared. “This regime is at an end!”

One of the monsters raised a keening wail, an acknowledgment of defeat, and was soon joined by others. Those who bore weapons threw them down, and a few made florid obeisances in Roman's direction.

For the first time in days—since he had first begun to feel that he was being steered toward the role of Edmund—Roman felt the tension begin to bleed out of his shoulders. With the wails of the Witch's followers blending into a sort of white noise in his head, he let his eyes slide closed and his sword arm droop, and took a moment just to breathe—

“Roman! Look out!”

—and his eyes snapped back open just in time to see Jadis springing at him with her wand raised (where had she gotten it from?) and there was no time, no time to do anything but drop his sword and bring up his hands to grab—

There was a flash of light, as bright as lightning at the same distance, and a horrible cracking, crunching sound. When it subsided, Roman and the White Witch stood perfectly still, holding her golden wand aloft between them, her face frozen in a snarl of fury, his in understated alarm that hadn't had time to gel...neither one blinking.

Utter silence reigned in the throne room for a long moment. When sound returned, it was in the form of a whimper. “Both of them...both...” Patton muttered, before he broke the stillness and ran up to the twin statues. He lifted a hesitant, trembling hand to touch Roman's shoulder...

Roman blinked, and sighed, and his posture sagged...not stone after all. He let go of the wand as if prying his fingers free of some powerful glue, and as Patton seized one of his hands in a desperately relieved gesture and the other Sides jogged over to the two of them, his knees began to buckle in slow motion. He wound up in a sprawled kneeling position, his legs bent out to the sides, gazing up at the petrified form of his enemy. Her marble complexion was now literal, her hair sculpted waves of obsidian, her lips a scarlet flaw in the surface of the stone, parted to show more white marble behind.

“I did it...” he said in a tiny voice.

“You did do it!” Patton agreed. “Roman, you were amazing!”

“Indeed, I never realized before just how adroit you are at swordsmanship. Well done,” Logan added.

“I defeated the White Warlock...” Roman continued.

“You mean the White Witch,” said Virgil.

“Yes...her too.” Roman closed his eyes again. He was exhausted. “It's time to go home,” he whispered, or maybe just thought. A proper denouement would have been nice, but his energy well had finally run dry. The throne room slowly faded to white around them.

“Uh...” Virgil observed.

“S'all right,” Roman murmured. “Remus, can you...”

“Brilliant idea, giving Remus an open-ended question,” Janus remarked dryly. Curiously enough, however, the other Creative Side was already drawing lines in mid-air in a hurried fashion. Color and texture filled them in, making the image of a miniature door, about half the size of a normal one.

“Whoops, drew it too far away,” said Remus. “Well, come on, it's not going to pound itself until it bursts open!” He set out at a brisk walk.

Virgil and Patton helped Roman to his feet, one arm over each of their shoulders, and more-or-less carried him the short walk to the door.

“Remus, while we have your attention,” said Logan, begging a rather important question, “I have a more defined question for you. Specifically: five eyes?”

“Yep!” Remus replied, arriving at the door and rapping on it in an uneven pattern that had to be a code of some kind. “The two in your eyesockets, your glasses, and the one on the end of your—”

Fortunately, the door opened before he could end the sentence.

[thecat-inthehat]

23. Shuffle

I’m supposed to be asleep already fuckkkkkkk i’ve got WORK tomorrow

----

The distinctive thwap of cards being shuffled echoed throughout the Bookman’s shelves, and Helisent watched as Nive carefully selected a card and laid it down onto the table. Next to her, Urianger brought his hand to his chin, considering the card closely. Neither spoke a word, merely considering the complex cross pattern they were creating on the table. Urianger waited for a moment, and then pulled out his own card from his deck, and set it down, laying it perpendicular to the one Nive had placed. 

“What are they doing…?” Minfilia asked quietly, coming to sit next to Helisent. She had one of the mysterious “cartridges” between her fingers, flipping it over and over in her hand, and it glowed slightly as she channeled aether into it. “I’ve seen Urianger use cards before, and even predict a few future events, but nothing like this.” 

Hel grinned slightly, and her fingers didn’t waver from the stitching she was working on. “A twelve scale divination. Each of their ‘combat decks’ has eighteen cards, with three of each of the set of six, and they can use those to perform a divination with twelve cards.” 

Minfilia frowned slightly, tilting her head. “I thought the ‘twelve’ was an important number for Eorzeans, isn’t it? So shouldn’t they have twelve cards in their combat decks?” 

“I asked that too,” Hel admitted, looping one of the stitches around the leather she was fixing. “Nive said that her deck is printed upright, reversed, and on it’s side, corresponding to Solar, Lunar, and Celestial seals. Combat wise, they all do the same thing, with the Ewer making magic come easier, or the Bole bolstering defense, but with minute differences. To perform a basic divination, an Astrologian needs one of each seal.” 

“Multiples of three, then?” Minfilia asked, squinting at the cards that lay on the table. “Because three goes into twelve four times, and then out of a deck of eighteen cards…” 

“Admittedly it’s a lot more math than I’m comfortable with,” Hel shrugged. “Astromancy toes the line between art and science, with a lot of math involved. Urianger’s good, but Nive is better.” 

Minfilia looked up at that, her crystal-sapphire eyes widening, and Hel had to fight to keep the instinctual shudder out of her shoulders. From a distance, they were almost like dunesfolk eyes, but this close it was clear that they were otherworldly and unnatural. 

“But Nive uses arc--arcanima? Was that it? I thought she only did damage with the pets that follow her around, like those carbuncles.” She asked, more confused than before. 

“Nive has a bloodline heritage,” a new voice said, coming closer to them. Hel and Minfilia looked up to see Shining set her pack and bow down, and then give a groan as she sat on the couch next to them. 

“A… bloodline heritage?” Minfilia asked, frowning in confusion. “Do you mean that she’s descended from a line of Astrologians?” 

Shining smiled at her, giving a nod. “Aye. Nive’s mother, and her mother’s mother, they were all Astrologians, and had a history. Nive’s deck was actually her mother’s, which is why it’s a little more worn than Urianger’s.” 

“If you have a family that tends to specialize in a certain branch of magic over the course of generations, then eventually even the ‘weakest’ members of that family can have a lot of innate power,” Helisent explained. “Granted, that tends to mean that they can become overspecialized, and have a hard time learning any other branches, but the talent is there. Nive could predict the future when we were eight, and just seem to know things by looking at the stars.”

“But she … doesn’t use it. I didn’t even realize she could use cards like Urianger until he asked her for help with a divination.” Minfilia said, swinging her head left and right to look at both women. 

“Mmhm,” Shining nodded. “She was never formally trained, and had to figure out a lot of stuff on her own, or by asking Sharlayan Astrologians. She knew the basics, and had an innate talent, but she had already settled on Arcanima as her primary tool by the time she really learned.” 

“That isn’t to say she’s not capable, though,” Hel murmured, looking over at the two Astrologians pouring over the card that was just placed. Nive’s tail twitched, then twitched the other direction. “She’s just as good a healer as I am, and she’s very quick with her cards, she thinks fast. But ultimately, her talents lie in defeating the enemies we encounter, while mine are better suited to heal.” 

Shining gave a shrug, and reached for the table, grabbing one of the muffins the pixies had produced for them all. Hel wouldn’t touch it, but Shining had apparently made friends with many of the fae in the years that she had been on the First. She took a bite and chewed thoughtfully, watching the divination as well, and then looked back at Minfilia. “If you want another example, my songs are a gift of my bloodline heritage. And if you squint, your powers as the Oracle could be considered something similar.” 

Minfilia tilted her head, kicking her feet slightly. “Really? I thought I had heard multiple voices singing with you before…” 

Shining nodded, finishing off her muffin. It was made hyur sized, and didn’t last more than a couple bites. “Mmhm. My ancestors all sing through me, and when I pass on into the Lifestream, my own voice will join to the chorus. But ultimately I’m more like Nive -- I don’t really use my talents, or I push them to work for something else. Out of the three of us, I’m the most magically powerful, but I don’t cast straight spells often.” 

“And by a large margin, too,” Hel said, poking another hole through the leather, and sewing some more pieces together. “Circumstances of her conception, and all that.” 

“We’re not talking about my parents having crazy wild drunk sex,” Shining deadpanned. 

Minfilia squawked, a blush rising to her cheeks, and she covered her mouth. The motion was so like Minfilia that Helisent had to look away, knowing that she couldn’t afford to see her friend in the child’s face. It wasn’t fair. To … anyone, really. 

“Yes, please, let’s not talk about that,” Hel rolled her eyes, and held up the harness she was almost done with. “Minfilia, could you stand? I want to make sure I got your measurements right.” 

Minfilia blinked in surprise, and gently set down the cartridge, going to stand. “You … made something for me?” 

“Mmhm. Lift up your arms?” Hel let the harness hover over Minfilia’s shoulders, and nodded. “Alright, almost done. Thancred said you had lost most of your gear after the Eulmorans captured you, and the Mean only had time to make you the daggers and some basics.” 

Minfilia’s face fell, and she opened her mouth to apologize, when Shining gently put a finger to her lips. 

“Helisent didn’t do this out of any sort of admonishment. She saw that you needed gear, and made it for you. You don’t need to apologize for getting captured. We’ve all been in bad situations before.” Shining smiled gently, and squeezed her shoulder. 

“A-alright,” Minfilia said, clearly unsure of what to say. She twisted her fingers together, and then nodded, deciding to simply sit down again. “Thank you.” 

“Eh, I wouldn’t say it’s as good as the stuff in the Mean,” Helisent shrugged, and ruffled Minfilia’s hair. “But Shining was able to barter for some glider skins, and I thought you could use some more protection than just the dress and shorts.” 

“My thanks, Helisent,” Urianger called across the room, looking up briefly from the divination. “Words ill convey the feverish worry that overcame me upon seeing Minfilia without her proper vestments.” 

“I’m not that great, but I can at least make some decent protective gear,” Hel shrugged, and stuck her tongue out between her teeth as she finangled with a more tricky stitch. “Really, though, it’s kind of--” 

Nive’s sudden gasp cut her off, and instantly Shining, Helisent, and Minfilia were all crowded around the table, looking at the haphazard mess of cards. Urianger’s attention was stolen back to the cards as well, and his lips pulled down into a frown. 

“Forgive me, but I do not see…” He started, tracing his finger along the lines. A reverse Bole, a reverse Spire, and Nive had just laid down a reverse Ewer. The Ewer laid at the top of the triangle, pointing the whole trifecta upwards. 

“... That’s bad, right?” Shining asked, her brows furrowing together. 

Nive inhaled, and stepped back from the table slightly, going to rub her temples. “It depends, but … generally, yeah. It’s bad. Reverse cards, all with ‘dark’ aspected elements, with them coming out on top of the rest of the divination…” 

“What’re we in for?” Helisent asked, looking down at the cards. Urianger’s set was beautiful and new, but the art was made by someone who didn’t understand what he had been asking for, and could only replicate it as best as they were able. Nive’s set was worn and old, but each card was tangibly hers, with a sort of history and weight to them that seemed to demand attention. 

“If I had to hazard a guess,” Nive started, her tail waving just slightly, “we’re being followed by an Ascian. And not just any Ascian, but a red mask. I’d … probably go so far as to say someone on par with Lahabrea, or Elidibus.” 

“Lahabrea was a chump, though,” Hel protested. 

“A chump that only died after he was battered and broken by us, and then slain by a primal fueled by two of Nidhogg’s eyes and a millennia of prayer,” Nive reminded her darkly. “And that was after we had forcibly expelled him from Thancred, and sent him fleeing back to the Rift. We seriously wounded him at the Praetorium, and he must have been still recovering from that.” 

“I love hearing about your wacky adventures when I wasn’t there,” Shining muttered. “So what, another Ascian is coming for us? It’ll die like the rest.” 

“... You didn’t have to fight Elidibus,” Hel muttered, hugging herself as she tried not to recall the memory. 

“Whatever is coming for us, we need to be ready,” Nive said firmly. “Take extra precautions, check people’s shadows to make sure they have one. We’re trying to prevent a Calamity, and that’s the Ascian’s number one goal. Of course we’re going to find one skulking about.” 

Shining snorted, giving a small shrug. “Well… Whoever they are, I hope they’re at least amusing.” 

[orderofthedyingstar]

RECAP: SESSION 15

The party has just embarked on their (soon-to-be) months long journey on the Long Road, the only real path between the western part of Gosha and So’Joh’s capital city. (CRIT MISS from Rhododendron) the first two weeks’ worth of the journey end up taking an entire month, and Rhododendron (CRIT MISS CON save) ends up giving herself, Jun, and Inigo (CRIT MISS CON save) food poisoning - Rhododendron and Inigo end up getting horribly sick on top of that for the entire first week of travel. Inigo ends up eating weird roadside small-town food for a while afterwords, not trusting even the party’s rations. After she recovers, Rhododendron scavenges some spell components; she also works on ‘Verrix’s’ romance book manuscript for Marlee. She tries to enlist Verrix’s help in coming up with a title for the book, but he just ends up shouting out random baking terms. Rhododendron asks Marlee what she knows about the Crimson Death, and she tells Rhododendron that ‘people were being shitty’ and then healed by Dilong…and mentions Sun Sickness.

Marlee: “Basically, there was like this paladin of Nyvarstra or whatever, and they totally went bazonkers with power, totally fallen, totally rising up against the gods - I dunno, there was like a whole rebellion with it. Even the common folk were with it, he was like super charismatic. Like me. And like, I guess Nyvarstra was like ‘oh, that’s like blasphemy’ so she sent a plague to destroy them all  and show people what happens when you mess with her - props, I get it, I have a bad temper too.” 

Rhododendron: “And then you said there was another person?” 

Marlee: “Ya, another god, one that’s not around anymore, so she’s not relevant.” 

Rhododendron: “Laoteng?” 

Marlee: “Ya, her and one of her kids. They did, like, some healing with some holy warrior or whatever. I dunno.” 

Rhododendron: “So, did Nyvarstra kill the paladin?” 

Marlee: “Yeah, probably. The other legend is that ‘his corpse still haunts the world today’. I wouldn’t worry about it. He’s probably dead.”

Rhododendron asks if an angel was involved in these stories at all, which Marlee denies, but she does bring up the incident a few months back when ‘a bunch of angels went crazy and tried to kill the aasimar’.

Marlee: “People got like, mad about it. I was like ‘calm down, man’.”

Rhododendron: “It didn’t affect you?” 

Marlee: “Um, no, celestials can’t affect me. Ew. I’m like a paladin, that’s like our thing.” 

Rhododendron: “I mean, it didn’t affect me either, so…” 

Marlee: “That’s nice.” 

Verrix: “Yeah, bet it was nice.”

Rhododendron asks Marlee if she knows that she’s in a party with two aasimar, and she says that she’s known - and that she knows that Inigo is fallen. Rhododendron tells Marlee that the angels were after Inigo, to which the paladin says that it’s a ‘little self-centered’ to assume that it was all because of them. After talking to Marlee, Rhododendron tries to ask Inigo a little bit more about his memories, which he’s still very unclear on. Inigo does state that he vaguely remembers Umbra’s plan to steal the crown of So’Joh, and that he was arrested. Marlee, after eavesdropping for a little bit, offers to try to help Inigo with some magic from her - and a somewhat reluctant Jun. Inigo’s a little apprehensive about the idea, but Rhododendron reassures him again that he doesn’t have to change as a person even after regaining his memories.

The group finally makes it past the border and into So’Joh (after breaking and repairing a cart wheel) after four and a half weeks of travel. Jun gives books the semi-translated book from the last temple, where’s he’s made quite a few notes. Rhododendron asks Verrix if he’s come up with a title for the book yet, but won’t accept his only sugggestion (Fifty Shades of Grain). The two of them debate tell Marlee about the author of the book, but feel like she’ll be a little upset that they’ve hid this secret for a few months now. Rhododendron asks Inigo how he feels about trying to regain his memories again, and he tells her that she still doesn’t think it’s a good idea, since he isn’t too happy about the type of person he used to be before. Inigo also says that he’s worried about being around Umbra again, recalling how Umbra could affect anyone’s minds from regular people to creatures (like giants). Rhododendron still reassures him that he doesn’t have any reason to hurt anyone in the party (although Verrix points out to her that Jun and Inigo didn’t exactly get along as teenagers, to which Rhododendron says that Jun doesn’t even look the same anymore, and that he let Inigo go). Inigo still continues to worry about regaining his memories, especially at the risk of harming the rest of the party, but his memories might be the only real lead they have to Umbra’s whereabouts in Nartai/So’Joh. 

Marlee finishes working her way through the pieces of the story Rhododendron has written for her, and says that she has very in-depth feedback to give to Verrix on it (which he is not looking forward too). Rhododendron gets bored after a while and tries to bother Jun, who says he prefers sleeping (nice, dreamless sleep) - so she has Inigo throw his flute at Jun (21 STR check), and lets him know that Inigo has decided to go through with Marlee’s (and his) suggestion of using Lesser Restoration/Remove Curse to try to restore some of his memories. Eventually, Jun does offer to finish translating the rest of the book on Dilong for her (with only 100 pages left). 

Rhododendron and Inigo go hunting for food to give the party a break from rations, but Rhododendron is banned from cooking, so Verrix offers to cook the deer they bring back…with fire magic, which triggers residual magic from the chocolate he’d eaten in the Brackenwood temple, summoning a fire elemental. The elemental also completely rends the deer to ashes and begins to attack the party. Rhododendron asks Marlee if she thinks the elemental is similar at all the Umbra (Marlee: “who’s Umbra?”), while Jun remarks that the elemental is saying some pretty vulgar things in Primordial (who taught Jun cuss words in Primordial…). The elemental targets Verrix in combat, doing significant damage to him and setting him on fire while Marlee and Inigo miss horribly. Jun casts Thunderstep to get Verrix away from the fire elemental, but the party still has difficulty doing any significant damage to the creature for a few hits, setting Inigo on fire before Rhododendron and Verrix manage to land solid hits on it, Verrix finishing it off.

After the fight, Verrix asks (a pouting) Marlee if there’s a god of deer, but she dodges giving him a real answer besides saying that there’s a god of the Wilds; she’s bitter that she wasn’t able to hit the elemental. The next day, before trying to begin restoring Inigo’s memories, Rhododendron tries to make sure that he’s really ready to start the process (while Verrix eavesdrops). They also talk about Rhododendron’s dancing career, to which she tells them that there’s only a limited amount of time for her to perform as a professional ballet dancer, since the career is so hard on her body.

Rhododendron: “It’s okay to be nervous. I would go through performances and that was the worst part, but at the end it was exhilarating, that release of nervousness.” 

Inigo: “I don’t know if this will be quite the same.” 

Rhododendron: “I think it will! You’ll remember who you are, Inigo. And even if it brings back bad memories, that’s you.” 

Inigo: “Yes, that’s the part…I think I’m afraid of.” 

Rhododendron: “That’s what I’m saying. You should accept that part of yourself and be the person…that is scared of that person.” 

Inigo: “Or I could run away again.” 

Rhododendron: “I would find you.” 

Inigo: “You did track me pretty soundly and very, very quickly.”

Rhododendron: “I’m not gonna let you run away from this, Inigo, no matter how much you might want to.” 

Inigo: “……We have a deal.”

Rhododendron and Inigo (with some very loud flute ‘music’) wake up Inigo and Jun to start the process of trying to restore his memories, with Marlee insisting on wearing her gauntlets around Inigo and his ‘fallenness’. Rhododendron freaks out on Marlee and Jun when Inigo passes out, but neither of them know why it affected him like that. Jun is completely unconcerned, but points out that he was fine after passing out for a week (Rhododendron vehemently disagrees). After a few minutes Inigo wakes up and immediately goes to recover by himself in the cart, while Marlee pesters Verrix about the book he didn’t write and Jun gives Rhododendron the fully annotated book on Dilong - with an additional 200 pages neither of them expected, since he initially thought they were indexes. Rhododendron is absolutely distressed by this absurd amount of reading.

Jun: “We could kidnap a bard for you and have them read you the whole thing.” 

Rhododendron: “Why can’t you just do it?!” 

Jun: “I don’t like telling stories, it’s boring.” 

Rhododendron: “You’re boring!” 

Jun, sincerely: “Thank you.” 

Rhododendron: “Nine hundred pages, Jun?!” 

Jun: “It’s seven hundred if you don’t read - ” 

Rhododendron, sobbing: “YOU SAID NINE HUNDRED PAGES!”

After a few hours of working through the book and checking up on Inigo from a distance, Rhododendron finally takes pity on Verrix and rescues him from Marlee’s badgering. They return to the cart, and Jun hands Verrix his spellbook to put over his face. They annoy Rhododendron until she goes over to ask Inigo how he’s doing; he’s a little uncertain of things still. Inigo says he remembers some things about Nartai, the Cobalt Keep, and the skull tattoo (a mark of Umbra’s gang). He remembers a little more about trying to steal the crown, that two magic users stopped them before they even got past the gates. He isn’t able to recount much about the person he’d met with the skull tattoo back in Asaraoi, that the dude mostly spoke in riddles, mentioning a library. He also refuses to show Rhododendron his tattoo, saying that it is both invisible and in a ‘bad spot’, even though she is incredibly nosy and desperately wants to know where it is. He does tell her that his tattoo isn’t always invisible, that it reappears when Umbra’s near. Inigo also remembers his favorite food, which is basically just slightly fancy apple pie (but he claims that you can only get it in Breo Shar, where he remembers a part of childhood). They also speculate whether or not Umbra could be a lich, since they didn’t seem to age at all in Inigo’s memories.  

The two of them speculate a little about the future, which Inigo doesn’t have any plans for past Umbra, and Rhododendron is unsure of after rescuing Raz. Rhododendron also brings up the Queen missing, and that Jun was the one who predicted that - and Inigo nearly remembers Jun’s identity at the mention of that until Rhododendron talks over him in an attempt to derail the conversation. As the party heads out on the road again, Raz manages to get a message to Rhododendron via the Sending spell. 

Raz: “Uh…h-hey, Rhododendron. It’s, uh, me. Raz. It’s been a while, hasn’t it? Uh, that was a bad joke, sorry…I just wanted to let you know…I’m alive?”

She tells Verrix about the message, and how…kind of pointless it was other than letting her know that they’re still alive. Rhododendron is annoyed with how little they gave her (“the bare bones of a conversation, like always”). When Jun finally wakes up (hours later), she tells him about the message she got from Raz, and he grills her for information before guessing that the spell Raz used was Sending, and that eventually he might be able to learn how to do the spell for her, and tells her how to respond to it. Jun expresses displeasure at the thought of someone else in his head, and they group moves on with their travels.

Verrix manages to navigate the party for a while, spotting some signs from the Masks carved into a nearby signpost, and is curious enough to divert the party off of the maid road to follow where they’re leading - the Mirtree House. Verrix takes Inigo with him to take a peak at the manor, before they both decide that it’s pretty creepy and return to get the rest of their party, pulling the cart up in front of the manor and waking everybody up, much to Marlee’s displeasure. Marlee volunteers herself to stay with the cart while the rest of the party investigates the manor. 

The party enters the manor after Jun casts Detect Magic (abjuration) and Rhododendron picks the lock (15 DEX). They sneak around the building, finding a few once-nice moth-eaten cloaks and a fancy dining room on the first floor, as well as several servants’ quarters and a kitchen. 

Verrix: “Oh, hey, they were probably rich people, so this is totally fine.”

Rhododendron: “You’re just figuring that out?” 

Rhododendron, later: “If you have this many servants you can’t be that nice of a person.” 

Jun: “No, they never are.” 

Rhododendron: “Like, you can acquire wealth without being an asshole.”

They dig further through the manor, with Verrix finding a decent sized safe that he’s unable to open alone, but manages to crack the combination with the help of Rhododendron’s sharp ears. They find some daggers and some deed paperwork to the manor. The paperwork has the surname Mirtree, the names on the paper being Fil’tran and Kirna - obviously elvish. They also manage to find a decent amount of money.

Rhododendron: “Just a fact of life: elves are old, rich assholes.” 

Jun, bitterly:  “Yeah.”

After examining their loot, the party makes their way to the master bedroom, where the door immediately shuts behind them. Outside of the window, the view of the sun is completely gone, with it being pitch black outside as though it was nighttime again. Jun casts Detect Magic again (burning a spell slot, much to his chagrin) to reveal that the magic around them is, of course, necrotic (as well as evocation and abjuration). On the headboard of the bed is carved: LOCK THE DOOR, BLOW OUT THE LIGHT, THE HUNGRY ONI HAUNTS THE NIGHT. There are more portrait of elves in the bedroom much like the rest of the house, and no stars in the sky outside.

Inigo tries to open the door but is unable to, and he says that he hears something scratching on the other side of the door - something with sharp nails. Rhododendron tries to peer under the door, also hearing the scratching sound as she approaches the door; it immediately stops when she looks under the door, her own gaze met by a bright yellow eye and a sharp grin. 

Rhododendron: “Is it childish of me that I’m like, ‘we should all get on the bed’?” 

Verrix: “The bed with the ominous carvings on it? The ominous message? …How bad do you think the consequences would be if I broke that window?”

As gas starts to pour out from under the door crack, the party scrambles away from the door, and the smoke solidifies into a humanoid figure with glowing yellow eyes. The oni. Inigo, as always (for some reason) introduces himself to the creature and asks for its name while Verrix and Rhododendron crack nervous jokes at it. The oni shifts its form to look like Rhododendron and begins mimicking her speech - the party engages it in combat (and Verrix does a LOT of damage to it, lots of nat20s this session for Verrix). During the battle, at the end of each round, (the one round it finishes lmao) the oni’s wounds begin to heal on their own - Verrix destroys it seconds later with another impressive blast of fire, but activates his own Wild Magic, which swaps his STR and CHA mods. Verrix ends up getting super buff for the rest of the day, popping open the buttons on his clothes audibly and growing an extra three inches. Verrix runs over and takes a flying kick at the door (nat20) and completely obliterates the door.

The party explores the rest of the manor, finding a few children's’ bedrooms and a guest bedroom, with nothing too interesting in them. Rhododendron digs through the master bedroom again and finds a safe hidden under the bed, finding a few magical items (candies and dentures) and some more money. After scouring the manor a little longer, the party reunites with Marlee back at the cart, who says they were gone for seven hours. Marlee also says that she heard screaming from inside the building, but none of the other members of the party screamed while they were inside. Inigo offers to teach Verrix how to use swords now that he’s strong, but Verrix declines, saying he still doesn’t think that he can take very many hits. 

After that detour, the party returns to the Long Road proper, reaching the edge of the forested area about a month’s travel away from the Great Crossroads. Jun tries to use his portent to help Verrix cheat at arm wrestling competitions with Inigo and Rhododendron while he’s still strong, but Inigo still somehow wins his (nat20).  …As soon as Verrix goes to sleep his muscles disappear. Verrix spends the next few days sulking in silent shame at losing his muscles, and even though Inigo offers to help him work out (and Rhododendron suggests jogging next to the horses) he still pouts.

They begin reaching the most populated portions of So’Joh the closer they get to Nartai and Rhododendron successfully manages to shave off some of their travel time. They also pick up a familiar (to Rhododendron) hitchhiker in Calliope, who has taken the form of a half-elf. The two of them catch up, with Rhododendron introducing her to the newer party members and filling Cali in on what happened to Raz. 

Rhododendron: “Have you ever heard of a man named Umbra?” 

Calliope: “Fire genasi? Then, yeah.” 

Rhododendron: “What do you know about him?” 

Calliope: “Oh, you know, dangerous and deadly. A lot of good stories.”

Rhododendron: “He’s the worst? The WORST?” 

Calliope: “…Depends on who you hear it from.” 

Rhododendron: “We’re going to go kill him.” 

Calliope, smiling: “I hope you make a good story out of it.”

When Rhododendron asks about a story, Cali offers up stories about Lady Ambrette and gates to the Underdark, a fallen paladin and the Crimson Death (a story Marlee had refused to talk about very much), and the Emperor’s spyglass. Rhododendron asks about the Night of Endless Rains and the version of the story with Zelia - and the mortal Arietta (wait, where have we heard that name before…), a famous performer. Arietta’s talent as a performer was so great that it caught the attention of two gods: Yulong and Zelia, who started wars over her affection. Cali also supplies that Yulong’s Fingers (the rivers) were formed where her hands last grasped for Arietta as her life slipped away after Zelia struck her down (with a snake/weapon/arrow). Cali also tells the story of the Emperor’s spyglass, of how the Emperor caught spies before they could act, nobles poisoned with their own tainted drinks, rebellions squashed before they could start.

Rhododendron: “Um, the fallen paladin? That one has something to with Sun Sickness, blah blah blah, Nyvarstra, the Crimson Death, um, what about Dilong?” 

Calliope, nervously: “W-what about Dilong?” 

Rhododendron: “Perhaps Dilong’s champion?”

Calliope talks about how Dilong’s champion had magical arrows that could kill or cure depending on who they were shot at, and how they also helped serve Dilong’s mother. She gets interested when Rhododendron mentions seeing tapestries of the champion, although Rhododendron refuses to go into detail. Rhododendron asks after the political affairs in Gosha, and Cali tells her that the Queen has been presumed dead and that a council has been appointed in her place for now. (Rhododendron: “That’s a problem for later.”) They’ve also declared the dragon as some sort of powerful illusion, as dragons are still extinct. Rhododendron and Verrix catch Cali up on a somewhat sensitized version of their adventures the past few months. Cali mentions meeting Raz a few times in Dynafell, since she always tries to visit the temples…since she ‘sort of’ works with people that are big followers of Nyvarstra. And with that, she departs, hopping off of the cart and travelling by herself again.

Marlee pouts after Cali leaves, disappointed by her lack of chemistry with Rhododendron and a little jealous of her storytelling ability (and ease of friendship with Rhododendron, even if that’s…not really true…). Rhododendron offers to tell Marlee the story of how she met Raz, and Marlee gets emotional about their meet-cute. She tries to emphasize to Marlee that they weren’t exactly a ‘perfect couple’, but it’s too late, Marlee has her rose-tinted glasses on, even though she knows that they broke up. Marlee promises to try to find someone else for Rhododendron, saying that she might even find her true love here in So’Joh…even though Marlee thinks that she’s still in love with Raz, since she’s kept an old moment from them. 

Marlee, in tears: “……You’re still in love with them, oh my gods. That’s why you’re going to rescue them. Verrix, we have to save Raz.” 

Verrix: “That’s…what we’re doing.” 

Marlee: “Good, I’m glad we’re on the same page. Wow, Verrix is also a romantic at heart - I don’t know if you know this, but Verrix writes romance novels”

Rhododendron finally tells Marlee that Verrix hasn’t been writing the baker/prince book, but it takes a minute to convince her of this. She tells Marlee that they lied because she didn’t think she’d made a very good impression on Marlee, and felt like Verrix had a better chance at swaying her to join them. Marlee forgives her on the condition that she doesn’t spoil the story - and proceeds to subject her to the same criticisms and comments that she’d given to Verrix.

The finally reach the Great Crossroads, where Marlee insists on finding Rhododendron ‘an outfit for romance’. Rhododendron checks in on Jun, who is extremely unhappy to be closer and closer to Nartai (and the Keep). As soon as he can he immediately goes to sleep to ‘see things’. Rhododendron and Inigo bring up the library in Nartai again, and the fact that Inigo remembered that it sort of had something to do with Umbra…

Marlee and Rhododendron get some supplies (including some much needed fresh vegetables) and clean themselves off of all of their road grime. Marlee also buys her warhammer here. Rhododendron searches around for a glass eye unsuccessfully, and gets some cloth to cover up her silver bow. Inigo buys more weapons, Verrix stocks up on spell components, and Jun swaps out a few of his books. 

[kob131]

https://sokumotanaka.tumblr.com/post/185075585017/chill-disscussion

Ah yes, because the guy who shat himself in rage because RWBY ended up in the same game as Persona is such a reliable source....

So with death battle’s upcoming Mitsuru vs Weiss match I wanted to talk about, mostly nerd out about mitsuru, look regardless on weather you like rwby or not weiss isn’t on mitsuru’s skill level.

Spoiler Alert: he uses numerous conflicting examples and sources to effectively inflate Mitsuru as a fighter.

(I mean she fought two gods and lived to tell about it.)

Neither of which she is confirmed to fight. That’s the issue with feats like these: they rely on possibility. And it's equally likely that Mitsuru did nothing. Only Makoto is canonically confirmed to fight the Nyx Avatar.

In fact, the closest thing to a canonical representation of the battle was the P3 movie Winter Of Rebirth...where Mitsuru is fighting Shadow hordes, not Nyx who is getting soloed by Makoto. And since Makoto is a Wild Card user. he would be VASTLY more powerful than Mitsuru.

As for Erebus: Again, only one person (Aegis) was required in the fight. So we don’t know.

So let’s talk about mitsuru and then weiss as combatants. Both women fight on teams and manipulate ice in some way. They both summon things That’s about all I can compare, why? cause I took a deep dive into both series, and I’ll be frank, mitsuru fighting gods and monsters that can cause nukes is a feat enough.

That was enough for ‘Yu Vs. Jotaro’...

And again: That’s not confirmed. The only god you could be talking about here is Erebus-

And you know what? I’m just gonna preemptively go full Autism on you.

here’s Erebus’ stats according to the Megami Tensei wiki:

STR: 80 MAG: 75 END: 90 AG: 60 LUC: 70

And here are the stats of all the party memebers in Persona 3 at Level 99:

Junpei: 82 44 69 56 53

Yukari: 50 91 55 55 53

Akihiko: 69 70 55 63 47

Mitsuru: 55 85 52 61 51

Aigis: 61 58 84 56 45

Ken: 55 66 58 70 55

Koromaru: 58 56 58 82 50

Notice something?

The so called ‘mountain crusher’s’ STR stat is LOWER than the best physical attacker and Junpei’s never seen cracking any mountains.

Not just that but Mitsuru also has average agility (which dictates speed and hit rate with physical attacks) and average luck (dictating the success of status attacks) alongside the LOWEST END stat in the game meaning she wouldn’t be able to keep up with Weiss, she’d most likely fail using status attacks since they have a base success rate of 25% and one solid physical hit would do serious damage.

So right there are reasons why Weiss would have a chance if we follow your apparent standards of using gameplay.

But mitsuru is the team’s tactician and well studied in her academics despite fighting monsters, she’s top of her grade, she’s a great fighter and when she returns in persona 4 arena/ultimax she’s kinda insane as a fighter. (going through the full story in both’s massive text walls would take ages But I played through both a few months back and the things they write them capable of doing is insane)

yeah, like saying a monster can crush mountains but is weaker than an above average baseball player?

Then we have a little issue of; she’s not the tactican. Makoto is. Mitsuru is just the boss.

Yeah and? Can see use it in the battlefield?

Most death battle fighters are great fighters.

Also so now we’re using Arena as an example? Does that mean you accept her moveset in that game as canon? Meaning No status moves and no Diarahan?

so I decided to come up with a post (originally a power point before it crapped out) as to why mitsuru at her current skill is just too much for weiss.

So we’re using gameplay as a basis with Mitsuru’s P3 stats and her P4A moveset, judging how you’re talking.

Let’s talk about mitsuru first

Mitsuru kirijo:

Feats/Abilities/skills:

Mitsuru is top of her grade, she’s so good the school often ask her to make speeches for assemblies that rouse the school so much, the principal tried copying them word for word out of jealousy.

And? So is Weiss so which school has higher standards? Also speech giving ability Is not the same as tactical thinking.

Despite also studying for school, she leads and runs S.E.E.S as a tactician (a chairman actually has the final say on everything but she leads them in battle) Her persona is both good for combat and sensory support (meaning she can sense her allies and other people, persona and non persona users)

On and off mind you as you’re only required to go into Tartarus occasionally and extended time in Tartarus will wear out a Persona user.

Meanwhile, Weiss’ studies ARE fighting since she needed to qualify for Beacon so her life has been revolving around being a good fighter.

Mitsuru’s persona can conjure ice in an instant and is completely unaffected but any ice type attacks done to her, she doesn’t even react at all.

She can also heal and is a pretty good healer in battle (When she isn’t casting marin karin! Regardless there’s no rule in death battle that says they can’t heal, the only rule was outside help and with the last handful of death battles some of them had healing factors) 

She can also charm her enemy or cause them to go into panic

Yeah and she’s super weak to fire.

And-wait a minute. Why are you referencing Diarahan and status attacks in the same post as the one where you try citing feats from Arena? Are you just picking choosing what Mitsuru gets?

Mitsuru doesn’t need to use her evoker and can actively summon her persona in the real world. (This is also mentioned in persona 4 arena and shown in battle as mitsuru states she only uses it out of habit.) This is also stated by when she calls her persona in both the game and manga she doesn’t use her evoker.

Bullshit.

This is from Mitsuru’s first battle in Persona 4 Arena. 

And even IF she does summon her Persona without her Envoker here: She’s in a different world. Same in Ultimax.

You’re just lying at this point.

Also: That ice spear doesn’t look very impressive when you remember Weiss summoned an ice WALL that fast in Volume 1. Yeah, if you’re gonna use outlier feats, so will I.

She is able to again as I said snap second conjure ice within seconds in any shape she deems necessary 

Proof and no, the ice mirror from P4A doesn’t count.

Non persona users can’t see persona (one guy remakes on how he sees a silhouette but only cause he’s standing next to her, another character natsuki walks into a battle and can’t see the others persona from the distant she’s at.

And yet in Persona 4 Yosuke reacts to seeing Yu’s Persona awakening.

Her persona Artemisia has a whip that can reach long distances and instantly freeze her opponents, she can also make floating and homing projectiles.

A. That whip thing: proof

And B. Only in Arena which you pick and choose which to use.

Mitsuru herself is remarked as moving faster than the eye can react when others watch her fight her shadow, this is also reflected in her normal combots where she moves faster than the eye can see and can hit a person over 15 times (don’t believe me? watch her combo video)

https://youtu.be/fw-2yn_vKG0

Pretty sure the same thing happened in CTB with Weiss-Point is?

And at one point while fighting naoto a person with a gun who is also a persona user is able to disarm and disable in two fluid motions.

Disarm who? When? under what circumstances? Also a gun shoulding matter if Mitsuru can tank nukes right?

Need I stress mitsuru is incredibly smart, she has to run a magic C.I.A and outsmart a bunch of idiotic men in suits who think she can’t handle it, and had to at one point outsmart detective naoto, which is a feat in itself.

https://sokumotanaka.tumblr.com/post/185075529807

A. She runs it with help

B. You said ‘idiotic’

and C. Your post proves nothing

Weaknesses:

Fire is mitsuru’s weakness and while that sounds like an easy solution remember when weiss’s weapon starts burning with fire, mitsuru is either gonna back off, or disarm her.

That being said it’s her only weakness.

She also has average agility, less versatility, unreliable versatility, no debuffs or buffs aside from Mind Charge, limited mobility, a reliance on her Persona for big attacks and Mitsuru is never shown disarming someone so thee fire weakness is still major point. Especially by P3 standards which would cause her to be dazed and buy Weiss time.

That might seem bogus as being it but mitsuru has a lot of “human” weaknesses that won’t come into the death battle.

as a fight she is the superior, not just because I prefer her but because she’s been doing this longer and has to manage a fighting lifestyle and being a normal woman dealing with people who probably think she’s breaking the law for speaking out of turn with them.

Like what? Are you afraid they’re gonna bring up how Mitsuru and other Persona users tire out in places where they can use their Personas?

Also most of what you said doesn't pertain to Death Battle.

Up’s:

(this here is the things each fighter has against the other in terms of the fight.)

Persona is invisible to weiss

Persona and her ice magic have the superior reach

Mitsuru is older and more experienced

Mitsuru is smarter as she was the tactician of a team while also juggling high school.

Wrong

Unproved

Unsubstainated and unreliable

Unproven

Great upsides

Weiss schnee:

Feats/abilities/skills:

Weiss on the other hand doesn’t have much going for her. (let’s list these first)

Weiss’s semblance

Weiss’s fire dust (albeit finite)

Weiss’s speed glyph

Ignored how her glyphs can be used to leap and jump in air

Ignored how fast her glyphs can make her (stunning Flynt)

Ignored her Wind, Ice and Earth dusts

Ignored her Time Glyph which gave Blake the ability to slice lazer beams in order to cut down missiles in mid flight (outlier feat I know but has that stopped Soku?)

Ignored her Armor Gigas which is shown to be incredibly durable and powerful, slicing apart a Grimm that tanked several boxes of Dust exploding on it without a scratch

Ignored her Queen Lancer giving her projectile attacks, aerial mobility and backup

Ignored her Ice Wall which historically held the stringer of a complex sized scorpion in place for several minutes.

Wow you ignored a lot.

Weaknesses:

Weiss drops her weapon, alot, it happens often.

When weiss is surprised, she freezes up

weiss doesn’t have the experience to fight off mitsuru.

weiss hasn’t fought against opponents on mitsuru’s level or fought against gods/god tier monsters.

Example

Example

Unproven

Neither has Mitsuru

Up’s:

Fire dust

Speed glyph

Summon size change.

And the stunning coming from Fire Dust

And The ice wall giving her a time borrowing option

And the Armor Gigas being stronger physically

And The Queen Lancer being agile, flying and having built inprojectiles

And her Time Glyph giving her a powerful ranged option

And her glyphs giving her far greater mobility

And her speed glyphs giving her a blitz option.

Funny how if you explain shit and pay attention, you see things are actually very even. But hey, Soku’s never been honest when it comes to RWBY so why start now?

Real talk?

Weiss in her one on one fights has lost to all her opponents. White fang lieutenant, Flynt, And Vernal.

All powerful close range combatants. Something Mitsuru is not.

The third whom I must stress is a normal bandit, she doesn’t summon things herself, use magic, she’s not a god trapped in a human body, she’s just a normal woman, and she beats weiss down, while weiss struggles to get afoot and she loses this bout as well.

Let's just ignore how vernal is technically stronger than a complex sized scorpion and was posing as a demigod at the time....

Now I know it seems like I’m only glossing over negatives, which I must stress I’m not doing out of dislike, I took a deep dive-

Bullshit. One look at Persona then RWBY shows you doing the bare minimum for RWBY while giving Mitsuru the best versions of all her elements.

For example super and goku one which has insane feats that the other will never reach, hench each one literally ending with clark winning.

superman just has feats that are too insane.

Superman lifted infinity. Mitsuru help weaken one giant Shadow that was aid to be strong enough to destroy a mountain and yet it's strength stat is weaker than Junpeis. (And before you complain about me using gameplay on a supposed non gameplay feat-Erebus HAS NO non gameplay feats.)

They are nowhere compatible, even in the comparison range.

Weiss can kick some grimm ass, but we’ve yet to see her have a decisive victory against an opponent single combat.

where as we get to see/play (depending on weather you read the manga or play both arena/ultimax (both are canon because it’s the same thing but contextualized as a comic) mitsuru fights people with the same skill as her and comes out on top.

A. By the same standards, Mitsuru is in the same boat as Weiss

B. You’re using Arena as your line for feats but not moveset (or even consistently as feats since you still quote P3)/

And C. Np she didn’t. The investigation team is LESS experienced than Weiss so logically they’d be easier if we accepted your interpretation.

The winner should be Mitsuru with all due respect.

And yet you feel the need to lie about Mitsuru and completely gloss over and lowball Weiss.

God, now i’m scared because not only does this scream ‘Ben and Chad, do as I say or else’ but since you’re lying, it makes it seem like Weiss will WIN in a fair fight.

Word of warning Soku: I will tear you verbally into shreds if you so much as glare at Ben and Chad. And god help you if Dudeblade recognizes your bullshit.

[mrneighbourlove]

The War of Fire: Ch 4. Bloody Rescue

Ganondorf felt incredibly weak. It was like he had beem floating in a wave of nothingness for over a year, trapped in the limbo numbness. As his body bobbed up and down the river, he barely felt something dragging him out. His eyes started to get the colour back into them as he was pulled onto shore.

“W-what?”

“Relax. I think you might have a concussion.”

The King coughed up water, getting more of his senses back. Above him was a teenage girl with pale skin and long black hair. He then recognized her after registering her red piercing eyes. “L-Leere?”

She gave a light hearted smile. “Hey dad. You look like shit. Let me help you get inside.”

Ganondorf felt his head throbbing from pain. His vision was blurry, but even he could see flames rise above the hill in the distance.

~

“Their king is dead! Slay the Hylians!” Hasai warriors of the Skurge tribe surged across the fields of Hyrule at the remaining Hylian forces. Raising their hands, flames shot forward and burned away the battalions, scattering them. Zelda and Klinge had retried back to the castle, and moral was crippled for the defenders.

The Kikai Empire was full of warriors. This was glory. The smell of burning flesh of their enemies was ecstasy. One warrior laughed as he cut through soldiers screaming from the flames that they had been caught up in. The fires rose and shot forth, and the Hasai took more ground.

Ghirahim had lost sight of his master, fearing the worst. Looking down from the cliff side, he watched the Hasai overtake his battalion he had left behind. The bokoblins stood no chance as the Hasai scared them all into a corner. Once they had the monsters trapped, they slowly burned them to death. The magic of these invaders was dangerous indeed. The demon decided that retreating back to the castle would be the best course of action. Taking a horn, he blew it into the air.

Soldiers of Hyrule heard the sound and took notice. This battle was lost. “Retreat! Retreat back to the castle!”

Survivors scrambled to safety, catapult fire raining down on them. The Hasai wouldn’t advance past a certain point, but that didn’t mean they’d allow the forces of Hyrule a clean get away. Men, monsters, and horses flew into the air, fire frying the land. The Hasai shot fire into the air and raised their weapons into the air, giving a roar of victory into the air. They had won this battle.

~

Seras was practically giggling to himself as went back to the main camp. Bellum had Romtan engineers building a heavily fortified base on the valley top near the Gerudo Desert. The Prince was in such a good mood from his victory over Ganondorf that he even greeted the engineers as he passed by. “Good afternoon.”

The Romtan were heavily disturbed by the Prince being so courteous to them, but continued along their work. Seras was even impressed Bellum had quickly upgraded from a simple tent to a fortified cabin of sorts. Entering, the Prince gave a wink to one of the guards. “You’ll want to wait at my bedside after you hear what I have to say.”

Grand Admiral Bellum was calculating his next strike when Seras took the attention of the room. “Prince Seras. I take it your mission was a success?”

“Yes. I, Prince Seras of the Kikai Empire, have successfully killed Ganondorf Dragmire, King of Hyrule!”

Bellum gave a smile, placing his hand firmly on the Prince’s shoulder. He so wanted to Seras to grow out of his immaturity and prejudices he had learned from being a small child. Encouragement was key to change, and this was worth celebrating. “Well done Prince Seras. I am proud of your accomplishment.”

“I live to serve the spirit of the Empire. Our fire will control the world after all.”

“I-I want my mommy.” The sounds of a little girl broke the triumph of the room as T0-D entered with his prize. “Let me go!”

“Statement: Be silent, tiny meatbag.”

Seras grinned, his victory putting him into a twisted sense of happiness. But even he would not tolerate a brat ruining his fun mood. Turning to the little girl, he gave her slap across the face. Before anyone could interject, he launched a small blast of fire on her back. Kanisa gave a loud scream and started to cry from the pain of the tiny burn, until Seras held her mouth close. “Be. Quiet. Or I’ll burn all your hair off. Nod if you understand you little snot.”

Kanisa gave a teary nod. She was completely terrified by the ordeal. If she stayed quiet, she hoped she would see her parents and siblings again.

Grand Admiral Bellum held a light glare at the Prince. “That’s our hostage Prince Seras. Please do well to not harm her anymore. Commander Ordo.”

A Hasai stepped forward, giving a bow. “Yes Grand Admiral?”

“Go take the little Princess to the bunker at Beta-04 as planned. Hold a unit there until further orders. I will send Queen Zelda an order of surrender. If she doesn’t comply, you will execute the child.”

“Yes sir.” The soldier took the little princess and dragged her away to be transported. Kanisa prayed for someone to save her.

Seras was looking around outside for his sister, ecstatic to trade war stories. “Hey, gearhead. Where’s my sister?”

Bellum noticed that his personal Android was awfully quiet. It wasn’t like him. “T0-D. Report.”

“Statement: Princess Zannah was captured by the forces of Hyrule so that I could make my escape with the target.”

Seras’ mouth dropped low, instant disbelief taking over. Bellum’s eyes widened with shock, and even anger. “How can this be?”

“Confirmation: She engaged the Hero of Courage, Link, in one on one combat. The blonde meatbag played unfairly, launching a boomerang from behind as Zannah jumped for her mount. Honestly, it was very much a fluke that she was captured in the first place.”

Seras shook his head in denial. “No. She couldn’t have. She’s perfect.”

Bellum felt the silent fury build up in his heart. This complicated things. “Zannah must not be allowed to be used as a chip against us. I will send someone to deal with her at once.”

The Prince was taken aback by Bellum’s wording. “Deal with? You mean a rescue, correct? Not an assassination?”

“I will do what I must.”

“But-“

“Our duty comes first Prince Seras. Now go rest. You will have a town that needs to be decimated for our next strike in crippling Hyrule.”

Seras left the room, pulling at T0-D’s arm. “You need to go save my sister!”

“Negative: I cannot. Hyrule would be expecting me. I cannot assist.”

“You piece of scrap metal! You left her to die!”

“Correction: She told me to leave. I did not wish to do so, but we had lost our window of opportunity.”

Seras growled louder and louder until he launched a fire bolt into the air. “DAMN IT! I need to do SOMETHING to help her!”

“Observation: You appear to be very angry Seras. If you need assistance, perhaps you should ask your brother?”

The prince visibly turned pale from just the mention of that. “N-no. I won’t. Doing so will completely discredit Zannah and I.”

“Query: Than what will you do?”

“I… I don’t know.”

“Observation: I feel that given your current level of stress, you should relieve your body with one of the females in the camp. Or go on Bellum’s mission. Perhaps killing will help satisfy you. I’m sure Zannah will be able to free herself. She is very skilled.”

“She’s loyal to the kingdom. Which doesn’t mean she’ll want to escape…”

~

Rinku made her way down to the dungeon to see her captive. Having carried a bucket of ice cold water, she threw it on the princess to wake her up. “Hey! Rise and shine!”

Zannah gasped as she was shaken awake by the ice cold water. Moving her limbs, she found herself locked in a cell with some sort of silver gauntlets over her arms, keeping them tight together.

Her instinct were to use fire, however, she found herself unable to. The bonds made it hard to cast.  “Clever girl….”

Rinku was in no mood for small talk or pleasantries. “I want to know where my sister is.”

“Who?”

“The little girl you kidnapped!” The Hylian Hero gripped the bars in fury.

Zannah wasn’t impressed. One with Rinku’s lack of control, but mostly with herself. She had been captured, bringing shame to her family, but more importantly, jeopardizing the success of the war. A dark thought came to her mind, one she held before. In order to save her honour, she’d have to die.

With a cruel smile, Zannah shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t really care. And at this point, she’s most likely dead by now.”

Rinku lost it. Opening the cell door, she walked right in and pushed Zannah against the wall, her hands squeezing around the fiery princess’ neck. “Go to hell!”

As Zannah started to feel her life be squeezed out second by second, Zelda entered the dungeon. “RINKU! STOP!”

Her mother’s voice snapped Rinku out of her wrath, dropping Zannah to the ground. “What?! She may have well got my little sister killed!”

“We can’t kill her. Not now.”

Rinku gripped Zannah by the collar. The Hasai Princess glared at Zelda. Damnit. She really did screw things up. And she was so close to dying too. Gasping for air, she gave a light laugh before speaking. “Nice to see mommy pull your collar. Not that you could kill me so easily.”

Rinku was about the yell back, when Zelda stopped her. “Tell me dear, what is your name?”

“I am Princess Zannah of the Kikai Empire. And I know you well, Queen Zelda of Hyrule.”

The Queen quirked an eyebrow in interest. “I see. Do you have other family here in Hyrule?”

Zannah growled. “Not something I’d tell you.”

“Yeah. She has this real stuck up brother.” Rinku added in. “You and your brother are real pieces of work.”

“You and your entire country can burn.”

“You first.” Both girls locked their menacing glares at each other. “Where’s my sister you bi-“

“Rinku! That’s enough!” Zelda commanded the attention of the room with her authoritative tone. “Now young lady, I’d like to know where you have taken my daughter.”

Zannah shook her head. “That’s a secret I will take to the grave.”

Rinku was about to snap Zannah’s neck. “That can be arranged.”

Klinge entered the dungeon, heavy with news Ghirahim provided him. “Zelda. Ganondorf has been defeated.”

All three woman turned to him, surprise quickly taking over. “Commander. Explain.”

“According to Ghirahim he was overwhelmed by firepower, and he fell into the river. We haven’t found a body. And the Hasai have taken the Hylian Ridge. There forces gather, for what I can only assume is an attack on Hyrule Castle’s west side.”

Zannah gave a grin. Her brother had succeeded in his mission. “So the King of Hyrule is dead…”

Rinku turned back to her. “You’ll find my dad is not so easily killed. Without a body you have no victory yet.”

“We’ll see.”

Klinge turned his attention to the captive in the cell. “So, this is one of the Hasai royals I presume?”

“You presume correct.”

“Where have you taken Princess Kanisa?”

“I won’t speak a word to you.”

“We shall see about that.” Klinge moved past Zelda and Rinku, entering the cell. “I’m sure that you are aware of key staging grounds. And I’d assume that since you attempted to kidnap Princess Kanisa, you would be aware of where you needed to take her.”

Zannah was uncompromising in her silence. “Death before dishonour.”

“There are fates far worse than death my dear.”

Before Zelda or Rinku could stop him, Klinge took his gauntlets, and pressed deep into Zannah’s skull. “Where is her location?”

Zannah screamed aloud, blood quickly draining down her face. “S-STOP!”

Zelda would not stand for this act of barbarism. “Klinge! Stop this at once! Release her!”

“I owe you nothing Zelda.” Klinge plunged a little deeper, twisting his fingers around. “The location!”

Rinku was already grabbing the Master Sword if she needed to use it. “KLINGE! You’re killing her!”

Zelda was ready to cast her magic if she needed to, but she wanted to be diplomatic. “If you respect Ganondorf, you WILL listen to my order! Release her!!!”

Klinge wanted to continue. He wanted to make this girl suffer. His squad was butchered in her mission. She wanted to avenge Samson. But Zelda’s words held onto him more than he expected. Letting go of Zannah, he stepped away. “As you wish…”

Rinku was mad at Zannah for pulling the wool over her eyes, and for taunting her at her failure, but she never wanted this for the Hasai. “Zannah! Just breathe. Don’t fall asleep!”

Zelda and Klinge meet eye to eye, furious at each other. “Commander. We don’t torture our enemies.”

“This is war Zelda. Do you wish to see Kanisa again?”

“Not at the cost of becoming MONSTERS Klinge!”

“I am a monster Zelda. One you made me into.”

Zelda was getting sick of his attitude towards her. He always held this animosity towards her at best, hatred at worst and most felt. “I was not the one who killed you. Leave Commander.”

Klinge walked away, not caring to engage her any further. Once he was gone, Zelda quickly rushed forward to the cell. Raising her hand to Zannah’s head, she focused a spell from her hand, and healed her wounds. “Rinku. Get her some water and a cloth.”

As her daughter went to the next room, Zelda finished up the final touches. “I can’t heal the scars. But no one should see them if you keep growing your beautiful hair.”

Rinku rushed back, quickly using the damp cloth to clean the blood off Zannah’s face. “Don’t lose conscious. Mom is more of a medic than a doctor. She can’t take the pain away, but she’ll stop the damage.”  

Zannah was still in a daze, but the cool water felt good on her face. Confusion filled her mind, however. “Why… why are you being…. so nice to me?”

“We treat others with humility.” Zelda answered softly.

Zannah shook her head. “Go…. We are at war. I’m sorry… but one of us dying is inevitable.”

“I believe otherwise.”

“You hope otherwise.”

“One can have hope in their beliefs, Princess Zannah…”

Rinku was unsure how to cope with this interaction. War was terrible. She tried to reach back into her memories of any lives that took part in open warfare. They were hard to find, and it was painful to look for negative memories. Her thoughts were shaken when a spy waved her over. “I’ll be back in a bit mom. I can’t stay down here.”

“I understand. Get some air out from this awful place.”

Rinku walked away with the spy. “What is it?”

“We think we might have a lead on Princess Kanisa’s whereabouts.”

Rinku nearly screamed out in shock. “Really?!”

“Yes. A Rito spotted Hasai shuffling towards a hidden cave at the Faron Grasslands.”

Rinku nodded, checking her equipment. “I’ll go immediately.”

“Commander Klinge has already headed out.”

“He has? I better hurry to assist him than.” Grabbing her equipment, Rinku could only hope she wouldn’t be too late to save her sister.

~

Klinge had left his horse behind 100 meters back. He moved stealthily through the under growth, making sure the tree line left no room for the sun to reflect off his armour. Stalking through, he finally laid eyes on a Hasai soldier crouched behind a tree. It seemed that they were having the entrance covered. Looking around, the Commander deduced three more soldiers around the perimeter of the entrance. Crawling around, Klinge made his move.

The first guard had no idea Klinge was behind him. The undead gerudo snatched him up and swiftly snapped his neck, turning the head 180 degrees backwards. With his first victim dead, the commander continued sneaking to his next target. Using his knife, the next Hasai felt a hand going over her mouth, than a felt the blade pierce her throat from behind. Her eyes looked down to see the steel poke out her throat, and it was the last sight she ever saw as her head fell to the ground shortly after.

Klinge tossed his body aside and threw the knife into the head of the third one. As the fourth heard some commotion, he turned from his tree to fire an arrow at a target. When he saw no one was there, he went back behind the tree to check his flank. This action was rewarded with a strap of leather going around the tree and the Hasai’s head. Being pulled against the tree, the Hasai screamed and kicked, even launching fire from his hands, but Klinge did not care. The Hasai’s screams grew more grotesque as his skull popped and cracked. Klinge kept pulling, until all he heard was the sickening wet sounds against the tree and felt his target go still.

Inside the cave, Kanisa was crying to herself. The Hasai barely feed her, and they didn’t give her any warmth. The torch light to illuminate the cave was no sun. Commander Ordo was sharpening his weapons and marking his map for invasion points of interest, when a heavy knock came at the door at the end of the hall. All the soldiers turned to the disturbance, not expecting anyone to enter. Ordo rose, pointing to Kanisa. “Get against the wall.”

Turning back to the door, the Hasai summoned flames in their hands and drew weapons. The knocking stopped, and the door creaked open to reveal darkness. In the middle of the darkness, a glowing sword of fire shined from the darkness, illuminating Klinge. He wanted to give these Hasai a taste of their own death that they had come boldly into Hyrule with.

The Hasai were momentarily alarmed by the giant man in black armour. Commander Ordo threw his hand down to give the order of attack. Klinge raised his shield to block the stream of combined fire bolts sent his way. With a swift horizontal swing, he cut the first Hasai in half. Moving to his left, he smashed another soldier into the wall with his shield. The soldier crumpled to the floor, and Klinge lifted his foot to bring it down and crush the skull of his enemy, helmet and all. Running behind a pillar, he threw his shield like a frisbee against the wall.  It bounced off, and the sharp edges flew into the neck of another soldier. With poor luck though, the Hasai didn’t die, garbling blood as he fell to the floor.

Another soldier clashed blades with Klinge. The flames off Klinge’s magic fire sword shimmered. He strong enough to support the blade against another with one hand, and reaching out, he grabbed the enemy by the head, and slammed them against the wall. He continued to do this, before turning them around to take the full brunt of some flames as a human shield. The undead commander kicked the body towards the group using their magic against him. Lifting his blade, Klinge showed no mercy towards the Hasai, hacking them to pieces with his sword. Their screams filled the room, one even catching fire. The undead commander dodged and parried around strikes and bolts, cutting down man after man. One woman screamed as her hand was split in half from her raising a shot of fire, before quickly being silenced.

Commander Ordo couldn’t believe his men were being torn apart. Focusing his energy, he trained his eyes on Klinge’s sword. He was an elite commander of the Skurge tribe. Fire was his element. With the sword being the perfect target, the commander amplified the flames within. Klinge was about to hack into another soldier, when he noticed his blade vibrating. Before he could react, the sword detonated in his face. Flames swarmed over Klinge, and the Hasai Commander cheered. “Got you, you menace!”

As other Hasai approached the burning mass, Klinge jumped from the flames, summoning his great sword. With one swing, he cut through the halves of two soldiers. Without flames on his blade, blood sprayed out from the corpses. Klinge would punish all those who kidnapped Kanisa. With not even a growl, Klinge ran forward, clashing against the Hasai that remained. He took a fire bolt to the side of his chest, but he ignored the pain to push forward. The Hasai could probably manage to burn him away with time, but they had ran out of that the moment he entered the room.

With flick of his finger, an energy spear pierced the head of the soldier that shot him, his body falling towards Kanisa. Soon all that was left to give Klinge a threat was the Hasai Commander. Charging both his hands together, he launched a large steady stream of fire at Klinge. The undead Gerudo threw his great sword, the blade spinning horizontally through the fire and straight into the torso of the Skurge. His red eyes widened as he looked down to see the flames flutter from his hands and the blood leak from his torso. “B-but my conquest.”

Klinge walked forward and raised the man into the air by the blade. “Perhaps you can conquer your personal demons in hell.” With a twist of the blade, the Hasai fell to the ground in half. Klinge turned to find Kanisa, only to discover her hiding in the corner. When he stepped forward, she screamed. “NOOOOOO!!! GO AWAY!!!”

“Kanisa. It’s me, Commander Klinge.”

The young girl didn’t care. To her, this entire experience had been the same. Horrible violence. One incident after the other. This slaughter was no different than the one she witnessed by that awful, awful machine by looking through the key hole. Klinge looked down to see himself covered in blood. He didn’t even notice the arrow that hit his side until it was too late. Groaning, he pulled it out to find Rinku aiming the bow at him. She was shocked to see him, but Kanisa’s screams made her on full alert with shoot first, ask questions later on the mind.

All the bodies were a terrible sight. She knew Klinge was destructive, but this was the first time she ever saw his handy work. There had to be over two dozen bodies in this hall and the last one she passed. Putting her bow away she ran past the Darknut to pick her little sister up. She was quick to shush her and rock her. “It’s me Kanisa. It’s big sis Rinku. I got you. You’re going to safe now. You’re going to see mommy.”

Rinku made sure to hide Kanisa’s eyes from the bodies. As the three of them made it to the outdoors, Rinku took a hard look at Klinge. “You do what you do best. Stay away from Kanisa for now, and you cover my flank.”

Klinge was shocked by the way Kanisa had looked at him. Screamed at him in terror. At Rinku’s command, he could only nod. “Of course…”

Without any delay, the three rode as fast as they could back to Hryule castle.

~ Zannah slept against the wall, when she suddenly heard shifting outside her cell door. A guard fell to the ground, a black eye on his face. Stepping from the shadows, her bodyguard gave a bow. “Princess Zannah. We must hurry.”

“Fisk?”

“Yes Princess Zannah. Are you alright?”

“I think I’ll be.”

Fisk opened her cell door and quickly went to work on her lock. “One moment Princess Zannah.”

“Fisk, how did you get here?”

“Grand Admiral Bellum put in the order for a select group to either rescue or assassinate you. I couldn’t allow the latter to happen, so I decided to act on my own accord.” He finished the last of her locks, setting her down. “I came through the underground and up the sewage under the castle. Had to hurry through. Sensed monsters, but it was much safer than storming the castle.”

Zannah gripped her wrists as she was finally set free. “Thank you Fisk. Your assistance is most appreciated.”

Her bodyguard looked down at the guards that he put unconscious. “Shall we leave no witnesses?”

The Hasai Princess looked down the Hylians, thinking over the kindness Zelda showed her. Shaking her head, she simply walked away. “No. They aren’t worth our time or energy. Take me back to homebase Fisk.”

“Yes Princess Zannah, as you command.”

Princess Zannah gave a silent hope that she wouldn’t have to be the one to kill Zelda. In fact, for a brief moment, she wondered if the fighting was worth it. Her mind tossed those thoughts aside. Must have been the trauma to her head. Her people needed a new home. And they’d use their power to take it. No matter the cost.

Previous Ch. https://mrneighbourlove.tumblr.com/post/183221881656/the-war-of-fire-ch-3-the-kidnapping

Next Ch. https://mrneighbourlove.tumblr.com/post/185219415216/the-war-of-fire-ch-5-tales-of-the-flame

[thewrongexecution]

Scrambled Thoughts

hey how does bein’, like. exited about a thing, but coherently, work? ‘cos like. P5S was announced, and it’s not what some people necessarily wanted or expected, but. I think it’ll be good? in ways those same disappointed folks might enjoy, but aren’t necessarily considering? man where do I even start with this

(long)

so way back in the day, when the Wii U was still relevant, Koei Tecmo came out with Hyrule Warriors basically outta nowhere. now, I never played any warriors games and I think my first zelda was Twilight Princess? Skyward Sword? spent plenty of time watching my brother play them titles and consider majora’s mask one of the greatest games of all time, but I ain’t never touched ‘em, and because I already experienced them vicariously, ain’t ever likely to. but I was big on diablo, on that experience of mowing down hordes of enemies with a big overpowered hero, so I was like, yeah, sure I’ll keep an eye out

(maybe  I was able to latch onto Hyrule Warriors because I was more invested in the characters and story than the gameplay? I don’t know how zelda fans recieved it; I wasn’t as deep in The ‘Net as I am now. doesn’t matter.)

turns out just about everything in that game is great. the long-term gameplay isn’t anything to write home about; it’s all level grinding and weapons farming, but like it’s not necessarily a game for that. it’s a buncha dumb fun! hit things with big flashy attacks! watch actual dozens of bodies ragdoll off into the distance! play as your favorite heroes and and villains and then also some npcs we added for the hell of it!

That, see, is what I remember about Hyrule Warriors. the whole draw of the game, what I love about it, is the warriors and their weapons and their fighting style and fighting with style. like, each character can have multiple weapons, and each weapon is its own moveset-- relatively simple, but still pretty involved, and built around slaughtering a buncha dudes really flashily. and it just-- they went through like every zelda game, and went like, who’s important and how do they fight, and then they made them ALL fun to play as

there are forty two fighting styles to choose from and none of them are bad

actually no that’s a lie; the dominion rod, the summon gates, and agitha’s parasols are bad. maybe also the great fairy and sometimes the wind waker? and I never unlocked all the toon-era weaponry, but it doesn’t matter because there are like thirty-five other ways to play That Are All Fun

that’s the first thing. the second thing, which you may have noticed from the list of weapons I don’t much care for, is that some of these weapons get way dumb. like agitha’s parasols. you remember agitha, right? from twilight princess? the incidental, out-of-the-way npc with the completely optional sidequest to find extremely rare bugs? the character that hangs out at home all day and does not interact with any character outside of link? yeah lets make her a playable character in a game where you literally beat up entire armies, she can hit people with a shitty umbrella and also summon bugs, like a giant beetle to crush people with or a giant butterfly to ride on and dive-bomb, that makes sense lol

and the thing is! I think that’s great! it’s legitimately hilarious! and she’s viable!!! I don’t like her fighting style; she’s short range with long recovery times and her special mode relies on getting enemies airborne to actually hit anything with-- but she’s not unusable, her inclusion is a joke but she’s not a joke character, y’know?

and then they went ahead and did that with like every character and every weapon in the zelda series. like Impa, you know Impa, right? protector of the royal line, shows up in Ocarina of Time to teach you a lullaby, never actually displays any combat skills on screen? let’s give her one-a them slab-of-metal ultragreatswords, that seems reasonable. sheik plays a harp and is mysterious, let’s turn them into a ninja with kunai and shit and also a magic harp which does magic based on the songs from OoT that they teach you. how ‘bout Fi, the ghost inside the master sword that exists primarily to interrupt you with unskippable dialogue? well, she can turn into a sword, sure, but her main form of attack is interpretative dance, you know, like she does when you beat a temple. or the king of hyrule, who is a boat! very aggressively. hey why don’t we turn volvagia into a dude with a spear who can just turn back into a dragon while we’re at it

and that’s not even touching link, who has:

sword (obvious)

horse (obvious)

fire rod (flamethrower, giant laser, and most powerfully, axe)

great fairy (carries link in a bottle)

spinner (niche late-game mobility tool from Twilight Princess; 3rd best weapon in Warriors)

and gauntlets (support item that lets you carry heavy things throughout the series; 2nd best weapon in Warriors)

(the best weapon is ganon’s dual greatswords, but that’s aside the point)

and as though that wasn’t enough, they invented Link But A Girl so they could include the iron boots, which makes sense, and, fuckin’, dual crossbows.

you know, crossbows? link’s iconic weapon? that he uses exactly once?? in the game link’s crossbow training??? a throwaway motion-control-centric game for the wii???????

now. everyone is different. so I feel the need to clarify.

all of that? that’s praise. that’s adoration. this game is a love-letter to the zelda series, all of the zelda series, no matter how ridiculous, because it’s ridiculous. I love that, I aspire to that! to that dedication, that passion for a thing, the ability to take a joke and make it real, to make you forget it’s a joke because of how good it is. like when they announced pirahna plant for smash brothers, and then made him good? that emotion, informing the design of an entire game. let me stick this flail in the ground, and then use it to swing the entire earth around to hit you with, and then also, incidentally, because Link’s Awakening existed, because we can, the flail is a chain chomp!!

VIDEOGAMES!!!!!!!!!!!!!

*breathe in*

*breathe out*

and then I think

the people that made that

are doing one with persona

and people have the gall to be disappointed?

like, no, okay, I know, that’s too harsh. I know this isn’t what everyone wanted. I know some feel lied to and betrayed, and my inability to relate to that means y’all might not relate to this. and I know the excitement I feel now is the same as the excitement y’all felt before y’all got let down. I know that.

and yet...

if these guys can pull 42 different combat styles outta the legend of zelda series, from people without even theoretical combat experience, and then you give them the cast of persona 5?

like yakuza man, who's in the yakuza? or guns child, who dual-wields guns? or the doctor, who plausibly has needles and scalpels and doctor-y stuff? or the already extremely anime shogi player, who, fuck it, let’s turn her into a summoner archetype, run people down with cavalry an’ shit! or the fortune teller, she reads tarot, let’s arbitrarily give her tarot-based powers, drop The Tower on some hapless goons, doesn’t gotta make sense if it’s fun!!

VIDEOGAMES!!!

but maybe that’s unreasonable.

I dunno how much creative control nintendo exerted over hyrule warriors, I dunno how much atlus is gonna exert over P5S. maybe they want a more serious experience, maybe chihaya won’t be playable. chihaya being playable doesn’t make sense, and I know that, that’s fine

but even then

I also think

persona 4 arena had the 4 in it

but they still had dudes from 3

so

you know

we’ll see.

[osmw1]

Poison-Wielding Fugitive   Chapter 28

“Hmm…” “You don’t have to worry about balance.”

I’ve had my fair share of MMORPGs. I played when my friends needed someone to fill a role. But I couldn’t always play with my friends. Right now, our problem is filling whatever gap we have in our party, but we’ve got our assumptions wrong.

Certainly, specialized classes are ultimately stronger than regular classes and it may be good for team comp too. However, if we lose any party members, we stand to lose a lot. It might be easier to explain this way. Imagine a party of three: a Warrior, Priest, and Mage. The party definitely looks well-balanced. Everybody has their own role. But what if you take out the Priest? Would they lose the ability to make battle? The team’s ability to heal is now very limited and that would make fighting difficult. If you split everyone up to specific roles, you create a dependence on your teammates. It’s got its pros and cons.

It might be good to be able to help out when needed. Perhaps instead of a Warrior, you can have a Paladin who can do some light healing as well. Or maybe have a Red Mage, who can use both black and white magic. When your Warrior is wounded and out of the fight, your Priest might fare well if they have proficiency in close-quarter combat. There’s no rule about how you absolutely have to specialize in your role. No one said you can’t be a jack of all trades. Well… it would be nice if a single person can do everything, but realistically, that’s a little naïve. And if you could, you wouldn’t need comrades.

“You also don’t need to try to merely support how Muu and I already are. It might be easier to think of how you can add yourself in.”

Of course, this party is only until they figure out and prove that I’m the guy on the wanted poster. It wouldn’t be bad for us to experiment with different formations for experience’s sake.

“I’ve only been the rearguard up ‘til now, but I can leave the back to you and take the middle. It doesn’t really matter either, since I can be effective at both the front or the back.”

“Muu, muu.”

Muu agrees with me as well.

“If we have Muu fight in the front the whole time, he’d probably get worn out and we’d have to head back home. So, it’s not that we don’t need a healer either.” “… alright. Then I’ll be the rearguard and support you and Muu with magic.” “Great. Then let’s head back to town and change jobs… no, then we’d have to double back. I’ll just have you remain as a Chemist for now and we can slay and harvest here in the swamp.” “Okay.”

With that, we walk into the toxic swamp.

Normally, we only go until the entrance of the dungeon. But the swamp is pretty big after all, so there’s still more to the back. I was thinking it’d be nice to slay and gather in the dungeon, but a warning came from Veno. Arleaf’s equipment won’t protect her from the toxic gas around the second floor. Even though her gas mask seems pretty heavy-duty… Though it wouldn’t be impossible for her to head in the dungeon, she’ll have a hard time fighting down there. So instead, we compromised and headed deeper into the swamp.

The monsters in the back of the swamp only differs a little than the ones we’ve already seen. A floating cell-like monsters called Burnt Umber Volvox appeared, and along with it, a Reed Grey Roach… manhole-sized nightmarish monstrosities. The former is a ball that moves by jumping around and was easily pierced through by shots from my crossbow. Poison was somewhat effective against it as well.

The Reed Grey Roach… hmm, it moves around quickly, making it hard to deal with. It’s good at dodging too. It doesn’t seem too aggressive though, so as long as we don’t get too close to them, we should be fine. Muu cleaves with his axe and misses. Seemingly as retaliation, he sprayed his spores as an area of effect attack and then gave the roach an uppercut with its right fist. This turned out to be such a fierce fight.

“Fire Bullet!”

From behind me comes a fireball launched by Arleaf, heading towards the Reed Grey Roach. It missed… but the fire seems to be chasing the Reed Grey Roach. The fire blazed a trail on the ground and burnt the roach to death.

‘Reed Grey Roaches secrete a large volume of oil on their surface, making fire attacks more effective physical attacks. It matters not how quickly the roach moves; it still secretes oil while doing so. Hence, it is easy to ignite and burn. Thou must think it to be an insect, however, it is a viscous fluid… a type of slime.’

That’s quite the strange list of attributes. Where does the oil come from, where does it go?

‘The oil is a part of its body. It does not disappear. The core simply bears an uncanny resemblance to an insect.’

Whatever it is, it gives me the creeps and I don’t really want to fight another one. But more importantly, I got to see Arleaf use magic. Pretty impressive stuff.

‘Fire Bullet. It is beginner’s fire magic and not a particularly difficult spell to use.’

Veno pulls up a bunch of information regarding the spell Arleaf had casted and begins to explain. I’ve said it before, but I need to sit down and process it, so show me later.

‘And this is Flame of Megiddo.’

As he says that, Veno shows me the difference between Fire Bullet and Flame of Megiddo in a zoomed-out point of view. A hundred Fire Bullets couldn’t even compare to a single Flame of Megiddo. I know it’s amazing and all but show it to me afterwards. Veno acts like he’s been alone for too long. Finally, he’s made a friend and so he’s always trying to get more attention.

‘Hmph… I am not needy! I desire not attention from thee!’

That totally doesn’t prove my point.

‘It seems like no matter what I say, thine opinion of me shall change not. Thou shall see! Do not make light of a dragon!’

Yeah, yeah. You’re helpful at explaining stuff to me and I’m grateful for you, so please, save your lecture on magic for later. But… how and what should I say to Arleaf? If I show that I was moved because it’s my first-time seeing magic, she’ll definitely suspect something.

‘Thou may not have seen it much, but magic is not that uncommon. Avoid showing how thou truly feel.’

As I thought. In that case…

“Mm. Good teamwork there. Just be absolutely sure to not hit Muu with it please.”

I assume Muu is weak to fire since he’s a mushroom. If he gets roasted to death, it’d be a sad situation. In more ways than one.

“Mu!”

“I’ll be fine!” is what I can only assume Muu is meaning by his shadowboxing.

“Okay! You’re really something as a Poison-Wielder too, Yukihisa.”

Arleaf is probably talking about how I can condense the swamp’s toxins and release it as a poisonous mist, right? It’s not like I was sniping my targets from far away. I was standing somewhat close with my crossbow and hitting them with poison, but that’s only easy ‘cause of the distance. Maybe it’s thanks to Arleaf’s cooking, but I can nimbly move around. I get quite a bit of experience too. Not bad at all.

“I’m just alright. There’s a lot I had to figure out on my own. I’m learning as I go along.” “Besides firing your crossbow, it seems it’s all magic for you… but that’s probably not the case, right?” “Mm.”

I create a sphere of toxin with Poison Release to show her. The blob floats on my hand. I think Veno said that it’s not magic, but I don’t exactly understand the reasoning behind using it either. Maybe it’s due to Spirit Link or perhaps, as Veno theorized, it’s something I was born with. Which reminds me, some time in the future, we’re probably gonna encounter monsters capable of magic too. But how about those guys? Are they learners of magic too?

‘I can only say that it depends on each circumstance. Of course, there are beings who are born knowing magic.’ “Well, it’s just powers of my class. Now then, let’s continue exploring.” “Okay.”

Let’s store away the defeated monsters before we move on. We’re obviously not taking the ashes of the burnt Reed Grey Roach.

‘Did Muu not slay a monster? The oil extracted from it would be useful.’

… not for cooking, right? Something like lamp oil, I hope.

‘Though it is edible?’

No way in hell that’s happening. I don’t want to eat anything fried in that grease, for my sanity’s sake.

‘Understandably difficult. But if thou cook it well, it turns out nice and crunchy.’

Those are chips that I absolutely do no want to eat. Don’t you dare share the flavor with me. No, actually, I’ll just stuff my cheeks with Arleaf’s cooking at the same time.

‘Darest thou threaten me?! Good grief…’

I’m not that picky of an eater, but I hate stuff like stewed grasshoppers. Just thinking about the salty-sweet soy sauce flavor makes me want to gag.

‘Again with the pickiness… I am not demanding anything that absurd from you. I do have an interest in delicacies, but this is not much of an acquired taste, aye? By the way, is sweet soy sauce delicious?’

Veno is a dragon with a sweet tooth. No surprise he’s interested in sweet soy sauce. Unfortunately for you, the soy sauce-side is a bit strong, so you can’t call it a dessert. But people dip mochi in sweet soy sauce too. Which side would you put that on? And then there’s mitarashi dango, which should be a dessert. It’s hard to draw the line… but let’s save the sweet soy sauce talk for later. Not to mention that I don’t even know if there’s soy sauce in this world.

‘Going by thy memories… I remember seeing a similar condiment.’

And as I’ve said, we’re not talking about this anymore! While we were talking, Arleaf and I were picking herbs as we progressed deeper into the swamplands. And then…

“We should soon be able to see the main entrance to the dungeon,” said Arleaf after going fairly far into the swamp.

“Oh, was this side the proper entrance?”

The entrance with the altar that Muu and I changed jobs with was originally just a separate cave. Now its remains are connected to the dungeon. So it makes sense that this should be considered the proper entrance.

“Yep. It would be easier to go to deeper levels through this way too.” “Is that right?”

The altar connects to the second floor, but to get to the third floor, you’ve gotta use this entrance, I think.

“Do you tend to explore dungeons, Yukihisa?” “Hmm… to tell you the truth, I don’t really think of it like that. I only come here because it’s easy to fight.”

I can’t forget the real reason why I’m here. We’ve got to find a way to free me from this Forced Possession Summoning while escaping the people chasing me. That’s also the reason why I’m trying to level up. It’s not like my goal is to explore dungeons. I mean, not that I’m totally uninterested though.

“I see. It would hard for me the way I am right now… and I would only drag you down.” “Then consider us to be on a stroll until the sun goes down.”

I can’t push her too hard either. Sure, she’s a comrade to us, but only for a limited time.

“Do you wanna fight a few more monsters before we go home?” “Yes.  And before we return… are you planning to go for a soak?”

She’s still hung up on that, eh?

“Umm… I wouldn’t do so since you’re here with me, Arleaf.”

Since it turns out there are people watching me and I don’t know what they’re scheming… But I can’t deny that soaking in the toxic water feels as fantastic as soaking in an onsen. I was considering to maybe just dip my toes in, or maybe I’ll get a little cheeky and have Muu stand guard for me, when all of a sudden…

“Let’s get the hell out of here.” “Yeah!” “H-Heal…” “I know!”

Oh? There are a few adventurers over by the entrance of the dungeon that ran past us.

‘Beware. It is possible that they are in midst of fleeing from a monster.’

Ah… that’s certainly a possibility. Maybe it’s time for me to bust out some poison again. Seems like Arleaf immediately noticed them run behind us. She looks like she’s ready to hightail out of here too. Maybe I can let out a toxic mist to cover our back. But… I can’t sense any monsters around here.

“Muu?”

In the end, the adventurers left, and peace returned.

previously: /ch001/ /ch002/ /ch003/ /ch004/ /ch005/ /ch006/ /ch007/ /ch008/ /ch009/ /ch010/ /ch011/ /ch012/ /ch013/ /ch014/ /ch015/ /ch016/ /ch017/ /ch018/ /ch019/ /ch020/ /ch021/ /ch022/ /ch023/ /ch024/ /ch025/ /ch026/ /ch027/ /ch028/ /next/ (please support me on Patreon or Paypal) (full list of translated chapters) (discussion thread on Novel Updates)

[ursae-minoris-world]

KALTENECKER: Who is your favorite Voltron character? (part 2 : Keith)

...and, my last answer for @ashrayus‘s ask for the Voltron ask meme ! As a follow up to that one about Hunk !

Thanks a lot for tagging me, by the way, I’m having way too much fun doing this !

Sooo. I didn’t think I would get that much attached to that guy that fast. Oops.

(Me : “oh, you think you’re cool ? I’m not impressed. No way I’m getting attached to a character like that”. Narrator’s voice : “it didn’t go as planned...”).

So yeah… the one that really grew on me was Keith, to the point that I think he’s probably my fave now (well I love him different ways that I love Hunk, if that makes sense ; it’s hard to compare). This is funny because when he was introduced, for some reason, I really wanted to hate him (lol).

He had this epic introduction scene and I just thought “Ok, here comes the cool guy, he’s gonna be the leader and overshadow every other character... and I liked the others, damn ! So annoying.” Which is funny considering it was Shiro who first was set up to be the leader and it became explicitly so pretty soon. But, even without the leadership, he had this sort of Main Character aura. Well I thought he would be the 80’s hero stereotype, and the others would be kinda reduced to side-kicks, and it rubbed me the wrong way. But then he kept surprising me.

His soft, worried expression when he saw Shiro caught me off guard. Then, when Lance interrupted, and he wasn’t able to recognize him despite having been in the same class, and clearly trying honestly hard to remember, got me chuckling despite myself : “OMG, not good with people, are we ?” lol.

And him begrudgingly saving the garrison trio along with Shiro, and then being salty when they had the guts to complain about  how he did it was… more relatable than I expected. Also, it was pretty cool to see him using the fact that his hoverbike was overloaded as an advantage to gain speed. And when he excitedly drove of that cliff, it was kind of endearing.

Then he brought them to that shack in the middle of the desert when I expected to see his family or at least a somewhat decent flat, and I started getting intrigued. Added to that heartfelt dialog with Shiro (“good to have you back”) and when he then admitted how lost he had felt when booted from the Garrison…  How his voice breaks, the sad look Shiro and him exchange… I started connecting the dots about their past. And getting really invested in it.

But a voice in my head was still saying “well of course the cool hero has a tragic back-story ! Don’t fall into this trap !”. I don’t even know why I was so stubborn about NOT liking him lol. But I couldn’t help but being fond of this emotional and vulnerable side I was starting to see in him, and that I really didn’t expect (same goes for Shiro, but I really liked Shiro from the start).

(you all took that decision together as a team, Keith !)

And the moment I let go of that curious mindset of “I don’t like the stereotype so I’m determined not to like this character” was when, at the Castle of Lions, out of sheer provocation, Lance tells Allura that them being attacked has to be Keith’s fault. Keith starts sarcastically “Say whatever you've got to say to make yourself feel better.” And, as much as I actually enjoyed the reply, I was still thinking, a bit annoyed “yeah of course he would be more mature and not react to the provocation”. But then… Keith explodes. And I realized that he was not being mature, but trying to appear so by bottling up his emotions and that they had just...blown up on him. And that was such a good character flaw that it completely scraped the “cool guy” stereotype I had seen at first. And I started really liking him.

And he just kept growing on me.

Basically, what really got me with Keith was this struggle he has, with desperately wanting to belong… But also being terrified to let himself get attached, because then it would hurt too bad if he gets rejected again. And how that ends up being a self-fulfilling prophesy. Because the way he keeps a distance by trying to protect himself doesn’t allow him to grow deeper bonds with others, or communicating properly with them. Which, in turn, results in misunderstandings and conflict. He ends up running away (come on, it was not the only reason why he left, but I bet this was at play too), isolating himself from the people he cared for.

(Canonically his greatest fear is being rejected by Shiro...)

(...and of course it ended up happening… or well, not really, it’s complicated, but it must have felt pretty close to him)

And it makes complete sense that he struggles like that , it all comes from his childhood trauma ; and honestly he keeps getting traumatized  again, like losing Shiro not once but twice already, and being there not only for Ulaz’s death, but also for Thace’s after having fought alongside with him, and Regris’, who was his teammate and with whom he had at least been on several missions ; that doesn’t help ! And the growing tension with Shiro after finding him again ; and the gap that has been slowly widening between him and the team (his “found family”), culminating in his decision to leave. Heck, even having to leave Red, with whom he had such a great bond, to pilot Black in season 3. And then, leaving Black too for Shiro’s benefit. So far, the story keeps feeding his narrative of “I’d better not let myself get attached” : it seems each time he bonds with someone, they end up separated, or, in worst case scenarios, that person even dies.

It just breaks my heart and I really, really need him to solve this issue. He deserves to be loved, and for that he needs to learn to accept that love, too. Because more than once, we see him dismissing it or misinterpreting it when others try to show concern or support. I kind of hope the tide will turn now that Krolia is in the game. And I really cross my fingers for Kolivan to not being killed off, and forging deeper bonds with Keith as well, although I’m really worried about how that will turn out.

Also, I like how deeply emotional he is, but how he tries to bottle it up, and how that doesn’t work at all. Please Keith, please open up to others.

I’m also extremely curious about all the secrets that surround him. We found up about his galra origins, we finally met his mother, but there is so much more I want to know. For instance, I’m dying for his back-story with Shiro. I need to know more about his family history, how his parents met, what happened to his father. I wonder if Acxa could, indeed, be related to him. I want to know more about this weird connection he seems to have with magic and quintessence. I want to see if those visions of galra invasions (both in his dream in “the Ark of Taujeer” and in his visions in “the Blade of Marmora”) could be repressed memories, like some theorize.  I want to know what happened between his father’s disappearance and the garrison, did he hop from foster family to foster family like many of us headcanon ? How did he get into the garrison ?

(I don’t thing that’s what Kolivan meant by “undetected”, Keith !)

Another thing I like with Keith is how he is balanced. Yes, he is extremely talented in some fields. He’s an amazing pilot and a great fighter, and it’s really cool to see him improve in those domains. He’s also pretty good at improvising on the spot in dangerous situations. He’s extremely focused, loyal, dedicated and resourceful.

But at the same time, he can be pretty awkward in social situations. He has a hard time managing his feelings. He might be really good with blades and in close combat, but struggles when he has a gun. He gets caught almost every time he tries to be sneaky, which is both endearing and worrying, considering the risks of this while he works with the Blades. He is the worst liar ever and it’s hilarious (I hope Kolivan has given up any expectation to make him go undercover, that would be a disaster).

Anyway, some characters are well balanced by being moderately good at everything and being a jack of all trades (Lance for instance). But Keith… he’s amazing in a few domains (flying, fighting with a sword…) but pretty bad in others.

So despite his obvious talents, he is quite far from the cool, flawless character  that I first thought he would be.

Although he has a quite eventful and compelling arc, I don’t feel he overshadows the other characters as he’s often (and sometimes painfully) out of focus… We barely saw him at all in the last two seasons. And honestly at this point I’m invested enough in his story that I wouldn’t even complain if he hogs the spotlight a bit more at times.

I ended up getting way too attached and it’s hard to watch him getting hurt by the story all the time. I really hope he gets some good comforting moments soon (same goes for Shiro, by the way).

Yeah, I also love Shiro very much, I think he’s an amazing character. Honestly, there is such a good cast of characters in this story, including really charismatic side characters (Kolivan ! Matt ! Krolia ! Shay !). So it’s really hard to pick a favorite.

[ahmyhotdog]

Hyperion

RP w/ @milessomnia }{ Part 4 / ? }{ 1, 2, 3

The ex-Knight slept on for a while. He was groggy when first waking up Sleeping outside like this was never easy, but it wasn’t as if they hadn’t been used to doing this before. It was when he reached for Zell that things started to go all wrong. He wasn’t there. “Zell? …Zell?!”

Zell was slow on his leg, but even still with as long Seifer was out he had limped most of the way back toward the docks.

His body still sore Seifer could only think of one place Zell would have gone. If he ran he could probably catch him before he did something stupid.

Being hurt Zell was trying to stay hidden. When he got closer to the warehouses he tried to walk along one. His knee throbbed. He was sure all the limping he did nothing but agitated the injury.

There was laughter inside. Though it was all mixed. Some angry that the Knight had gotten away and others bragging about everything they’d been able to do. But the one thing they were all quite proud of was getting their hands on his weapon. Now most of them were quite drunk. All too occupied with drink and conversation to notice anything else.

Making his way to the door Zell would slowly nudge it open before peeking in. Zell would watch for a few minutes eyes looking around for Seifer’s beloved gunblade.

Seifer’s gun blade was perched up on display like some kind of trophy. It was easy to spot, just behind the laughing group.

Still wearing his gloves he was about as ready for combat as he was going to be. Slipping inside Zell pressed himself against the wall and started to use whatever he could find to duck behind or just risk walking along the wall.

A fight broke out among a couple of the more drunk and rowdy people. Bumping around and throwing each other into the nearby netting and stacks of crates.

Seeing the drunks start to fight an idea hit Zell. Ducking behind some crates he would clench his fists again and focusing on the Brothers. If he couldn’t fight, then he would settle in trying to scare the drunks off with the GF.

Well….That did the trick. Especially for most who didn’t even know what a GF was. Which was pretty much all of them. Drunk and scared shitless by the sudden appearance they scattered. Scrambling over each other to try and get out.

While he had his distraction Zell tried to force himself to limp fast to reach the gunblade.

It worked fine. Until a few figured out what was going on upon seeing Zell. “Hey!!!”

“Shit..!” Grabbing the gunblade he tried to make hurry away before the GF had faded away completely.

The group started coming back together. Angry and shouting as they grabbed whatever was nearest that they could use as weapons in pursuit of Zell.

“Get back!” He yelled. “I don’t want to hurt any of you!” His leg continued to throb to the point where Zell was finding it hard to keep limping as he was.

He wouldn’t have to limp for long. Seifer came around a corner. Finally having caught up. He was slightly out of breath, but obviously upset. “Zell!”

Holding the gunblade in one hand Zell stopped and turned to the drunks. Pointing his free hand at the ground his hand gave a faint icy glow. He was going to make the floor slick, but he still needed to gather energy to cast.

“Idiot…,” Seifer hurried over he grabbed his blade from the blonde. “Don’t bother just run! I’ll take care of this.”

Zell frowned as the blade was snatched from him. Resting his hand on his leg Zell started to limp.

The ex-Knight faced the crowed. “….Stay the fuck away from us!” He hated doing this, but the situation called for it. Raising his hand, a blast of fire spread out catching all the nearby netting, and wood. Quickly it started spreading making its way to the docks. The mob had a tough decision. Pursue them, or save their livelihoods. Didn’t take long for them all to turn and start calling for water. Seifer put Hyperion away and went to catch up with Zell.

Zell hadn’t gotten far. He was leaning against the wall while holding his leg in pain.

“C'mon,” Seifer moved up beside Zell and picked him up. “We can’t hang around…”

Being picked up Zell would quickly wrap an arm around his shoulders.

Once clear of the FH and back on the old tracks Seifer put the brawler down. “The hell were you thinking?!”

Put back down Zell sat on the half-wall. His eyes were glued to the ground. “I think it’s obvious what I was thinking.”

“This?!” He pulled out Hyperion and then slammed the blade down so it became embedded in the tracks. “This means nothing compared to you!”

Zell shrunk a bit at the sound of the blade stinking in the ground. “I wasn’t.. I, I..” He couldn’t lift his gaze to look up at Seifer. “I just wanted to make you smile.”

He fell down on his knees in front of Zell. Reaching forward he made to hold the other’s head between his hands. “…I can live without it…But I can’t live without you. You’re what makes me smile.”

His eyes watered and very quickly Zell started to cry. Staring down at the other he felt more upset with himself over anything. “I’m sorry. I thought they would flee when I summoned the Brothers only to scare them. And it’s your gunblade. You don’t have that many things you cherish…”

“I could lose everything I own and I’d be fine…. So long as I still had you.” Leaning forward he closed what little distance there was and kissed him.

“I… Feel stupid. Idiot. I’m so dumb.” Rubbing his face Zell wrapped his arms around Seifer to pull him closer.

“…You’re not an idiot…You’re not dumb and you are not stupid.” He held him tight. “I love you. Had you been one hundred percent I wouldn’t be this upset.”

“I’m sorry… I really didn’t mean to worry you.”

He let out a breath and rested his head on Zell’s shoulder. “It’s alright…You’re alright. ”

“We’re both alright. You and me.” He rested a hand on Seifer’s head.

“Yeah.” He sat back and looked at his leg. “Saw you limping pretty bad. ”

“Yeah, it’s hurting like crazy…” Zell looked down at his leg. It was swollen around his knee.

“You shouldn’t have been up on it. Here.” Seifer put his hands over the brawler’s knee. When it came to people he knew he was a bit warmer than most. Hopefully the heat would help some.

Zell sat still as Seifer laid his hands on his knee. He took a sharp breath, but once he relaxed the heat at least felt good. “Yeah well, that’s what happens when I have silly ideas.”

“Need to get a doctor to check this out.” He let out a breath.

“Fat chance we’ll find one in FH…” Zell tilted his head.

“Which is why I’m taking you to Esthar.”

He sighed, “My ma is going to kill me when she finds out what happened.”

“Kill you? Hah….I’m the one she made promise to watch after you.”

“What, seriously?” He couldn’t help but give a light chuckle and shook his head. He held a hand up as he gave a sympathetic look. “How about we don’t tell her I might have broken my leg and set a warehouse caught fire.”

“Might have?” He gave Zell a look. “Your knee was completely busted and you went and used magic on it. Probably healed wrong.”

“Well–it was either leaving it busted or chance that mob chasing us and not being able to run.” Zell frowned. The idea that his leg would have to be rebroken to set right made his stomach uneasy.

“The quicker we get to Esthar the quicker this can get fixed before anything permanent sets in. Don’t worry. They’ll knock you out if they have to break and reset it.”

“Haha… don’t remind me. The thought of being knocked out in general sucks.” Then he groaned. “Not to mention I wonder if I can walk after that.”

“Might be a while but you’ll be okay.”

“Mhn, if I remember it takes about all night to walk from here to the Salt Lake.”

He sighed and then moved so that he was kneeling in front of Zell with his back at him again. “Then we better get going. C'mon.”

Zell reached out to climb back on Seifer’s back. “I’ll make this up to you.”

“Don’t worry about it.” As before he got up with Zell on his back and started walking.

Zell kept his arms wrapped around Seifer, but not too tightly. “Let me at least do something… I feel bad.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know… Something. What would you want?”

“I’m not really thinking about later chicky. More concerned with just getting us out of here.”

“Huh… I just thought of something. Crap.”

“What? What’s wrong?”

“We left everything. That means our supplies and food.” He thumped is head between Seifer’s shoulders.

“Ow, watch it…I’m still sore damn it.”

“….sorry.”

“We’ll be fine. We’re trained for situations like this.”

“True, guess I won’t be very useful hunting.”

“Just leave it to me.” He had to adjust himself a bit but kept on going.

“If you’re hunting then I’ll cook.”

“Heh… Alright..” He had to let Zell do something.

Zell smiled happily before giving Seifer a kiss on the neck.

“Going to be a long walk…”

“Could tell you a story to pass the time,” he hummed only partly joking.

“Nah… Rest up. I’m going to try and get us as far as I can.”

“Don’t push yourself too much. Not good if we’re both tired.”

“Stop worrying. I’m made of tougher stuff.”

“I can’t help it…? You’d worry if it were the other way around.” He leaned his head against his shoulder.

“The other way around you’d have a hell of a time trying to help me anywhere….”

“Heeey, I’m pretty strong. I could lift you easy.”

“I know, but considering your height versus mine it’d be ridiculous.”

“Mm, don’t know. Maybe I’d have to carry you across my shoulders. You know, one leg, one arm sort of thing. Not like how you like to carry me.”

“Hyne….I hope to hell and back that you never do…”

“I can’t help it you know,” he said softly.

“I know. Just try to rest up or something, I mean it this time.”

He shook his head lightly against the shoulder. “That’s not what I meant.”

“Then what?”

“With you. I can’t stop myself. You know how I am with people. How I have to help. With you…its like a compulsion. I have to help you. If there’s something wrong I can’t just sit aside and watch you be unhappy. It hurts.”

“That’s what happen when you love someone Zell….You’ll do anything for them. Throw the whole damn world away just to see them smile. Face the things that frighten you most just to give them what they deserve. Bleed for them. Now down to someone else in order to keep them safe. When you love someone that much it’s to hell with the consequences so long as that person can live.”

He clenched his eyes as a hand moved to rest just over Seifer’s heart. “It feels more than that… Like, this job, I put my life on the line for complete strangers. I might not come home one day–and… I don’t know. I don’t know if I can put it into words. I know the thing with your gunblade was stupid, and maybe we could have found a new but… You just were not happy. It hurt a lot. Like in the pit of my chest, and all I could think about was how to make you smile again. Because you’re worth far more to me than a stranger.”

“Well I certainly hope I’d be more important than some random stranger. Zell…Sure, the gunblade has a lot of sentimental value. When I use it, it feels like an extension of myself. The thing is, like losing a limb, you can learn and adapt to live without it. But when you lose someone you love, someone who becomes something like your other half. A part of you even deeper than your soul….” He swallowed hard. He hardly ever let his talking open up this much into how he felt. And it scared him. “When you lose that there is no recovering. No way to adapt to a life without them.”

Zell would shift a bit as his arms would tighten around Seifer’s in a tight hug. “I’m trying. I don’t always think before I run. Once I get an idea of something that I think will make you smile I can’t get it out of my head.” Opening his eyes Zell would turn his head so he could look out at the ocean. “I don’t ever want to lose you. You are my other half,” Zell said as he had no qualms about speaking freely. “I know what losing someone does. I saw it with my ma and pa.”

“That’s fine. I don’t want you changing who you are Zell. I expect those crazy ideas to come along. Most of the time they aren’t half bad. Sometimes you just need someone to hold you back. Just like I need you to push me forward. We can’t predict where we’ll end up. But hey, so far it hasn’t been all that bad. A lot worse could be happening. So…I think we’re doing alright.”

“So… you don’t regret agreeing to this trip then..?” He asked with some hesitation.

“No, why would I? Zell, I never expect things go easy. Sometimes they do and I get surprised. But I’d rather be prepared and expect the worse and nothing happen than the other way around. Besides….I’m with you.”

He couldn’t help but smile. “Maybe that’s why we work so well together. You always expect the worst and I only see the best.” When they were a bit further away from FH Zell had taken his gloves off and shoved them into his pants pockets. The toll of all of the excitement from the day was catching up to Zell. It didn’t help watching the water was rhythmic and trance inducing when paired with the sounds. The air smelled sort of like Balamb. Easing Zell to relax and drift off into sleep.

“Urgh,” Zell mumbled as he pressed his forehead against Seifer’s back. “My leg feels like it’s on fire… It’s hurting pretty crazy.”

Seifer looked back over his shoulder at Zell. He’d been walking for what felt like hours now. The previous strain on his body and now this starting to catch up with him. “It’ll be alright chicky.”

“Can we stop? Even if it’s just for a little bit.?” Zell was trying to reach around Seifer’s arm to touch his leg.

He was a little worried about stopping. If he did he wondered if he’d be able to keep going with the same momentum. Seifer gave a sigh and nodded his head. “Alright, careful.” Stopping, he knelt in order to let Zell off his back.

Zell was careful to get off. At that point, he didn’t even try to put any weight on his left leg and stood nearly hopping on the good one. Holding his hands out Zell would manage to lean against the half wall. “Hyne… Does it look any worse than earlier?”

He frowned as he took a look. The swelling hadn’t gotten any better. The skin discolored slightly. “…Zell…I might have to be the one to try and fix this.”

Zell held his breath at the sound of that. His hands would grip the wall a bit more tightly.

He looked at his boyfriend, “Do you trust me?”

He bit his lip and nodded. “I.. shouldn’t be standing up though.”

“I’ll help you down.” He offered him a hand.

“If we’re breaking my leg we’re going to at least tie a splint to it.”

“I know the drill Zell.” He rolled his eyes and then let out a breath. “Rebreak it, splint, I’ve got some cure on me. No walking on it at all though once I’m done.”

He shook his head. “Well, sorry I feel nervous alright? I know we’re trained.. But it’s still my leg.”

Seifer looked up and took Zell’s head between his hands. “I know. And I’m going to take care of it, and you. You’ll be running around and doing flips like normal in no time.”

He took a shaky breath and nodded. “Alright. Yeah…” Looking at Seifer he tried to smile through his nervousness. “Maybe we can break a pipe off somewhere and tie my jacket to my leg…?” Without bandages Zell wasn’t sure what they could use.

“We lost your jacket back in FH, but my coat is already shredded up pretty bad. We can use it.”

He wasn’t going to argue and nodded. “Okay… Help me lay down,” Zell said before holding his arms out to Seifer.

He did his best to carefully help Zell down. Once he was on the ground Seifer took a step back, removing his belt and then handing it to Zell. “Bite down on it. Don’t want you biting your tongue on accident.”

There was a feeling a dread washing over Zell as he laid there. Taking the offered belt, he would bend it in half before sticking it into his mouth. Looking at his leg Zell would look away and up at Seifer. It was clear how worried he looked.

Before he did anything else the ex-Knight found a few things that he could use to help act a brace for making the splint. It was easy to tear off fabric from his coat. That out of the way he knelt back down next to Zell’s leg. “Alright. On the count of three.”

The longer he had to wait the more nervous he felt as he watched Seifer rip his coat. Once he was next to his leg Zell would stay completely flat on his back. Still with the belt in his mouth Zell would cover his head with his hands and nodded.

“One, two-” He didn’t even wait for three in order to rebreak the brawler’s leg. He worked fast so he could splint and cast a cure, albeit uncomfortably, over it.

With the leg broken again and pain shot through his body, Zell screamed, though muffled only by the belt as he bit harshly on it. As much as Zell wanted to roll about in pain he managed to stay still long enough for Seifer to tie the split to his leg. He was panting by the time he could feel the soothing touch of the cure spell. There were tears in his eyes as Zell took the belt out of his mouth.

When he was finished Seifer moved so he could kiss Zell’s forehead and hold him. “S'all done….”

Accepting the comfort Zell would soak it up. The pain wasn’t nearly as great after the spell. Looking up once more at Seifer, Zell would reach up and touch the side of his face.

Seifer looked tired. More so than usual. The stress of having gone through the earlier mess with the people in Fisherman’s Horizon and until this point had really taken its toll. “Alright?”

“Yeah. I need to rest before we move again, okay?” There was some worry still in his eyes, but it was more for Seifer. He could see the exhaustion in his face. And while Zell wasn’t as tired because he wasn’t walking, he couldn’t bring himself to make Seifer continue just yet.

“Alright, just a bit longer.”

Zell smiled and nuzzled into the other a bit. Closing his eyes Zell started to hum softly.

Seifer was doing all he could to stay awake. He wasn’t doing all that good of a job though. He soon found himself closing his eyes and starting to fall asleep.

Using his hands Zell would push himself a bit closer so he could sit up a little and lean against Seifer. It was cold out on the water and Seifer did generate a lot of heat. Once finding a way to sit without bothering his leg Zell too would closer his eyes and let himself fall asleep the best he could.

He wasn’t sure how long he had been asleep, But Zell surely felt stiff upon waking up. There was a small groan as he tried to stretch his arms.

He woke when he felt Zell moving around next to him. A frown on his face as he realized how long they’d spent in that spot. “Damn…”

“Heh,” Zell couldn’t help but give a dumb smile as he looked up at Seifer. “At least you got to rest.”

“Still feel like I’ve been run over by a truck…”

“That’s, kind of understandable. They beat the crap out of you. And then when that one dude smashed my knee you got all scary looking.” He would fidget by playing with the hem of his tank top. "You had this look in your eyes… and then the air around you got really hot…”

“I don’t know…What I do know is that they hurt you. And they’re damn lucky I only had that bat.”

Zell leaned his head against the other. “I know. I still can’t believe any of that really happened. Like I’m going to wake up and we’ll be in Balamb again.”

“Yeah…But we’re a long ways Balamb right now.” He put his arm around the other.

“Mm…” he perked up at little as an idea came to him. “The first thing we do when we get to Esthar is look for ser Laguna.”

“Squall’s old man? What the hell is he going to do?”

“Get a hold of B-Garden? Tell them where we are. Figure out what the hell to do next. Somehow I doubt you want to sit in a strange city while my leg heals for however long.”

“We might have to…” He let out a breath. “If Garden is busy with some shit and we’re in a place that is ‘safe’ they probably won’t bother with us.”

Zell frowned and looked away. “I still feel angry,” he admitted calmly.

“…Me too.”

“At them?” Zell looked up at Seifer.

“Yeah…and myself too. I really don’t want to get into that conversation though. Too damn tired.”

“I think I’m too tired to either.” He closed his eyes. “We can rest a bit longer if you like.”

He thought it over for a moment, "A bit longer. Then we get moving.”

Zell gave a tired smile as he again nuzzled into Seifer for warmth. “Just a little.”

After a few minutes Seifer gave a sigh and started to move, “Let’s get going.”

Sitting up Zell rubbed his neck. “Yeah sure.” Looking at his leg Zell tried to get up without having to use it. He pressed his back and arms against the wall before planting his right foot on the ground. Little by little he would push himself up a bit before hopping on his right leg to propel him further.

“…Next time let me help you, alright? I know you want to be able to do these things. But I’d rather you be able to actually use that leg later.”

“What do you mean? I didn’t stand on the bad one.” Once he was standing Zell would use the wall to lean on and keep him standing.

“You don’t have the normal balance like you would usually.” He let out a breath. “I just want to make sure you don’t use it by accident. Humor me alright?”

Zell smiled. “Alright, if it’ll make you feel better. I kind of figured you still wanted to carry me anyway.”

“As if I’m going to let you hobble around. You’ve got options, back or bridal.”

“….Whatever you find easier. I’m just the sack of potatoes.”

He reached out and flicked his forehead. “Don’t say that again.” Soon as he was done talking he knelt down with his back to Zell. “C'mon”

“Ow… It was just a joke, geez.” Rubbing his forehead Zell leaned forward before climbing onto Seifer’s back. “On the plus side, we’ll know we’re getting toward the end of the bridge when we see the abandon train station at the end. Then it’s the Great Salt Lake from there.”

“Shouldn’t be much further then.”

“Nope. At the end of the of the lake is the OCS. It’s hard to find the ladder from the camouflage. But there’s a blinking light in the air to show where the button is.”

“A ladder huh?” He adjusted himself a bit as he walked. “That’ll be fun getting you up.”

“Heeey, with you carrying me I’ll just hop up the rungs on my right leg.” Smiling Zell would lift his hands and start to comb his fingers through Seifer’s hair. “Just remember who you’re with. I know a lot of things. Plus, we hand to travel through here before.”

“I just…I want you to be careful. I know better than most how important your legs and your hands are to you.”

“I know…” He would continue touching Seifer’s hair in hopefully to release some of his stress. “Or wait, idea. You can climb up ahead. And I’ll hop up on the ladder. But you can reach down and pull me up?”

“..And how high does the ladder go?”

“Uh…” He tried to remember but couldn’t quite remember. “Taller than you easily. I remember when the hatch opened it looked like it was floating in the air.”

He gave a sigh, “Well we’ll find out when we get there. Then we will problem solve.”

“Mm… Trying to think if there’s anything important to tell you before we get there. Since you like being prepared and all. Oh! Fiends–That would be important to know. I mean, unless you already know about the area.”

“I’ve been there…But it’s kind of fuzzy. I was really stuck in my head by then.”

“Mm…” He slid his hands down to Seifer’s shoulders and rubbed. “Let’s see… There’s Bite Bugs and Caterchipillar like at home–Oh! And Glacial Eyes. I think the worst things you can run into are Malboro, but they’re so big it would be hard for one to sneak up on us. Just trying to remember… After the Lunar Cry, there were a lot more nastier things roaming about.”

“We’ll make do. You can work on being an extra set of eyes for me.”

“Yes sir!” He smiled. “I’ll be the best look out ever.”

At least that gave Zell something to do. “I think I can make something out ahead.”

“Is it a hotdog?” He joked.

“The old station you mentioned.”

“Great! We can rest there if you need it. Or we can keep going. But at least we’ll be away from the water. In spite of the Great Salt Lake being called a lake it’s quite dead there, and there’s no water–I remember reading about in in a Timber mag some time ago. I forget who wrote it.”

“…By the way, you doing alright after using those GFs?”

His hands stopped as Zell lowered his gaze. “Just a little fuzzy… –I’ll be fine, I promise! I only used it because I had no other choice.” Fine like forgetting his lack of jacket when suggesting to use it for the splint.

“The brothers aren’t an easy one to use. That’s pretty much two GFs at once. Be careful alright?”

“I-I know. They’re just, really excitable and friendly…” Zell couldn’t help but smile. “Whenever I got bored they would tell jokes in my head. Eh… Sorry. I know they’re a touchy subject. Aside from the memory loss they weren’t that bad. At least the ones I got along with more.”

“S'fine. Not a subject we can really get away from all that easy.”

“I guess it’s a good thing Ifrit didn’t take as much a liking to me as the Brothers did.”

“You’re lucky, even with the junction off I can’t seem to get Ifrit to leave me alone.”

“I’m not trying to make you worry, but that sounds really weird. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of GF’s talking when not junctioned.”

Seifer finally stopped and helped Zell get down so they both could rest a bit. “Surprised Squall never told you seeing as how he and Shiva like to have nice lil conversations with each other.”

Helped down Zell would sit not wanting to worry Seifer. “Wait, are you serious? He never–” He frowned. “Why wouldn’t he tell anyone?”

“Think really hard about it. If you told someone you were having conversations with an unjunctioned GF what would happen?”

“Yeah, but he could have told one of us. I mean you told me about it and I didn’t wig out.”

“That’s because you know what they are capable of…Anyone else would flip out. Besides it isn’t exactly something that’s easy to talk about.”

“I guess…” He glanced down at the ground. “I mean I grew up around them like we all did. So, it’s just normal to talk about GFs and the weird things they do.” Looking up again Zell cupped a hand over his eyes to help him see in the distance. “I think I see some of those Glacial Eye. You know those things you can draw a lot of Cure magic form.”

“Not everyone was in the GF program…” He sighed and stood up. “Stay here. I’ll see about stocking up.”

“Like I have much of a choice.” He shrugged. “If I see anything I’ll holler.”

Seifer bent down and gave Zell a kiss before taking out Hyperion and heading out.

Kissing Seifer back Zell couldn’t help but sigh a little. He was sure this was just as frustrating for him as it was for Seifer.

Seifer was out for a while. Though tough he’d gone up against worse than the Glacial Eyes. Still it left him on the tired side by the time he got back.

Zell wasn’t where Seifer had left him. But it was easy to see the trail in the dirt of him scooting across the dirt to a column he was leaning against. Looking up at Seifer, Zell offered a smile. “Hey there good lookin’ come here often?”

He raised a brow at the other. Apart from looking a bit tired he seemed fine. “Oh I bet just all the girls and boys fall for you…”

“Nah, just this one incredible guy that everyone seems to think is an asshole.”

“Not many that would argue he isn’t.” Walking over he ruffled Zell’s hair.

Zell smiled a bit brighter when his hair was ruffled. “You look like you need a break.”

“Tch,“ He sat down next to Zell. "Going to need a vacation from this 'vacation’ of ours…”

“Pff… Could always hang around Esthar instead of the old orphanage if you want. 'Sides, it’s not like all of this made you afraid of going outside.”

“…S'not the monsters that bother me.”

“Hey… It’s okay. We’re okay. We don’t have to go back there again.”

He let out a breath as he leaned back and closed his eyes.

Zell reached to take one of Seifer’s hands and start to rub it.

“Sorry, not exactly at my best, am I?”

“You’re where you should be. At lot happened in the past twenty-four hours.” Zell would keep at it. Kneading his thumbs into Seifer’s palm.

Normally he had his gloves on. Somewhere along the line though he’d lost them. “How’s the leg?”

“Better than it was before. It doesn’t ache as bad. Not walking on it, so I’m not bothering it.”

“Think you’re ready to head out?”

“If you’re not tired. At least it’s just a lake we have to cross.”

“I’m about as ready as I can be right now chicky.”

He nodded. “Alright. I’ll be your eyes then.”

After Seifer got Zell on his back he took them into the lake.

The actual area was nice to look at. What once was a lake had been long destroyed. All that was left were larger than life animal bones, salt deposits, and the fiends roaming the area.

“…Damn…There’s a lot more fiends around here than I thought there would be.”

“Not a lot of people here to keep the numbers down…” Zell sat up looking around.

“…Yeah.” He took a deep breath. “Alright I’m going to get through here as quick as I can. Keep your eyes on look out.”

“I’ll do my best.” Zell was looking around on the left and then the right.

With Zell keeping watch it made it easier for Seifer to focus more on getting them through this mess.

“Just remember, we won’t be able to see the ladder or hatch. There’s a glowing blinking light in the air that shows where it is.”

“Right, got it.”

Zell frowned and point. “Mesmerize over there.” Around one of the salt deposits was the equine-like creature digging in the ground with a hoof.

“I think I can get around it.”

“That’s good, because I don’t think it’s noticed us yet.”

Seifer picked up his pace. Not the easiest thing to do with someone on his back.

Zell kept his eyes on the horse as Seifer picked up pace. It seemed alright until Zell started to pat Seifer on the shoulder quickly. “S-sei…!” He said quickly. While the Mesmerize was minding its own business a Hexadragon came around the bend and swatted the smaller creature with a massive scaly claw.

“Shit…” Seifer hoped it hadn’t seen them and tried to move faster.

Zell tensed as he held onto Seifer’s shoulders. His eyes were now glued on the dragon. It didn’t take much for the Hexadragon to overpower the horse and begin to chomp down on it. This would make Zell cringe.

“Zell you still watching out?”

“What?” He pulled his eyes away finally to start looking around again. “I am.”

“Good….” Because he did not want to get caught unawares out here.

Zell started to tap on Seifer’s shoulder again before pointing off to the left. There was a Torama crouched behind some rocks and staring intently at the two.

“…Shit.” He didn’t think they’d get away from this one. He quickly knelt. “Get down. I’ll take care of it.”

Zell started to climb down and flopped on his butt. The large cat raised its long tentacle whiskers in a more threatening manner as it gave a deep growl.

“Stay out of sight!” He drew his gunblade and made his move.

“I’m trying!” This prompted Zell to try and climb back up on his right leg and at least hop to some cover. The Torama on the other hand started to move its tentacles in a more rhythmic motion before a bolt a lightning was casted.

Seifer held up Hyperion and stood his ground hoping to deflect most of it. “Damn cat…”

“Watch out they like to attack with magic first!” Zell called out as he ducked behind some rocks.

The Torama gave another growl as tentacles flailed they were starting to become more rhythmic again before a harsh gust of wind blew at the pair. Zell was knocked off his feet and hit the ground with a grunt.

Seifer slid back some. He already got the idea about the magic part. Those damn tentacles looked like they were what channeled it. He just needed to get close enough and take them off with his gunblade.

Seeing Seifer be blown back the Torama sat up. The tentacles were held high as if it didn’t know what to throw at them next.

That looked like an opening if there ever was one. Seifer ran in, bringing his blade against the long appendages.

Springing to its feet the fiend tried to run to the side. Luckily for them Seifer managed to slice a good bit of one of the appendages off. The cat howled in pain as the tendril twitched on the ground.

“One down…Let’s see you try those fancy spells now.”

Giving a threatening growl the large beast turned to try and lunge at Seifer with its claws bared.

It was still fast. He’d give it that much. He tried to move out of the way and felt the claws catch in his already tattered coat.

“Seifer!” Zell couldn’t help but call out to him. This caught the Torama’s attention. While it tried to cast Confuse on the two the spell wasn’t as obnoxiously strong with one of its tenticals missing.

The confusion hit him like a wave a nausea. The ground moving and leaving his movements feeling off. “D-Damn it.”

Zell was still climbing to his feet when he was hit. For the moment, he covered his mouth as if he were going to vomit right at that moment. Trying to shake the feeling off Zell turned his head to look toward Seifer. Seeing how well the spell worked the Torama would crouch low toward the ground before lunging at Seifer again for a bite.

Distracted by the spinning world around him and trying to get back his composure Seifer didn’t notice the Torama lunging at him. Not until he felt the teeth grab his arm.

Sharp teeth came down on the arm. Zell watching with horror and did just about the only thing he could do. Clenching his fists, he started to focus on his GF again.

With it so close Seifer turned his gunblade around and brought it down across it’s back. The auto-trigger going off and releasing a fiery blast of energy.

The creature howled in pain by the damage it was dealt. Releasing Seifer from its jaws it tried to quickly back away. Its eyes started glow, indicating that it was preparing a Blaster attack, but before it could, the pair of Brothers dumped a boulder on the damn thing with a crunch.

Seifer raised his arm to cover his face and avoid the dust and debris kicked up by the crushing boulder. As it cleared he looked back at Zell. Right arm useless at his side he made his way back to the blonde.

With the threat gone Zell would let go of the GF’s and they faded. Still feeling a little dizzy he leaned against the rocks. “You, oh…” He stopped mid question when he caught sight of the arm.

“Zell…You’ve got to stop using those things…” Seifer had yet to manage to put his gunblade away. Some of the feeling in his arm was gone, but enough of it was that that the ex-knight was more than aware of the blood running down.

“It was biting your arm! What the hell was I supposed to do?”

“I’m more than capable of taking down something like that!” At least…if he was better prepared and not so tired after the last couple days he was. Seifer braced himself against the rocks near Zell. “…I know what you were doing. But I don’t want to see you start forgetting things.”

“I’d rather forget things then seeing you dead!” Zell yelled louder than he meant. He held a hand to his mouth before talking more quietly again. “Just look at your damn arm…”

“I know! Hyne, Zell it’s kind of hard not to notice when your arm is getting torn up by a giant ass angry cat!”

“Then stop yelling at me okay!?” He was starting to get upset and it clearly showed. “We’re both tired and fucking stuck out here! And you don’t want me to die–and I don’t want you to die either just to make sure I’m alright! So yes, I am going to use the damn GF’s if it means making sure the both of us live tomorrow!”

“….,” Seifer slumped to the side. “I get it. Alright?” He didn’t even have the energy to argue with Zell.

Zell looked away before looking down at his feet. “…I’m sorry.” Finally lifting his gaze without saying anything Zell tried to hold his hands out to Seifer’s injured arm. “At least let me try and heal it.”

“…Yeah, seeing as how I can’t really feel it.”

Biting his lip Zell held his hands over Seifer’s arm and spent another cure spell. “I don’t have a lot of these left. Just whatever you gathered earlier.”

“I’ve got enough. Not the most ideal thing but you can always draw them off me.” The cure allowed him to move his arm a bit more, giving it some feeling once more.

“If we need to. I just want to get the hell out of this place.”

“We need to move.” Seifer finally got his gunblade sheathed and moved in front of Zell. “That fight is going to attract bigger things.”

Without another word Zell climbed back onto Seifer’s back. “I swear when we get out of here I’m going to sleep for a week.”

“You and me both…” It was quite a bit more difficult to get going this time around but he managed.

Zell seemed more attentive with keeping watch for anymore fiends.

“Hey, is that the hatch up there?”

Zell would cup a hand above his eyes as he strained to see. “I think so. At least it looks the same.”

“Thank Hyne…”

“Let’s just hurry up. I can’t remember the last time we ate anything.”

“Yeah, just keep thinking about food.” It least it would keep his mind busy.

“They’re weird in Esthar, but the food is really good. I think you’d like it.”

“All I care about is a bed…”

When they got close enough to the blinking light Zell would touch it. A moment later and a batch opened as if out of thin air and then a ladder below it.

“Alright…Zell, think you can pull yourself up? I want to make sure nothing comes at us from behind.”

“I think so. Even if I can’t use my legs I’ve got pretty strong arms.”

“You’ve got one good leg still.” He moved as close to the ladder as he could. “Start heading up.”

“Alright, but you better be right behind me.” Twisting his torso, a bit Zell would grab onto the ladder before putting his good leg down. Making sure to hold his injured leg away, Zell would grab the next rung up before hopping his foot up, and repeated.

“I will…” Seifer turned around to keep an eye on their backs.

Zell would keep going until he reached the hatch. “Um… I can’t bend my leg.”

 Seifer grabbed hold of the ladder and started his way up. “I’m coming up. When I get to you I want you to turn around get up so you can sit and then scoot back with your leg at an angle.”

“Riiight..” Holding onto the edge of the open hatch Zell slowly started to turn so his was facing outward. “Now to just…” Leaning back Zell sat back in the hatch and breathed out a sigh.

“Keep going Chicky…”

“I’m going, just being careful.” With himself seated Zell kept scooting back through the hatch.

“Good. You’re doing goo-” Seifer felt something grab him. Losing his grip, he caught himself with his bad arm and tried to hold on. “Shit!” Looking back, he saw the gaping drooling maw of a Malbaro.

“Sei–?” He bit his lip hearing Seifer curse. Cursing himself he was caught between what to do. “Seifer what is it!?”

“Fuck!!!” Seifer cried out in pain as he was being pulled down with a hard yank. He was barely holding on. “Zell back away from the hatch!” He didn’t want to…But Hyne if he didn’t he was afraid of what Zell would try to do.

“Seifer–!!” Panic started to eat at Zell. He was sitting too awkwardly to even scoot back out quick enough if he wanted. Lowering his head, he pressed his hands to his face. If he couldn’t use his GF what else was there that he could do!?

“Damn it…” Ifrit Then there was a growling in his head. He’d blocked it out for so long he’d forgotten what it was like to feel the strong presence. How intimidating and comforting the heat was. Suddenly there was fire everywhere. Ifrit didn’t appear down with Seifer. The Guardian appeared behind Zell and pulled him out of the way in order to send his Hell Fire down the hatch. Seifer felt his grip give away just as the fire washed over him and the Malboro.

Everything had happened too quickly for Zell to realize just what happened. One moment he was about to break down in tears over Seifer the next he was being pulled out of the way by two very large hands. It was only until he looked up did Zell catch sight of the mighty GF and the fire that was pouring out of it. And while it wasn’t attacking him it was still intimidating to witness.

The fire consumed and incinerated the malboro. Seifer though hit the ground hard. Above the GF gave a chuckling growl. It served his host right for ignoring him for so long.

Zell stared up at Ifrit. “The heck…? Seifer!” He squeaked. “Is he okay!?”

A voice growled out. Silence Little Bird…Your mate is fine. Maybe a few broken bones but nothing he doesn’t deserve.

“Don’t call me a little bird!” Zell yelled clenching his fists. “You know how hard we’re trying NOT to die!? You’re standing there laughing about a few broken bones!” He slammed a fist into the floor. “What if it punctured his lung!? Then you wouldn’t have anyone to try to talk to all of the time!”

Ifrit stood at his full height, towering over the brawler. Do not dare to talk back to me friend of the Brothers! My champion is well deserving of his injuries after having ignored my presence as long as he has. Stubborn fool…Now sit there like a good child and I’ll return in but a moment with him.

What else could Zell do but shiver as the hell cat loomed over him. His hands were clenched tightly but it didn’t help him shake any less even when Ifrit declared he would get Seifer.

What sounded liked grumbling muttering was all that echoed behind Ifrit as he fetched his host. He returned setting the battered and bruised ex-Knight on the ground beside Zell.

“Sei!” Excitedly Zell reached out to rest his hands on his chest. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?”

Seifer gave a groan. His head hurt like hell and the rest of him was sore. At the moment, he couldn’t tell the extent of his injuries but at least he was still breathing. “Am I hurt…? Really?”

Zell frowned. He really wanted to yell. Or scream. Probably both. Before putting his foot further down his throat his hands would give a faint glow for a moment as he used a cure spell.

Ifrit was exchanging a glare with Seifer. Finally, he the GF gave a huff of hot air and phased away. Seifer sat up feeling slightly dizzy. “Damn GF….You alright Zell?”

He quickly clung to Seifer and held onto him tightly.

“Careful! Careful!” He hissed. This time it wasn’t playing around he seriously was hurting and Zell squeezing him did not help.

He was quick to let go and looked down at the floor.

“Hey…” Seifer touched his hand to Zell’s face. “…I’m alright. Feel like I fell off a three-story building, but other than that I’m alright.”

He lifted his head to look back at Seifer and smiled a bit. "We made it…”

“Yeah, we did. Can’t relax yet though.” He winced as he stood. The world spinning as he moved.

“You, okay? You look a little wobbly.” Zell frowned with worry.

“Cracked my head on the ground pretty good.”

“Shit…The hell with the inn, you need your head checked.” With that Zell started to try and climb to his feet.

“I’ll be fine after I get some rest…”

“Not if you have a concussion… Don’t make me drag you.”

“As if you can do anything right now…” Seifer knelt down, “On my back.”

Zell frowned and sat there with a glare and clenched hands. “I did everything you told me to do in spite me wanting to help. So can we please just find a damn doctor…”

He sighed. “…Fine…Will you get on now?”

Zell relaxed and then climbed onto Seifer’s back.

He fought with all he had not to stumble. “….I’ll buy you a hotdog after this is done.”

“I don’t even want the hotdog, I just want us to be safe.”

“We will be…” He hoped. He had no idea what Esthar’s opinion of him would be.

Letting out a sigh Zell rested his head again Seifer’s shoulder.

Thankfully it wasn’t a long walk from where they were to finally get to a populated area. It was a lot easier getting help here than Seifer had imagined it would be.

Zell kept quiet. He was tired, but not as tired as Seifer is. “I keep thinking of food…”

“We’ll get you something soon enough. I don’t know this place but it looks like there is a clinic just ahead.”

“Mm, this whole place looks like it’s way too clean. Eh… if they give us any grief for some reason I’ll give them my SeeD ID.”

“Right…” He was too tired to care. Thankfully as soon as he stepped inside it didn’t look like they were busy. In fact, the staff seemed to notice them first and rushed to come help the two.

[nocllesnow]

snow magic.

fairy tail au where everyone is part of a guild and everyone has magic. noelle prefers to use her normal skills in the infirmary rather than use her snow magic.

when noelle was first introduced to the guild as a young child, no one had seen her for her. she was either the creation of one of the ten wizard saints, or she was the sub-par ‘cousin’ of the bjorgmans and the arendelles. when she wasn’t being asked what it was like to be not human, created artificially, she was being asked what it was like to know royalty.

it really was inevitable that she would hide inside her shell and not come out for years to come.

she would spend her time in the guild hall, hiding behind her more social family members, and was usually found in the corner of the infirmary, learning how to heal rather than use offensive magic. she became a permanent fixture there, to the point where she would arrive at the guild and make a beeline straight for the small room down the right corridor, at the very end.

people were used to seeing her there, too. if she wasn’t in the infirmary, people would seek her out in the guild’s main hall. long before she could properly go on a mission, she’d somehow made a name for herself by being the guild’s little nurse. eirella greene and crimson hood would be in need of first-aid at least once a week, and it wasn’t difficult to tell when they did. there would be shouts from the main hall at least ten minutes before they arrived, leaving her to be prepared.

they weren’t the only ones, of course. frederick stahlbaum would often come in with scratches and bruises despite being younger than her, and therefore not allowed to receive missions. talon porter also had a habit of dropping by a couple of times a month, but as he grew older and started mastering his powers all the more, his visits became less frequent. team miraculous would often request her assistance, often enough that all viviette bourgeois needed to do was poke her head around the door with an exasperated expression for noelle to understand what she needed.

she diligently helped out each and every person who crossed her path.

noelle was thirteen when she went on her first mission. she hadn’t gone alone, of course not. she’d gone with the rest of her family ( aside from lukas, who’d distanced himself from most of them long ago, and lucia, who was too young and too ill to go on a mission ), though it had only been a simple job, something a bunch of teenagers could handle. all they had to do was take out some local bandits that had been terrorising some of the more upscale stores in the city.

everything had been going fine until one of the bandits revealed he wasn’t only a mage, but he also used fire magic.

for a team whose members used a majority of snow and ice based magic, this wasn’t good. the others would be able to overpower him no problem, she had faith in robbie and lacey, but she was different. she may have been blessed with snow powers after she was born ( created ), but her snow was limited and tied to her body. if this bandit melted her snow, he would be melting her.

the others told her to run, but she didn’t want to leave them, she couldn’t, so she’d decided on a compromise. she hid herself nearby and climbed the nearest fire escape to the top of one of the taller buildings. everyone else was fighting down below -- no one had seen her yet.

taking a deep breath, her bright white seal lit up the concrete roof. it alerted the nearest enemy, but it was too late for him to alert his comrades as her white fury spell blew them away. it was the most magic she’d ever used, and while she wasn’t below average by any means, their futile retaliation with their fire spells made her feel light-headed and weak, and she’d found herself falling towards the stone street.

she didn’t stay awake long enough to see who caught her.

after that disaster, noelle had been too embarrassed to go on any missions that might require combat. she would choose more basic jobs, ones that didn’t really require any magic, and she vastly preferred the colder climates, too. still, she made sure to practice her magic on a regular basis, just in case, though she never did so around anyone else.

she was seventeen when she’d decided to do so behind the very back of the guilt building, attempting to try and master a new spell on the practice dummies she’d found in the storehouse, but it wasn’t working so well. sure, the spell hit, but it wasn’t powerful enough.

she re-read the spell. “okay, so i just cast it like this? am i doing it right?” she muttered to herself, turning the page to see if there was anymore information, but there was nothing.

“yeah, sure, if you want to give yourself an early death,” came a voice from behind her, and noelle stiffened. “you’ve got the spell okay, but don’t you know anything about strategy?”

slowly, noelle turned around, facing the girl ( who had very pretty hair, she noticed ) and said softly, “oh... no, i don’t. i’m not very good with that kind of thing...”

“you’re not good because you haven’t had me to teach you,” the girl said, and noelle was a little gobsmacked by her confidence.

it was a couple of months and one guild trip to noelle’s hometown later that veronika approached her in one of the guild’s hallways with a necklace in her hand and an anxious expression on her face.

the s class trials shouldn’t have come to this.

she didn’t know what the guild master was thinking, holding the trials on the isle lands. what did they and the magic council think would happen by sending them to the place the most notorious criminals lived? did they think the criminals would embrace their children with open arms? did they think they would accept those from the mainland with open arms? as if.

the riot had broken out and now it was over, as was the trial, and part of noelle wondered if they’d planned it. she stared at her hands as the chilly air brushed past her, but she barely felt it. those hands had taken a book to her girlfriend’s father, smacked him right in the head. it had been worth it, it had definitely been worth it, but her hands were supposed to heal.

later, veronika would tell her she was a hero, but she wouldn’t believe her.

three months came and went and noelle would occasionally think of those villains who had escaped from the isle, but nothing had happened. not until october.

the first hint should have been elliot walking around with that doll in the middle of the guild hall. the second should have been everyone else who had a doll themselves, and it took her too long ( by her standards, anyway ) for her to piece together what this all meant, what she’d heard form ada when the tiny girl had first arrived at the guild months and months ago.

before she could do anything to help, elliot was gone, along with his girlfriend, and lucia disappeared not long after. a good portion of the guild had gone missing over a mere few days without a trace.

a year ago, noelle may have been hesitant to follow the rescuers into the tunnel that led to their friends, but she was stronger now. when her family and friends were in danger, she wasn’t going to just stop and let the ‘authorities’ handle it. this was a job for the guild, and she was going with the rest of them, dammit.

and so she followed the lot of them, lily and veronika by her side, for once prepared to use her magic rather than hide away from the fight.

the infirmary was packed after the other mother’s arrest, and noelle wasn’t able to rest. she was mostly fine, a few soft spots in her body here and there, but she was otherwise in mint condition ( she really shouldn’t refer to herself like that -- she was the one always complaining about being treated like an object ). no, her job was to help everyone else right now.

she still wasn’t confident in using her powers, especially since hers were so closely linked to her body, but she figured that, now that she was stronger, using them every so often wouldn’t be too bad, right?

[marigoldbaker]

Bravery (26/27)

i THINK this is the second-to-last chapter but tbh who the fuck knows anymore?? certainly not me and i’m the one writing it

it’s also on ao3

“So!” Jenny reentered the library, looking around at the kids. “As you just saw, Giles is back, and we agreed that he’s going to be helping us in a strictly research capacity for now. Any questions?” Willow raised her hand. “What’s up, Willow?”

“Um, just that I was wondering if Giles is going to come on tonight’s patrol?” Willow asked nervously. “If he’s back, we could use help carrying supplies.”

“Yeah, I mean, not that I’m all welcome-back-Giles, but Willow does have a point,” said Xander, who was glaring at a point behind Jenny. She turned, and saw Rupert quietly exiting the office, shutting the door behind him. “We need someone to carry stuff.”

“Xander,” said Jenny.

“Well, I’m sorry if I’m not giving Runaway Guy a warm welcome,” said Xander loudly. “It’s not like you didn’t have the same reaction at first.”

Jenny felt the beginnings of a headache at this. It was really difficult to be faced with the fact that she was suddenly a role model for these kids. “It was a bad reaction to have,” she said finally. “Rupert is definitely trying to make amends, and we need to all be able to respect that, okay?”

Xander still looked mutinous, but he nodded sharply before going back to his paper.

“Garlic!” said Willow excitedly. As all eyes turned to her, she blushed a little and elaborated, “We should start thinking about how to attack vampires from a distance, you know? Since we’re not going to be using hand-to-hand combat and direct staking. And they can’t come close to us if we’re wearing garlic necklaces or something.”

“Ooh, I can pick up some garlic bread from the deli,” Jenny added cheerfully. “I love that stuff.” She crossed the room to sit down at the table and begin to write down a shopping list. “So we’re gonna need garlic, some of that twine from the art supply cabinet, um…can any of you sew?” Willow raised her hand with an excited smile. “Thanks, Willow,” Jenny said proudly. “You can make some garlic amulets.”

She dared to glance over at Rupert, expecting him to have a pensive expression at her half-formed plan. But her breath caught in her throat a little, because Rupert saw her looking and gave her a shy, admiring smile. And, yeah, he also looked vaguely worried, but it was his usual brand of vaguely worried, not a judgmental apprehension. Mostly he just looked hopeful.

Of course, there was always the possibility that he was trying to get back into her good graces by being supportive and helpful, but Jenny was okay with that, because it wasn’t going to be enough for her. Until she saw some kind of actual proof that he was making efforts to change the way he thought about her, not just sweet smiles and unhesitating support, she was going to hold off on trying to completely reconcile with him. She felt proud of herself for that.

“Flaming arrows!” Xander suggested. “Great ranged weapons.”

“We haven’t really worked a lot with the crossbow,” Jenny reminded him. “It’s a little risky to assume that you can aim well with it. Besides which,” she raised her right arm, which was still in its cast, “won’t really work for me.”

“Duly noted,” Xander agreed. “But we still need to start thinking of more ways to take down a vamp.”

“Beheading,” Willow suggested.

“Takes a lot of arm strength,” Oz pointed out. “Not to rain on your parade, Will, but I don’t know if any of us can slice and dice just yet.”

Jenny hesitated, thinking, then, “You know, I might have an idea, but it would rely a lot on Willow’s magic.”

“Magic?” Rupert repeated.

Jenny turned. Simply, she said, “I’ve been doing my best to guide her.”

“Jenny—”

“What?” said Jenny challengingly.

She waited for do you know how serious magics are, or are you aware of how corrupting power can be, but Rupert shut his mouth, opened it again, and said simply, “I trust you know the risks involved in using magic?” without a single hint of accusation or disapproval.

Jenny wanted to kiss him. It was a momentary urge, and she shoved it down hard, because basic respect from her ex should definitely not garner such an explosively thankful reaction. This was a start, not an improvement. “I do,” she said, inclining her head in his direction.

Rupert nodded awkwardly. “Well,” he said, and picked up a book next to him, thumbing through it aimlessly.

“You can sit down, you know,” Jenny suggested. “There’s still a few empty chairs here.”

“Right.” Rupert walked cautiously over to the table, choosing a seat next to Willow and giving her a nervous, hopeful smile. Willow smiled back. Jenny felt a weird little pang of something she thought might be jealousy and nearly snapped her pencil in half, because jeez, could she be any more childish?

“Magic?” Willow prompted Jenny, leaning into her slightly.

Jenny saw Rupert look surprised at Willow’s obvious affection for her and tried to suppress some equally childish gloating. “Yeah,” she agreed, turning to Willow. “I’m going to teach you a fire spell, and you’re going to ignite them with that.”

“Will that be enough, though?” Xander asked with a frown.

“Probably not, which is why Oz douses them with something flammable from a water gun,” Jenny explained. “It’s a bit of a touch-and-go plan, but it’s all I can think of at the moment—”

“Hold on.” Willow had a strange, contemplative look in her eyes. “Why not just use holy water? If we have big enough water guns, we can just use those, and those’ll work great for ranged weapons.”

“Willow!” said Jenny, astonished, and hugged Willow hard, pulling away to scribble holy water guns down on the paper. “That is a brilliant idea.”

Willow had turned bright red, but was grinning fiercely.

“So we set up some holy water guns,” said Oz.

“Can I still shoot my socks, though?” Xander asked hopefully. “I really liked that idea.”

“Come again?” said Rupert with a frown.

“Any kind of rolled-up fabric,” Jenny explained, “dipped in lighter fluid, launched by Xander, and I can probably borrow that potato gun the physics class made a few months back.”

“The physics class made a potato gun?” said Xander disbelievingly. “And Snyder wastes his time ragging on people for PDA and running in the hallways?”

“It’s my AP physics class,” Willow explained. “They’re mostly trustworthy, though I get the sense that Matthew Haverford shouldn’t really be anywhere near a potato gun—”

Jenny cleared her throat loudly. “Anyway,” she said, “potato guns only have one shot, so Xander, you really have to make this one count, okay? If it doesn’t work, we just go for the holy water.”

“I was a soldier, remember?” Xander replied with confidence. “I can pull off shooting a potato gun at a moving target.”

“You do realize that that knowledge is going to slowly fade without practice, though,” Jenny reminded him.

“Which is why it makes my practice on vamps incredibly important,” Xander pointed out. “Gotta make sure I can still shoot things.”

“Fair enough.” Jenny smiled at Willow, Xander and Oz, feeling a sudden rush of exhilaration and pride. She was in charge, and they had a plan that was inventive and actually reasonable. “You all did really well,” she said. “If this was a graded course—”

“Yeah, yeah, just apply the fact that I’m saving the world to a few of my computer class assignments and then we’ll talk,” said Xander. Willow giggled.

Jenny rolled her eyes, but her smile wasn’t going away. “Go get some water guns,” she said.

Xander had set himself up on the roof of the mausoleum with the potato gun and a bucket of water balloons, Willow and Oz were setting up their new and enormous squirt guns with a large amount of holy water, and Jenny, who couldn’t really contribute to much of the vampire fighting with a broken wrist, was settled comfortably under a tree with a large basket of garlic bread, a silver cross on her lap.

“You sure you’ll be okay over there?” Xander called down to Jenny from the roof.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Jenny replied easily. “Snacking.” She took a bite of garlic bread, which was buttery and warm, and smiled up at Xander. “Just don’t shoot me,” she instructed him playfully, and he grinned and nodded.

“Um,” said Rupert awkwardly.

Jenny looked up in surprise and realized then that no one had given Rupert anything to do. “Oh,” she said awkwardly, and scooted over on the blanket. “Uh, you can sit here if you want.”

“Thank you.” Rupert sat down next to her, placing his stake to the side. “Do you—”

Jenny handed him a piece of garlic bread and looked straight ahead. Willow and Oz were comparing water gun sizes.

“It’s a good plan,” said Rupert.

“I know,” said Jenny shortly. “They’re good kids.”

Rupert was quiet for a moment, then, “I didn’t mean to hurt them by leaving.”

“You hurt a lot of people when you left,” said Jenny, still not looking at him.

Rupert didn’t say anything. Jenny was grateful for that, because she didn’t think she could handle hearing him apologize again. It was starting to make her angry, and she wasn’t sure what to do with that anger anymore. There didn’t seem to ever be time for it.

Unexpectedly, and without warning, a hand shot up from a nearby grave. Jenny felt herself tense involuntarily, eyes immediately going to Oz and Willow, who were motioning to Xander. He was aiming the potato gun in on the target, Willow and Oz preparing themselves to rush in with water guns if Xander’s shot didn’t work. The kids looked fine—not at all nervous—but Jenny was suddenly incredibly afraid.

The vampire pulled itself up a little more, still not all the way finished clawing out of its grave. Its skin had the same pallid, eerie color as Angelus, and it made Jenny feel a little nauseous.

“Jenny,” said Rupert softly. She looked over and realized that she was clutching his arm. Hastily, she jerked her hand away, focusing in on Xander, very upset with herself for displaying the fact that she was scared. Because that was the whole reason Rupert had left, when it came down to the facts, he’d wanted to protect her because she wasn’t brave—

“Oh,” said Jenny, and suddenly she couldn’t be angry anymore, because it all made sense. She’d been so, so afraid, and worse than that was the fact that she’d been afraid Rupert would leave her if he knew. And then he did leave her, in some kind of misguided attempt to protect her, and all it had done was proven her fears right. He’d left her because she was scared, and he could tell, and he probably felt responsible for it.

Jenny looked up at Rupert, who of course had no idea of the epiphany she’d come to, and smiled a little sadly. Knowing the reasons for her feelings didn’t stop her from feeling them, no matter how much she wished it did. “Sorry,” she said simply.

Rupert sort of smiled. It looked a little like a grimace. “I understand,” he replied.

He didn’t. That was kind of the problem. Jenny leaned against the tree.

The vampire finally pulled itself all the way out of its grave, and its eyes locked with Jenny before a slow, predatory smile spread over its face. Jenny was expecting to be terrified, but she couldn’t see that same steely, dispassionate glint that Angelus’s smile had always held. This vampire was nothing but bravado and overconfidence, and she had to laugh.

Rupert stared at her.

“Feisty,” said the vampire, and grinned. “I like that in a woman. Shame about your arm, though.”

“Oooh, you gonna bite me?” Jenny stood up, smiling back threateningly. She could see Xander gesturing frantically for her to get out of the way so he could fire the potato gun, but there was a wild recklessness rushing through her. She felt brave, looking at a vampire and thinking I’ve seen worse. “Kinky. I’m not usually in for that sort of thing, though—ask him.” She jerked her head towards Rupert.

“Ms. Calendar,” Xander called sharply. The vampire didn’t turn to look at him; its eyes were fixed on Jenny with a strange fascination.

“You’re hardly a threat,” Jenny informed it, a laugh in her voice. “You’re hardly even a vampire. Ten seconds out of the coffin and you think you can own the world? Well, guess what,” and here she stepped forward, placing a hand on its shoulder, “you can’t even kill a sweet, defenseless little lady like me.”

“Try me,” said the vampire, and grabbed her around the waist.

Jenny didn’t like being touched like that, hard and possessive like she was someone’s to own and break. Angelus had broken her fingers like that, careful and romantic, looking at her with the same dispassionate gaze one might direct on an interesting belonging of theirs. Without a second thought, she hit the vampire in the face with her cast.

It hadn’t been expecting that. That was the thing about all those stupidly confident people—they never expected you to fight back. It staggered backward, tripped over a tombstone, and fell flat on its back a few feet away from Jenny, a perfect target for a flaming missile shot from the sky.

Xander hit it neatly in the chest and it caught on fire with a shriek. Staggering to its feet, the vampire batted helplessly at its jacket for a few seconds before finally ripping it off.

“You know, that wasn’t a lot of flame, come to think of it,” said Xander worriedly.

“You bitch,” snarled the vampire, eyes fixed on Jenny. She heard Rupert jump to his feet behind her, but threw her hand out to stop him.

“Oh, that’s cute,” Jenny said, crossing her arms and smiling at him in the same way she did particularly troublesome students who had just made their last mistake. “But sadly, it takes a little more than that to ruffle my feathers.”

“Speaking of feathers,” Willow added from behind the vampire, water gun aimed at his head, “howzabout we ruffle yours?”

[osmw1]

Poison-Wielding Fugitive   Chapter 5

See, I’ve decided on the request already, but I just can’t shake the fact that I’ll be battling monsters off my mind. Can I really fight in a battle out of the blue? All I can do is use Poison Release and throw swamp toxin. I don’t have any weapons beside that.

‘Is it a weapon you desire? If so, move somewhere you will not be seen.’

What are you trying to do? As per Veno’s instruction, I walked behind the town hall and made sure that no one was watching.

‘Good. I shall take it out now.’

As soon as I saw the gleaming in front of me, a sword and armor simply appeared with a thud.

“Wh-what the hell?!”

I blurted out loud before I even realised. No, I understand that it’s something Veno did, but how it suddenly happened is astonishing.

“…”

It was some Western-looking sword and armor. Though I haven’t seen the real deal before, I’m well-acquainted with ones from videogames and manga. I gently pick it up. I imagined it to be rather heavy, but it was a light as a stick.

Flyiron Sword +4 Quality: Superior Required level: None Bonus effects: Flyweight An alloy sword made with outstanding metal ores. Light as a feather so that it can even be wielded by a complete novice. However, the weight is inconsistent.

Smoke Armor +3 Quality: Fine Required level: None Bonus effects: Smoke Magic armor crafted by solidifying smoke. Though it is smoke, it is solid and light. However, beware that it is not impervious to water.

Robe of Concealment +3 Quality: Fine Required level: None Bonus effects: Cloaking; Reveal Resistance (Low) A robe able to camouflage its wearer. Woven to disguise ordinary users. Made from the skin of monsters with high concealing abilities. Resistant to revealing magic and grants disguising capabilities.

You can tell this is equipment with a focus on being lightweight. Even I can equip this no problem. The armor, though… feels weird to the touch. Kinda like a beanbag chair? It’s a very odd texture. However… everything is nicely decorated and you can tell it is quality.

‘Equip this and you shall be fine.’

… exactly as I was thinking. Won’t deny that. But there’s a few things I want to point out, if that’s alright.

‘What is it?’

Where did you take this out from?

‘Ah. I have employed Compression Storage Magic on those items. I can rather easily retrieve anything stored. The lot who casted Forced Possession Summoning are unlikely to be able to detect this amount of magic.’

Judging by his words, these items that Veno had held on to from the beginning must be good stuff.

‘I, too, am a dragon. It is more or less in our nature to maintain a collection. If we could return to my lair, I would show you my hoard. Unfortunately, I am uneasy about that.’

So, I get that he’s telling me to equip the sword and shield, but who did it come from?

‘Before I had Forced Possession Summoning casted on me, challengers recklessly come for to fight, get defeated, and I plunder their goods. Is that not obvious? They were carrying fairly good equipment, so I applied storage magic and forgotten about it.’

In short, then, the estate of nameless heroes?

‘I had not killed them. Merely stripped them of their property.’

Sure, this stuff is quite helpful, but shouldn’t I just sell it all off for the money?

‘Think carefully, you fool. You would be a man who cannot be mistaken as anyone strong, selling expensive-looking equipment and goods, and turning it all into money. What do you think barbarians—these fools who are devoted to only their desires—would do to you?’

Well, yeah. It’s not uncommon to hear of robbers that specifically target people who are travelling abroad. It would be rather dangerous if I simply sell off Veno’s possessions.

‘In any case, I have nothing of the sort at hand. You should not only rely on what I have either. Anything better than what you currently hold has level requirements. If not, it is mass-produced swords and spears at best. Furthermore, I do not have that much of stock since it is rubbish, aye?’

So, to a dragon, normal swords and spears and other weapons are trash? He only takes what’s rare, eh? Well, I’ll just use what I’m given.

I first put on my armor and then draped the robe on top… it seems like it should’ve been a nice fluffy robe, but it feels more like linen. The surface of the robe is also changing colors. It’s light and helpful too. I tie the sword and belt given to me to my hip.

‘Then I will store the clothes you have worn until now.'

The suit, shirt, and trousers I had been wearing suddenly disappeared, as if they had warped space-time. Only the armor and robe was left. … but why did you store my clothes?

‘So that you can freely go into combat. I also want to give you a bow and arrows. However, I have judged that it is too early for you to use what I have in stock.’

Ah, yeah… for someone like me with no combat experience, a bow or crossbow would be better. I’m not certain if I can hit anything at distance, but ranged combat is powerful. I could even smear poison on the arrowheads.

… well, not much I can do about it since I can’t equip it anyway. Honestly, having never fought before, there’s a limit to what Veno can do for me. There’s a limit to how I can use Poison Release too, right? I mean, all I can do is chuck it at a target. Since I’m weak, I’ll have to somehow connect my strikes…

‘It seems like I can somehow use Compression Storage Magic on your items too. You need not carry so much of your belongings.’

That skill is really convenient, huh? Well, no reason not to use it.

‘Humans, too, can use magic like this if they are a high-ranking magician. It seems like it does not exist in your world though… was it not inconvenient?’

So sorry, but the Japan I lived in doesn’t have any magic that handy. Or rather, nothing so extremely expedient. Where do the items go if the owner dies?

‘Obvious it gets scattered by the corpse.’

… what? It feels like I’ve caught a glimpse of an RPG or something where monsters drop weapons or items.

‘By the way, this spell does have a few peculiarities to it. Of course, there is a limit to how many one can store at a time, but as well, items will continue to deteriorate, and can be interfered with while in holding. A skilled user, though, would be able to indefinitely keep ice without it melting. Well, one could always use magic to create more ice, but still…’

How good are you then, Veno?

‘Do not look down on me, aye? I could swallow up this entire village and still have space left over. But, well, there are limitations, so it would be impossible for me to store away the whole village right now.’

He did say his mana has been strained. It otherwise wouldn’t be much of a hardship for him. Still, having that much capacity is a boon.

‘Aye. Anything that you can carry on your back would be easy, but beyond that would be, for the time being at least, a spot of bother. On the other hand, I promise I shall keep your items from deteriorating to the best of my abilities.’

Don’t mind if I take this convenient item box magic. Well, now… I’ve finished my preparations and I said I’ll try my hand at adventuring, so let’s go try picking some flowers. I take the request off the bulletin board and, as Veno instructed, headed back the way Arleaf and I came from.

I’m simply going back the same way, but… there’s an ominous, maybe uneasy feeling in the air? I wouldn’t be surprised if a monster were to pop out any time. When Arleaf was here, it wasn’t like this at all. Maybe it’s because I’m all alone?

‘I am here, no?’

Veno, huh? A self-proclaimed dragon who is talking in my head doesn’t really soothe this feeling of isolation. He did prove his existence by giving me weapons though.

‘If you are feeling lonely even with me… does not that mean that you are a lonely person?’

… I’m going to pick my battles. I ignore him and put my feelers out. If this were a game, then I’d probably be worse than a lv 1 villager. There are only simple fields around this area so there might be a small fry or two roaming about. Random encounters would be scaled to the level of the character in a videogame, but this is real life. Enemies lv 30 or 40 might pop out all of a sudden. Suppose the villagers around here are all at least lv 35. It would be an instant checkmate for me. It might be better for my chances of survival if I target easy monsters and strike swiftly.

‘Calm yourself. You have my support. I will use my knowledge to tell you whether a monster you face is dangerous or not.’

That’s convenient, but a fight safe for a dragon wouldn’t necessarily be safe for a human. Again, I have no combat experience.

‘You are certainly helpful to me by focusing on your surviving. However, how you do not place trust in me is aggravating. I would like for you to not to get carried away with ridiculing me.’

As I was walking with vigilance… A monster’s name appeared with a blip in my field of vision.

Chrome Yellow Poisonwhip

It’s a monster that looked like nothing more than a vine growing in a nook on the path. The vine itself is reasonably thick.

This thing wasn’t here when I was with Arleaf. But it’s got a damn long name. The name is so hard to remember that I’d even forget if this were a videogame.

‘Ah, that is an easy one. Part of the ecology, but the tip of the vine will first try to spray venom to weaken its opponents, wrap itself around them, and turn them into fertilizer.’

That right? So? Is it something a lv 1 can beat?

‘Even I cannot determine any and every human’s fighting capabilities. But, it would be wise for you to try launching a surprise attack on it and cutting it down with your sword.’

Will I be alright? Even with the advice, I’m not fully sure about my own specs or the performance of my weapon.

‘Fortunately, if you conceal yourself to the best of your abilities, I believe your disguise will not be seen through. Pretend like you have not noticed it and calmly walk up to it. Before you are engaged by it, swing your sword while you run past from behind.’

Gotcha. Perhaps due to the effects of my Robe of Concealment +3, the Chrome Yellow Poisonwhip doesn’t fully notice me. I pretend to be calm and walk up to the tree that the Chrome Yellow Poisonwhip is entwined to. It senses my approach and waits for its chance to take me by surprise. Before I let the Chrome Yellow Poisonwhip get the drop on me, I dash out without pausing and pass behind it. Like a kid swinging a stick at the air, I brandish my sword. The tendril of the Chrome Yellow Poisonwhip was extremely easy to sever. A clean cut. The part still entwined to the tree turned limp and frail and rolled onto the ground.

The Chrome Yellow Poisonwhip’s tendril screeches out as I make contact with it.

“Seems like you cut all right,”

I mutter to the Flyiron Sword +4 while looking at the blade.

Maybe because it’s amazingly light and cuts well, it’s rather easy to wield. It cuts as well as a fresh boxcutter on a piece of paper. I was merely pretending to be a samurai or something but it went so well. As its final act of resistance, the Chrome Yellow Poisonwhip crooks its neck like a snake and sprays its toxin at me.

While I quickly dodge its attack, the Chrome Yellow Poisonwhip flops limp and became still. And then it says here that I earned 12 EXP. My experience of RPGs tells me that anything more than 1 or 2 is wicked. By MMORPG standards, that was a higher-level monster.

‘It seems like you have emerged victorious for your first battle.’

It doesn’t feel like I’ve fought a lot though… There would’ve been some kind of victory fanfare when a battle ends in a game, but in reality, it’s like this. Still, winning is winning. At the very least, I’ve still defeated a living monster.

‘For your first battle, fighting an easy monster like this is best. Experience outweighs anything else. Plus, I get a better understanding of your skills.’

Since I’ve experienced my first battle, I’ll go check my status. How much ‘til I reach the next level? Looks like I’m 80% of the way there already.

‘Oi. Do not lose focus. Are you listening?’

To level up from lv 1 to 2, I need 14 EXP in total, huh? I wonder if I can level up from fighting one more? I succumb to an impulse to search for another monster.

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