Baldur

As Baldur stepped back, giving everyone else the space to attack the knight, he felt the reverberation of the harmonics between his strike on the crystal monster. It hadn't hit with the same effect he meant it to, but his strategy was still in place. He slid <<Ethereal Tether - Zanshin>> back into its saya at his hip, and then place his hand on <<Muramasa>>. The cursed blade hummed with a different kind of energy, begging to be freed from its slumber, but Baldur pushed that hunger back with the same iron clad control that he always did. It was the reason he had been tru

As Darkness descended over sections of the square, and more and more players escaped, the voids in the player's phalanx began be exploited, and the inky, wet forces of the deep slipped through, attacking the backs of players that were queuing for the teleport plaza. <<Kumamon>> heard the calls for retreat and pushed his way towards the teleport plaza. As a scout, he came prepared with teleport crystals, but he hadn't been expecting a brawl in what should have been another safe zone. He was expecting the normal party, exploring a fresh new city, interrogating new NPCs to try an

"Well that's new." Baldur remarked as one of the player familiars took a glass shard and suddenly turned into another of these boss monsters. "We definitely need to let others know about that... I guess it makes sense there's no NPCs on this floor." Freyd as his familiar dove into the attack without hesitation, though Freyd called out concerned over his familiar, they had a powerful 1-2 punch. Not to be outdone, Baldur threw himself at the Spectral Knight. "It has the ability to apply a bunch of DoT attacks to a huge area, so just be careful of that!" As Baldur drew his sword, t

Baldur couldn't help but smile when Jomei said that he was willing to join. He had figured that Hirru might be more of a hard sell on the matter. His friend had been holding himself back for a while, so Baldur knew that this might take a bit of encouragement. Hirru never saw himself the way everyone else saw him. That was part of the reason why he wanted to ask both of them together. Not only would they back each other up as leaders, but Baldur knew that Jomei would provide a point of view that was more unbiased in Hirru's mind than that of one of his oldest friends. "Thank you Jomei. I w

Baldur smiled at Acanthus' demonstration with the chopstick. He took his own and broke one of the two sticks in half, and then stabbed a sushi roll with it as he used it to take a bite. "None of us are unbroken chopsticks, Acanthus. In the assault team, we don't have a choice to go out and use only the pristine ones. We have veterans returned from battle, broken and crying in their sleep. I am one of them." He paused for a moment, having never said as much to anyone else. "No one earns their fate, none of deserve this situation we've been thrust into, we have only the choice of

A blue flash shot through the air and crashed into the ground near Freyd's group and Acanthus. It cratered the ground and throw a cloud of dirt and dust into the air around them. Then the sound of groaning and the silhouette of a man standing up could be seen, using a sword to prop himself up. "Oh... hey guys." The trail of smoke that came from Baldur and his dusty blue haori still hung in the air from where he had arced over the next hill. "Acanthus... there you are! I was told you might be out here." Baldur's steel blue eyes glanced at the top of the hill and then he shea

<<Kaajh'Kaalbh - Mother of Smiles>> As the newly buffed MorningStar came for the Mother again, her smiles widened, ready for player with her new round of shields in place, but once again the player's sword arts crashed into her, and while his damage was blocked, her smiles were once again frozen. They tried to writhe with anger, but the paralytic venom held her in place, with his hit, one of the smiles seemed to peel off of her face like a sticker that had lost its adhesive and floated to the ground. "RRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!" It screamed wordlessly at him through smiles that re

Baldur chuckled at Jomei's remarks about the heat in the volcano, "It reminds me of summers in Kyoto." Unlike Hirru, however, Baldur had his <<Survival>> mode on. They weren't likely to be pressed to the brink here, so he didn't need to bring his parry mod. "And yeah, we'll need to fight the bigger version. The trick is that if you get all three of his heads in a narrow health window, he will summon more adds. Once we kill those adds, we'll be able to finish off the quest boss. The difficult part for us, will be doing little enough damage to not simply kill the heads. Thankful

As the <<Phoenix>> dove down to attack them, Baldur stepped in front of Morningstar. It wasn't an act of bravery to protect the man, he obviously didn't need Baldur's help with the Phoenix, other than efficiency's sake. No, Baldur stepped in front of Morningstar so that they were was no question about where the bird would go. Rather than trying to target it with a sword art and guess who it might attack, Baldur put both of them in its flight path. As entered the part of its diving arc where it came straight at them, Baldur sliced the air once, then twice, and as he did so crescent

Baldur returned the bow that Alkor gave him. They had not spoken in a long time, not since their fight. Something about the man had changed, and Baldur couldn't help but want to dig in, and see if the man had stopped letting the expectations of others control him and who he was allowed to be. The gaijin samurai realized he didn't even know where the man had left things with Lessa, which had been a source of strife for the man at the time. "Alkor, good to see you again." Regardless, he viewed Alkor as a peer, and someone Baldur had crossed blades with in a way that was not life or dea

When Acanthus questioned the ability to really know someone, Baldur opened his mouth slightly to release one of the many witty, platitudes he was known for, but when Acanthus recovered and continued it gave him pause. There was a kernel there that needed to be explored, but for now he merely knew there was more to that feeling than a simple platitude could help. Slowly, she released a white knuckled grip on the cup, that had this been the real world, he might have been worried would have broken. She was nervous, perhaps, talking about the frontline. So he let the conversation flow. I woul

<<Kaajh'Kaalbh - Mother of Smiles>> "Welcome back, my dear..." The Mother of Smiles says as Morningstar returns to the fight, but before she can embrace him with a loving smile and hug, the player lands his stunning attack with an explosive sword art. It is then, he notices, that her smile disappears. Did she have more of them before? Then Crozeph came in, playing racquetball with a hex, and while it was effective against the faceless Mother of Smiles, as his attack pushed her health bar down into the second, a shiver ran through her stunned form and her face was once aga

Baldur listened carefully to Acanthus' story and was pleased that she was so willing to open up to him. It felt good to have someone to talk to, both for him and he hoped for her as well. People needed someone to talk to, and a space they felt safe doing so. She had come to the frontline later than some, but there were always new people joining the fight. "I think most people would call me a veteran, but my first involvement in a boss fight was the floor 9 boss... and I didn't even fight it. That's the one where Alkor kinda but not really died. People were going to go into that fight with

When Star brought up Kayaba wanting to experience the game from front row seats, Baldur's mind's eye turned back to Freyd, and seeing him disappear into the boss's embrace, only to reappear somewhere else. Then to watch the man die before he was resurrected right before Baldur's eyes. Perhaps Kayaba was there watching from the front row. "Ope, let's get to it then." Baldur put the lid on the bento as the Phoenix grew closer, then slowly put the food back into his inventory and dusted off his haori before resettling it around his shoulders as the Phoenix screeched and moved into a div

Baldur accepted the tea and sake with genuine appreciation, giving her a slight seated bow as he accepted them from her. He admired each in turn, letting her explain the teas and where they came from, before setting them down on his opposite side. "Thank you very much! I still appreciate sake, even if I can't get drunk form it. Even in the outside world, getting drunk is not an activity I take part in, though warm sake on a cold winter night... it can be difficult not to get a little tipsy." He gave a slight, embarrassed laugh. "I will be very interested to try this Tomioka tenderleaf. I