Teion

Teion leaned back and nodded again. ”Okay, yeah, if you’re into regular horror that opens up so many options.” Another sip. She made the mistake of setting her glass back down on the bar. No sooner had her fingers left the rim, than the drink refilled itself again. ”I’ve got a soft spot for fae stuff, but I haven’t found much that really gives me anything to do with it.” A frown and a shrug, and then a plain white hand-towel landed in her lap. ”Never thought a rag would come in handy.” She murmured, leaning her head and gathering her hair to one side. She clawed her fingers through a coup

”No kidding.” Teion muttered dryly. It was unclear which piece she was agreeing with exactly, if not all of it. Still, the chipper attitude he followed up with had her exhale sharply through her nose alongside his chuckle. ”Hey, you know where you need to head next?” She picked her head up from where she’d been sinking into her shoulders with a sudden confidence. ”Floor 24. Not a forest in sight, as far as I know. It’s all islands, beaches… It’s even got a vaguely Greek thing going on, with a colosseum and all that.” She waved lazily at the last part, as it wasn’t her main draw. ”Unless the oc

Teion mulled over his very normal answer. She gently turned the glass around in her hand, walking her fingers against its cool surface up until he took a stab at his own age. Then it was like she’d swallowed her own thoughts. He was so much older than her. Not that this place didn’t make her feel like she’d put on a few years, both in pure stress and in forcing her to grow up fast in some aspect or another. Thinking about it, he started to remind her of someone. A friend she hadn’t seen in some time. At first she thought Shield might be dragging her out by her collar if he were here, but

She did as he suggested, directing her sights to the upper corner of her vision, pushing past the actual environment to regard her HUD where the two of their names sat next to green health bars. Now she finally noticed there was something new next to either of them. She squinted a little and focused on the icon until it revealed its secrets to her and she read the effects of the «Lightweight» debuff. An expression washed over her like she’d found what she’d been looking for. ”You’re fucking kidding me.” She whispered out the words under her breath, disbelief mixed with pure amusement. Tei

Reytac was less cautious with the glass posed for him. Or maybe he was just in more of a hurry to get it over with. Teion plucked her drink from the counter and pulled it close to her face. The scent hit her, sharp and inviting all at once. She didn’t have to take a whiff to feel the prickling in her nose. The last time she consumed something carelessly, it led to a less than favorable experience. Then again, nothing about their circumstances was anything like that time. Giving in to curiosity, she brought the rim of the glass to her lips moments before Reytac called out in warning. She d

Teion turned around, stopping short. She nearly ran into the blue floating rectangle that seemed to have been waiting behind her. Brow still furrowed, her eyes ran over the single line of text. ”More or less… Usually we’ll just get a box that lists out the rewards. Sometimes even if there is an NPC handing it to you.” She shook her head lightly, dismissing the ever-weird behavior, and went to dismiss the notification. Her hand hovered lost above it, finger extended but unable to find a place to land. There was no ‘Confirm’, ‘Deny’, no little circular buttons whatsoever. Teion frowned, the

She was still pressed against the side of the wagon, unwilling to turn her back on the side of the road where that haunting little laughter had kept bubbling up from. She heard Reytac’s reply without seeing him move back to the front to hoist up the handle. She was too busy scrunching her nose in mild confusion. ”Name?” She echoed in a mutter. Had they both been hallucinating? Was Cardinal whispering sour nothings to them, separately, just to keep them on edge? Before she’d had a good chance to mull the thought, the wagon lurched behind her and she was thrown off her balance with a grunt jerke

Teion gave a muted chuckle at Reytac’s specific wine barrel example. But then he kept talking, kept explaining. She looked back to him, mildly disturbed, as it quickly became clear that he wasn’t just off-handedly making things up. ”I…see.” She didn’t harp on it, but instead shook her head. ”Wine barrel sounds like it bits the bill, but…” She really didn’t want to leave anything to chance, lest they be forced to trudge all the way back out here with that damned wagon in tow. A quick, careful check through the ship yielded them one more probably useful object to haul back in the form

The breath that pushed out her nose tried its best to keep steady, but shook nonetheless while her eyes darted across the deck. They strained against the low light, letting off a dim glow of yellow layered over their normal blue. Cardinal allowed this basic of mercys, her Night Vision sparing her all but the darkest reaches of shadow. Yet they found nothing. Where one abomination crept, she anticipated hundreds to swarm out at any moment, to overrun them. Perhaps that would explain the empty ship. Her eyes landed on a worn pair of boots, stopped at first, then walking towards her. She fol

The frown on her face deepened a bit. He talked through the feeling, and his words about taking the wrong steps rang truer in her ears than she would have liked. She was quiet for a few moments longer, but as the hint of uncertainty hung in the air with his sentiment, she offered a small, audible agreement. ”No, I get it. I’ve been kind of getting that, too.” With little to do besides wait the last couple of minutes before the ship made it to the docks, Teion heaved a short sigh. ”Y’know, we don’t have to stay.” She pointed out. ”Not to stomp on all the fun we’re having,” The corner of he

It was miserable, trudging through the empty, uneven streets. The only thing she had to be thankful for was that the cart they lugged was empty and therefore relatively light between the two of them, but she knew that wouldn’t be true on the way back. What was she doing out here? They’d nearly reached the docks when the thought occurred to her. Was the quest reward worth it? What even was the reward? She couldn’t remember seeing one listed–or many details at all, now that she thought about it. Her frown set deep, and she let out a tired sigh when they’d finally crept up on the edge of the

The man was hard to read. Not that Teion had a knack for reading people, but still. She watched his response without attempting to hide the cautious, almost suspicious feeling that was creeping up on her. She’d kept her survival instincts sharp for some time now, or so she’d tell herself, and for a time held people an arm-and-a-half’s length away due to some of the more dangerous company she chose to keep. But nowadays she was a bit more laid-back. Keeping the gates closed to every stranger that passed them by was tiresome. shatter– –into nothingness Teion’s head whipped to her

She listened to his explanation with mild indifference. A frontline-hopeful. She could hardly rebuff his aspirations, given how proudly Ryo stood among those ranks. Teion could only acknowledge her own decision to stay away from it. ”Hmm.” She gave a short hum in response, followed by a blunt comment, ”It’s certainly not boring up there.” His shift in tone caused her to look back at the man–at least after she was done tackling that stubborn glass–when he introduced himself. ”Oh.” She echoed, realizing that they’d briefly missed that step of exchanging names. ”I’m Teion. Mostly just a blac

His initial response was the opposite of what she was thinking–that she had expected to see someone else around, somewhere, on this floor, but that it was strange that it had taken this long. His admission of a teleportation mishap caused her to cock an eyebrow and take another brief look over him. Her eyes paused at the hammer in his hands. Best she could tell, it looked incredibly basic. She thought about prying over his level, asking why he wouldn’t just head back down to a lower floor. Instead, she just frowned and turned her gaze back to the building. He’d said exactly what she was thinki

This floor stunk of salty mildew. For a good twenty minutes, Teion’s nose had been wrinkled over the smell assaulting her nostrils, but after that she must have acclimated. That, or the rain sputtering down on her was keeping her sufficiently distracted. ”What an absolute ghost town.” She murmured, nearly scoffing. Not an NPC, player, monster, or so much as a rat in sight. Teion was left to wonder if this floor was so vile that all of the frontliners abandoned it to continue rotting just as soon as the boss fell. She wouldn’t have blamed them. Standing outside what may have once been