Freyd

 >♪< 

Like the second hand spinning wise the clock towards destiny’s irrepressible advance, Montjoy’s figure stretched and pivoted across the room.  Drawn as tides are to the moon, glossing over every surface of the space, marking time in mementos beneath the slice of ending’s vanguard, a black needle hurtling at agony’s glacial pace…

… a violin’s silenced song
     … a bottle’s dreams turned to bitter vinegar
          …a wish for better days, its hopeful message burnt to ashes
               …. a cursed infatuation set against the flame’s enticing serenade
                    … a soggy frog, frosted over and forgotten amidst debris
                         …a mirror’s lost reflections and ambitions shattered by the blooming cold

Injustice rankled ‘neath a cowl flinched suddenly back into its proper place: fittingly, an executioner’s hood revealed for all it ever was. Black. Dull. Hollow. Freyd, Faceless, black blade rising, adding dimensions to the ticking of time’s heartless unraveling. He had wound himself too tight, clockwork’s mechanisms snapping under so much tension, pushed beyond all limits of persistence, patience and sufferance. Too much calculus, unleashed, devoid of mercy’s light or sympathy.

Guilty.

It wasn’t right. Too many stains. Too many missing graves marked with runes bearing the same causes over, and over, and OVER on a polished stony field of white.  And now the world should yield its consequence for fleeting romance sake?!  Anathema.  Madness. WRONG.

Even his brother-in-doom’s solution tasted too boldly like conveniently contrived chemical salvation.  A bottled panacea, left by luck’s sheer happenstance to solve the piling woes?  How nice to have the world forget all missteps and transgressions? How nice the rueful wrongs that right themselves at hand’s liquid wavings.  Drown your sorrows in a bottle and forget.  

Veritas gave way to its own absence, replaced by Samael’s Pride, that craven engine of destruction never far from calamity’s event horizon.  It seemed summoned to the scene of its own will and accord.  This was its domain, cursed to serve as lever to unleash so many final curtain calls.  Despoiler of hope, borne by the diremost fool and puppet dancing upon his own strings.

Lancaster’s broken confession, too little too late to reach a heart no longer capable of listening.

Raidou’s desperate need to pour enough magic on the problem ‘til it vanish beneath a shining sea of eternally hopeful sparkles.

Mari’s tears reflecting years of untold suffering, most of them belonging to others.  Freyd saw in them only the weeping of her victims mixed together with a lifetime of calamitous mistakes. 

…and the sword came down.   

***

Or so Freyd’s mind’s eye envisioned the denouement to a tragic sordid tale of a dinner gone so incredibly, horribly wrong.

Things still stood at the precipice edge, Mari watching Rai’s monstrous release as Lancaster’s soul spilled forth for feasting upon by his prisoner’s confessional. All three others bearing witness to the honest measure of the man.  Was he deserving of last rites?

"Freyd. Montjoy. Takeshi." A blink, and despite her best efforts tears would trickle down her face. "I don't want to forget your anger - I don't want to forget your words today. I love you, All of you. You're my brother. The only person in this place I'd consider my family. Family fight. But if you try to strike him down. I will stand in your way. I won't fight you. I couldn't. Please, let him choose."

Turning and opening the vial, accepting whatever fate she was offered, Mari’s reach and dropper exposed the lingering scar ringing her left wrist and Lancaster’s brand girded against pale finger flesh, borne through and despite all her struggles. Beloved resigned to pleading for her to deliver his fate, she moved to deposit fortune against the tune of singing steel’s passage through wind and the silence of collective frozen breaths.

Dolop struck tang instead of moistened orb, death strike stopped mere fraction’s fraction above the mark, a few snipped crimson whiskers from his brow hemming in omission’s liquor in the tiniest of barricades. Viscous roiling dark teetered at the literal knife’s edge.

“Earn this.” Freyd’s words curt and cutting at Lancaster’s shaken gaze as he withdraws his blade.  “Earn her. Every. Single. Day.  It might be easier with your wits intact."  Gaze fixed upon the tangerine they'd witnessed in a hazy fever dream from his own earliest days. "I always knew she’d be a beacon someday. I just never imagined she'd be yours.”

The cowl remained on his shoulders. The Faceless monster’s hold remained at bay for one more breath, one day more, and as many beyond as he could manage.  What was one more straw upon this ebon camel’s back?

“Put that stuff away, Mari.”  The Whisper’s eyes called her sister. She would know, having seen the same gaze protecting her from Akir's wrath as she had just done against his own. “It’s more dangerous than this situation can afford.”

*Snikt*

Blade back in its saya, Freyd’s gaze wandered past the Wanderer, drifting to the unclad mirror, thankful that he could somehow still see himself gazing back.

Sensing opportunity as Mari struggled not to wretch, Akir’s polearm drove forward in a lunge, only to be parried, deflected by an unexpected interrupt.  The formless black figure with azure eyes wielding a sword of utter nothingness, had blocked the blow and drawn the failing mob’s ire, if only for a moment.

“Stay out of this!  She’s mine.” Akir seethed, her words slurring through failing mouth and cheeks. “You know the rules.  Don’t interf-” The gemini’s eyes widened with fear as the black blade flickered and reappeared at he throat, its bearer sidestepping slowly before pulling away.

She sneered, which became an awkward sneeze dribbling bits of former nose into a flaking trail falling from her face.  Akir became gaunt, her skull emerging as flesh failed and gave way, first to decaying musculature, then the framework below.  Without tissue to connect them, the bones still somehow clung to their proper places - a vaguery of the system’s effect, possibly rendering her undead.

“Evolving?!  What are you babbling about?  Sorry!?  You’re sorry?  Oh, sure, now you pay attention to me.”

Akir's barbs seemed to weaken along with her withered form, her size diminishing as she shed height and mass in an increasing desiccating dustfall.

"No, no, no, nononono!  I won't go back!"

***

"But it doesn't mean I like to watch anything suffer."

"Yes it does!  Of course it does. Don't lie to yourself. I've felt your glee at tinkering with with baubles that could wipe out whole villages." She spat with disdain, a loose tooth lost to the decaying effects afflicting her failing form.  As their duel wore on, Akir's preternatural beauty became increasingly marred by the effects of repeated applications of blight and venom from Contagion's touch.  Bits of her skin were flaking off, leaving dandruffy contrails as she wove and danced across the clearing with persistent agility.  Not quite up to par with Mari's but enough to make her a threat and nuisance supreme.

"You're right though Akir...having something look like someone I care about...does tug at the heartstrings." 

"RaaaaaAAAAHHH!"

Overreaching, the fading gemini's bladed pike missed Mari by a wide margin, but still enabled her to whirl and decapitate the wayward Lancaster, whose attendant barely rolled away in time.  The lover's form discorporated into a put of smoke and sprinkles, peppered with darkly glowing embers.

"I care!  I CARE about all the things YOU used to, traitor.  The caustic miasma of toxic blood. Flames fickle grace as it danced across the clothing of their flailing wearers even as it consumed them.  So many colourful eyes full of terror as the Pink PKer advanced upon their helpless, disabled bodies.  Ah, the good old days!"

THWAK!

Bludgeon met temple, Akir sprawling form struggling to recover its discombobulated senses and tumble back to unsteady feet.  Her balance was off, leaving her listing heavily to the left, trying to prop herself up long enough to re-commit to the fight.

"So we admit it." Mari said quietly as she knelt down beside Akir. "we care for him. Else you wouldn't even bother." A tilt of her head. "Doesn't that mean we're changing?"

"We care for him to the same extent he cares for us, fool.  It's a tryst; a fling!  A romp in the sack meant to bring fleeting moments of not-self-loathing."  Cackling, even as her lips began to melt and reveal a blackened skeleton beneath, Akir refused to concede.

"We care about a few  people now."

"And yet," Akir wheezed, her lungs filling poison and breath struggling to function, "you still... can't properly... care... for yourself..."

***

"Tired?  TIRED?!  I've done nothing but rest in your miserable, withering innards!  NO.  I AM NOT FUCKING TIRED.  That's your stupid shtick."

Try as she might, the gemini failed to free herself from the system's restraining shackles, raging at her nearby enemy even as the ginger curiously coddled the very creatures she claimed to hate.

"Soft spot for redheads, huh?  Yeah.  We can definitely have fun with that.  Just like I'll have whatever's left of him when I'm finished with you.  Lancaster and I will have such a good time.  I'll remind him of every little spot you used to prod and lick.  The man is just sooo.... VISCERAL...."  Akir practically purred as she spoke the words, despite the rictus claiming hold over most of her body.

As Mari lowered the poor mauled mimic of Lancaster's form to the ground, she found another had broken ranks and come to her aid.  This one had eyes, piercing azure, like those a tiny mongoose she once knew had possessed. The lanky figure knelt opposite to her, on false Lancaster's far side and tended to illusory wounds as only shadows might. Orbits offering succor in the form of sympathy, she felt its cool reach graze over the missing stump of her hand.  Head titling back towards her straining nemesis, she got the gist of its missing words.

Go kick her ass.

***

EAL: Alchemist quest eval.

Name:  Boredom's Absolution
Your Profession:  Alchemist
Your Rank: Rank 0
Roll ID: 249042
Roll Result: LD 20+, CD 12+
Item Type:  Salve
Tier: T1
Quality:  Perfect
Enhancements:  Antidote 3
Description: Scented strangely like dandelions and meadow grass, this simple balm eases the careworm as surely as a summer's day can banish foul fatigue's blight.
Link: https://www.sao-rpg.com/topic/42449-pt-sp-01-nothing-is-forgotten/?do=findComment&comment=699691

Thread Closing:

3x T1 Field bosses (3x 100 exp) = 300 exp

Mari receives:

15,933 EXP (Word Count [6514/5*12] + Field Bosses [300] + 0% Guild Rank bonus)
2,790 col (1 page [400] + 15% P5 Reward [2,390] + 0% Guild Rank bonus)
1x Matriarch's Stinger | 249040a
1x Snowfrost | 249040b
1x Sand Armor Potion | 249040c
1 Mon

Freyd receives:

27,673 EXP (Word Count [6514/5*20] + Field Bosses [300] + 5% Guild Rank bonus)
4,358 col (1 page [0] + 15% P5 Reward [4151] + 5% Guild Rank bonus)
1x Matriarch's Stinger | 249040d
1x Snowfrost | 249040e
1x Sand Armor Potion | 249040f
1 Mon

Black steel scraped silkily against the laquered wood of its saya, shiny Veritas an unpleasant reminder of terrible purpose and duty combined.  Inside, Freyd's heart was broken, but he'd long since consigned it to an understudy's role in the face of the iron resolve required to see them all to the end.  He'd grind it into the dust in sacrifice, if required.  Rai knew it.  His words rang true.  Freyd would do what he could not  Both people standing before him knew were ultimately guided by their hearts, each in their own disparate ways.  Not him.  Freyd was kin to a machine, cold, calculating, ruthless.  

Then why does this hurt so much?

Blade kept low, its drawing declared the seriousness of his intent.  An era of banter and light company had passed in the span of mere minutes.  Time stood at an inflection point.  

If I do this, I break my vow to offer Mari hope.  If I don't, I've sacrificed everything I am for nothing.

Yet, Mari's tears had an impact.

None of this can be about you, Freyd.

Do you think anything ever is?!  Stop your nonsense, Montjoy.  You're not good at it.

Still, a furrow of brow at the thought.

Is it enough to make it only about her?  Will I still think so when Lancaster kills again?

...

"Let him answer the questions posed.  Anyone deserves that chance, even him."

The message still glared ominously in his periphery, Freyd's inventory depleting required stocks for a battle never meant to be fought while the others' attention turned back to the addled murderer in the chair behind them.

***

[Narrative stats will go here]

"Call it an identity crisis, if you wish.  Spend too much time wearing too many masks and you start to forget who you are, or which priorities matter most."  Freyd spoke truth more often than most people realized.  The best lies were often most effectively concealed behind it.  Nuance was often the issue, skewing the meaning with double or even triple entendre, layering the right proportions of semblance and believability to brew a concoction the audience would willingly swallow.  In this case, his candor was remarkably stark and poor meal for the palette.  Unvarnished truth was rarely savory, lacking in spice and seasonal embellishment.  It still felt refreshing, for a change, even if this one had enough holes left in it to pass itself off as Swiss.  

His next comment would normally deflect, often asking a question of his own.  No such dissemblance this time.  Instead, Freyd picked bits of tawny sand from between tangerine strands, returning them to the desert beneath their feet.  Each granule felt like a life, tiny yet inextricably linked to the whole, his scattering actions holding consequences he could hardly fathom.

"You're smart enough to know that I'm only able to answer that question to a point.  I'm sorry for that."  A rare gift of honesty, truth relegated to the sidelines.  It was the rarer find, by far, offered with sincerity.  He really wished he could say more, but loose lips sunk far more than ships in this world.  And his has ruined too many lives already.  Pulling stray strands behind her ear, he wished it could be different, but this was the price he'd agree to pay.  A solitary existence.  Something he knew she knew well, and from which he had cruelly denied her succor.

I am a monster, Mari.  I accepted that price long ago.  For you, and everyone else.

True to form, Freyd's admission remained unsaid, buried behind a false, flagging smile.

"Err... what the?"  Grey bushy brows rose high over a pair of brilliant blue eyes, both clearly surprised by several things in the unfolding scenario.  First, that sweater.  Bold, in a 1980s sort of way, and assertively retro for this era.  Second, the boarlet, somehow still alive, despite an arrow sticking out of its side that was nearly long than the beast itself, from snout to stern.  Last, but not least, the poor wounded fellow - Theo, apparently - who seemed to be having a hard time with all of the above.

"Freyd," came his jovial reply, beard scrunching in a mix of amused confusion as the boarlet repeatedly tried to gore the slick oily surface of his blackened vambraces.  The man's gear was clearly leagues beyond what these tiny terrors could threaten.  

"Not much of a match for heavy armor, are you, mini-bacon bits?  Where's your big brother at these days?" Summoning a glass phial containing something ruddy and thick, the heavily armored figure seemed utterly unafraid of the critter furiously and futilely fluttering about his ankles. 

"Judging by the state of things, I'm guessing you didn't bring along any buffs.  Take a breather for a moment and chug that.  It'll help you get this done a lot faster." A flick of Freyd's wrist saw the piglet's shadow wriggle free and run circles around it, spooking the poor thing nearly out of its skin.

"I'll keep junior here occupied a moment while you rest up. Don't worry.  I know how hard you've worked to get this far and won't steal your kill."

Older and more worn in his features than most, it was rare to see in Aincrad, even for those who tended to limit themselves to the Town of Beginnings, though he seemed friendly enough and kept the katana at his side sheathed throughout their exchange.

***

Free Action [System]: Freyd gives Theo: Imperial quarter blend | t1 potion | dmg 3 | 245195
Post Action: Howl (2 EN, CD 0/2)

Theo | HP: 12/20 | EN: 19/20 | DMG: 2 | LD: 4 | SD: 1 | ACC 2
Freyd | HP: 35/35 | EN: 23/25 (25-2) | DMG: 12 | MIT:98 | ACC:4 | AA  | TAUNT | F-SPIRIT | EVA:2 | BH:2 | VAMP-D: 2 | VAMP-O: 4 | PARA-V | LD:5 | HOWL (0/2)

[H: 0,4] Boarlet VII: HP: 3/5 | DMG: 3 

Three hours later, fully expecting Sam not to follow doctor's orders, Freyd returned to her house.  A quiet turn of the handle, helped by the conveniently cached key from his timely departure, let him back inside. Groceries materialized, summoned from inventory.  There was no need to be lollygagging around with arms full of foodstuffs.  He'd favoured premade sandwiches, cheeses, breads and deli meats, along with a bottle of wine he'd been eager to try for awhile.  This approach likewise avoided unnecessary kitchen clatter that might wake what he hoped was a soundly sleeping Sam.

Once the more important items were quietly sorted, Freyd dismissed his armor - his boots already left at the door - and summoned himself a steaming cup of vanilla-scented coffee.  Feet perched on an aptly placed table, he summoned the seemingly endless streams of data and reports carefully curated for efficiency and detection.  There was a lot to parse, and he normally left most of its to other O&I agents, but some special, restricted channels required his personal regard.  One in particular drew notice this day.

"Rosaria... Rosaria... what has she been up to of late?"

Quietly sipping away, Freyd plotted and schemed in the blissful, serene silence of Sam's living room like it was NORAD 2.0, as the sun lazily descended behind him.  He's stay as long as was needed to ensure she was alright.

♪ ♫ ♪ ♫

Freyd listened dispassionately, unmoved as Lancaster confirmed every last one of his suspicions and assertions, making poor effort to deflect his own selfish nature.

"It IS about me, I want this. I am willing to fight for this. For Mari.”

“For your prize?” The words snap in a biting gust of crisp frigid air rifling through the nearest shattered window. “For the treasure you cling to in desperate hope that it will keep a drowning man afloat? The same man who would snuff the candle that saves him the instant a shinier blaze comes into view?  I know you, Lancaster.  I know the fickleness of your flame and the catastrophe you willingly leave in your wake.”

An image from another lifetime plagues the Whisper’s minds eye. A guild in flames.  Friends and kin closer than any familial bond trailing as wispy shards coiled around plumes of soot and ashe.  A face matching the one before him, penultimate in its cause.  Something coldly visceral pounded from the deepest parts of himself at the thought, stirred from slumber where it would have better lain untouched.

"You don't think I don't know that. I wasn't here to protect her.” 

“No.” Flat out rebuttal. A liar calling out a liar. The dull thud of it resonated as if spoken by the voice of certainty itself. “You came here to protect yourself.  She’s just the convenient excuse - your friendly neighbourhood macguffin and get out of fail free card. Another lamb at the altar of the great and wonderful Lancaster, who somehow gets relegated to the background, no matter how much he ignites in childish tantrums to have his ego stroked.   Nero would have been so proud to call you his protege. You’re both sad little men and out of your narcissistic gourds.”

"Dozens of new player ambushes in the boar fields near Tolbana"
     "Destruction of the White Clarion guild, burnt alive while they slept."
          "Seduction and slaying of the Jasmine Sisters."
               "Child murders at the Florenthian Orphanage, etc."

“Yet you sit here calmly professing love, as if some foppish dilettante. You want credit for neglecting to kill what you admit you can’t?  You want my help, but offer only misery and blight for everyone but yourself, if it were somehow to be granted. You don’t even seem capable of looking beyond your own nose, Lancaster!” The name spat out with utter disdain.  

“I trust Mari because she’s always tried to be better - to undo past harms.  Because she has the potential to be the sort of beacon people need to guide them out of this hell hole: to prove there is hope. But you? You’re not even offering to change. You want to keep doing the same self-destructive shit you’ve always done with a free bailout delivered on her coat tails.”

“Mari is a thing to you,” he tried, as if so few words might yet breech two thick skulls at a single lance. “She’s a trophy, a toy, some prized possession you crave in the drowning moment, clinging to it desperate for salvation, yet just as prepared to discard it as jetsam the instant something newer catches your eye.”

Mari returns, insinuating herself into the bonfire’s heart, nestling tightly against the very source of her own self-inflicted misfortune… again. Freyd doesn't relent his barrage, surely heard through the perforated wall, as time repeats itself before his eyes:

Congratulations, you've engineered your own personal descent into oblivion…again…

“Don’t you all…find that kinda odd? An entire organization told to leave me alone. I stand by my words - no one here may believe them. But I can extend that to Lancaster. I wouldn’t repeat it if I didn’t wholeheartedly believe in it.” 

“And why do you believe this protection will hold once you bind yourself to him?  He said it himself: giving his boss the middle finger and placing his head in guillotine. Do you know who that is? You’re gambling your life for his by placing it on the same block, whose axe-wielding counterpart does quite get concepts of mercy.”

Lancaster’s denials persisted, growing angrier as if that somehow made his delusions more real.  Maybe they did, to him, drowning reason with passion was definitely his way. Mari’s pleading found an equal lack of purchase.  She had Mari-ed to many Mari-s for him to ignore.  When so many others' lives were threatened, for Freyd, emotional pleas fell into the void.  A frosty thumping within his heart grew more insistent with every word, Freyd's own features blanching as if by weather he could not feel.

There isn't any secret, I never pretended to be something I'm not.

“Hideo - killed by Lancaster”
     “Masashi - killed by Lancaster”
          “Saburoi - killed by Lancaster”
               “Ryuunosuke - killed by Lancaster.”
                    “Masao - killed by Lancaster.”
                         “Akemi-kiko - killed by Lancaster.” 

“Shall I go on?” Each syllable punctuated for clarity, hammering home the point to Mari’s shuttered ears. There were so many more and Freyd knew them all by rote. All those visits to the wall were never without reason. “This is who you made yourself to be. How many more names shall we let you gleefully add to the wall for the sake of your own fucking machismo?”

Raidou removed his cloak. Interceding and instantly dwindling all veneer of caution that might have still lingered beneath couch cushions, deep within lint traps or clinging about neglected bellybuttons. There was no more dire warning: the proverbial gloves were off.  Freyd looks on in grim stoic silence, his efforts given over to delicate introspections and impending finality as his hand held his blade’s hilt in check by the thinnest tethers of a promise, even as his fellow captain gave voice to enigmatic questions. Uncertain where these were expected to lead, Freyd trusted the Wanderer to be conjuring some elaborate ploy for the duo’s salvation - some fleeting gambit he could not yet conceive, nor yet be convinced of sufficiency.  In his opinion, a seawall constructed of tongue depressors might stand a better chance to survive a looming rogue wave.

“I still feel you could have at least asked before jabbing him with fucking truth serum.” Hand tensing on his weapon, Freyd glimpsed something of where Rai might be going and held death's grasp yet a moment longer. “I get it… I Just don’t like seeing it. I don’t like seeing someone I love being treated this way. He’s left. He’s making attempts, isn’t that something?”

As Mari takes her sip, keen sight spots the bloodstained ring on her finger, the line still lingering from her severed wrist signaling its significance. Internally, a breaker snaps. One final pound breaks the soul's seal, releasing the caged red-eyed engine within, asserting its calculus over all other considerations. Heart and mind, at odds, catch the private window popping open for their eyes only, fate’s hand demanding a choice in a restricted channel meant only for the most morose and lethal of affairs.  Two voices spoke as one in the Whisper's own mind.

Yes, she had been doing better.  But here she blindly places countless lives at risk for the sake of one daft, selfish fool of a man-child who would doom us all.  Each life is an integral part of a slowly dwindling number and chances at survival. How best to math the heart's math against the head's?  People are Aincrad’s irreplaceable resource, and player killers the gravest threat to their kin and themselves.  Doing nothing, or turning a blind eye, means more people will die for the sake of this sadly timed tryst. Lancaster cannot keep his fire in his pants, and Mari is too blind with desperate need for love - precisely the place where she always falters.

A gust of wind from outside scours the room with a chill, catching the note pinned beneath Mari's freshly unfurled mirror.  Tearing the frayed parchment from its moorings, funneled by the chimney flu straight into the hearth, the lingering flames quickly consume its message: ‘Please relax everything’s going to be fine'. Mari's protective ward torn from the rest and sitting now by its lonesome beneath the reflective sheet.

Freyd, meanwhile, has gone deathly still, he and his shadow alike watching, waiting, screaming into silence without voice, each struggling for control of his hand.

A flash bang of holy lightning pulsed once again from his palm, the crystal triggering again even though Freyd didn't know it could.  Momentarily distracted by the white rock's passively activated repulsor field, it took a half second to realize that the boss had tried to reassert its darkness field and failed.  Apparently intending to alter its shape while veiled, the sudden shattering hadn't left it enough time to properly assemble its ruse.

"Ummm... look, Belregor... dude.  You do know the definition of insanity, right?"  Looking between the twin Minas, the knock-off spectral knight turned boss had once again attempted its mimicry trick with a few discreditable detail.  "Congrats on getting the eye patch on the correct side this time, but... uh.  Look, one of these things just isn't like the other." 

While there was definite improvement, the four foot difference in height made it glaringly obvious which one was the fraud.  "Can you not see through your own shadow spoop?!  Can't get it up?  Skill issue?  Err... don't worry.  They say it can happen to anyone."  

***

“A jar of sentiment?  Not a bad answer, actually.  Better than peanut butter.”

More words might have come if he hadn’t born the full Mari being tossed onto his torso like a rag doll.

“You learning to fly or something?  Eww.  Mari-nated sand.” A grin, despite himself, as she peeled herself off again and he was forced to roll and avoid the angry bulette.  She’d stabbed it good and hard, the boss’s health dipping into solid yellow territory.

"Despite what purpose the vessel has….Argh… Whatever...just...some bullshit about it not being alone or discarded. I guess."

Grin faded to a strangely serene smile at her comment.  A casual sidestep turns into a cutting slash that tears away most of the mob’s remaining integrity with disturbingly casual ease.

It turns, roaring in desperate, raw, palpable fury, just as Freyd snaps his fingers.  Something purple, slimy, and instantly covered in the same clingy sand, bolts from his hand across the improvised arena floor to the tune of warbly giggles, turn bubble wrap and wet farts before slamming into the Sand Shark into a totally consuming face hug.

“Oh.  I don’t know if I’ve introduced Reliq yet?  He’s a baby mimic… and does so love his vessels.”

***

Freyd's Action

Enemy's Action:

"Funny that...." 

“Hmm?  How so?"

"Just know that some people around you, are already at that risk."

“Too many, at all times." Plainly spoken and unsurprised, but not inconsiderate of her meaning. "You never really get used to it, but every tank learns to deal with that kind of burden. Even in recent raids, the bosses have been wielding new mechanics to force tanks into better managing their aggro.  Old pros like Shield and Raidou would slough it off with ease, but newer arrivals are typically less prepared and less experienced.  Less wise, they make more mistakes.  In the worst cases, they don’t truly appreciate their roles of the stakes involved.  Lives are endangered.”

"And speaking from experience, such burdens can only be carried for so long before there is a tipping point."

“True.  A vessel can only hold so much before it breaks. Conversely, what is a vessel discarded, its purpose fulfilled? Maybe the better question?  I don't know.  Maybe it's the cider talking?” Freyd was speaking in riddles and he knew it. Better than sounding like the madman inside his head, trying to decipher 8-dimensional chess. Too many segments overlapped, different aspects of who he was, now and before, interlaced into the being everyone thought was something else; someone else.  He was so many different selves in any given moment, most people’s heads would spin and pop off just pondering the significance. 

The Thing Behind All Lies would tell them to be wary of assumptions. Something about making asses, and a world too full of those already. A shell, suddenly called back into service, burdened with an Echostone without so much as a certain someone taking him out for dinner before being bent over. She’d correctly argue that he took the burden on himself. He'd counter by pointing out she led him to it. Freyd nerves? Lots of that going around these days. Typhoid Mary might look like a lightweight by comparison, if his guess was right.  

But, ...was Mari fishing for something?  He gave her a quizzical look, confused by the sudden press and line of inquiry, without realizing why she looked like Sauron’s eye had jarringly turned its gaze upon her.  She dodged by telling him to finish his drink, Freyd shrugging off the matter by shoving their exchange into the Indiana Jones warehouse of his memory: 'Thing that happened #ML7368-P9F05.'

"Putting a desert right after a snowscape is literal insanity, ain't it?"

“Par for the course, right?

Whatever her actual intentions, his companion chose to faceplant instead, tripping on her own feet and sending herself sprawling just as their target appeared.  Jumping into action, Freyd did exactly what he said he already did on the daily: placing himself in harm’s way.  Throwing himself onto the thing’s rubbery carapace, he grabbed its projecting fin and pulled. Using momentum and raw force, combined with a little sword art magic, he rolled the beast onto its side, then launch them both like a lit firecracker.  He went one way. It went the other. Both slammed into nearby cliff faces with bone-shattering crunches.

If he was a jar, at least he wasn’t made of glass, though Mari might wish he was more open.

***

Vanity Tag: @Nisahime

Freyd's Action

Enemy's Action

Returning to Evangeline's shop as the sun began its downward trek in the western skies, her appointed task didn't bother him in the slightest.  A days sojourn in solitude had done him more good than he could ever have imagined.  Maybe he wasn't quite ready to find the game's perfect panacea, or a conveniently crafted cure for NPC-slaying ebola.  Those moments would come.  More importantly, he'd found a desperately needed reprieve and the wisdom needed to recognize its worth.  It was a good day.

"Here you go, teach.  It's a tad messy, but I'm proud of it nonetheless."  Proffered for inspection, the NPC cocked an eye at the change in his demeanor from his initial arrival.

"How exactly did you find the Philosopher's Stone needed to make that marvel happen," she jeered, pointing to his worn and tattered clothes.

"Just lucky, I guess.  Something about learning to appreciate the time I spent with my nose to the ground, and taking the time to smell whatever roses I might find there.  Even the yellow stinky ones."

***

Crafting Salve | ID 249042 | LD 20+ | CD 12+ | T1 Perfect Salve (Boredom's Absolution)

Eval submitted here

Objective complete: Crafting the item with Evangeline's guidance.

***

Thread Closing:

Freyd receives:

6,615 EXP (Word Count [1500/5*20] + Quest [300] + 5% Guild Rank bonus)
1,041 col (15% P5 Reward [992] + 5% Guild Rank bonus)
16 Materials (Foraging [12] + Quest [5] - craft [1])
Unlock Alchemist crafting profession
Gain crafted item, per eval linked above.
1 Mon

+96 Forager EXP

"I can run into town and fetch us drinks easily enough. No need to take unnecessary risks."  Always looking out for her, for everyone. The gentleness of Freyd's smile conflicted with the violence still cascading down around them, but the man was a walking paradox at the best of times.

"I understand." Referencing the strange tale of Alkor's plight, the man's legend was written under strange circumstances and possibly not of his own making. 

Something to relate to.

"Frankly...I'm a little worried about you. What's going on? If you need to be elsewhere we can put a pin in this for now."

"First, let me get the drinks.  These are a real treat, speaking from experience. Oscar, Elora and I stumbled into a local festival here once, where I first had a sample."  A slight pat and grip on her shoulder, pausing her concerns without overt dismissal.  Returning a few minutes later with two steaming flagon-sized beverages, he kept his unspoken word.  "Firm Anima has four internal branches, Mari.  The vanguard is mostly comprised of tanks and stalwarts.  Assault lives up to its name, filled with battle-ready warriors.  Provisions tend to logistical matters, especially crafting and business.  The guild has connections throughout every corner of the floating castle.  Each branch has a captain.  Mine keeps me very, very busy.  Even at the best of times.  It's also made me realize how important it is to make time for moments like these, and for the people I care about.  Death tends to lend added perspective too."

Flagons clanked and drinks jostled within before chugging as much as he was able. Face scrunching as the cider's foam clung to his mustache, he loosed the first unburdened laugh she'd heard from him in a long time at the absurdity of his own predicament.  So cold was the floor's chilling wind that half of it flash-froze into some sort of cider-flavored ice puff and had to be forcefully yanked off.

"I have a LOT of responsibilities, Mari.  Most of which I never mention because doing so would place people at risk. People who rely on me. Sometimes, that burden piles on pretty thick."  Tilting his head back and forth, she could see that he was trying to figure out another angle of attack on his drink without success, and it made him giggle like a schoolboy.

***

Freyd uses Tracking on Sand Shark

Respawn Timer: 15 - 5 (tracking) - 5 (spyglass) -3 (grindstone) - 2 (posts) = 0

Cringing with mild false sympathy at the placement of her blow, Freyd's blade flared with black flame as he channeled his next attack.  

"Died?  Oh, right.  Yes.  You did mention that was a thing."  Lunching into a flanking tumble up the curving surface of a nearby frozen embankment - impressive in heavy armor - Freyd's blade flared as it spiral cut the field boss' bulky torso.  The entire mob collapsed into disk-shaped lozenges the size of frozen kiddie pools, cascading down all around the meadow before bursting into puffy fractal clouds and joining the ambient flurries native to the floor.

"That all sounds very complicated, though I'm not sure what required that it be a secret?  Leading you on like that, then dropping your heart like a block of ice on the pavement seems especially shitty."

No need to pile on, but the Alkor he'd met had fit the bill.  Dour.  Moody.  Fickle.  

"Let's lighten the mood.  How about a honey cider in Snowfrost, before we head up to Fortaleza?  We're making good time."

***

“Alkor?”  A familiar name more closely associated with Lessa, if memory served.  “We’ve been in a raid or two together.  Never on the same squad, that I can recall.  There was one time when we went to aid a blighted treant, but it was so long ago that I don’t really remember the details, or how it ended.”

"Despite everything I tended to be ....maybe a little too foolish back then."

The monster reared its mountainous head, roaring frozen spittle at them in the form of razor sharp shards, even as Mari launched herself up its frozen torso and making a disturbingly accurate impression of a Y-incision.

“Err… right.  Back then.”  

He couldn’t talk.  Freyd had once Fred Flinstone’d the back of a dragon to land on its nose and stab it.  The resulting sneeze had been most perturbing.  Blade charged with destronic sonic energies, Freyd lunged to miss the worst of its lethal loogeys and sliced near through its left knee.  Avalanche came tumbling down...

***

Freyd's Action

Enemy's Action:

"I am either really looking forward to the day when you stop speaking in riddles, or I'm really not."

A redundant statement that captured all angles yet explain none.  It seemed an apt response as Freyd sliced his blade in line with an imagined horizon.  The actual one was out of sight thanks to the cavern walls and mountainous layers beyond, but the pattern held true nonetheless.  A single spun arc, rounded with fancy footwork saw most of the fire maw pack decimated.  Only the boss and one minion remained, the latter attempting to gum Freyd's bracers with its barbeque breath.

"That sword looks very familiar," added the Whisper, poking the dog thing until it relented and let go.  "Right, so building up to smite Kayaba, are we.  Let me guess: it'll take another seventy floors or so to reach full charge?  Just want to be sure I read all of the fine print."  Her messenger grinned, even as he sassed.  It had long ago become their thing.

***

Freyd's Action

Enemy's Action:

"So... yeah.  It sucks, and I'm still trying to deal with it, but I thought you would want to know." Seated on a set of dusty wooden crates stacked just inside the main gates to the Town of Beginnings, Freyd sipped at his mug of vanilla-scented coffee.  Atop the crates, a small black porcelain bowl filled with ether sat, filled to the brim, but untouched.  "She died well, Marv, or so I'm told.  Most of the details are more than a little fuzzy."  A strained chuckle sought to lighten the mood as plated metal gauntlet patted the grey unruly hair upon his crown, and mostly fresh feature girding his lips and jaw.  "Elora seems to like it," eyes dreamily recollecting dreams set to bawdy ballads, "so I guess it's staying."

Marv, Freyd's oldest friend, was an NPC.  A giant armored suit, presumed to contain something more within, he stood as indefinite sentinel, gazing out into the fields beyond.  Freyd bore his soul to the thing on the regular, oft accompanied by spiced honey buns (already devoured), vanilla-scented coffee and the frolicking mischief in shadow form that was Persi.  The small shadow mongoose had fallen during the last raid.  The bowl of ether was for her, a gesture in commemoration as part of a ritual they'd repeated more times than he could cont. Marv never spoke.  Ever.  He barely even moved, save the occasional pre-programmed yawn.  Stoic and the very best of listeners, Marv had saved Freyd's sanity during the darkest of dark time, probably mostly.

"So, err.... sorry pal, but I need to cut our visit short this week.  Giovanna gave me this weird wild chasing of geese, and I've crafted a compass for its fulfilment." Raising the clunky, clock-like contraption the odd device looked like steampunk and cursed artificery had a stillborn baby.  It didn't even point north, preferring to point intermittently between Freyd and some distant point beyond the gate.  Patting his much larger friend on the bracer, Freyd merely nodded before setting foot into the wide flat fields and meadows beyond.

It didn't take long before a panicked pig squee assaulted his ears the floors most perennial pests came blazing out of left field aiming itself squarely at his centre.

"A boarlet?  Seriously?!"

***

Vanity Tag: @Elora

Note: Teion and Ryo inactive, having abandoned the thread.  
Note: CS (Shades of the Gemini) and CSA (Beckon the Void) are in use.  
Note: Freyd has previously completed this quest.

GUILD RANK 5 (+5% col, +5% EXP)

[Tier Lock] - 15% EXP Bonus

[Assisted] Theo | HP: 15/20 | EN: 19/20 | DMG: 2 | LD: 4 | SD: 1 | ACC 2
[Assisting] Teion | HP: 190/190 | EN: 35/36 | DMG: 14 | MIT:42 | ACC:4 | BH:10 | REC: 2 | LD:6 <- this looks like tierlocking, but not the full level reduction required by Assist (not that it mattered)
[Assisting] Ryo | HP: 135/135 | EN: 34/35 | DMG: 12 | MIT:55 | BH:4 | LD:2 <- this looks like tierlocking, but not the full level reduction required by Assist (not that it mattered)
[Assisting] Freyd | HP: 35/35 | EN: 25/25 | DMG: 12 | MIT:98 | ACC:4 | AA  | TAUNT | F-SPIRIT | EVA:2 | BH:2 | VAMP-D: 2 | VAMP-O: 4 | PARA-V | LD:5

"Still sorta talking in riddles, eh?  Yeah.  Guess I can't really criticize on that count."  Attention turned to new accoutrements as she flashed lobe bring his way, her armor and stature already impressing.  "I suppose I'm glad you've found wind for your wings."  Freyd's face scrunched up, still struggling to figure out why his own nature still fought so hard to accept this woman's claims, despite lifetimes of other memories proving them true.  Perhaps because it was his own nature to mistrust; to poke and prod at every little detail he encountered until something curious broke free from the whole. 

"Sorry.  Not trying to be an ass.  And my knees are just fine, thank you very much for your concern."  Mockery countered with feigned courtesy and kindness - strange and newly added weapons in an every growing arsenal.  Though she'd already know that and possess them herself, if speculation and tangential boasts proved true.

"The silver prism thing from that ruin?" 

Prism...

Eyes narrowing, he'd nearly forgotten how she'd left it with him, a hint of some larger world brewing behind it.  Maybe it was just some divergent perspective spawned by all other other recent changes in his life.  Like, you know... death, and stuff.

"Wait.  Spreading what?  What are you playing at... uh... Nisa... Morrighan?  What Rolodex-based title are we using for communications today?  I remember the thing... the flash... and..." Freyd nearly missed a step, as if the inside of his head had touched something far bigger than it had capacity to hold.

***

Quest Objective: Travel from Knoriit Village to Inferno Cavern (3/3)

A second bow, more deeply bent in gratitude for her offering, Freyd felt strangely moved by the old woman's generosity.  

"What have I been missing," he asked himself, as she departed.  Every day since his first foray from the grand gates of the Town of Beginnings, farewells waved to Marv but never reciprocated, he'd been lurching from mission to mission without end.  A few spare moments snared by the virtue of good friends who'd dragged him along, looking out for wellbeing he hadn't fully appreciated.  Reclining in a paltry bit of shade behind rubble field wall, loose stoned shifting at his back as warning not to too thoroughly test their integrity, Freyd was grateful for the brief respite.

He had everything he might have needed in his inventory, being ever the lethal survivalist boy scout, but that was hardly the point.  Too long, he'd interacted with this world like it was just a pale veneer of visual wallpaper over digital frames.  It might well be.  But it was still home.

"That nonsense ends today."

***

Foraging | ID 248455 | LD 20+ | CD 12+ | Critical forage

Foraging EXP: 160/300 (Rank 3)

12 Mats collected.

A portly woman waved at him from a nearby farmhouse, kindly in look and bearing, wrapped in no less than three separate aprons for reasons he could not understand.

"Would you like some water?  I've been watching you toil for hours out here."  She jabbed a heavily calloused thumb over her shoulder.  "My sons and husband are in the far field.  I was about to bring them some, and saw you looking absolutely parched."

"Am I?"  Freyd chuckled, gazing down at his sweat-caked outfit, dirt rubbed in the fabric's every fold from a day spent digging in the dirt.  "Heh.  I suppose I am.  Funny how time flies, eh? oh... and uh... thank you!" Wiping his hands off on the less dirty parts of his tunic, Freyd offered a short bow that only made her laugh more.  

"No need to be so formal.  We get a lot of visitors around here.  Gascard and I have always been friendly sorts.  It's my pleasure to offer what we have for sharing."

***

Foraging | ID 248454 | LD 20+ | CD 12+ | Critical forage

Foraging EXP: 144/150 (Rank 2)

10 Mats collected.

"This should be enough, but..." A pleasantly warm summer breeze wafting fresh scents from the nearby meadow.  Snacking on a few scattered berries still left in the bushes by the roadside.  Even the pressing glare of sunlight on his pale skin proved difficult to discount, especially when it also happened to be productive.  Shimmering translucent blue, a pop up manifested to his left, beckoned by stray fingers in search of an excuse to remain.

"Oh, look at that.  We can probably rank up on Foraging if we stick with this a while longer.  Can't miss such a pressing priority, now, can we?"

The boarlet napping on its backside next to him, hoofs huffed up in the air as its tiny form snored in diminutive adorableness left him smiling at the necessity.  Whispers certainly weren't above rationalization.   

"I'm sure it will come in handy for other purposes in the future."  Even as he spoke, Freyd had to admit that materials and collection points seemed to have  grown easier to spot and access after his last rank up.  

***

Foraging | ID 248453 | LD 20+ | CD 12+ | Critical forage

Foraging EXP: 128/150 (Rank 2)

8 Mats collected.

"Fertilizer?  Nitrates, right?  Ugh.  Forgot about the smell."  High school science class was a long way back.  A few locals traveling to market greeted him as they passed.  A pleasant nod and finger touch to the brim of the broad straw hat he'd picked up from a kindly old man making them by the roadside made him start to appreciate the simplicity of the task.  "Maybe this was what Raidou really needed and wanted in all his endless foraging: a sense of quiet serenity too often lacking in a certain occupation's toil"

He'd had his own brushes with fatigue, increasing in frequency of late.  Mari had noticed.  Part of it was just a load of baggage still slung around his avatar since the last raid.  Sure, he could disguise it, but it was like Cardinal had altered all the default settings on him.  Not really worth all of the conscious effort required to do so, especially if Elora seemed to approve.  Everyone else could suck it.  The slug sliming its way down his fingertip seemed to agree.

***

Foraging | ID 248452 | LD 20+ | CD 12+ | Critical forage

Foraging EXP: 112/150 (Rank 2)

6 Mats collected.