Freyd

A polite knock on the door before entry. Freyd entered slowly, making sure to remove his footwear and respect the cleanliness of the shop and particulars of its owner. Courtesies went a long way. The cowl came down as well. Another rare sign of respect from the Whisper. "I'm afraid that progress carries a price, dearest little sister. All this sneaking around has caused me to rekindle skills I thought lost after the confrontation with Shadow and the flood. Even this flexible wear has become cumbersome as a result. It simply wouldn't do to have a whisper squeak while he sneaks. Per

"Oy! Loverboy!" Blonde, brawny and exceedingly Scottish, Quip burst into Koga's shop without so much as a knock or ring of a bell. The hardware was probably just too afraid of abuse and let her in without a challenge. Big green eyes sparkling, she strode over to the nearest counter, pulling various items off and tossing them to the floor to make some room before dropping a pair of matching breast plates harshly in their place. "Bet ye haven't forgotten aboot me! Ah wis cleaning oot Freyd's god-forsaken excuse fur a shop th' ither day 'n' fun some thing that keeked lik' thay micht ramm

Thunder cracked in the distance, along with muted cries and monkey-squawks. Bursts of light high in the air first seemed like fireworks, until the truth became more apparent. They were mobs. Dozens upon dozens of mobs, being smashed like confetti cakes all about the aerial perches of the witch's tower. Feminine shrieks filled the air with outrage, but to no avail. Freyd had promised to cull the hazard, and was living up to his word. The witch would simply have to live with it, because he'd offer her no other choice. If she pushed, she'd just join their ranks, in the last charge of the m

Discord. Tension. Dark emotions and cross-wired intentions. Freyd hadn't actually expected Dustin to follow through, but the end result was exactly what he had hoped. The man known as the Whisper in Shadows was as slippery as he was unpredictable, and already two steps ahead of Nari by the time she uttered her threats. Gaze locked forward, Freyd's form shimmered and wavered as they entered the formal grounds. If he'd heard her words, he made no overt reaction. Gone was the edgy darklord-wear, shed like a pixel-thin layer of skin and replaced by something much grander and more suitable to

Freyd watched the man move from one stage of grief to the next. It was progress, albeit measured in baby steps. Feeling nothing was natural progression on the reset from only feeling self-destructive. "Eventually, and gradually, we will need to help him course-correct from feeling nothing back towards feeling something. Right now, all he can manage is anger and sorrow. He needs to be numb for a while and then start to see in others what he has lost in himself. We can help him, separately, but if we keep coming at him in pairs he will eventually come to resent us for pressuring him.

Dustin immediately struck Freyd as another Gaius in the raw, rearing for a fight without needing to know why. The act itself was enough. So be it. There was always a need for shock troops. It was just unfortunate that their casualty rates tended to be so high. Fixing the man's face in his memory, he made a mental note, in case his enthusiasm reduced him to mere pixels a few minutes from now. One never really knew, in Aincrad. Astreya, or Iris as now noted, was her usual whirlwind self, bubbly and eager, overflowing with so much energy that it couldn't possibly be real. No, that was

"So be it." Eyes still concealed behind impossibly reflective glass, Beelzebub turned his back on the battle and his minion alike and vanished into the same shadowy alcove. Strangely and slightly disconcerting, Freyd couldn't sense his destination. Lilith's constant clawing made it impossible to focus fully on the tracking he'd need to follow. Now was not the time. Sidestepping her latest lunge, the Whisper brought his elbow down squarely on the small of her back, laying her flat on the stone floor in the process. Without hesitation, his other hand came down with the telltale flare of an

She was far faster and difficult to hit, but Freyd had finally started to peg the math on this particular fight. For all her fury, Lilith lacked the resilience or sustainability of a player, and that would be her downfall. He just had to endure and whittle her down by attrition. The lightning pace at which they traded blows would have made any anime proud, but the health bars ultimately governed. Hers was in the red, even with her unusual regenerative abilities. He's watch the spraying blood coalesce and merge into her, restoring the brutal damage to her physical form, but it wasn't enoug

"Is that so, Beelzebub?" Wiping more blood on his sleeve, it wasn't a sight to which he had yet grown accustomed. The gruesome factor was unusually high for this effect, which seemed particularly persistent. "Because I can't help wondering if you're just intervening now to save your pet from yet another demise." Lilith roared madly at the threat, still unable to move. "You're not actually sure what will happen if I use these, are you?" His fingers splayed to signal the sanctified weapons adapted by the system to his skill sets. "And that's the part that truly captures my curiosity. You

Lilith launched herself at him with reckless abandon and strength fed by vicious hatred for the very symbol of the things now clad about his hands. They were anathema and drove her frenzy to a fever pitch. Unaccustomed to the balance of his new weapon, Freyd's reactions slowed and granted her an opening. Pouncing, the mistress of vampires caught him by the shoulders as she rose. Using her momentum and supernatural strength, she flipped overtop of him and threw her enemy against a nearby wall, winding him for an instant. Slumping back down to the floor, Freyd needed a moment to recover, bu

Another colossal strike sent Lilith screeching back in pain, the Whisper's hands having gouged out fist-sized holes in her falsely impenetrable flesh. Trying to hiss and roar, she struggled with the absence of half her jaw where now trickles of reddish motes trailed and crinkled like glass dust as it hit the ground. He couldn't say that she hadn't taken her own toll on him, but it still didn't match what Ugzeke and others had managed. Not even close. A wry glimmer in the devil's eyes couldn't quite conceal the one ace he thought he still had left in the hole, only for his hopes to suff

"Fair enough." His first acknowledgement of the devil's presence. "Thing about demons and undead, is that they really can't stand the light." Seeking to capitalize on his retort, Lilith lunged forward and snagged a bit of the shadow before he could fully dodge. But, not enough. Freyd became Montjoy and also the reverse as they swapped spaces. His retribution struck with blinding white light that rippled across the entire chamber, further shattering the mob's already broken form. Sparks and blood alike sprayed from the point of impact as the two combatants traded blows. The space was c

Too frenzied to incapacitate, Freyd tried to redirect that rage against her instead. Blood splattered every which way as they traded blows at blinding speeds, some of it his and some hers. 'Damn, she's fast,' he confessed to himself, but that also kindle an opportunity. So long as he kept he close and trading blows, her position was more readily predictable. Feinting an opening, he caught her as she made for his throat, granting him his opportunity to drive his fist up beneath her jaw. Lilith's form staggered and slowed as it stumbled backwards, her attacks hindered and rendered less effe

Her speed was unreal, dodging mid-charge beneath his counter. Only a last minute intervention by Persi knocked her off course enough for her own attack to miss. Freyd skittered to his feet a short distance away while his familiar bristled with blazing eyes, her inky form standing between him and his assailant. "Yes, do be careful." The devil's grin grew even wider. "She does seem to enjoy toying with her meals." Taunting aside, he made no move to join the melee, which suited Freyd just fine. Monologuing villains were commonplace and he could easily ignore distractive blathering, i

"I don't have time for this." Hooking his leg around the broken bedframe, he tug and lifted one of the posts up into the air, twisting and launching with a kick right at the should-be-dead Lilith. The impact drove her crashing back into the alcove from where her friend had just emerged. "And what do you mean by 'player'?" No mob should know what that means, unless this was yet another of Cardinal's tricks. That damnable program had no qualms about breaking its own rules, yet punished players for the most minor infractions. Who the hell was this guy? "You noticed! How nice. So many

"You've no idea what you've done, or unleashed," she cackled, madness setting behind her eyes in equal measure to desperation. "Actually, I'm pretty sure I just killed you, but if we just wait around a few more second we'll know for certain." Her health bar was definitely depleted, but something wasn't right. Mobs didn't normally last this long before bursting into puffy clouds of sparkly digital bits. Remaining in a crouched, defensive stance, Freyd watched with concern as her form fractured but also reformed. It was as if she was undergoing some sort of metamorphosis, transforming

Pressing his advantage, Freyd punched her straight in the boob, following up with a practiced, lightning speed flurry that systematically staggered her, forcing her back step by step. As the kata reached its final moves, Freyd dug deep within himself, channeling his focus into a final strike. Lilith was caught under the chin and launched back across the room with the same degree of force she had just used against him. Her limp body impacted the far wall hard enough to leave a waifu-shaped imprint in the block and a gasping groan as the vampiress struggled to re-combobulate herself. Lif

Freyd replied to her vampiric tantrum by grabbing Lilith's wagging finger and twisting it in a painful joint lock until it snapped out of its socket. The resulting blood frenzy wasn't quite the effect he'd hoped for, causing her to lunge with reckless abandon and overwhelming speed. She slammed him into the granite block wall on the far side of the room with enough force to dislodge a cloud of dust and scattering of stone chips from the ancient and crumbling masonry, threatening to bring the cross-vault above down on both their heads. "I might have miscalculated a bit on that one," he

The incubus sprang first, leaping towards Freyd in a frenzy with desperate hopes to buy his patron some time to recover. His mate came swiftly after, the pair of them hissing and screeching as they clawed against the whirling dervish of shadows that was the Whisper. Snaring an outreached arm, Freyd brought his elbow down hard even as he turned the joint to bend in the wrong direction. A sickening crunch and howl as the man's arm shattered. Dropping to a knee Freyd fell just under the second minion's outstretched claws and managed to snare her collar as she flew by. Bracing a leg against a

Lilith paced relentless back and forth in the central audience chamber of her claimed demesne, a pair of sycophantic spawns trying but failing to entice her back to the lavish bed that sat where a throne might once have been. The male and female, likely both Red Cloaks once, tried every manner of taunt and tease, but their mistress remained fuming. "Damn that Harkens and his stupid oaths and powers! We should have finished them all off by now! Beelzebub will be furious if they are allowed to survive any longer." Several lewd poses from her pets momentarily distracted her from her rant

Razsak Castle. Forboding. Ominous. Excessively gothic. The whole thing just screamed 'Castlevania' as you approached it, especially with all those flying buttresses, gargoyles and other clichéd yet architecturally appropriate details. As always, the front gate lay open and unguarded. Lilith was overconfident, or just too lazy to close it. Or maybe it had broken and she just wasn't handy with tools. Never a good ghoul minion around when you need one, was there? "Perhaps the road less traveled, this time?" Steering clear of the main gatehouse, Freyd circled around to the far side o

The bundle of 'whatever-it-was' floated like a ball of white light, hovering just above the dais, or work table. This place was looking more and more like some sort of pseudo-mecha hangar the longer he stared at it. Reaching out, the glowy thingy pulsed as if it was requesting some sort of input and a UI interface immediately popped up requesting a selection from all of the available weapon types in the game. After making certain that there were no unusual Easter eggs hidden somewhere in the menu, Freyd selected martial arts and promptly dismissed the item, leaving it ready for later use.

Both revenants lunged forward, clumsily, but still forcing Freyd to tumble sideways to escape them. That was when he felt it. Some sort of charge was building in the ground, focused around the nearest of the constructs, which flickered and buzzed with unwholesome energy - that kind implying that it will smash you into next week if it it allowed to reach full power. "Oh. So they actually do a thing? Huh. Well, now probably isn't the best time to be checking that out." Using the momentum granted him by his roll, Freyd drove a fist into the gut of the nearer mob, unleashing the por

"Come out, come out, wherever you are!" There was no point in being coy. Freyd knew the revenants would be milling about in the various niches, nooks and tunnels surrounding the main central chamber in the heart of the ruined keep. A broad assortment of mechanical constructs lay or sat in various states of disrepair around a large open hall. It must have once had a ceremonial overtone, but now looked like nothing more than a devastated repair garage, half-buried beneath debris rained down by the collapse of the former floors above. He'd never actually seen any of the constructs do a

The journey south to the Ashen Keep was relatively easy, especially when travelling through various gullies and gulches that Freyd had mapped in detail during previous visits - ancient stream beds long since run dry as a result of whatever catastrophe was said to have befallen these lands. Floor fourteen's unusual Zack Snyder-esque colour scheme worked to his advantage. Covered in blacks and charcoal, further blended with the sheer amount of ash and dust in the wind, Freyd resembled every other bit of flotsam riding the harsh winds scouring the broken ground. A litany of ancient forgott