Freyd

Freyd stood behind Nari, looking relaxed with hands stuffed into his black hoodie-like top, legs spread wide for stabler stance. He truthfully wouldn't know how to relax if he was required to do so, and was equally ready to spring into action, especially if Arun did something impulsively stupid. Watching the plates of Nari's armor grind and shift against each other was like watching a coiled spring winding near the point where it would either be forced to release or break under its own stress. Intensity was good, but this level and extent tended to carry some downsides. Fortunately, the ne

"The hardest part of starting out is accepting that you can't do it all yourself. Some have, and succeeded. Vastly more failed, some selling their lives to feed their egos. It isn't worth it. It's been my pleasure to help, and we'll go smash Terra Firma into avocado paste as soon as you feel you're ready. Let me take the carry on that one, and then I suspect you'll be more than ready to stand on your own." Freyd smiled appreciatively as Wulfrin bowed with respect. As odd as it seemed, given his often irreverent attitude, Freyd deeply respected such gestures and returned in turn. "

"Go!" Freyd shouted as harshly as he dared, pushing Morningstar to run faster down the alley. "I've got this and will meet up with you later." Before he could protest, the player watched Freyd's features shift, his cowl melting into draping long hair and form changing proportions to matching those of the fairer sex. Sally's broken form was still sinking into the cobblestones as the Whisper assumed her guise and stepped out into the open street to greet the guards. When he spoke, he did so with her voice, matching her intonations perfectly. Few truly appreciated the extent to which the man

"Sounds like you might actually have learned a valuable lesson after all," Freyd mused aloud, chuckling to himself. "Who knew these old quests could still do that?" Pulling his hands out of his pockets, Wulfrin saw that they were wreathed in a blue-black cloud of vapours that roiled like dark plasma - almost like a halo orbiting his palms. "This? Heh. This is one of several weapons that I carry, each tailored to different needs. These happen to be called The Thing Behind All Lies. They have a penchant for inflicting particularly punishing misery on any soul unfortunate enough to feel th

That stung... Spinning to pin Sally's whip against the alley wall with his uninjured leg, Freyd used his body weight's momentum to close the gap and hammer the possessed mob with a series of strikes. It was enough to knock her momentarily to her knees, her health bar dipping dangerously low. "Yield!" Freyd's command went ignored, the battered woman's haggard appearance and bulging bloodshot eyes making her look like she'd gone completely insane. "We do not yield. We infest and consume, and you will be next. All shall be our feast, in time!" Her cacophonic multi-layered vo

Sally slumped, the wind having been literally knocked from her sails and subsequently rent sheer through by Morningstar's follow-up. Unfortunately, he overreached in his zeal and did precisely what they didn't need by bursting back through the tavern door. Inside, the patrons of the Naughty Pigeon paused their drinking for the second time in mere minutes to see the blonde swordsman come crashing in once more. "Sally?" A wizened man sitting at the bar spilled beer all over his long white beard seeing Freyd and their favourite bartender tangling with supreme lethality. "Wha... What's go

"Dangerous killers?" Freyd repeated Kyo's words hoping that doing so might offer greater clarity. "As opposed to the not-so-dangerous ones?" He laughed at the absurdity, knowing what she'd actually meant. It just sounded funny in his head. "You're not wrong about the insidious types, mind you. I've met a few in my time, and am still trying to figure out whether Dazia counts as one." A shrug signaled that the jury was still out, preferring to lean into the more esoteric topic of professions. "Nothing forces you into any particular combination. Mats are mats, at the end of the da

Decapitated, the sole remaining mob's body collapsed under its own weight and converting into a pile of stardust on the ground. Once more, everything about them vanished saved their long coats, Even pierced and cut to ribbons, they somehow lasted beyond the deaths of their wearers, denying another Cardinal rule. "Glad to hear you're alright," Freyd offered, not believing it for a second, but accepting that he'd probably deny the seriousness of such injuries himself if their roles were reversed. "I don't know what the hell is going on around here, but I don't like it in the slightest."

"Wait a sec... Knights of Cinnabon?" Something jarred deep in the recesses of Freyd's memories, urging him to ask Vigilon for clarification. "Aren't these the same jokers you picked a fight with back when we first met on Floor 8, or wherever? That time when I walked away from a pointless and unnecessary fight. Please tell me this isn't some sort of persistent personal vendetta you've got against them. We do have a raid to get to, after all." Freyd hoped that highlighting their status as frontliners might give the two mooks pause. Meanwhile, his thoughts drifted to other intruding m

"Trying to make me look bad by actually showing up on time?" "Why would I bother? Your fancy new getup must take hours to put together." Freyd's instantaneous retort to his guild mate was accompanied with widespread teasing grin to match his backward compliment. The 'Cerulean Storm,' as he'd once dubbed her, had certainly grown into her own. His manner left no doubts about his pride in her accomplishments. "Besides, I needed time to find my fish repellant." Returning Nari's nod respectfully, it hadn't surprised him in the slightest to see the invite come from her. The woman was

Furious at Cardinal's flagrant violation of its own rules, Freyd grabbed the butt end of the nearer attacker's halberds as they drew it out of Morningstar's gut, sympathy pains flashing through the back of his mind as he recalled suffering such grievous injuries himself. Fortunately, Morningstar was made of sterner stuff and withstood the treacherous blows where a lesser player might have expired instead. 'Thank goodness,' Freyd sighed silently in relief. Yanking downward and pulling back, the blade on the redcoat's polearm caught the mob in his own abdomen while Morningstar leapt a

Noting the growing fatigue behind Wulfrin's voice and gradual slowing of his motions, Freyd slid forward to deliver a little delayed action aid and lesson in the subtleties of combat in SAO. Tumbling past his companion towards the creatures flank, he gaze it but a grazing touch. Wulfrin would see a sickening purple miasma gather like an ethereal cloud about Freyd's hands as he delivered the blow, dodging gracefully away just as quickly as he'd approached. Mama Boar squealed and shuddered in seemingly disproportionate pain and her joints locked and froze with rictus, her eyes bulging wide at

Watching an entire suite of emotions play out in the subtly shifting features of her face, Freyd's eyes held fast to neutral for reasons Nari would have no ability to know: he simply didn't know what expectations to play to in such situations, and so abandoned any and all pretense. He was just trying to figure her out, and himself in turn. Clearly, his words has struck some deeper chord. Which? How? Strange how he so desperately yearned to know. Maybe because he sensed that they were more alike than either of them could admit to the other. "Not frighten you...I wish I could hold you

Head twisting like a hound's trying to decipher a newfound scent, yet also a familiar one, Freyd listened carefully as the spoke her piece. The echo of the hollowness within her resonated within his own heart. He knew that void himself, all too well. "So, we're actually not that different after all." Gone was the distended form and surreal demeanor. He was but a man again, plain and utterly forgettable, as intended. The plays and guises of an all-too-familiar skill receded into nothingness once more. It came so easily when beckoned, now, than it even did before. His face flashed

"We could ask the local guard, or sheriff - whatever they use around here. Mounties? Wouldn't that be ironic?" Gathering up the remaining coats, Freyd returned to the main thoroughfare, searching for any other matching garments or evidence of local security. "I've seen pocket combat zones within safe zones before," he offered. "They'd not common, but I stumbled into one in the Town of Beginnings, ages ago, when I was just starting out. Some ghoulish thing feigning childrens' cries would lure players into a dead end alley and then ambush them. Noob players would forget or simply not know

"There it is! Keep that up," Freyd offered by way of encouragement, watching Wulfrin manage to do what was required. There was no mockery in his tone. Countless players had died at the tusks of such creatures in the earliest days of Aincrad. Boars still claimed far too large a portion of the names on the Monument of Life. Figuring that the threat was now controlled, his own strikes drawing attention away from his companion, he hoofed the portly piggy on the backside with a gentle tap - just enough to count as a hit without taking away from Wulfrin's efforts. "Are you feeling that d

Freyd's head popped up out the sand like a strange prairie dog, dirt bursting forth and spraying the surround area while also suffusing the tangles mop that was his hair. Static still fizzed through him, the strange denizens of the depths clearly not appreciating his intrusion into their domain. To be fair, he had no idea what he was swinging at, other than its oddly blob-ish shape. Watching Katoka sail overhead with her own blistering zeal and electrocuting strikes, he couldn't help but wonder whether the two might repel each other if similarly charged. Surely, such a thing would end up a

Freyd slowed his unrelenting march, mid-step, twisting and craning his head to look upon his companion. The gesture verged on the uncanny valley in its hyperextension. 'She's a thinker,' he realized. 'How refreshing.' "I suppose that really depends on who you consider to be the monsters." It was a statement, not a counter. Delivered without judgment or apparent prejudice, Freyd's unusual response clearly came from someone who went to great lengths to ensure he was normally difficult to gauge. The scene they'd just shared was rarer than most could ever realize. "You speak as

Freyd smirked, watching Wulfrin stare at the red vial with wonder, then that moment of dawning realization of a massive mother boar barreling down on him. Ah, the good old days... "Persi, be a dear and buy our friend a little time," he spoke aloud to no one in particular. A small amorphous head of inky blackness poked up from the collar on the right side of his neck, opening twin azure orbs adorned with horizontally slotted pupils. The tiny thing's muzzle wrinkled and sniffed, then darted with the speed and silence only a shadow could achieve. Persi closed the distance almost ins

Grabbing both distracted thugs by the scruffs of their respective jackets, Freyd yanked, smashing the questionable contents of their skulls together with a hollow *clack*. As they rebounded off each other, a curt shove to accelerate the motion drove their aching faces into the stone walls on either side of the alley. Both men dropped to their knees, clenching their poor, battered heads, wondering what was happening. They still hadn't clued in that Freyd had vanished from sight, though both were also rather discombobulated. A pair of lightning quick kicks shattered their digital forms and s

"There are limits, but you can skew pretty deep. What you'll come to realize fairly quickly is that any choice in one direction is a trade-off against the benefits of another. Gear counts for a lot, for example, but the math if governed by choices. It's like those guys who excel at crunching all the numbers to tell you how to optimize your build to play in your latest favourite MMO. Put twelve of them in a room and you'll get eleven different reasons why their is the best, and one bitching about how they can't get enough advertisers on their stream and it's all your fault." Freyd blinked.

Freyd listened to Vigilon's recounting, solitary eyebrow raised by the quirky fickleness of fate. "Wait... does all that have anything to do with why we usually meet with you falling out of the sky? Oh, and thank you for offering, but I ate before I came," he added, patting his flat and unassuming stomach. "Standard pre-raid procedure. You know how it is." "I'm afraid what he says is true, Vigilon has no shortage of enemies, including ones that will make war against him upon sight, even monsters with a neutral temperament have had hostile reactions to his presence from time to tim

Oddly enjoying the role of informal sensei, Freyd had never actually pictured it for himself. Yet, truth be told, it was one he'd donned many more times than most would ever consider possible. Offering only a smile at Wulfrin's venting. The life of an appraiser was to make the RNG your nemesis and savor those fleeting moments when fate intervened to give you something that wasn't a complete and total piece of crap. Good times. "I won't pretend to sit here and give you tips to instantly improve your game. Experience and time are the best teachers you could find, though maybe the syste

Watching Nari move was a marvel. He'd never actually fought in heavy armor himself, but every other carapaced veteran of the game he'd ever fought beside couldn't hope to match her speed or flexibility. In a strange way, it was a rare treat of refreshing novelty. But the equally unexpected turn in their continued conversation was what pierced his casual nonchalance about such things. Nari had struck a nerve that he rarely, if ever, allowed to be exposed; multiple, in fact. "Call me naive, but...what are your thoughts on i-" Right. Combat. Eyes on the ball. The treant's siz

"Fishing is about a lot more than just catching fish," he replied coyly, a wistful smirk spreading across his lips. "The rest really needs to be experienced to learn, though we could try it if you wish. Kyu doesn't seem particularly keen, but maybe we could offer some conversation in exchange, at least to pass the time until something else is selected?" Dismissing his bag back to inventory, Freyd wandered out into the water until it rose to the level of his knees, not bothering to remove his footwear. Antiquated rod already in hand, suitable bait was promptly summoned, hooked and cast