Freyd

Freyd shrugged, deflecting the potential accusation. "To be fair, this one had nothing to do with me." He pointed to his outfit as proof. "I was firmly on vacation, trying to get some rare R&R in when I got the call that you were in trouble." A deep gasping sound opened beside them, like a sealed pocket the size of Ugzeke's arse had just puckered. Out walked Setsuna, along with the final few floating dregs of the unfortunate woman who'd triggered this particular mess and fallen prey to his dastardly fishing line. "And that other time was That Guy's fault, not mine, so by

The door crept open silently as a black-hooded head craned inside the vestibule to Simmone's shop, wary of dramatic entrapments. No Sam wrapped in passionate embrace around a Katoka half her size. No Freya on the floor, striving to devour her own soul in an effort to redeem it. No Eruda drowning in doubts and certainties. And, thank goodness, no Blueberries full of irrelevant, self-delusional cheer. A whispered sigh of relief and he entered fully. "Simmone, are you about? You said that you wanted to talk. I have a few moments before... stuff and things. You know how it is." Langu

Watching as her health ticked gradually downward, Freyd's face remained unmoving. A twitch at the corner of his lips when she refuses the antidote. Foolish. Stubborn. But hope remained that she could awaken and be molded into a serviceable tool, for her own purposes and also the benefit of others. A difficult transaction had been completed. A hard lesson delivered and hopefully learned. From his perspective, a point missed. She had tried for the wrong reasons and clung to her delusions as justifications. 'Better to let her season awhile and see if she grills herself into shape,'

"Someone found it. I don't even know the details myself. My attention was elsewhere. But, yeah. They've found the next raid boss and it's already time to go headbutt the thing into oblivion." Freyd was clearly disinterested, but the reasons for his dismissal were buried deep. Part of it was strightforward concern about some repetition of Shadow's shenanigans. The scars were still too fresh, as his earlier chat with Katoka had confirmed. "A meeting was recently held at Ariel's dojo, not far from our guild hall - nice place, by the way. The scouting party found and defeated the laby

Freyd listened to his friend's words, hearing them as if mirrored back at him by himself, as they had been only weeks earlier. The anguish and uncertainty in Freya's voice struck an unexpected chord for which he lacked outward symptoms. He simply didn't know how to express them. Emotion had always been viewed as an affliction in his worldview, and assumed to be a debilitating weakness that could cripple any titan or monolith. Yet part of him had fought so hard to infect itself with their insidious source of malignant mischief. He'd watched emotions nearly consume Raidou in the battle agai

"After the raid," he added. "But yes. We need answers. I can find Nisa. I can feel her, and the tethers between her and others, including yourself, Eruda and..." Freyd's voice tapered off as his eyes narrowed and turned to black. Walking the void stream was taxing, requiring him to stretch his consciousness to the brink of collapse; to the edge of existence in boundless nothingness without fraying his already questionable sanity. "This puzzle is already on my front burner, but we have real and pressing considerations that require tending. The Front Lines could fracture without Fir

"That's a good start," he offered, in a matching tone. One that had struggled for years well before Aincrad had sprung its trap around him. One that he had nearly lost, trying to decide whether to give it voice. "We all need to value our choices for what they are, and how they represent our intentions for ourselves. You want the strength that Tuatha represents. And you can have it. But never forget where you came from of the sacrifices you made in order to achieve it. It will matter, if that strength ever fails." ...or somehow betrays you. Already halfway down the hole, he reached

Freyd smiled at Kasumi's words, warmth spreading behind his eyes. Persi had been at his side for so long, and worked so hard, she deserved a little adulation. He could hardly think of a better source. As much as he wanted Kasumi's edge to be honed razor thin, it was crucial that she maintain the soft, gentle core of her identity, so that she could one day teach Setsuna how to find her own. Having left and right hands talking to one another? Imagine that. "Of course you can, Kasumi. She's a big suck, most of the time, and will gladly eat up any attention you wish to lavish." A soft

"None." An absolute deadpan dodge, laced with mostly truth to make it palatable. Freyd had no choice. There was only speculation based on partial data. Freya, as usual, was leaping to conclusions, trying to force connections that would prove a happy outcome. He was less convinced. But he'd agreed to help, so he would. "Persi. If you could, please." A slinking mass dropped from the Whisper's back, oozing down between the broken stones to the sound of sizzling. She had defeated the Boulder, mongoose-styles. No gravel-filled pit would stand before her. As the two players watched,

"So be it," Freyd responded with casual detachment. "If that's what it takes to open your lives and help save the lives of the people around you, I will gladly pay it." He stood to full height as the mob's corpse fell to dust all around them, the glaring orange tears in his body slowly starting to heal. Poison dampened the effect, but not by much. Reaching into thin air, he summoned a small bottle that looked like it was meant to hold Tobasco, or some other similar hot sauce. The contents were sickly green, with the consistency of vomited spinach and avocados. It smelled even worse when

"What? Didn't you say something about being locked up in a cave, or something? Last, I checked, most caves aren't above ground. Kinda, like, the opposite?" He gave her a quizzical look, as if she'd assumed more than he'd meant from simple divination. "Look, Nisa's just... weird. She isn't fate. That isn't possible. She's just a loony who says that everything that happened was 'meant to be'." Freyd waved his hands and arms around with grandiose exaggeration, mocking his own earlier statement and the image of the woman he had just described. "How the hell do you know... wait. Did

Freyd arrived without fanfare, hands stuffed in his pockets and the false hint of a smile plastered on his face for the sake of appearances. A nod and minor pleasantries exchanged, he steers them to the proper course, calling on Persi to lead them on their way. "She's done this quest before," he mentions, casually. "It took a while to convince the NPC to acknowledge it, but I finally wore him down." A strange certificate summoned from thin air, confirmed that Persi had completed the boulder quest and unlocked Martial Arts. The font was off, as if the system was struggling with the inp

Black hands, like the void, but chipped and blighted. Freyd stared at his palms with concerned detachment as he watched them slowly reconstruct. Samael's Pride had bitten him, again. It was happening more and more often now, whenever the weapon unleashed the seal containing its core. Its core was pure nothingness. Insatiable. Destructive. The very manifestation of oblivion. How ironic that he wielded a thing made of the stuff from which they were all trying so desperately to avoid. Persi sat up on a stool next to him, her eyes bearing an extremely rare and disturbing air of concern.

The Thing Behind All Lies +5 (T4 Demonic Weapon (Hammer, Identified) - Abs.Acc, Static, Blight, Paralytic Venom) Acquisition ID [193182b] | Roll ID: 195461, 195462, 195463 | Reroll IDs: 195464, 195465, 195466, 195468, 195469 An amorphous, miasmic cloud of blue-black vapours that hovers around both of its wielders hands. When called upon, they link together, solidifying into a six-foot long shaft of roiling dark plasma that unleashes massive energy discharges upon contact with its wielder's foes, shaking them to the cores of their very souls. Eval: https://www.sao-rpg.com/topic/19579

Samael’s Pride (T4 Demonic Weapon (Hammer, Crafted) – Fallen 2, Holy 2) Acquisition ID [167646c] | Roll ID: 168850, 168851, 168852 Between all good and evil, or light and dark, there is a line drawn by the pride of Samael, the fallen angel. It is a line from which said pride fervently hungers to stray and yet paradoxically seeks. Appearing as a sliver of pure void roughly six feet long and limned by the thinnest of holy seals, anyone wielding this staff bears that same burden and the consequences that inevitably follow. Once a blade, it drank of malevolent Shadow and Orgoth the champion, d

Freyd's eyes were wide as saucers as they scanned the assortment of goodies laid out in Kuni's displays, pondering the potential that each offered. "Got it, got it, got it, need it, got it, need it." He paused. "My... oh my. I... oh." A Cheshire grin spread beneath his cowl. "I need me some of these." It took a considerable effort to impress the Whisper to this particular degree. If he could buy every single item in all the trays, he would, but even his considerable resources could not achieve such a feat. "Shame," he sighed, forcing himself to be selective and strategic

Skill(s) Being Dropped: Hammer R5 Mod(s)/Addon(s) Being Dropped: Precision (2 SP), Ferocity (4 SP), Stamina (4 SP) SP Incurred Towards Limit: 30 SP (Nov. 1 used 14 SP - total refunded in 44 within 30 days) SP Refunded: 40 SP Cost: 40000 col

Chuckling in the background, Freyd warmed at seeing the old zaniness of his friend restored, even if only for a fleeting moment. "It suits you better, you know. To play the maniacal agent of mayhem, rather than the brooding sort. Leave the latter bit to us professionals and go back to flinging fast food carts at people. I suspect that it will bring you greater joy." "See you next time, ladies," he added to the balance of their audience. The spawnlings hissed at him, but moves clear as he walked towards the exit. Lilith just looked incredulous and stunned. "Also, breath mints wo

Freyd laughed - genuinely laughed. It was as heartwarming as it was unexpected, let alone to actually see something like joy in his eyes. She felt him tense, at first, as she wrapped her arms around him in a patented Katoka bear hug (tm). A pair of arms fell around her from above to return the gesture., a hand patting her comfortingly on the back. "Elora's been making me practice," he added, by way of explanation. "You know, the people stuff: hugs, sharing food, sleeping in general, not glaring at things until they explode. Those sort of things." He looked wistful for a moment.

"Baldur." Direct acknowledgement seemed best, and Freyd had never been one to weave banter with any true skill. His tone was pleasant and respectful. He'd seen the gaijin samurai's skill first hand in the battle against Shadow, yet had somehow failed to provide him with the same impression. Freyd took no offense. He preferred not to be noticed. It made everything easier, especially when you didn't even have to hide to make yourself invisible, or light a fire for people to actually see you. A smile alighted on the man's normally dour expression, perhaps from his own thoughts as much

A message received, a bobber retrieved and Whisper slinking out from his near back yard to the farther one. This girl was a trouble magnet, it seemed, but at least she had the decency to keep it local. He didn't even bother asking how or why Raidou was involved. It was trouble, and he was Raidou. It just made sense. The picnic sprawled out before him had been assembled for his first attempt at a recreational outing. Someone had mentioned the concept before, and colleagues nagged him incessantly that he needed to 'get out more'. It only just occurred to him that they meant somewhere more

Sand sprayed in the serpent's eyes - all four of them - as Freyd and Persi worked to tag team the field boss and end a stalemate of principles. A twist and shift pulled the dark staff from the ground, neatly slipping the top through the open loop at the base of the panhandle in Blueberry's grasp. Twin clanks and hisses as the cast iron smashed unceremoniously against both heads, amidst a flurry of motion, producing simultaneous hisses and the release of jaws. Snouts bashed and brutalized by a whirlwind of motion and flailing improvised kitchenware decimated the fierce Amphis Serpens, leaving

A quick fist bump and follow up smash sent the demon sprawling, bouncing head over tea kettle until he finally splattered across one of the massive masonry columns holding up the vaulted ceiling, of which Lilith had been so fond. Freyd rotated his shoulder, watching an outline of the boss in his previous position fade, like the hairs of the coyote after the roadrunner pushed down his own plunger, setting off a ton of TNT in his face. "I think I sliced that one," he joked. "I was actually aiming for the next column over." Beelzebub's tail had been flattened by the impact. The r

"Oh, did I mention? We finally figured out who was behind all that. Turns out Lun'Rael, the Dark Elf queen from floor 23 - the one who blew herself up and took out her own city in the process? Yeah. It was her. Whatever was bringing her minions back from the dead had originally done the same to her." A screeching sound like the start of a backdraft skewed the distance between Freyd and demon-dude as the sliver of nothingness opened itself up to feed. Thrust forth like a spear, Freyd lunged and disintegrated a hole the size of a volleyball through the thing's chest, severing its left

As forces gathered to the frontlines, Freyd found himself staring about the room at the various faces gathered. Most were familiar, certainly including those from his guild. Come to think of it, he knew them all in some way or another. "How did that happen," he mused aloud as he laid out provisions to share with comrades. Shiina was practically throwing mass healing potions at people, but they were all so frightened of her that no one dared receive them, for fear they'd somehow be paralyzed to the tune of a whoopy cushion by the woman's antics. He couldn't really blame them, though