Freyd

Lifting the battered doll, Freyd showed the name written on it, proceeding to explain. "Those kids are smart. Hiding is a choice, and worthless once you've already been caught. Sakura had the good sense to disable the mod, giving us a chance to find their position. They're on floor 15, not far out from Lhasri and heading west towards Palden Glacier. Revenge is best served cold? Dude might be taking things a little too literally. But they seem to still be on the move, so we may have time, and also be in luck. If Tyson had half a brain, he'd have already brought them to a dungeon o

Returning to the throng after an entertaining side bar conversation with Cordelia, Freyd melded into the crowd. It was a rare a special treat for someone who regularly consigned himself to the shadows to mingle so openly with other players. It should have felt awkward, and usually did. But not today. Today, it was elating, like lifting a weighted blanket from your shoulders after it had nearly suffocated you. A quick wave and nod were made to @Calrexas he passed him and @Snowemerging from the kitchens. A quizzical look at the Ultramarine Knight played tauntingly at whatever the two o

While his partner was busy going all goo-goo eyes for the cuddly kitty, Freyd was very keenly aware of the number size and potential stats of the increasingly agitated mobs rousing themselves to anger all around them. Xena didn't have nearly enough treats for a group of this size, and while he could carve his way out, there was no way to do so without her taking a potentially fatal hit. "Oh, for the love of..." Wrapping his arm around her and the cub, Freyd's eyes fell into darkness and sought the gypsy through shadows. Timing would be key. He sprang just as the tigers pounced, th

Freyd simply stared back. If the man wanted to play chicken, he'd picked the wrong adversary. Freyd had once outlasted the glue on a wall poster in high school, glaring at the thing out of sheer boredom as his teacher drone on endlessly about something or other. It might have been chemistry. The poster had smiling people on it who looked like they were peddling something concealed in the pockets of their crisp, white lab coats. There was nothing aggressive about Freyd's manner. His sipped at his steaming drink and stretched, lounging casually in his seat while waiting for the other man m

Freyd climbed down, skipping every other rung on the way down and making a show of tapping invisible buttons and twisting virtual interfaces visible only to his private HUD before opening the hatch at the bottom of the well. It was crowded and deliberately uncomfortable. The place was never meant for visitors of any kind. Mina would be the first to ever gain access to his sanctum, and he wasn't entirely keen on the prospect, but it beat having this sort of conversation outdoors. The hatch, built into the side of the shaft, looked like the type on might use to seal a submarine compartment,

A shimmer and flurry of shadow washed over him as his appearance shifted and changed. Gone was his armor and signature outfit of charcoals, greys and gloomy blacks. In their stead came a simple blue Henley and set of beige slacks paired with sandals to better deal with the beach. His face was the same, but more at ease than she was used to seeing. Only the glasses were new, yet seemed very familiar. Pulling up a patch of sand by her side, Freyd plunked himself down with relaxed ease and took a moment to absorb the scenery. His sights focused heavily on the farthest horizons of the see, a

"What's with the cat features, anyway? I mean, they kinda suit you, but it's surprisingly not a common thing to see in Aincrad." Wandering blindly through the underbrush of a tiger-infested jungle hoping to steal one of their babies didn't seem like a terribly great plan, but he'd tried worse. Spotting a bit of spoor and then some paw prints in the damp, loamy soil, he was about to mention them when he looked up to see Xena trying to force-feed a tiger cub something from the gypsy's bag of pseudo Scooby-snacks. Freyd's gob snapped shut, eyes widening at the gathered streak of tigers

A new floor meant new information to be gathered, quests to be done and puzzles to be solved. Most importantly, it meant that O&I needed to get their butts in gear and get a lay of the land. Freyd had already traveled to Ronbaru to sneak a peak and ensure that they wouldn't be running afoul of weird taboos or special floor conditions that could cause trouble. So far, everything seemed fairly mundane - maybe even a little too much so. This 'Lapis Society' had all the markings of a stonemason's-style super conspiracy, and warranted a bit of extra scrutiny. After making a few clandestine

Her response didn't seem to phase him in the slightest. The man had a self-animating puddle of shadow-stuff as his own familiar and had seen everything from parasitic puddings to rock golems, to ice spirits as familiars. Heck, he'd even helped people acquire more than a few such beasties. This was going to be a cinch by comparison. "Right. Oversized, super-fluffy tabby cat in need of a manicure. Gotcha. Shouldn't be too hard to find." Her own catlike features were actually a greater source of intrigue. Aincrad had all manner of vanity items to help players hide or modify thei

The grey drizzle of rain drowned out a seemingly infinite swirling maelstrom of possibilities and responsibilities, converging on the Whisper like moths to the last surviving flame. Sitting on the ramparts of the Bastion Wall Shrine of floor nineteen, Freyd surveyed the desolate plains commonly referred to as The Forbidden Lands, beyond. Few players came here anymore. There were few mobs and resources, and only a handful of quests even referenced this place, let alone required interaction with it. It was a wasteland in every sense of the word. Only one feature made it notable. Ki'Reion m

Taking her hand to stand felt really weird, given her short stature, but Freyd didn't want to insult her by refusing. Instead, he rose and flipped his cowl back up into position. Persi sat on a nearby branch, watching them with the same disturbing stare as some peeping Tom anthropologist. "What is it we're looking for, anyway?" Xena hadn't really shared much in the way of details regarding what type of familiar she preferred. "I'm guessing that it's some sort of cat, yanno, because ears." He pointed to the top of her head as evidence of her fetish, and the source of his assumptions.

He smiled back at her with that sort of smile a friend gives you when you know you're being silly, but you're feeling self-conscious and that's okay because it's what friends are for. "Yes, Freyja. We are still friends, and I am still Freyd." He sighed and rubbed his eyes, in the same manner Raidou did when he removed his glasses. Freyd never wore any in this world, though he did in the other. Some habits were just too hard to break. "You and I have seen a lot of weird shit together. We've lived through a lot of it. What you saw and heard in there was the little voice that

"There are no children in Aincrad anymore," Freyd replied coldly, "just weary veterans in tinier bodies." A tinge of regret carried in his voice, but Freyd had never been the type to let it stop him from whatever needed to be done. The goals were all that mattered, in the end. That said, he'd been forced to realize that most people couldn't operate the same way. The recent schism during the raid had laid that bare. Players were fracturing, as individuals and as a group. Division threatened their chances of survival, and so he had done what needed to be done, no matter how impossibl

Blue eyes winced imperceptibly every time she called him 'nice.' He was giving what he thought she needed, as he had done with others. Was that what 'nice' was? Others had used the same words to describe him, yet he felt harsh and cruel most of the time, forcing those trapped in this world to come to terms with its realities. Survival depended upon it. "Me? Grow? Eh... maybe." Discomfort mixed with unfamiliar humility. He simply wasn't used to receiving compliments, and never expected to become so. "I've earned by taking my share of lumps, and dragging others along for the ride.

"Seriously? This smells like false advertising, dude!" It was hard to imagine how the Whisper could even tell one smell from another in a place as full of unusual scents as this. A dozen screens arrayed themselves before him, invisible to all eyes but his own due to an unavoidable need for privacy settings. His work with the guild was too sensitive for public view, especially the shadier bits. Someone had to do the dirty work, which was all the more reason why he felt obligated to help out players just starting out. He needed to keep them from straying down darker paths, where their next

Candor. A good beginning. Freyd put down the widget he'd been polishing and gave her the proper appearance of attention. Even at the worst of times, a disinterested appearance from him carried eagle-worthy levels of scrutiny. It just paid better dividends not to show it. "First of all, I wouldn't hand that gear to someone I deemed a child and then shove them at the nearest available floor boss, but I can appreciate that our past encounters might give you pause." As if to accentuate the point, he lifted his cup and sipped at the vanilla-scented liquid goodness within. "If it's tru

Pressing his fingertips together, elbows leaning against his knees as he sat and listened, Freyd arched his slender brows as she began to blame herself for everything from the sun down to the ground, including every conceivable flaw in between. "You sound like you've been having a rough time," he began, speaking slowly and calmly. "And if there's anyone in this blasted castle that's going to understand social awkwardness, you're looking at him. I'm practically the poster child for people who were once afraid of their own shadow, not that I try to spread that around." Lacking any other

A rare day of toil in his shop. Quip had threatened to burn the place down again, which made her seventh such delivery. Based on past experience, eight was her threshold, so he'd told her and Dingo to take a couple of days off, transferred a small fortune in col to them both and bid them get the heck away from his stuff. The store was a mess. It had always been a mess and would likely always remain one. Truth was that Freyd had deliberately chosen this floor with the intent and expectation that no one would ever bother to come so far out of the way to visit it. And yet... The shop i

If there was anything Freyd truly understood, it was the toll of psychological trauma. He'd struggled through his own bout of PTSD, though no one had ever bothered to diagnose it as such. Xena clearly carried her own baggage. No one who stayed that long in the Town of Beginnings did so without some underlying scars - of the mental or emotional variety. She had stepped away, so he took the cue and gave her the space she seemed to need, and time. Seating himself on a nearby fallen log, Freyd pulled back his cowl and stared silently at the emptiness that was his hands, feeling about as

"Done?" His cowl perked up in a puppy-like manner, suddenly eager and alert, all manner of banter and chatter discarded with casual disinterest. "Then let's get you back to What's-her-face... uh, Maggie. Yeah!" Long lanky strides led them the short distance back to the NPC's shop. "Oh, there are plenty of us. Players in here all seem eccentric by nature. Several years of video game captivity may have something to do with that. I mean, it's not like I carried a sword and dressed in spoopy emo gear like this in the real world." They shared a glance. "Okay, so maybe it was

"Hey, are you alright?" A hand haltingly came to rest on her shoulder, immediately sensing the tremors shuddering through her body. "Xena?" His laughter stopped as Freyd came to some inkling of what she might be experiencing. Empathy was still a new concept for him. He had only meant to be playful, engaging her on the same level as she was doing, but perhaps things had been taken too far. "I'm... sorry." Rare words, never spoken by the Whisper in recent memory. "I should have realized that all this is still a bit much for you, and didn't stop to think. Please, take a minute. We'r

"That's Raidou's robe. He needs it back. You can't have it, it's not yours to wear." A flurry of red. Cloth torn and torn again. Like a matador’s cape, the robe filled her vision as it whirled like a kite lost in a hurricane. It snapped and twirled in the air, enveloping the shadowy form within as echoes in the room uttered in whispers. “Raidou is gone.” Harsh truth spoken in Freyd’s cool, calm voice struck deeper than any knife, or sword, or claw, layered in regret at the inevitable made real. The hurled sword swept through flapping cloth and writhing darkness within, ev

Freyd’s lip curled into an impish smile as his hidden test had found purchase. How much pride did Cordelia have in her master’s prowess he had wondered. A flare of the eyes. The urge to come to his defense evident in the brief flaring of nostrils, but controlled and concealed behind a cup. Not a fool. That was good to know, and spoke well of her and Baldur’s teachings. A flicker of concern washed over his face, as she leaned forward to tease. It was so subtle that most people might have missed it. Tired. Freyd held his breath, caught in the throes of memory for a moment,

"Proof. Truth. The burden of fact as absolute. An infinite pool of doubt. That's why Freyd can't believe. The requirements of faith stand opposed to his very nature. It's why I needed you all to make it here. Thanks for convincing him that it was necessary." Montjoy beamed a pleasant smile at all of them. It would have been utterly creepy on Freyd, but the subtle differences between them were enough to offset the jarring effects. "Oh, always with the games, Morry. You silly white-feathered goose." He chuckled softly, even as he nodded a greeting in her direction. "I believe w

'Here we go,' he thought to himself, mentally rolling his eyes as Xena vented and ranted as her temper calmed down. He wasn't the type to let people toss accusations at him without firing back, even if it was just in the form of playful banter. "What are you even talking about?" He laughed, that annoying grin still beaming from beneath his cowl. "Opening back up? I never closed down. I'm just calling you out based on what you'd already told me." Arms stretched high and wide as he loosed a yawn and twisted his neck left and right, limbering up for whatever was about to follow.