Freyd

Freyd usually had a good sense of humour about lethal situations, laughing off imminent dangers and threats of death on the principle that getting overly agitated wasn't especially helpful under such circumstances.  It had served him well before, but something about this particular situation was undermining his casual disregard.  Maybe he was still worried about Morningstar, or anyone else who randomly wandered through the Glyndebourne gate?  Maybe it was Sally, and all of the other potential NPCs who could be exposed to the same fate?

"Persi, keep watch."  A flick of his wrist suggested direction and location.  The tiny mongoose strayed to the room's darkest corners, completely invisible save for her pair of brilliant azure eyes with her telltale slotted irises.  She was on edge too, which only added to Freyd's personal unease.  

Leaping, flipping and vaulting across bits of debris, Freyd put his lesser known talents to use navigating the debris field that had once been a house interior.  Curiously, the collapsed floors held very little content.  It was as if the place had been stripped bare, leaving only bulky furniture and miscellaneous sundries behind.

***

EN regen 1/2
Cooldowns: Grappling (3/5), Charge (2/3)

"Stop.  Trying.  TO EAT ME!"

Floor joists and heavy timbers collapsing all around him, Freyd had somehow managed to work his way up to the ground floor.  Or, maybe the ground floor had fallen into the basement.  Both were equal possibilities, given the extent of raw damage done to the structure.  He and his trademark cowl were now so utterly laden and caked with debris that they looked like an ashen blizzard had dumped its entire load upon them in a blink.  The outer wall still stood, but most of the interior walls were gone. It looked like a frat party turned completely and totally wrong in the worst possible way.  Only a few sections of the upper floor had mysteriously survived, supported by the same reddish filaments that seemed to be at the heart of whatever had embroiled him and Morningstar in the first place - and who knows how many others.

Most of the gossamer strands were concentrated in the far corner of the remaining upper floor.  If he was going to find any answers, that would be the place.  He just needed to find a way up.

***

Loot Mimic 1: ID #218914 | LD: 12+14=26 | CD: 1
+2 materials (+2 CD odd)
16000 col (HP[2000]*8 - incl. +2 LD even, +3 Prosperity)
T4 Perfect Consumable 218914a
T4 Perfect Consumable 218914b
T4 Perfect Armor/Shield 218914c
T4 Perfect Armor/Shield 218914d

Scouting can resume.

"Not happening!"  Ironclad refusal took the form of tumbling turned demolition derby as Freyd changed tactics and replaced dodging around attacks into crazy through the cellar itself.  Ear-splitting cries resonated throughout the confined space as the maws bound around his fist peeled back their seals, unleashing the power of oblivion.  Dust and splinters sprayed like shrapnel all about the space as chaos and destruction reigned, obscuring everything.  The floors above creaked ominously as support columns and beams we sundered and snapped like twigs, whole sections vanishing with the passage of his touch.  Freyd had finally let loose.

From outside, it must have seemed as if someone were setting off demolition charges, or an indoor artillery barrage.  The manor house heaved and jumped, belching out puffs of dust and detritus as windows shattered, raining glass down upon the surrounding yard.  Various sections crunched and collapsed under their own weight.  So much for the subtle approach, but it beat getting sliced into ribbons.

***

"Nope.  Nope!  NOPE!"  Try has he might, there were far too many strands flying about to effectively inflict any kind of counterattack.  Dodging like the ballbearing in a pinball machine, he instantly felt himself sympathizing with its plight.  Both were battered and thrown about violently for the amusement of others, with the only apparent end being an inevitable swallow by the void at the end of their torture chamber.  Freyd hadn't quite spotted that particular menace, yet, being too busy dancing around like a madman, trying to keep himself from being flayed alive.  Every edge and line defining a surface in the space - literally every corner - was against him and actively peeling itself from its part to join the growing, scrambled ball of crimson death yarn chasing him around a basement that was sorely in need of housekeeping.  He needed to find a solution, and quickly, or there would soon be flayed Freyd tartar sprayed over every inch of this place.

***

And that's when the house bit him - or tried, rather.  He'd barely stepped halfway down the stairs when the mortar lines between rubblestone blocks forming the basement suddenly shone red, making the entire space feel like the inside of a very hostile enemy submarine, or maybe a Resident Evil movie.  Moving on instinct alone, Freyd tumbled forward just in time to avoid a tangle of razor-sharp red strands slicing at him from every direction.

"Definitely Resident Evil," he cried out, vaguely remembering something about a red queen and lasers in corridors chopping protagonists into tiny bitses.  Not a moment he was eager to personally experience.  Persi simply slipped through the remaining voids, dancing through the peril like she so often did.  Freyd swore that it was purposefully done just to show him up.

"The entire house has turned?!  This thing can even infect the environment?"  The Whisper realized that he was in the gullet of a death trap within a death game, and it was very earnestly trying to swallow him.

***

Open treasure chest | 218903 | CD 3 | Chest is a mimic and attacks.

Allowing his lumberjack disguise to fade, Freyd didn't expect it to do him much good if his guess was correct.  The centre of a broadly spun web that could override the rules of their digital reality?  That was raid level shit, or, more precisely, the sort of nonsense you would typically only find in labyrinths.  Approaching the main entrance seemed ridiculously stupid, and possibly suicidal.  Freyd elected, instead, to wander around to the side of the structure, seeking another door, cellar, or unsecured window.  Option number two seemed like today's winner.  A pair of slanted shutters jut out from the side of the foundation marked his preferred point of entry.  Notably, a badly rusted chain and heavy padlock lay loosely in the grass a few feet away.  No one had likely used them in quite some time.

Nudging Persi towards the doors, her mono-dimensional figure slipped between the leafs to scout the interior.  A moment later, her head appeared, blinking the 'all-clear' in blazing blue.  Opening the doors are quietly as possible, Freyd slowly crept inside.

***

Scouting | 218902 | LD 10+16=26 | Treasure chest
Total: 109/300

The manor house itself was wreathed in filaments from top to bottom, serving as some sort of nexus or root for the splaying crimson strands splaying outward from it in every direction.  They were densest near the building itself, producing a reddish halo that seemed to pulse from the structure in time with the motions of the wind.  

"Yeah," Freyd muttered, "that's not ominous in the slightest.  Hey, Persi, how much you want to bet this is the Lord Magistrate's pad?"  Slinking down from beneath his armor, his normally aloof shadow mongoose familiar was on edge, her blazing azure eyes narrowed to the slimmest of suspicious slivers as she sniffed around.  "Agreed.  Let's not be alone in here."  Willing his own shadow to split into multiple fragments to better distract any would-be attackers, the Whisper was further dismayed when nothing happened, and then the penny dropped.

"Awww, crap, Persi.  I think I know where we are."

A dark mass loomed in the distance, nestled in a valley between two rising slopes of wavering crimson adorned with heavy lacings in white.  Though it was tough to tell, so heavily was it encased by the gossamer strands, Freyd thought he saw a series of tower-like elements poking up to match the tallest of the surrounding trees. All of it looked as though it was swaddled beneath a sheer, fabric-blanket of gauze.  Realization dawned, along with cursing for having taken him so long to connect the similar contexts.  These strands weren't like vines at all.  They were like webs, very similar to the ones he'd seen during his many forays through the Chittering Halls of Floor 21.  Yet this forest was almost completely silent by comparison.

There had been no evidence of arachnids in Glyndebourne, or at the burnt out farmstead.  No.  He was still missing something.  Still pondering, he found the road before him stop abruptly after a shard turn.  Ornate, wrought iron gates swung loosely upon heavy hinges, marking the boundaries a large estate home, the manor house barely visible beyond.  More discarded 'clothing' lay crumpled on the cobblestones just behind the gate.

"The horse?!"  Grimacing in disgust at the sight, Freyd moved the shed skin around with his boot, but could find no evidence of the rider having done the same.  "Maybe he got eaten by his ride?"  Comical, though equally disturbing.

Following the road a while longer revealed more undulating terrain: a series of rolling hills all set aflame with the deepest burning colours of Autumn.

"The floor sure likes its themes, doesn't it?"

Soon, gossamer strands like translucent vines began to appear, draping from various branches and strung between trees as if connecting one to the other.  Most were white or clear, but it didn't take long to start seeing the occasional tinge of pink, eventually verging into reds.  It was like watching the fire in the forest canopy slowly bleeding or being drained into the strands and filaments strewn with growing density between its various parts.  At its most macabre, there were instances where they appeared more like sinuous muscle tissue, as if he'd entered the corpse or body of some unfathomably vast colossus and was walking through the layers of its flesh and musculature.

"Yeah... because that's not creepy at all."  His sarcasm was a dripping as colour from the vines.  Persi trembled beneath his clothes, as if in full agreement.

***

Scouting | 218900 | LD 17+16=33 | Nothing happens
Total: 83/300

If it were only that simple.  Beneath the pallor of its thinly layered fur, Freyd could also see the prominent red veins streaking and pulsing beneath its near-translucent flesh.  Cringing at the prospect that this entire wood might be infected by whatever befell the other mobs, it brought small comfort that the critter betrayed no outward sign of aggression.  it simply looked at him, standing still and silent as if waiting for a pair of headlights to match its gaze.  The thought was enough to make him snicker, and the snicker was enough to spook the deer.  It darted away through the underbrush, bounding in the way that all such creatures do.

'Perfectly normal,' he concluded, surprised and unsure what to make of the information.  Could something be at play in this forest?  He was less convinced that whatever befell Sally and the others in town was the result of some malignant environmental effect like the crystals that had afflicted the Sundered Spire.  This seemed more deliberate, selective and governed by insidious intent.  It had spoken to him, albeit with patronizing disdain.

Something tugged at the periphery of his awareness as he walked, the rustling of leaves in the breeze overhead suspiciously similar to the crackling of a campfire and coloured to match.  A white form flitted between nearby boughs, like some sort of inverted shadow adapted to conceal itself amidst the mostly bleached bark of the densely packed forest.  The leaves looked more like oak or maple, Freyd was never really good at recognizing anything but the latter, mostly because of his own childhood origins.  A snap sent him instantly into a crouch, spinning to spot a source and ready to respond to any corresponding threat.  But it was just another deer.

These woods must be crawling with the things.

This one was very different from its earlier counterpart, being arctic white in its colouring, pristine and completely out of place for a creature of the wilds in a way the MMO's frequently disregard.  Dirt is just too hard to code.  It was only then that he spotted the eyes: crimson red.  Albino?

Clattering hooves against cobblestone suggested the presence of a road.  Rushing as quickly as he dared, Freyd reached the weathered pathway, deeply rutted by age and heavy use.  Whatever rider he'd heard was long gone, but could still be heard in the distance - eastward, judging by the station and passage of the sun.  There was little option but to rely upon some conventions, even if they were somehow revealed to be different and distinct for this floor.  At least it gave him a datum by which to set some bearings.  

"He's headed away from Glyndebourne," Freyd declared, starting to piece together the geography.  "Laying cobblestone through the countryside is no minor task to construct or maintain.  A King's Highway?  Maybe, but it likely leads somewhere significant."

Autumns colours deepened as he traveled along the road, yellows and oranges gradually subsumed and replaced entirely by vibrant, flittering reds that made the entire of the woods appear to be set in flames.  "Could this have had some role to play in what happened at that farm," he wondered, scratching absently against the back of his cowl.

***

Scouting | 218898 | LD 16+16=32 | Nothing happens
Total: 50/300

Wandering aimlessly through the woods for a time, Freyd wasn't truly certain where he was going.  He had no bearings, no map and no sense of the layout of this floor.  Glyndebourne remained too dangerous to approach, for the time being.  Ironically, he realized that he was acting as if this floor had tagged him with an orange mark, despite having turned his own green icon off in the debacle of the previous night.  It felt very odd, yet strangely also not, and he had no idea what to make of the sensation.  He might was well have been back in the Forest of Memories, once more haunted by shades spawned from his inner darkness: a soul that relentlessly required calming.  So, who was hunting him now?

Thoughts drifted back to the discarded digital flesh left behind by the abominations that had claimed those farmers.  I never even learned their names.

Neighing horses stirred him from his reverie, offering equal promise of new options or new threats.  It could be both.

***

EN regen 2/2

Word came shortly thereafter, reporting more incidents in the outskirt of Glyndebourne.  O&I were scouts and special agents.  They were not an army or police force to be wielded as some blunt instrument against a vast and unknown threat.  While Foyle, Sykes, Aus and others worked their leads remotely, he would do the same.  The only remaining thread still loose and available to pull at was this 'Lord Magistrate' he'd kept hearing about.  Shifting through shadow to shed the layers of ash and soot gathered over his own shell,

Freyd hesitantly wondered whether the two creatures he'd just slain were truly all that different from himself.  Was there a chance that mob's original form had actually survived this withering infection - whatever its actual nature.  Did anything of her survive within that bloated mass?  Should he have given her a chance.  He'd chosen the safe, cold and pragmatic solution over compassion.  Part of it made him feel sick, but it was an illness he'd long ago learned to live with.  After all, she was just a mob.

Closing his eyes momentarily to suppress a wellspring of something from within, Freyd clenched his fists, then turned and moved on.

***

EN regen 1/2

"Ah!  Please, no more!  It's gone!  I swear it!"

Steadying his stance, Freyd paused, hesitating just enough for the floating murk of post-flame content to settle down and allow sight to resume its function.  The mob had shifted once more and assumed the guise of a young female, stout and stocky in form with a buxom figure and dressed as one might expect a lady farmer to possess.  

"Who are you?  What happened here?"

She ignored his query, seemingly simultaneously desperate and elated, and moving to embrace him like a savior.  But Freyd was too familiar with the deceitful ways of traitors and duplicitous gemini.  He'd faced too many in his past and sordid adventures.  A liar knows a liar, and he knew too well the Thing Behind All Lies.  The strike was true, even as pulsing vermillion veins slithered at the periphery of her false visage.  He would hate himself for it later.  For the time being, life was to be all about survival.

***

Loot Sentinel 2: ID #218897| LD: 11+14=25 | CD: 12
12000 col (HP[1200]*10 - incl. +4 CD/LD even, +3 Prosperity)
+1 Demonic Shard
Random Dungeon Map 218897

Scouting can resume.

Keeping up the pressure, his enemies hissed and shifted, attempting to alter their forms to something more suitable to their ever-changing circumstances and finding it impossible.  Never the type to stand as the stalwart tank, Freyd had always preferred and agile and elusive combat style based on misdirection paired with powerful individual strikes.  It seemed effective, as Samael's Pride opened its maw a second time and devoured most of the male's torso, sending it to whatever void or oblivion lay beyond its touch.  

"Inssssolence," hissed the female, very conveniently and foolishly confirming her location. She suffered a more grazing blow the her trouble, enough to make her imagine a Whisper on her flank where there was none - or at least no longer one there.  Snaring the shovel he'd dropped during his dive for cover, Freyd whirled with an outreached hand and slammed the flat of it right across her face.

"That was for Sally, whatever the fuck you are."

***

Loot Sentinel 2: ID #218895| LD: 15+14=29 | CD: 3
+4 materials (+4 CD/LD odd)
7200 col (HP[1200]*6 - incl. +3 Prosperity)
T4 Perfect Consumable 218895a
T4 Perfect Consumable 218895b
T4 Perfect Armor/Shield 218895c
T4 Perfect Armor/Shield 218895d

"Catch you if you... what the..."

Looking up, Freyd watched as Morningstar extricated himself from an odd position and still managed to pull off an unorthodox attack.

"Nice moves, but you're no damsel in distress.  If you fall, the ground can catch your ass," he call upwards with a chuckle.  The golem was finally starting to rouse itself, its attention focusing down upon the Whisper even as the fire behind its eyes began glowing ferociously.

"Oh, no you don't."  Speed was ever in their favour.  Darting forward, Freyd leapt and spun, dodging as a giant metal gauntlet sought to swat him from the air.  Slipping through the slot between its grasping fingers, Freyd's fury unleashed as he plowed his fist into the monstrous mob's left knee.

"GONGGGGG*

A shockwave of white light pulsed from the point of impact as the heavy metal plating ruptured then shattered, spraying like shrapnel in every direction at once.  Freyd himself emerged out the back of the knee, covered in glittering orange fractal motes as the titan's leg exploded and disintegrated at the same time, signaling its pending demise.  A moaning, whale-like groan was all it managed before its upper body toppled sideways, driving its head straight into the labyrinth wall, then shredding it and the rest of its body like a giant block of cheese on a grater as the crumpled to the ground.  Tumbling quick and low, the martial artist was instantly back in his combat stance, ready to launch another attack, but it wouldn't be necessary.  This fight was over.

***

Freyd regains +4 EN
Freyd regains 62 HP from BH
CD 9 (+8 REC proc) ID #218884
Cooldowns: Grappling Familiar (2/5), Charge (1/3)

Post Action | AoE-I (x15, 11 EN, +2 shift, +2/hit): 15 EN - (Stamina) = 13 EN.  
Free Action | Crystal of Divine Light

ID #218885 | BD:10 (Crit +3, Deteriorate, Holy +24).  DMG (15*51=765-90=675)

Freyd takes double damage until next turn.

Freyd | HP: 1090/1140 (1090+62[cap]) | EN: 137/152 (138+4+8-13) | DMG: 24 | MIT: 105 | EVA: 7 | ACC: 5 | BH: 62 | LD: 9 | FLN: 16 | HLY: 16 | REC: 8 | V.D.: 125 
Morningstar | HP: 790/865 | EN: 91/108 | DMG: 26 | ACC: 6 | MIT: 134 | EVA: 1 | LD: 7 | THRNS: 36 | AA: 1 | VO: 125 | VD: 47 | STK: 40/24 | BH: 25 | Stealth Rating: -5

[7,2] Titanium Warden | HP: 0/1250 (+50-112) | DMG: 200 | MIT: 200 150 (-60, 2/3) | ACC: 3 | EVA: -3 | Battle Healing: 50 | Thorns: 50 | Fireproof | StunImm[F] (1/3) (508-675)

Abilities:

• Methodical | The <<Titanium Warden>> is in no rush, only attacking once every other turn. During the turns that it does not attack, any debuffs active on the creature are ineffective.
• Magma Jolt | On attack rolls of BD 9+ and CD 9+, this boss will issue an AoE attack that fires a blast of molten steel at each player for 175 damage, ignoring 50% of Mitigation. Additional rolls for this AoE are unnecessary - it will strike each target without fail.
• Deteriorate | For each critical hit dealt to this boss, its Mitigation is permanently reduced by 50.

Loot Titanium Warden: ID #218886 | LD: 8+10=18 | CD: 3
+2 materials (+2 CD odd)
6250 col (HP[1250]*5 - incl. +2 LD even)
T4 Rare Consumable 218886a
T4 Rare Weapon 218886b

Uh.. friendly or not-friendly?

While the debate debuted in Freyd's mind, the rest of him had already decided.  Breaking cover, he rushed the nearest goopy mass and slammed the screeching keen of his fists into - no, through - its left shoulder, severing most of its recently grown arm in the process.  'I am really glad I can't taste anything you eat,' he thought, as Samael's Pride bit off a chunk.  Cleaving off the first hit, Freyd followed through the rest of his kata, slamming the second mob hard enough to unbalance it.  Both foes flailed wildly, recovering with speed, but not enough to catch a Whisper in the wind.  Dragging his feet as he moved, Freyd deliberately filled the air with ash and dust, masking his location as best he could and relying on this other senses. 

Hopefully, that wouldn't cut both ways and he could maintain some sort of initiative, having no idea what these things were, or their capabilities.  If they were kin to whatever happened in Glyndebourne, he had very mixed feelings about finding out.

***

Two sinuous creatures emerged from the tree line, each looking like amoeba's with severe cases of gigantism: immense, blobby looking things of near-translucent flesh laden with layers of angrily irate red veins that pulsed with sickly power as their worm-like bodies slithered into the farmstead.  Moments later, they rose, standing like a pair of cobras, even flaring their pulpy masses wide and each conjuring a pair of sinister eyes.  Their bloated bodies would shift to take on more humanoid forms, though never quite anything aesthetically pleasing.  Both just looked... wrong.

"Someone found our little den."  A female voice, disturbingly slick and sultry compared to the disgusting mass from which it came.  Nothing about its form belied a gender.  The second figure rose, lifting with it a handful of the burnt, discarded clothes he'd been examining.  That was when it struck him: those weren't clothes.  They were literally skins - shed skins.  Its head suddenly twisted unnaturally far in his direction, a male voice emanating.

"Do you smell... coffee?"

"And vanilla," came the female's response.

Oh shit.

***

Scouting | 218883 | LD 2+16=18 | Spawn 2 elite mobs
Total: 18/300

Note: Rolls 218880-218882 linked to earlier posts are invalid.  Didn't meet required post spacing.

"This isn't a player-crafted item," he muttered to himself, though he'd argue it was for Persi's benefit if anyone every called him on it.  "So how the hell did something like this get into a mob's mesh, unless..."  A furrowed brow belied furtive analysis and consideration of unorthodox options.  

"Could these be the actual skins worn over, or even forming the actual meshes of mobs - the very lattices that made up their models and forms in this digital world?"  His eyes widened at the consequences.  "Did someone find a way to scourge the mesh off a mob?"  Dark.  Probably too dark.  That level of destruction would irreparably damage a mob's integrity.  He'd slain more than enough to know, especially given Samael's Pride's penchant for literally enabling him to eat through mobs with his hands.

Something slithered in the brush at the clearing's edge, prompting the Whisper to spin and shift through darkness, concealing himself beneath the shade of the farm's half-collapsed barn.  Eyes widened and glanced back to where he'd been working.  While untraceable, thanks to a handy mod, that little trick did nothing about all the sifting and stirring he'd done through the ash-laden ruins.  it would be blatantly obvious to anyone with eyes that someone had been poking around.

Something in the ashes caught his attention as he raked through the debris, peeling away the uppermost layers of the piles which were now little more than crinkled sheets of carbon paper and crumbled to dust at the slightest touch.  Beneath those, however, several inches down, some of the garments could more clearly be made out.  Still burnt beyond any potential recovery, it was the bits of bizarre burgundy veins laced throughout their fabrics that caught his attention.  Flame could not have caused this alone.  Either the original tailor had woven the strands into fabric, or someone had subsequently done so with strangely singular strands.

"What the..." 

Bending down to take a closer look, Freyd allowed himself to slip into appraising mode, calling upon the synergistic talents of his profession which invariably proved themselves useful in so many other ways. This would be no different.  While not a tailor, or blacksmith, or truly a crafter of any kind, appraisers best merited their title as jacks of all trades.  They knew just enough about all the professions to be dangerous - especially with a liberal sprinkling of ingenuity.

It was one of the great ironies of Aincrad that death left behind no evidence, especially in the case of mobs, who would typically and eventually respawn.  The occasional corpse left behind by quests for plot purposes were a jarring and inconsistent anomaly, which was what made him think to look for some.  Finding such evidence would imply that he'd stumbled into a quest by accident, possibly triggered by simple proximity.  Arrival in Glyndebourne might have been enough to set some off.  Two hours later, finding nothing, that hypothesis was sufficiently thrashed to merit discarding, save for one notable detail.

There were no bodies in the ruins, but there were clothes.  They'd been set alight deliberately, given their placement.  Most were either piled in a bonfire-like heap, or else had been stuffed into what looked to have once been an elaborately carved wardrobe, though perhaps not quite of Narnian proportions.

"Someone did this deliberately... but maybe not as an attack against the occupants?  Could someone have done this to their own home?"

Rounding the bend in the loosely defined trail and clearing revealed a far more alarming scene than he'd anticipated.  The smoke had been white, and the plume modest in size, suggesting a mere cooking fire.  The truth was far more tragic.  It was a cottage, set firmly in the past tense.  Little remained of the structure, clearly ravaged by fire to the point of full engulfment and collapse.  Little remained standing save the stone hearth and chimney at the far end and the scattered implements of a devastated farmstead strewn all about.  The smoke he'd seen drifted up from the stone ruins, likely still sheltering some embers from the cool morning dew.  This had happened fairly recently, possibly even last night.

Grabbing an abandoned shovel from the remnants of a toppled work shed, he set himself about scouring the site for any evidence of what might have caused this, possibly survivors, or more likely victims.

The other points of interest that Foyle and his own encounters had extricated was the repeated mention of some hoity toity 'Lord Magistrate.'  

"Sounds like a total git." It might have been a bit soon, but the declaration fit his limited experiences to date.  "Right.  Might as well start there.  If this person is in charge of the redcoats, then he's most likely to have some info, or at least be at the centre of whatever this cluster *cough* entails."

Downing the last drop of drink and dismissing its vacated container to his inventory for future refills, Freyd quickly surveyed his surroundings.  Trees.  Lots of them.  Possibly all treants in disguise... or perhaps not.  No one ever accused him of lacking imagination.  Pinching the bridge of his nose and closing his eyes to refocus, he scanned below and above instead.  Smoke.  A steady plume rose as a narrow wisp off in the distance.  It seemed as good a place to start as any.  Groaning to fit the image of the elder he'd chosen to portray, Freyd hooked his thumbs around a pair of worn grey suspender straps and set himself upon his chosen course.

Warmth from his tea cup bumped against his upper lip.  Something about that drifting, unbeckoned thought had placed him in a powerful if momentary daze.  Blinking, then again, Freyd's gaze lowered to the lengthy shadow stretching out from his dusty, muck-covered boots.  The grass and forest floor had been wet with dew and left a damp chill in the morning air.  Footfalls had churned up the mucky surface during his backwoods trek.  Glancing behind him, he found no steps left to follow.  Good.  At least that was still working.

A startled chipmunk raced out from beneath some nearby brush, loosening the droplets clinging to their underside and prompting them to drop as it ran to a nearby tree, drawing his gaze over his shade once more.  Where has Montjoy gone?

Once the mouthpiece of his surly and sarcastic alter ego, Freyd used to have lengthy conversations with his external conscience.  It had been some time and the silence was only just catching up to him now.  Under other circumstances, he might have expected his shadow to lift its own silhouetted drink in a toast.  This version only mimicked his own actions.  How drab.