A Noble Endeavor

The sweet sound of a bird chirping away happily announced the arrival of a new day. Almost instantly, its singing was silenced mid chirp as a bullet pierced through it and thudded dully into a nearby tree. The soft thump of the little creature's feathered body hitting the ground was a stark contrast to its melodic voice only moments prior. An annoyed sigh slipped through the shooter's mouth, a young girl who looked none too happy at having been woken up.

It was that sort of day.

Valerie had arrived in Crocus late the previous and had tiredly checked into a hotel room. Her trip to the capital of Fiore had been less than pleasant to say the least. She had somehow taken ill and weak for the duration of it; nausea plaguing her the entire way. Needless to say, it had left her in the foulest of moods which was then made worse at her inability to go to sleep regardless of how tired she was. Something or the other seemed to be wrong and had kept her awake, tossing and turning until she had finally given up on the much too stuffy room and leaped out the window and onto a nearby tree. There she had fallen asleep barely an hour before sunrise. And then the bird had alighted onto a branch above her and woken her up with its obnoxious singing.

"Sasha is going to kill me." She grumbled before hoisting herself up into a sitting position and rubbing her face.

To add to an already wonderful start, the girl had a crick in her neck for sleeping in an awkward position. Valerie yawned and then sharply turned her head to the side, eliciting a pained yelp as she did so. She poked the side of her neck with a finger as if checking to make sure the crick had disappeared. Though not entirely vanished, it had faded considerably.

Since there was no point in trying to sleep longer, she decided she might as well get to why exactly she was in the capital city in the first place.

1/15

Showered and dressed for the day, Valerie felt marginally more human and less like malcontent personified. The piping hot breakfast pastry she'd eaten had also gone a long way in improving her mood. She didn't feel like murdering everyone she came across anymore - which was a very good thing as the streets of Crocus had a number of people milling about. A yawn overtook her then, proving that while she might have been feeling better, she still hadn't gotten much sleep. Valerie rubbed her nose with the heel of one hand and yawned once again, drawing annoyed looks from the all too prim and proper passersby. She felt too tired to do anything fun - like parting the citizens from their valuables - as she pressed through to her intended destination.

Valerie had come into possession of a new and entirely fascinating type of ammunition on one of her most recent jobs which aroused her curiosities as to where it had come from.

While the girl had no trouble coming up with or creating her own types of ammunition for personal use, her obsession with firearms saw to it that she was drawn to particularly interesting ones like a moth to flame. It hadn't been difficult to track down the source that appeared to have originated in Crocus, of all places.

And so, there she was standing in front of a nondescript building a short distance away from the richer neighborhoods. Well, it was nondescript for Crocus. Anywhere else, it would have looked too clean and fancy. It seemed like an odd place for arms dealing, in her opinion. But it was highly likely that it was just a front. Or perhaps even the Crocus underground was just fancy and elaborate. Either way, that wasn't what she was here for.

Though she hadn't been to the place before, she had asked her source for more information and had been told to go in through the side entrance. That was where she would find what she was looking for.

Carefully making her way around to the relatively more conservative side entrance, Valerie quickly changed into her Sentinel form before walking inside. People tended to take a six foot tall unnerving robot thing more seriously than they did a petite girl.

2/15

Spells used.

spell armor:

spell weapon:

MP remaining 70%

Signature spell

1:

2:

10 physical bullets.

Surprisingly, or perhaps unsurprisingly depending on how one looked at it, the modest room designed to serve as a lobby was quite empty save for a young woman who smiled pleasantly upon Valerie's arrival. She didn't seem even the slightest bit fazed by Valerie's current appearance. If she were, she happened to be excellent at hiding it, which was far more likely given her job.

"Good afternoon. How may I be of assistance?"  

The woman's smile stayed in place, her coolly professional voice matching it perfectly. Coiffed and polished as she was, she matched the luxurious atmosphere without appearing gaudy in the slightest.

It was rather unsettling for Valerie, mostly because she was beginning to feel as if she had been somehow transported to a luxury hotel or resort without her being aware of it. Though if she were to be honest, what miffed her the most was the woman's complete lack of reaction to her. That rarely ever happened, if at all. It was a fact of her life that wherever she went, she managed to evoke some sort of reaction; be it disdain, shock, annoyance or amusement.

Quickly getting over her minor fit of petulance, the girl consoled herself with the matter of why she was here. The possibility of acquiring a new type of ammunition cheered her up quite effectively.

Wordlessly, Valerie held up the bullet in question for the woman to see.

"Ah, of course. Please, follow me."

It appeared to have been answer enough, as the woman then proceeded to lead her down a corridor lined with various portraits of the man Valerie could only assume was the owner of the establishment without further ado. The rhythmic tapping of her high heeled shoes grew silent as she stopped in front of an unusual archway; unusual as its rather clunky mechanical design differed from the elegant aesthetic of the place. Gesturing for Valerie to step through, the woman walked up to an archive screen that had popped up a little ways off from the entrance and expertly tapped a series of buttons.

"If you could step through here, please? Its standard procedure - just a scan." Her smiled turned apologetic.

Deciding it wasn't unexpected, Valerie stepped through the metallic frame. Her sensors flashed for a split second, alerting her of a foreign substance coming into contact with her armor. It didn't register as a threat though, and as such wasn't paid much heed to.

It was highly strange though. Valerie was clearly armed - that much would have been obvious without a scan - but the scan didn't seem to have raised any red flags regarding it nor was she asked to leave her weapons behind. Besides that, a scan of such a nature was useless on a ReQuip wizard as it was impossible to accurately deduce how big of a threat they were.

Odd.

Valerie walked into the room and the doors slid shut behind her, leaving her in yet another empty room. The girl was beginning to get annoyed with it all.

3/15