The Black Pillar Cracks Beneath Its Weight

Job Information:

Simon waved at Anastasia one last time before bolting into the sunset as a blur of speed. Another job well done and another catastrophe well prevented the young mage was dead tired. A particular emphasis on the dead part. He collapsed in the middle of an empty field, out in the middle of nowhere and almost instantly fell asleep. It had been a long day, fighting an entire island of ice monster things, then going on a cross country marathon outrunning death itself made for a terribly tired Simon. His sleep was sound, but ultimately short. After hardly an hour, and the sun setting fully over the grassland, an annoying beep began in Simon's jacket and quickly startled him awake. He sat up with a shock, looking around in a panic, that was of course until he recognized the beeping. His damn communication lacrima was trying to deliver unto him yet another mission. He fished it out of his pocket and stared at the blinking crystal. The mage was seriously considering just chucking the rock and going back to sleep; he really didn't have the energy for this. But he was a bit too heroic for his own good and through his fatigue answered the crystal. He forcefully asked, "The hell is going on?! This is the third time you've called me up today. You know I'm too tired to do anything."

A firm no-nonsense man answered, "Is that how you always greet your contact Mr. Bagon? I figured such a reliable ally would have better manners then that." Simon grimaced, whoever this was was certainly not who he was expecting. The magic council had only ever contacted him through his designated contact. Something was wrong and Simon didn't like it. Also whoever he was talking to sounded like a prick.

"I'd have better manners if your higher ups weren't running me ragged here! It's late and I've been working non-stop since yesterday morning cleaning up your messes. So maybe skip the lecture on my temperament and tell me what's so important! Also what happened to my normal contact?!" Simon was barking into his communication lacrima, he couldn't have been in a worse mood. When you make a speedster tired of running, you can be sure he is tired of a lot more than that.

The man replied calmly, "We'll return to this later. But you are right, there are far more urgent things to discuss. We've located the group responsible for the blade incident you just resolved. While we were previously led to believe the sudden activation of the death shard was a freak occurrence we've studied the trace magic from the incident sites and found signs of a catalyst. Someone intentionally set off the death shard's power. It was my assumption you would want to give them a piece of your mind." He paused for a moment, if only to catch his breath, before resuming, "Now as for your contact... Well he was responsible for the tracking down the group responsible for the blade incident. He was working on it since your departure from Era to handle the Hakobe and Magnolia shards. Being a good officer he did find them, ironically enough in some catacombs below Era, but shortly after he reported into us he went silent. Sure enough he was missing. We believe he may have been captured or killed by the group."

Simon shot to his feet, he was running back towards Era before he knew what he was doing. The rune knight on the other end tried to say something else to him, but it was lost over the roar of the wind. The information was not important to him, what he needed to do seemed simple enough. Get there, and do so fast.

Simon reached the outskirts of Era as the darkness came into full form over the city. Upon arrival he retrieved his communication lacrima and called back whoever it was who replaced his contact. The voice quickly replied, "About time you called back. I tried to tell we have another man on this as well. He was already called in to investigate the group we thought responsible for a string of killings. Unrelated to the blade incident of course. I suggest you locate him and check in with him. He has likely already eliminated a number of previously suspect locations of their lair. He is a big guy with lots of armor and stupid hair." Simon smirked, this old guy seemed good at getting to the point that was exactly what he needed. So naturally instead of thanking him Simon did the only natural thing and immediately turned off the lacrima and shoved it back into his pant pocket. He was still too tired for manners.

He began dashing through the now fairly empty streets of Era looking for someone matching the description given over the lacrima. There were a few armored guys in the city, but only one guy really had stupid enough hair to qualify. Simon stopped dead in his tracks maybe twelve feet in front of Ardere, "Wow he wasn't kidding when he said your hair was stupid!" Simon thew his head back laughing, this was just too good. He had never seen anyone dressed like that before, Simon had to assume he was some kind of foreigner, the armor was just so alien. He quickly stopped laughing and started looking Ardere over more thoroughly as he introduced himself, saying "Er right sorry about that. I am a bit loose tonged and I am seeeriously tired. I have been on non-stop missions for like days. Rambling, whoops." Simon waved his hands in front of him in an embarrassed apologetic gesture as he went on talking at a million words per minute, "Right so anyway. The name is Simon! I am an ex-wizard saint, working to get that title back by the way, and the magic council has been running me ragged with errands. Bit of a free agent right now so I don't mind, just taking whatever job whenever. At least I thought I wouldn't mind until they made a freaking slave of me. Like geez, it is ridiculous. Which brings me back to you!"

He dramatically pointed at the armored man, staring him in the eyes with an exceptionally groggy look in his eyes. "I'm tracking down a death magic cult right now and you're supposed to help! I was told you were already tracking them down so you probably already had some leads. So what do you got? Out with it! I've got people to save! I'm a bit of a hero like that. Simon bounced on the heels of his feet, a slap happy nervous energy in his every movement. He had to physically hold himself back to give Ardere time to respond to his barrage of words. It seemed any second he would burst back into another tangent.

He actually tried to defend that hair style with a straight face. Simon had to physically restrain himself from laughing to not burst out into a fit. He instead settled for a passing jab instead, "Yep sure. Totally fitting for the lord of lobster porcupines." Here we can see a master of the Fiore language at work, with only the hottest word smithing. After taking half a second to regain his composure Simon clapped his hands together and half bowed, "Pleasure's all mine Mr. Wizard Saint Guild Master Sir. I didn't realize I was talking to a big celebrity." When Ardere pulled out his map Simon quickly zipped over to look at it up close, he studied it closely committing the details of the little square to memory. Which was of course totally a hollow gesture as Simon could not read, nor understand maps(he manly navigated on the landmark system, mixed with the "try every path because you have superspeed and you can do that," system). Despite not actually reading the map Simon was paying attention to Ardere, his plan was solid enough so Simon gave him a quick thumbs up and said, "Sounds like a plan. Lead the way big man!"

Simon followed close behind Ardere as they went on their way. His eyes kept darting to the sword he carried, did all guild masters have swords? It certainly felt like it sometimes. The blade reminded him just a little too much of a sword that had impaled him one time. Ironically also by a guild master. Ironically by his own guild master. Which was enough to make him stand just a little ways away from Ardere, just out what he estimated was sword reach. Simon didn't particularly think that Ardere was going to turn that blade on him or anything; he was just a little on edge. He'd been stabbed a lot recently.

As they approached the market Simon took his warning as an excuse to move around. He briskly, not so subtly, checked every alley as they passed and not so inconspicuously inspected each manhole. Simon found himself increasingly on edge as they traveled, it would not be inaccurate to say he had a bad feeling. It could've also just been the sleep deprivation; but it was equally likely the prospect of fighting a cult of death wizards. Death magic was just straight cheating in Simon's opinion. As they reached the square Simon bounced back to Ardere, and reported in "Well nothing but alley cats so far. Unless it is an animate cat guild I think we've still got time. We may just have beat them to the site. Speaking of which I'm a bit worried about the whole 'murdering people in a shape' routine."

He drew a bunch of pictures in the air, which held meaning only to him and were straight nonsense to any observer; "Normally death magic and shapes working together is a bad deal. Especially considering these guys had something like that cursed sword I just dealt with readily available. Remind me to fill you in on the cursed sword if we have a minute. But uh, back to the shape thing. I don't think we can discount the possibility that we are standing on top of a big ritual circle here." He scratched the bag of his head, a little sheepishly, as he got to the point, "Which I guess you probably already suspected yourself. So I'm not bringing it up because I think you don't know, but more of a 'hey I don't know much about ritual magic do you?' type of thing? So do you?" Simon's knowledge of ritual magic was pretty strictly limited to: 'big spells that normally involve drawing a shape' so he was asking sincerely. He just wanted some more background knowledge on what they could be dealing with.

Highly likely that they'll summon a demon or monster or something. Awesome. Simon had to physically contain his excitement, he didn't want to weird out his partner too much, but fighting giant monsters had become one of his favorite things to do in recent years. It just felt good. Less good of course was the part where it involved lots and lots of murder. Which meant their objective was to prevent the summoning of the giant monster, not killing it once it got there. As they waited in around the expected site of the attack Simon tried his best to not seem disappointed. Honestly Simon. Heroes aren't supposed to have a favorite kind of mission. They do them all without complaint! Chin up, shoulders back, and remain vigilant! Getting his head back in the game Simon shot Ardere a reply, "Alright stakes are high for first contact then. If we hear any loud noises I'll go first. My speed makes me an ideal first responder."

Simon scanned and rescanned the mostly empty streets, over and over looking for any sign of action. Meanwhile he thought out loud as he walked himself through a rough plan of attack, "So big noise. I run off to check it out, you stay here in case it is a distraction. I'll give you a shout if I see action and you can make your move over to where I am. If it is nothing I'll just run back and report in. Rinse repeat until we win." Content with himself he clapped his hands together, it was a pretty sound sounding plan to him. He noticed Ardere slipping behind a vehicle; which naturally made Simon self conscious about his own position. If really anywhere within a block was a possibility that might complicate things. Anyone with a good quiet death magic spell could be standing on the other side of a fence and do the deed without giving them so much as a clue. It was frustrating idea to say the least. He backed himself against a wall, just so there wasn't a behind him to look at.

The mage almost jumped out of his skin when Ardere asked about his guild, "Well uh... That's a little complicated... I'm technically a member of Fairy Tail; have the tattoo and everything. But I've been gone years-" Simon cut himself off, he wasn't supposed to say that part, he had only been publicly missing for a few months. It'd make no sense anyway he explained it how he "hadn't been there in years." He was about to correct himself when Simon heard the sound of something falling. Instinctively he sprung to a roof top with a single bound, heading towards the sound, "I'm on it!"

Needless to say Simon was not prepared for what he found. He bolted over the roof top and saw the source of the commotion just on the other side of the building. It was kind of hard not to see, considering it was a small horde of mages. Maybe twenty or so hooded individuals had popped out of seemingly nowhere and now surrounded some unfortunate women. Acting quickly Simon dashed in like a living lightning bolt and brought her back to where Ardere was standing in the blink of an eye. He looked at his partner, "You seriously weren't kidding about the company."

The member 'Kirahunter' has done the following action : Dice Rolls

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'Monster Dice' :

Simon set down the woman, and after not so humbly accepting a few thank yous, set her on her way. He rolled his shoulders as he responded to Ardere's comments on his speed, "Fast is just kinda what I do. And I certainly don't want to waste time with death spells being slung around." As Ardere took the to the air Simon opted to approach by ground slipping into an alley that would connect it the street where the cultists lurked. His partner may have been looking to show their foes a good time, Simon personally didn't want to show them any time at all. He stayed just around the corner until Ardere made his initial impact drawing the attention of their foes right off the bat, which was all Simon needed. It seemed the mages intended to dog pile Ardere with a great collective volley of magic but Simon had other plans.

He dashed out from the alley behind the cultists with his right hand raised in the air behind him. In doing this he put the entirety of the enemy between him and his partner, it was going to make for a destructive pincer attack. As he did so he gathered magic in the form of glowing red lights into a sphere above his raised palm. The light naturally caused the closer half of cultists to turn and face him, while the others focused more on the seemingly more immediate threat presented by the flame slinging samurai. Before the dark mages could do anything Simon's glowing orb transformed into a massive ball of magma which he threw in a large over head fashion at the cluster. "Single Eruption!" he exclaimed as the ball crashed into the front line of mages and exploded into a burst of lava.

The small explosion threw Simon's opponents in all directions, the narrow space worked agaisnt the dark mage's large numbers, exposing them all to the magma magic and leaving many of them on the ground desperately trying to get the burning lava off them. A particularly fast reacting fellow had jumped to the side in advanced avoiding the attack all together by pressing himself against a near building's wall. He attempted to retaliate with some magic of his own, a raised palm and a word from a lost language summoned forth a glowing purple skull of magic. It raced through the air towards Simon's head. Simon blinked and suddenly the skull slowed to a crawl. He tilted his head to the side allowing the projectile to pass harmlessly through the space where his head had just been. All the world around him moving at a crawl Simon walked over to the remaining death mage, whose face spread with panic at a painfully slow rate, and proceeded to clock him in the jaw so fast it knocked him off his feet. His body lifted into the air and froze there. Simon blinked and time resumed. The cultist finally fell to the ground with a thud a few meters away. Simon looked at his fallen foe with a cocky smile, "Sorry. Too slow. Way too slow." Meanwhile behind Simon about six of his ten opponents straggled back to their feet. The fight resumed.

Hp: 500/500 Mp: 97/100

Simon turned his head to look at the foes behind him, his purple eyes flashed a molten red for a moment before rapidly fading back to normal. He felt heat building in his face, an inexpiable increase in anger just looking upon them. Shameless murderers. Gathering in such numbers to attack the innocent and defenseless with their foul magic. Turning to face them his arms to turned to magma as he prepared to attack. The cultists all gathered up their own variants of death and darkness magic, primed to cast and send Simon to an early grave. They parade in the dark under the capes of cowards. Leeching off the taboo and forbidden to compensate their cowardice. Such pathetic things... Just as the cultists were about to unleash their dark barrage Simon violently twisted his molten arms in the air clenching open hands into fists. In response to its master's command, the lingering lava from his first attack rebelled at the feet of his foes. The burning rock jumped onto their feet and legs burning them and forcing them to their knees. Their magic interuppted they were powerless as Simon stood over them, "Such filth should be subject to only the most Absolute Justice."

He pressed his fists together gathering magic power in the form of red light around him, in a monotone and calous voice he invoked the name of his voice "Lava Rebellion." The red light surged into the ground and instantly plumes of lava shot up from the ground under each cultist consuming them in their liquid fire. Simon then walked back out into the street not even looking back at his burning enemies as they crumpled into the ground in pools of burning destruction. The red flight flashed again in his eyes, the anger passed, and with it the memory of his violent defeat of the cultists. Unaware of the brutal justice he had brought down just a few feet behind him, he approached Ardere "Yeah I'm all done here. I'm glad you took care of the whole 'leaving one to run away thing' I got a bit carried away and just took them all down! But don't sweat I'll tail this guy like a pro." He awkwardly laughed it off but he was rapidly feeling uneasy. He knew he had quickly and easily disposed of the cultists but for the life of him he couldn't recall how he did it. Refocusing he quietly jumped to the nearest roof and was about to start following the cultist when he realized he had been beat to the punch.

Maybe fourty meters in front of Simon there was a building with a tall chimney. Standing on top of the chimney was a man in a light grey striped suit. He stood just too far away for Simon to make out much detail but he seemed fairly old, everything about him being just a shade paler then it should be. The pale man held aloft in his bony hand the dark mage they had been tracking, gripping him by his throat. Simon had no idea what he was looking at, and so of course opted to shout out his confusion, "What are you doing?! Hell who are you? Let that guy go you're strangling him!" The pale man's only response was to tighten his grip, the corners of his mouth rising slightly. The cultist squirmed in vain proving completely unable to free himself from the man's grip. Right before Simon could spring to action the cultist desperately fired a death magic spell into the gut of the man holding him. The black magic bolt connected effortlessly, it was point blank after all, but the pale man seemed unaffected. Heck he seemed amused. Simon was shocked still, last he checked that wasn't how death magic worked. It caused death, not amusement. Wordlessly the pale man took his free hand and pointed his palm at his victim's head, "Here. I believe you misplaced this." Then just like that the cultist's own death magic bolt reemerged from the pale man's hand shooting its original caster in the face. He immediately went still.

Simon was appalled at the sight of such cruelty. Appalled enough that he was stunned into inaction until Ardere made the first move. Seeing the samurai in action Simon refocused and prepared to follow up Ardere's attack. At first it appeared it would not be necessary as it seemed Ardere was going to win the brute force contest. Then naturally everything exploded and the man in the suit was gone. However Simon wasn't about to just let the guy go. After taking half a second to glance at Ardere and confirm he wasn't dead Simon bolted straight into super speed. Simon didn't see the man fleeing the explosion so his escape path was limited to the directions which were obscured from Simon's vision at the time of the blast, which narrowed a 360 degree circular search to about a 100 degree conical search. Moving as a blur he ran past Ardere and the detonated chimney, heading in the most logical direction for the man to had fled in. With his extreme speed he was able to check every alley, nook and cranny he passed in the blink of an eye, but even still after following the man's projected path for as far as Simon thought reasonable he didn't catch so much as a glimpse of him. Considering his speed and search power he should've located him in a seconds and caught up in an instant. But instead almost a minute later he returned to the roof where Ardere was empty handed, with disbelief he exclaimed, "He's nowhere! The immediate search of his most logical path turned up not so much as a trace, and neither did a more then healthy margin of brute force searching." Brute force searching being a term Simon used for abusing his high speed to look in every conceivable place within an area.

He brushed off his coat and scanned the immediate area hoping for any clue but knowing he wouldn't find any. Hands shoved in his pockets he shook his head still not believing his eyes, "There's no way he got away that fast, I don't care what magic he has. I'm the fastest man alive since my most direct competition turned into a dragon! No way, just no way." Simon glanced from a roof top to a nearby manhole cover, "I would've saw him ducking underground too. I was looking for specifically that. At this rate I'll just have to go underground and literally check every brick in the sewer for a secret passage. Even for me that'll take hours!" Equally agitated and plenty defeated looking he looked over at Ardere as he desperately asked him for an alternative to brute force searching an entire city sized sewage system, "Unless you've got a better idea?" He didn't mean to sound so out of it, but chasing opponents was one of his greatest strengths and he had just been soundly crushed in his effort. Also there was some sewer searching in his immediate future as far as we was concerned, so that was getting him down as well.

Simon cursed his own stupidity for not considering the possibility that a dark mage used darkness to escape, it was so bone dead stupid he felt the need to berate himself out loud. Instead he just affirmed Ardere's theory saying, "That must be right. I wouldn't have seen him if that was the case. My magic sensory isn't half as keen as my eyes, so yeah go ahead and take point." Simon still couldn't get over letting the killer get away. First they let the cultist get caught and now his killer had broken away as well. For the self declared fastest man alive, he was feeling really slow. So minus his usual flair he followed after Ardere. It was easy to match the fire king's pace so Simon unwittingly began to become mentally distanced from the situation. He simply couldn't help it, losing track of the crook had shot his enthusiasm, and thanks to his sleepless week that was basically all he had been running on.

The growing darkness and a week of nonstop battle pulled on Simon's eyelids begging for sleep. Only the immense urgency of their mission kept his feet moving as he stayed on Ardere's tail. He tried to get himself angry, blame the dark mages, hate them for being evil, just anything to light a fire in himself. But it felt like a terribly futile up hill climb. So much so that he had hardly noticed when they stopped in the center of town. Ardere's words went in one ear and out the other going completely ignored by the distracted wizard. It was not until he heard the clang of the manhole cover being set down that he came to his senses and realized where they were. He shook his head in a form of wake up slap and jumped down into the sewer after Ardere.

He landed into the sewage water and immediately regretted it. Audibly groaning he shuddered from the feeling of the gross water, "I really should've looked before I leaped. Even just this little bit of water impedes my casting ability a lot." He quickly scrambled over to the maintenance side walk and climbed out of the water. He tried to stomp off the water but it had sunk into his shoes, the moisture feeling like sandpaper on his soles. After his knee jerk reaction to the water the smell hit Simon and he made a suspiciously childish bluhg sound. He looked toward's Ardere's light, "Understatement of the year man. I was worried about falling asleep on my feet here but I don't think this smell will let me."

Simon saw a flicker in Ardere's flame turn it golden and immediately grew suspicious of its nature. The magic felt familiar but he'd never seen such an effect. As they began their search Simon pressed his curiosity, "So that enhanced smell thing, and the way you use your fire... You're a slayer right? Like Heero? But that dark-gold fire is unlike anything I have ever seen. What is with that?" Simon phrased his slayer comment like a question but it really wasn't, he felt like every other job partner he had was a slayer of dragons of demons at this point. The magic had a certain feeling to it and he was well versed in identifying it. Really it was just a preface to get on the subject of the flame's color which was of much more curiosity to him.