Murder At Midnight (Job)

It was hard for Arcadia to believe it had only been  two months she had found a new life at Fairy Tail. Her old one in the Kingdom of Dragnof still felt like only three months before, but contradictorily her short time at Fairy Tail almost felt like a life time. Here she was now on guard duty at the Oak Inn in Oak Town. It was just some murder mystery party, and from the way party organizers had described it, it should be a fairly quiet night. The extra guards like her they'd hired just for the night were just a precaution to make sure no one got too carried away.

Arcadia kinda wished she wasn't officially working, because playing detective sounded fun, though she didn't know about the part of about being locked in for a party.  Between studying many late nights to a whole new magic to her repertoire and working every job she could humanly handle the past couple weeks, she had not given herself much time for play lately.

She pulled her iLac from her dress pocket, quickly glancing at it for the time. Slipping it back into her pocket, Arcadia mentally calculated that the party had just reached the two hour mark, and wondered how much longer it was going to take them to solve this play.  She rolled back and forth on her bare feet a little, giving a little look up and down the hallway she was posted in.

That's when she heard a rather alarming and genuine sounding scream come from the banquet hall, followed by a gathering commotion in the same direction. So much for a quiet night. Arcadia  quickly hurried back to the lobby, and across the way toward the banquet hall.

Word Count: 296
Total Word Count: 296/1500

Health: 375
Magic Power: 300

Spells

As a precaution, Arcadia reached deep and refracted the light around her, bending it to make herself appear about five meters to the left of where truly was. She approached the door, opening it for her refracted image to walk through ahead of her. The slayer closed to within a couple meters of her image to keep her voice from giving her real location away as easily.

Her imaged looked around as she did, deep green eyes taking in the unfolding scene she found around the banquet hall. There was an obviously upset woman with a crowd of party goers gathered around her. She didn't see the chief of security or any of the other guards yet. That meant pushing past her phobia and discomfort around crowds yet again. These people would look to her to make sure things stayed clam and secure. Whatever this was, she could do it.

She swallowed the lump in her throat, her concern for the woman giving her the courage she needed. Arcadia trotted over, and waved for the other party goers to give the woman some space. ”I'm Arcadia Fairchilde of Fairy Tail. The Frost Maiden of Dragnof. I'm one of the wizards the Oak Inn hired for security. Everyone please back away. Give the woman some room. Are you okkay, Ma'am? What happened in here?”

The crowd did back away a few steps, but they did so with murmurs of all kinds.

Man #3: “Is she alright?”

Woman #7: “Adorable doesn't equal us being safe.

Woman #4: “No, no. She's one of Fairy Tail's dragon slayers. The blonde one... but I thought her name was Alvea?”

Arcadia sighed and glanced to the murmuring crowd, ”Althea. You're thinking of Althea Eventide. I'm Arcadia. We're both dragon slayers. Thea isn't here tonight. Now please, everyone quiet down.”

The woman who screamed was calming down somewhat now, and she glanced angrily to Arcadia, “Is that supposed to make me..us feel better? Security huh? Then how did someone get murdered...for REAL back there in the bathroom?! I opened the door and the man I saw go in a few minutes before was dead on the floor! That's a real body with real blood on the floor!”

A collect gasp of disbelief went out through the party goers. The murmur volume climbed instantly as everyone talked with their neighbor until there was one shout over the sudden din.

Man #9: “It's true! It's Marco Wrenfield!”

The woman's accusations struck deep to Arcadia young heart. If there really was someone murdered under her watch, then she failed at her job. She and her refracted image jogged on over toward the banquet room's one bathroom. The door was open, so she could see the victim before she got there. She knelt down to make sure he wasn't still breathing. Sadly, he was indeed dead. From what Arcadia could see, the man had been stabbed to death. There was no sign of the murder weapon or weapons, and she found it hard to believe anyone could have snuck a blade past their security checks, or all the people out in the banquet hall. The crowd kept on murmuring through their myriad conversations.

Woman #1: “It couldn't be any of us. We all went through those security screenings.”
Man #8: “I bet itw as one thse extra wizards they hired. They wouldn't need to sneak in any weapons or they could even use their magic to sneak one in! Plus they were in charge of those checks.”

Man #2:I bet it was this dragon slayer here! Don't let her adorable appearance fool you. Any dragon slayer is nothing to sneeze at. Plus she is the one and only member of security here.”

Woman #4: “Dragon slayers have all kinds of tricks up their sleeves. I hear some of them can even travel in the shadows!”

Arcadia stood and held up her hands, trying to win back the ground before it got out of hand. “Please! Please! Please! People! Let's not get ridiculous. I can't walk in the shadows and I was on the other side of the inn when I heard your scream.”

It was too late though, the crowd was already past the tipping point, and was out for blood. It was everything Arcadia might fear from any crowd of people. She didn't want to hurt any of them. These were the people she was supposed to be protecting, and attacking any of them would only reinforce their fear.

Digging into her magic power, she extended the power of shadow onto the memory of everyone within one hundred thirty-five meters. A shadow that would temporarily hide their memory of the young slayer. That was enough to wipe herself from the memory of everyone in the banquet hall for a short while.

Arcadia hurried out of the banquet room while the getting was good. She needed to find one of the other hired mages, usual guards or preferably the chief of security.

Word Count: 831
Total Word Count: 1127/1500

Health: 375
Magic Power: 255

Spells

Refraction (Signature) - 1/1 Duration
Cerebral Eclipse – 1/5 Duration

Racing down the hall, she realized she had let her refracted image expire, so she went ahead and refracted a new image of herself racing ahead of where she truly was. Though what her deep green faerie eyes saw ahead of her filled her with some dread. There was one party goer she had missed with her memory hiding spell. Or she she guessed she missed him by the look of fear on his face as he looked back at her. Worse, he had found the chief of security before she had.

The frightened party goer fled onward, presumably to somewhere safer in the hotel, while the chief came down the hallway. “How could you, you little bi-” The chief interrupted himself when grunted from heaving a pair of cleavers right through where her head would've been had been standing where her refracted image was.

Arcadia began to breath in deep as soon as the first cleave was let to fly. The chief was drawing a third cleaver from his belt when she roared out a whirling torrent of freezing mist and glittering shards of razor sharp ice.

Her breath left the chief covered in ice with his skin covered in scrapes and cuts, and all kinds of holes in her uniform. The chief fell unconscious to the floor.

Geez, she was only getting deeper into trouble. Hopefully she'd be able to explain this all later. The young slayer glanced up and down the inn hallway. No one else was around, so she hurried and pulled the unconscious chief off into the nearest utility closet . When she thought it would be fun to play detective, this is not what she had in mind.

Word Count: 284
Total Word Count: 1411/1500

Health: 375
Magic Power: 255

Spells

Refraction (Signature) - 1/1 Duration
Cerebral Eclipse – 2/5 Duration
Ice Dragon Roar (Signature) – 1/1 Duration

This time after her Refraction spell expired, she decided, maybe she netter not offer anyone know she was there if she could help it. Before rendering herself invisible, she picked out some old rope from a shelf in the utility closet. She used some of it tie up the chief, in case he woke up.

Closing the closet door behind herself, she bent the light around her until her image was refracted away. Invisible this time, she also focused some more magic power into her hands and bare feet. Frost forming over both hands and feet, she climbed on up the hallway wall and down along the ceiling. Her bared feet freezing and unfreezing as she skittered in a reptilian manner on all fours along the ceiling. Her nose picked up the the scent of the man who had turned the chief on her along with the scent of one other new person. That's all she needed was that guy spreading the lie that she was the killer to more people.

Arcadia skittered along ceiling, following her nose to the hotel room the party going man had retreated into. It turned out he was finding out the hard way that Arcadia was not really the killer as the second scent belonged to a man wielding a pretty serious knife. The man looked like he knew how to wield it too.

Man #11: What do you mean? That little girl..Arcadia.. let you in? I thought we were all locked in here.

The knife-wielding man shook his head, “No you, fool. And there's nothing that little whelp can do to help yo-”

Arcadia would've like to listen in longer, but that knife-wielder was getting too close for comfort to the party goer. She dropped her invisibility and launched herself from the ceiling, dragon wings made of pure snow white hoarfrost sprouted and spread out from her back. They held her in a racing glide straight for the knife-wielder. She screamed in battle-rage as she swung one leg around to kick him square in the back. The knife-wielder was knocked to the floor with Arcadia landing on top of him, hoarfrost dragon wings folding away. She landed one more hard punch to his face, but was knocked off of him.

The knife-wielder counterattacked with a wild swing of his blade, slicing through the side of the young slayer's dress and just grazing her side. She winced, but swung back up under the man's jaw, which knocks his head hard back into the floor. Thankfully, the knife-wielder was out cold. Arcadia got up holding a hand to her side.

Man #11: “Y-you're not the killer? Then who let him in?”

Arcadia winced and knelt back down by the unconscious knife-wielder. She pulled his knife away from him, and tied him up with a bit more of the rope she brought from the utility closet. ”You mean this isn't him?”

Man #11: “Nope. He said the killer let him in. They were planning to cause as much chaos as possible... that as soon as the security was out of the way... we were all good as dead.”

The young slayer handed the party goer the knife, ”Take this. We'll probably need his cooperation to straighten things out... but if he tries anything when he wakes up. Kill 'im if you have to.”

A deep voice boomed from the room's door into the hallway. ”Oh, that won't be necessary. Because I'll be killing you.....and I'll be taking that knife back too, thank you.” The new man reached out a hand toward the party goer and the knife vanished. Reaching his arms into the air out from both is sides, twin katana were summoned, one to each of his hands.

Arcadia called back over her shoulder, “Fu...a requip user... RUN!”



Word Count: 633
Total Word Count: 2044/1500

Health: 339
Magic Power: 235

Spells

Refraction (Signature) - 1/1 Duration
Cerebral Eclipse - 3/5 Duration
Ice Dragon Glacier Geckowalk - 1/3 Duration
Ice Dragon Wings (Signature) - 1/1 Duration

The party goer was already fleeing out the door to a conjoined room. The obvious real killer made a mocking pout, ”Ahhh, now I'm gonna have to hunt him down all over again. How delicious.” The bearded man wore a bell hop's uniform. An odd choice for a requip user, but probably fit in with his need to infiltrate the inn staff.

Meanwhile, Arcadia had renewed her refracted invisibility, and was headed for the nearest wall to ge the jump on the killer as she had on his accomplice. Unfortunately, the bearded killer had better hearing or was just paying attention. Because while he didn't know exactly where the young slayer was, he figured out her general direction, and unleashed a flurry spell-cast blades all over the area.

The shower of whirling blades tore her dress to ribbons and sliced her skin along with it Still her injuries were mostly superficial, but they sure did hurt. If that was how he was going to play, Arcadia would just have to give him too many targets to choose from instead of one. She surrounded herself in a blob of inky darkness, kept intentionally small. It would not protect her from another storm of blades, but she was betting her couldn't pull that off again so soon. And she would not remain in the sensory depriving ink.

Invisibility dismissed, she guided her magic power into a number of shadow clones of herself. Eleven shadow-Arcadias in all. They all darted out of the blob in completely different directions. Arcadia darted out in the same direction she had been running..toward the nearest wall. With the frozen magic still in her hands and bare feet, the ice slayer skittered high up the wall behind the cover of the blob.

She and the nine remaining shadow clones halted, locked in a stare down with the bearded killer. He had lashed out at two of them so far, just missing a third as she went up the wall. The killer grumbled and chcuckled, ”Very clever. So no I'm suppo-”

Arcadia did not wait for the killer to finish his banter or bait her out into giving a tell to which of the Arcadias was the real one. They all leaped to the attack, sprouting out her dragon wings of hoarfrost as the inky blob was dismissed. She swiftly grew ten icy, needle-sharp darts, one on each of her fingers. While she was gliding at him, she whipped all ten of them in his direction, but so did the nine shadow clones. Without knowing which of the icy darts were real in the hail of ninety flying for him, all the bearded killer could do was duck down and hold his blades over his more vital areas for cover.

Fortunately for him, Arcadia was rushed with no time to aim properly, so only 3 out of her 10 real icy darts struck home. Unfortunately, The real Arcadia was no far behind her darts, her wings carrying him straight to him with a kick to his face.

The killer managed a requip to counter attack with, but that was when Arcadia unleashed a wintry roar, also straight tohis face as she stood over him upon landing. Her icy breath returning the favor of slicing up his bared skin and beard pretty good. Ol' frosty beard was out for the count.

Arcadia used the last of her rope to tie him up. It was tempting to make sure he would never hurt anyone else again, but she still might need him to help clear things up...so she left him for the chief and other security folk to turn over to the Rune Knights.





Word Count: 613
Total Word Count: 2617/1500

Health: 299
Magic Power: 155

Spells

Refraction (Signature) - 1/1 Duration
Cerebral Eclipse - 4/5 Duration
Ice Dragon Glacier Geckowalk - 2/3 Duration
Gloom - 1/2 Duration
Shadow Puppets – 1/3 Duration
Ice Dragon Frozen Claws - 1/2 Duration
Ice Dragon Wings (Signature) - 1/1 Duration
Ice Dragon Roar (Signature) - 1/1 Duration