The snow glows white on the mountain tonight [Tor / Shen / Amber & Sapphire]

Job details

Tor was sitting behind a desk, his head nodding on and off. His eyes were bleary, half-closed as he drifted in and out of sleep. In front of him was a half-written report that he was supposed to finish three days ago for a task he had taken. The pen used to write the report was still grasped between his thumb and index finger of his right hand. Being cooped up in the office and doing paperwork had always been his bane. He would rather be up and about, taking the trashiest jobs that were just plain waste of his time and effort like finding a cat or extremely dangerous jobs where his life was being threatened at every moment. That would be much, much better than the boring hell of pushing paperwork in the headquarters.

There were plenty of noise in the office that consisted of chairs being pulled and pushed, his colleagues speaking to each other and the sound of people walking around but all of it was sleepily pushed away. A colleague that was rather close with him, another Private called Adrian walked into the office, swinging his head left and right as he tried to find something. He smirked when he saw Tor dozing off at his desk, knowing very well how the latter must be feeling. He had a piece of paper in his hand and he walked confidently into the room, nodding and exchanging pleasantries with the other Rune Knights that he passed by before finally standing in front of Tor’s desk.

The ones that had noticed Adrian walking in and greeted him followed him with their eyes and they were grinning when they finally saw Tor, who had been quiet all morning. One of them scrunched up a piece of paper into a ball and tossed it into the air at Tor. Despite being Rune Knights, there were still some that were playful. Tor was hit in the side of the head by the paper ball and was woken up as he repeatedly opened and closed his mouth before looking at Adrian who was standing in front of him.

“Hey, Addie,” Tor greeted, as his mind slowly woke up. He didn’t even know about the paper ball that had been thrown at him. The one that had thrown the paper ball and the ones around him snickered a little before resuming whatever they were doing while Adrian just kept a bemused smile on his face. He corrected the position of his glasses slightly, before putting the piece of paper in his hand on Tor’s table, on top of his incomplete report. Tor gave it a glance and was going to scoff at Adrian for acting so mysteriously but he stopped before he even spoke.

He quickly turned his attention back to the paper. It was a job request, and Tor hastily read through the details in the leaflet.

“Who’s being assigned to the job?” Tor asked as he stood up from his desk. The half-written report was probably going to procrastinated to a later date.

“I don’t know, but you can just take this and go meet them at the barracks,” Adrian said as he shrugged. He eyed the report beneath the leaflet and then sighed. “I will complete the report. You’ve got the key points written down right?”

“Yup! It’s all here,” Tor replied with a huge grin as he pulled out a leather notebook out of nowhere and jammed it into Adrian’s open hands. “Thanks!”

There were many types of people who joined the Rune Knights, and like Tor, Adrian had joined for the sake of a job. Yet, he wasn’t fond of taking field assignments and wasn’t brainy enough to join the Engineering Corps. Special Operations and Combat Corps was definitely not his cup of tea. And by luck, he had chanced upon getting to know Tor, the opposite of him who would do anything just to get out of the office thus creating their symbiotic working relationship.

“I’m off then!” Tor shouted as he bolted out of the room with an energy that had been missing for the entire morning. From the looks of the job, it seemed like it would require at least one powerful mage to be the pillar of the team. Hoping to make a good impression, Tor patted himself down as he walked through the hallways of the large building. When he finally arrived in front of the barracks, he even found a mirror and quickly made sure that his morning nap hadn’t given him bad hair.

And when he was finally done, all that was left was to wait for the other Rune Knights to arrive.

[782 words]

The day was just like any other. Come in, check in, do some warm up exercises and some training, maybe help around cleaning around. Just normal things that they were warned about having happen when they wanted to come join the Rune Knights. But the twins were more than happy to follow in their mother’s footsteps if it meant getting her back. There couldn’t be too much to worry about as they knew she was a tough rock to crush. It was only thankful for them that they had someone to help school them rather quickly in the goings on of the Rune Knights activities since she spent so much time there. It was probably one of the only things that really helped them to get through the initial joining process the most given that they never really looked the part of Knights. But, that was their intention. It was important for them to not look like it and to make sure that they could hide from anyone and everyone that may be trying to find them.

The next bit of things to come had been that the pair of elementals entering the hall as per their normal routine. They had not made it more than a few steps when someone had come walking by the main entry area and saw the two entering the headquarters. Stopping them, they simply mentioned having a job for them to complete, however they were to be accompanied by senior officers to ensure the task had been completed by the Knights standards. It would be something akin to a test or trial. Something to get them to understand the process of how things would work before, during, and after. It was a bit of a commotion for Amber to hear they couldn’t just go on their own, however they didn’t make much of a fuss over the whole deal. Sapphire took the paper as requested and then moved on to getting dressed into their uniforms for the job. They normally didn’t take their uniforms at home as they didn’t have any need to but to clean them, so otherwise they came and went in normal clothing just to keep the eyes off them.

While the two sat on a bench around the corner from the entrance, they opened the paperwork given to them and inside contained some items. First were two ID tags with their names and pictures which they had joked would be amusing to switch around, but the ramifications would most likely be more troublesome than the fun of the joke. The next was a folder containing the information of their job. It listed the four of them on the paperwork as attendants of the job and seeing the two other names, they had no idea who they were looking for.

"So we’re gonna have SOOO much fun on this job!"
”You think so? It seems like a dangerous job, though I guess they all can’t be helping old ladies get their purses back from thieves.”
"Well duh!~ You nom all the snow and ice, I blast through all the enemies! We’re gonna rock the house!"
”I suppose. But keep the bomb blasting to a minimum. If it’s mountainous, the chances of avalanches might hurt the others with us.”
"Fiiiiine. You’re so much like auntie Silvia, you know that?"

557 words
1,339 total count

Katsumi pushed her goggles up onto her forehead. The invention lay on a workbench before her. The metalwork was shoddy, the inner workings that of an amateur. The inventor didn't care. She could Edit those parts later or get someone that actually worked with metal to make a better model. This prototype was merely to see if the idea had any merit. She set a small metallic ball, flat on the bottom, in front of the contraption. A red keyboard sprang up before her. A screen hovered over the invention. The innate code within everything lay bare to her eyes. Katsumi licked her lips. Her fingers flew over the keyboard. Symbols were erased and replaced. The Rune Knight didn't even notice the sweat beginning to pour from her forehead. Her focus was laser.

Sometime into her coding, Katsumi realized her goggles were on her forehead. She was in the dangerous part of her inventing process. Deleting the wrong part of the code of the universe caused the Edited item to explode. Her Dexterity wasn't high enough and she was wearing simple workmen's leathers. Nowhere near the armor needed to protect her from that. Her Henken lay yards away in her belt. Her magics were out of reach. The gamer girl refused to use the Forbidden techniques to save her. Not until she found a way to control that magic entirely. She stuck her tongue between her teeth. This had to be done very. carefully. Almost. There.

"Private Akahoshi?"

Katsumi swore as she dove away from the bench. She hit the messenger midsection, pulling the man under her body. Way to go, Luck stat! The tiny workshop shook as the experiment exploded. Katsumi's back arched as a few metal shards pierced through the leathers. When she was sure the danger was over, she moved painfully off the man. He looked with an open mouth toward the crater where the workbench had been. Katsumi groaned. "You needed something?" He glanced at her and hopped to her feet. Gently, the messenger helped remove the shards. Then a gentle light sealed the puncture wounds. Katsumi felt her back and flashed the man a smile. "Thank you. What did you need?" The messenger helped her to her feet and handed her an envelope. "Your next assignment, Private Akahoshi" He saluted before leaving. Katsumi thought he might be struggling not to run.

With a sigh, the gamer girl opened up the envelope. Her jaw tightened as her eyes scanned the page. Why was she being assigned to this job? It didn't require someone from the Engineering Corp. It required Special Operations or Combat Corps. She scanned the other names of those assigned to this job. She didn't recognize either of them. Great, a chance to flex her Charisma stat and Speaking talent. The swordswoman rolled her eyes. Time to gear up. Katsumi took a few minutes to pull on her gear. Each of the Henken were checked and secured. A few newer inventions were secured into her outfit before she strode out the door.

It took Katsumi a little while to figure out where the meeting area was. She was used to exiting through - cough - alternative entryways. It kept her interaction with other people to an absolute minimum. Living the NEET life! Eventually. Probably. The Rune Knights was pretty fun. The swordswoman found her teammates for the assignment eventually. She bowed slightly at the waist to each of them. "I'm Private Katsumi Akahoshi."

[579]
TWC: 1918