✺ politics into dust | cordelia, kurofaust job ✺

"FOR MAD SCIENCE!! TIME TO GET EXCITED, YOU GUYS."

It had been some time since Faustein had gone on his last two adventures, both being ones that had taken him all the way to a region of Earthland known only as the “Cursed Lands”. The first of these had involved accepting a request from a group of despondent families who called this accursed region their home with the task therein involving the investigation of the mysterious disappearances of their kith and kin all of which had been associated with a certain strange house located some distance away from their homes where he had met with them. So, Faustein had gone in, investigated the mystery in question while fighting his way through waves upon waves of statues which seemed to only move when he was not looking directly at them. It had taken a while to do so due to the sheer number of them and because he had flown solo on that job, but finally Faustein had managed to destroy all of them successfully along with their leader, a giant ogre statue. Alas, he had been too late to save the victims of the disappearances because by the time he found the ogre statue’s hidden dimension and entered it, the previously missing victims were all long dead and turned into mere skeletons. So, he left said cursed house and reported his findings to the families who were his clients, and of course had to wait there while they all bawled their eyes out in despair before they were ready to hand him his considerable service fee, but eventually he was able to wrap up that job and head on home.

Then there had been the second of his two most recent adventures which had him once again wandering the “Cursed Lands” region, this time to meet with a powerful vampire who had requested the destruction of a coven of vampires of which he had been a member at some point but was later banished for disobedience and free thought and had his precious locket taken away by the leader of said coven. So, Faustein found the home base of said coven, aka a structure called the “Haunted Guild” and had entered it after which he had fought his way through several waves of enemies by his lonesome since he had flown solo on this job just as he had with the last one. Finally, he had faced the leader of the coven, aka the “Count”, in single combat and after a protracted struggle, had successfully destroyed him and retrieved the vampire client’s locket for which he had been rewarded handsomely with a lot of jewel, but also been granted the boon of being turned into a powerful vampire by the client biting him after which he had left for his home in Fiore once more. Naturally, since he did not want his newfound vampirism to take hold just yet, Faustein had proceeded to suppress it until some future point via self-administration of a special anti-vampiric suppression drug that he had developed sometime in the past when he had an encounter with a similarly powerful, but antagonistic ancient vampire.

Since finishing up this most recent job, Faustein had once again returned to the grind of his daily life in Fiore. That is, he had gone back to working further at his profession as a practicing, full qualified physician-scientist mage yet again since this was the field in which he had established himself and been maintaining his position and renown in as one of Earthland’s preeminent authorities, the other being cutting edge magical and scientific research. Of course, his daily life would not be complete without his true love beyond all else, namely his ongoing and ever-burgeoning mad science research, though it was considered as “mad” in the eyes of others in his acquaintance, but not by him, of course. Thus, time began to march onwards yet again for him from then and all was relatively peaceful for some time after that once more, with him managing to start making some more major progress in his next series of even more exotic and not exactly ethically/morally viable research projects. Alas, this period came face to face once again with yet another rather abrupt intermission, which came in the form of yet another job notification which was sent to his iLac as per the usual protocol regarding job request notifications which he had established with his clients ever since he had acquired his iLac some time back.

This new job apparently involved the achievement of a more nefarious objective than the ones he was usually accustomed to dealing with up till then, namely this one involved the assassination of some politician who was apparently on a roll, making a name for himself among the non-magical masses as his whole political platform involved equalizing societal conditions between the mages and the non-magical folk and in doing so, remove the oppression and ill-treatment that said common folk were being subjected to by various powerbrokers in the magical societal circles. Said powerbrokers had, of course, taken issue with this since it would destabilize the stranglehold they had maintained for so long over the helpless non-magical commoners and thus had put out this assassination request for all dark guilds. Faustein did not really care very much one way or another what happened to the politician and certainly not the ever-widening schism between the mages and the non-mages and was quite miffed about the fact that the job request notification had come and interrupted him right when he was in the middle of researching the development of a powerful magical weapon for his arsenal

Why? Why do these job requests ALWAYS seem to come at the WORST possible times in my schedule? How troublesome…

He grumbled silently as he read over the request carefully to memorize the details therein and despite his reluctance to go do it, money was still money and since this was an assassination request, the clients had put out a semi-decent reward for its completion. So, he went ahead and accepted the job since he needed more money because he was already running low on funds from the enormous toll his ongoing and ever-burgeoning mad science research and the activities therein constantly seemed to take upon his finances. He put his research and development on hold for the time being and instead set about readying himself for the job looming before him and at the end of this process he donned his signature physician-scientist’s outfit which also donned as his custom light armor suit as per his usual protocol. After that, he finished by putting on his smart holographic glasses and strapping his spacetime manipulation chronograph to his left wrist as per the first of the final steps of his usual job prep protocol once again just as he had done on his most recent job. Once that was done, he holstered his iLac and took his military grade backpack with the rest of his field equipment and other on-the-go tools and items inside and set off to exit his lab/mansion yet again just like with his previous job. After exiting his lab/mansion, he headed over to a private transportation company in Magnolia which he usually used due to personal acquaintance with the owner and hired transport to Crocus which was the site of the assassination job request in question.

Once there, he made his way quickly through the streets, his motion being practically a blur to any non-magical passersby and was almost to the coordinates indicated when his polarized lenses-bearing smart holographic glasses alerted him to someone’s presence in the shadows of one of the alleyways and so, he stopped short and headed into said alley, more out of curiosity than anything else. As he came closer, stepping out of the darkness and into a small patch of pale light filtering in from above, his physician-scientist’s outfit as well as his rather exotic appearance were both revealed for the person to behold at their leisure. It also became apparent that said person was a young woman who was currently muttering something about assassinating a politician in her drunken stupor. Additionally, there seemed to be what looked like red pandas near her with the same job flyer he had seen in the electronic notification he had received on his iLac earlier.

“Well now, I presume you have accepted this same job request to terminate the hapless existence of this troublesome politician, mademoiselle? If so, here’s to working in tandem to complete this job.”

As he spoke, Faustein’s voice was revealed to be a rich, powerful baritone yet melodious one, but due to the commotion in the streets with the cheering of the massive crowd which had gathered to hear the politician’s speech, his deep voice was safely drowned out from being heard by any eavesdroppers. Then, he fell silent to behold the young woman’s reactions to him and his introductory remarks.

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OOC:

Appearance (CREDIT TO DORAN 2019 FOR ARTWORK):

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Spoiler:

"FOR MAD SCIENCE!! TIME TO GET EXCITED, YOU GUYS."

Faustein let out a deep, rumbling chuckle at the actions of the short girl before him whom he came to know as being called “Cordelia” and responded to her queries in order of appearance in that same rich baritone and melodious voice which was his norm

“Indeed, I deduced as much from both sources. Now then, I shall graciously accept your invitation to have a draught before our impending victory.”

With that said, he took the rather colorful glass bottle with the beverage inside it and without hesitation, began to drink from it in long, albeit silent sips and unlike most people, he was a true cyborg so he had long since rid himself of the normal bodily need to breathe air frequently, meaning he could drink without stopping until he had his fill. The drink proved to taste like a sweet, almost too sugary, juice but nevertheless, it still had quite the potent effect on him as he could feel his mana and life energy surging more powerfully than ever after drinking it

“Mmm…now THAT’S the stuff!! Your drink must be quite the rare item to be so potently efficacious as it is on one other than yourself. You have my thanks for introducing me to this magnificent ambrosia, Cordelia.”

After that, even though he was never big on formal introductions, since she had satiated his urge to drink something potent and exotic, he relented from his usual aloofness and introduced himself at last

“You may call me Faust. It is a pleasure to meet you. Surfing on rocks, eh? Oh yes, if memory serves, there is a sport of sorts called spindrifting which involves that. This is the first time I have ever met one who engages in it, though, how very intriguing indeed. To answer your query further, yes, I shall be sure to contact you if I ever do get the urge to partake of such exotic beverages.”

He was about to say more, but then the vibrant echo from the crowd mingling on the street beyond the alley in which they both were situated currently cut him off prematurely. He smirked as he watched how excited Cordelia was becoming at the commencement of their job at long last and suggested

“Now then, do you have any plans for how to assassinate that hapless politician, perhaps? I have a suggestion if you are willing to entertain it.”

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OOC:

Appearance (CREDIT TO DORAN 2019 FOR ARTWORK):

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Spoiler: