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    Cabal in the Capital (Ms. Fortune, Tim)

    Rodadnuf
    Rodadnuf

    Player 
    Lineage : Anathema to Divinity
    Position : None
    Faction : The Ironheart Pact
    Posts : 248
    Guild : Silver Wolf
    Cosmic Coins : 100
    Dungeon Tokens : 0
    Experience : 2,561,089

    Character Sheet
    First Skill: Rollins & Schwartz-Brand
    Second Skill: Heaven God Slayer
    Third Skill:

    Cabal in the Capital (Ms. Fortune, Tim) Empty Cabal in the Capital (Ms. Fortune, Tim)

    Post by Rodadnuf 6th July 2022, 5:53 am

    Cabal in the Capital
    Job Details: End to Sins
    Sign-up: N/A



    Tim knew more about dirt cheap motels and a select few training centers in Crocus than actual landmarks. Even as a frequent visitor, his trips within the capital usually consists of a few-hour-bus ride, a quick nap in the company booked motel, another few hours doing the actual purpose (usually seminars inside the aforementioned training centers) then finally going back home. The only few exceptions were when Tim renewed his licenses, and that one time he got his passport. He never gotten an opportunity to let the city speak for itself.

    And boy was he glad it took this long for him to do so.

    The news outlets that reached Hargeon didn’t seem to mince much about how the capital felt. It was a city that would look at its new arrivals and roll its eyes. It was a city where the senile met the young and the brash, a city where the speed limit hasn’t changed for the better part of the century. Old white stone and brown-tile roofed buildings witnessed grayer, duller, newer ones grow and tower over them tenfold, and both were justling for space to accommodate its competitive residents and visitors—not rudely, but completely uncaring—in its ways to cannibalize competition. Green parks and graveyards numbered so few that could be counted with one hand were noticeable blemishes to this city of cement and metal. It was a city filled with people in every manner and kind.

    Tim was taking all of it in as he weaved from the wayside then back into the packed sidewalk. Carefully, he checked out his iLac. “This is the block…”

    Tim pulled his faded brown duffle bag closer as he walked into the entrance to an alley. There were already a thicket of people forming over the alley. Tim adjusted his flat cap and, with a huff, scooted between the peanut gallery.

    “Watch it, pal!” Tim heard a woman complain.

    “Ah, ‘scuse me.”

    “Move over— holy hell, he’s tall…” There were a few people who just let him scoot aside.

    “Mind letting me through?”

    “You with the city guard or something?” And some were the nosy, gossiping type.

    “…or something.”

    Tim realized he was at the mouth of the alley when a firing line of reporters were the only thing between him and two city guards keeping outsiders from entering the alley. Their cameras flashed, forcing Tim to narrow his eyes just to be able to look clearly at one of the guards.

    “We won’t be giving any statements at this time!” The older looking guard shrugged.

    “Not even off the record.” He sharply added after one of the reporters raised their hand.

    Tim gently pushed himself between two reporters, as gently as he could without sending the two flying. “Officer Summerset?”

    “Who’s asking?” Tim leaned forward, pulling his jacket and shirt over his shoulder slightly, to reveal his guild mark. “You’re the one from Silver Wolf, huh…”

    Summerset nodded at the other guard. The guard lifted up the black and yellow warning tape letting Tim duck under it. There was a slight rustle among the peanut gallery, from the reporters especially.

    “That guy’s a wizard?”

    “Silver Wolf… the one up the mountains?”

    “They’re hiring independent wizards now?”

    Tim could feel Officer Summerset’s head forming a migraine at the reporters gossiping knowing what sort of story they’ll be able to spin this time. But he opted to let out a hard sigh instead, a cloud of mist forming in front of him. “Follow me.”

    Tim nodded and adjusted his duffle bag and flat cap.

    “I gotta be honest, kid.” He scratched his bearded chin. “You look like you’re straight out of a woodworks shop.”

    Tim’s soggy black jacket still had the golden color label ‘Rollins & Schwartz Co.’ plastered over the back, though it was now faded. His azure jeans had its wear and tear from his days in the docks and his steel-toed shoes were scratched so much anyone could see a slight metal shine when it’s just the right angle. His only fresh-looking clothes were his white dress shirt and flat cap, the reason being the shirt [was] new and his flat cap was dry-cleaned on the regular.

    Tim huffed out a laugh.

    “Never came around to buy some more wizardy-looking gear?”

    “Like a pointy hat?”

    “Close.”

    “Never found the time.”

    The officer huffed, Tim couldn’t tell if it was an approving one or otherwise.

    The two finally stopped over the middle of the alley. There were barely any exits between the two entrances from the sidewalk. The two buildings that formed the alley was an old stone three-story and a ten-story complex that, apparently, was still only a year old. There were entrances into the buildings themselves, but there were no reports of break-ins, nor any signs of anyone using magic to squeeze through. There were also no witnesses, that is, nobody heard anyone outright scream ‘bloody murder!’, though no one could really differentiate the usual screams of crazy hoodlums and thugs between an actual emergency too.

    “So, no one really saw it happen?” Tim frowned.

    Over the wall of the newer building, there was a machine the size of a briefcase whirring over a bloodstained section of the wall, the dried blood was splattered over to one side and a dried-up pool of it was on the floor. On top of the bloodied scene was a slightly pixelated body. They were both looking over the holographic outline. It was laid out completely straight. The hologram projected a man about the same age as Tim, but not as fit. He looked like a child from how chubby he was and the fact he was already lifeless let his flabby cheeks and arms plop over the ground. It was the look of a drunk. Tim would have found it funny too, if it weren’t for the fact the front of his neck was ripped open. It was a clean stroke too, even from the hazy hologram he could see how well the murder weapon had cut through the poor man.

    Tim took a good look of the hologram, then Officer Summerset handed Tim a book sized iLac that had the transcripts they took from witnesses and the ones from similar cases since the last few days. This looked bad. Beyond the ones seen on the news and some crime series his co-workers would put on, Tim had never seen an actual crime scene. And from the files the Officer handed to him, it looked like whoever did this hasn’t even been identified yet.

    “Damn.” He let out a breath. “I think I’m out of my element here…”

    “That’s hardly something a specialist the force hired should be saying, kid.”

    “When you guys put ‘help apprehend the killers’ on the guild boards, I expect to assist on a man-hunt. Not an investigation!”

    “So, what, we’re on the deep end just because of a misunderstanding?”

    “I’m saying this won’t be a walk in the park…”

    “I just hope the other one isn’t as unreliable as you.”

    Tim quirked a brow at that. “Other one—?”


    Words:
    1183/1183


    Last edited by Rodadnuf on 25th August 2022, 1:42 am; edited 1 time in total


    _____________________________________________________________________________________

    Cabal in the Capital (Ms. Fortune, Tim) M7VWYFe
    Fraag
    Fraag

    Player 
    Lineage : Progeny of Arcanos
    Position : None
    Faction : The Luminous Covenant
    Posts : 1038
    Guild : Luminous Rose
    Cosmic Coins : 60
    Dungeon Tokens : 0
    Experience : 3,401,904

    Character Sheet
    First Skill: Arcane Fate Magic
    Second Skill: Night God Slayer
    Third Skill: Relativity God Slayer

    Cabal in the Capital (Ms. Fortune, Tim) Empty Re: Cabal in the Capital (Ms. Fortune, Tim)

    Post by Fraag 6th July 2022, 6:18 pm

    Crocus. The capital city of Fiore, home to the top dogs, movers and shakers of the country, as far as political power was concerned. The military might rested in Era, so that city was expected to be more spartan and less fancy than the political capital which was situated north west of it. If given a chance to vote at a poll, Nita was sure she would vote Era as her more preferred city than Crocus. Not because she was big on order and regimentation; she had actually confessed once that the major reason she hadn’t joined the Rune Knights was because of her innate proclivity towards running wild and free. Granted, she knew the dangers of absolute lack of restraint, but she was not the sort of person to happily abide by dressing standards, especially for longer periods of time. Her issue with Crocus, despite the fact that it seemed less ordered and militaristic than Era was the fact that once one moved away from the rich and prissy neighborhoods (which were more like Era’s city vibes, due to the fact that this was where most of the political top shots resided), it seemed as though the city seemed to have, for lack of a better word, organic vibrancy. Over-commercialization, mixed with a general lack of interest in the happenings  in the lives of others created quite a lot of lifeless concrete and seedy ‘underbellies’, where those who could not get to the ideal of the money making success, but who could not bear to leave this urban jungle, would hide and fester. There seemed to be some hidden spirit that permeated the city; the word Nita was looking for was ‘apathy’. And being a rather empathic person, apathy disgusted her.

    Crocus. This was the second time Nita had come here; the first being a rather pivotal event in her existence. For it had been here that she had realized the mark that destiny had placed upon her: her connection to the Ishgaran god of magic, Arcanos. It had also been here that she had been able to fully accept the deity whose soul had been merged with hers, something which had been easy to do once she had realized that when her soul had been fused with that of the Primordial, way back in the snowy mountains of Pergrande, both she and the Primordial had been changed in many ways. She had had the displeasure of meeting at least two other Primordials since then, and they seemed to believe that the erstwhile Primordial, who now shared Nita’s body with her, had been devolved, and needed to be purged by death. It hadn’t quite worked out the way they had hoped, and Nita was still alive and well, and they were not. Then there was also the fact that Nita had first heard of the nickname she had gained, with her rising fame, a nickname that she felt was rather acceptable. It was for the above listed reasons that Nita gazed on the sights of Crocus with a little bit of mixed feelings. On the one hand, the apparent ‘we want to make money off you, and don’t really care what happens to you in the process’ spirit of the city was rather off-putting, but there was a bit of nostalgia to be had here. She had after all gone through the ordeal of facing her past with her best friend in this city, and such experiences only served to strengthen the bonds that existed between friends. She wondered how Terumi was doing presently.

    Well, other thoughts would have to be set aside for now. She had a mission to accomplish. It was not a very pleasant thing, this job, because it involved killings. Kind of like how her last job in Crocus had involved people disappearing. Could the two be related? Nita could not say, but she was neither going to be surprised, nor pleased, if they were. From a distance, she could see the lights on the police squad cars, as well as the crowd, close to the area at which she was supposed to meet the law enforcement folks and receive the detailed debriefing of this mission. Aside the fact that some bodies had been found, and that she was not going to be working alone, Nita knew next to nothing about the matter at hand. With the crowds there, and what looked like even camera flashes, it seemed the whole cavalry was assembled there. Complete with news teams and the whole shebang. Presently, she didn’t feel particularly like drawing too much attention to herself, so she drew a black card, and vanished in a blink. She appeared in silence, in the middle of an alley. Immediately, her six senses took in as much information as she could, and she knew she had judged the destination of her teleport correctly. The holographic form of a brutal murder, and the two men standing and facing the pixelated image told her all she wanted to know at present. From the words of the shorter fellow (and the fact that he was dressed in police gear), it was very likely that her partner for this stint was the tall guy with curly hair. ”Oh, do be nice, hon,” Nita said almost in the ear of the policeman, startling him, as he visibly jumped and whirled around. She smiled cheerily and gave a comical salute. ”’Other one’ reporting for duty, sir!” She turned to the tall fellow, having to crank her head quite obviously to be able to look at his face. A troublesome reminder of her height. Nevertheless, that could be ignored at the moment. ”Well, heeeeey,” she said, grinning at him as she drew out the ‘hey’. He did have a nice face, and the tousled hair and choice of clothing gave him a rugged look. The Pergrandian held out her hand for a shake. ”You must be my partner on this ‘won’t be a walk in the park’. Nice to meet you. I’m Nita.”

    ”Shameless…” Maria said in her mind, although Nita could tell that the deity was quite amused. It was a good thing only she could hear Maria’s voice. Best to absolutely ignore that little annoyance. ”Who do you think you’re calling a little annoyance?”

    ”So, what are we up to?”


    WC: 1056
    PWC: 1056
    TWC: 2239

    @Rodadnuf


    _____________________________________________________________________________________

    Rodadnuf
    Rodadnuf

    Player 
    Lineage : Anathema to Divinity
    Position : None
    Faction : The Ironheart Pact
    Posts : 248
    Guild : Silver Wolf
    Cosmic Coins : 100
    Dungeon Tokens : 0
    Experience : 2,561,089

    Character Sheet
    First Skill: Rollins & Schwartz-Brand
    Second Skill: Heaven God Slayer
    Third Skill:

    Cabal in the Capital (Ms. Fortune, Tim) Empty Re: Cabal in the Capital (Ms. Fortune, Tim)

    Post by Rodadnuf 7th July 2022, 1:01 am



    When a girl about a meter shorter than Tim popped out of thin air, both he and the officer were visibly surprised. If it had been a surprise attack by the culprit, the enemy would’ve landed a solid blow before he could react. He really needs to remember the fact he has a little something called magic sensory. Shaking his head at himself, he quickly landed his attention to the newcomer. She quipped about having to play nice and promptly called herself as the ‘other one’.

    Also, she was really bubbly.

    The way she greeted with a breezy, longwinded ‘hey’ reminded Tim of a very specific group of women that hang round the hargeon docks during long nights. The thought was equal parts nostalgic and embarrassing, thinking of such things in a time like this. But could you blame the guy? She wasn’t running for Saint of Chastity anytime soon, or at least, not with her present outfit. It was a two-piece black outfit with purple stripes and— that would be the extent Tim wanted to observe without making himself looking like he was checking her out. Though he did notice the knee-high platform boots before he stopped.

    She locked her mismatched sapphire and emerald eyes at him as she introduced herself as Nita.

    “An easy name to remember to match a pretty face.” He answered in an equally charming smile as he shook her hand. “Wil. Wil Summerset. Glad to have you as a partner in this case, doll.”

    He quirked his brow with a 'really?' at the officer sliding between him and the newcomer. But Tim managed to huff out a laugh at the older man’s attempt at flirting. Finally noticing him, the officer gestured Tim’s way. “Oh, and this here's the hired help...uh—”

    “Tim.”

    “Tim!” Wil flicked his finger, as if he remembered the name himself. “Tim’s here to assist you in the case, as well. Anything you need though, I’m just a holler away—”

    “Sir!”

    Officer Summerset’s eyelid twitched as he saw the lone officer over at the mouth of the alley doing a poor job keeping the reporters at bay. He excused himself, muttering ‘damn rookies’ as he howled at the few people scaling over the hazard tape.

    Nita asked about the incident and Tim handed her the officer’s book sized iLac containing the witness testimonies and the preliminary autopsy. “From the way Officer Summerset spoke, between us you’re the lead investigator in this ‘won’t be a walk in the park’.”

    “Nice to meet you too.” Tim finally answered her greeting, giving her a slight smile.

    But now that the introductions are out of the way, the young man cleared his throat before looking down again at the hologram. “To answer your question, boss...”

    “Long story short? It’s a lock-room mystery out here in the open.” He began. “Most, if not all, of the witnesses only heard a noise that may or may not be the act itself. These two building’s internal magic sensors didn’t even beep once and the city street surveillance didn’t see anything. It’ll take a few hours for the full autopsy to come in. And, as for the body itself? Other than the obvious cut neck, he’s cleaner than me after a morning hangover.”

    “Well,” Tim paused. “Clean, except….”

    He knelt on one knee. He leaned over close to where the hologram hovered over the body was placed. Tim balled up his fist and when he opened them a ball of purple crystalized light materialized, emanating a bright light. Even in the middle of the day the crystal ball’s light was noticeably different, but that’s not what Tim wanted to show her. He hovered the ball of light over the hologram and, sure enough, there was a faint black smoke puffing over it. Tim turned off the hologram with his free hand and the smoke was outlining an eerily similar shape to the body, as if there was a pack of colored dry ice laid to melt. The smoke itself would disappear when it reached behind Tim, away from his ball of light.

    Tim craned his neck towards his company. “What do you think?”


    Words:
    Post 693
    Player 1,876
    Total 2,932


    _____________________________________________________________________________________

    Cabal in the Capital (Ms. Fortune, Tim) M7VWYFe
    Fraag
    Fraag

    Player 
    Lineage : Progeny of Arcanos
    Position : None
    Faction : The Luminous Covenant
    Posts : 1038
    Guild : Luminous Rose
    Cosmic Coins : 60
    Dungeon Tokens : 0
    Experience : 3,401,904

    Character Sheet
    First Skill: Arcane Fate Magic
    Second Skill: Night God Slayer
    Third Skill: Relativity God Slayer

    Cabal in the Capital (Ms. Fortune, Tim) Empty Re: Cabal in the Capital (Ms. Fortune, Tim)

    Post by Fraag 7th July 2022, 6:26 pm

    On-demand teleportation was a rather nifty thing to have, especially when, in Nita’s case, aside from having to draw a card before performing the spell, it came with no extra visual or audial cues. Aside from the convenience of not having to slog it on your own two feet everywhere, there was the element of surprise that it carried as well, and Nita could say with some degree of satisfaction that she was utilizing it well, going by the evident surprise on the faces of the two men. The next bit of interaction that followed was not particularly as evocative of pleasant feelings as was the ability to use teleportation. The speed with which the officer slid between herself and the tall guy was eye-rolling, if not downright distasteful. As he took her hand and fired off some rather corny compliments, Nita responded with silence and the slow lifting of her eyebrows. Of course, the flattery wasn’t particularly unwelcome, it was simply the almost desperate attempt of his to hold her attention. Nita, for her part, did not take any particular umbrage with people who behaved like this; some people after all would say that her ‘energy’ was similar to the officer’s. What Nita found in extremely bad taste was his attempt to make little of the other fellow. Technically speaking, she was as much ‘hired help’ as he was. With Nita being the sort of person who didn't like bullies, whether of the physical or psychological kind, Officer Summerset didn’t realize that he had just blown up his chances of landing in her good books.

    So, the tall guy was Tim. While Nita shelved that piece of information and prepared a barbed riposte for the law enforcement agent, the man was fortunately called away by one of his subordinates, leaving Nita alone with Tim. ”Well, that went well,” she said sarcastically, as she received the iLac from the dark-haired man. ”Hmm?” she said, looking at him with a confused expression on her face when he talked about her being the chief investigator in this case. But she couldn’t yet respond, as he belatedly responded to her greeting, though this was for absolutely no fault of his. However, when he referred to her as ‘boss’, she quickly took the opportunity to set things right. ”Whoa, whoa, whoa! I’m not the head honcho here. Isn’t ‘lead investigator‘ an exaggeration? I simply saw a mission request, I took it, was granted permission to proceed, and here I am. I have a very strong feeling that the same applies to you. You’re just as much ‘lead investigator’ as I am, unless someone, discounting Officer Chubbs over there, gave you the memo indicating that I’m the boss here, a memo that I obviously didn’t read.”

    Tim gave a reasonably detailed explanation of the present situation. There were a lot of things which raised questions, but that was why the mages were here, to get those questions answered. Nita listened quietly, never interrupting once, except when the tall mage mentioned the dead fellow being cleaner than him after a morning hangover, to which she chuckled ”You have very hygienic-sounding hangovers.” Nita guessed the obvious, that the ball of light was some aspect of Tim’s magic, but she said nothing about it. Instead, she simply observed the hanging mass of shadow in silence, her mind making silent propositions as her eyes traced the eerie man-shaped smoke. Then she sighed quietly, almost imperceptibly. ”Pity.…” She wasn’t allowed to continue, though, as Officer Summerset returned from chasing people back over the other side of the hazard tape. ”So how are the investigations coming along, partner?” he asked, moving between her and Tim again. Nita simply took it in stride and replied, ”about that, Officer Summerset, I’m afraid there’s been some bit of confusion of identity here. Like Tim here, I’m simply hired help, paid to assist in the investigations. The maid, if you will. And, aren’t you married? You look very married. And I’m sure you must be sorry to hear this, but I don’t go for married folks, bad karma and all that, you know. So, why don’t you keep at whatever it is important principal investigators like yourself usually do, and let the hired help have a staff meeting, okay?” So saying, she wheeled away from him and to Tim’s other side, so that the tall mage was between the two of them, and pretended as if Summerset didn't exist.

    ”Back to business, Tim. While I’m presently still figuring out why the alarms in the adjacent houses didn’t go off, we have our first clue. The obvious assumption is that this is some sort of spell residue. Can we track it? It seems to be illuminated by your pretty light thing, and if you observe, it reaches behind us, out of the range of your light, upon which it disappears. So it might be a trail. There’s something else we could do, if trailing this odd substrate isn’t enough, but I’m hoping it’s enough to give us cogent answers; I’d rather not attempt it yet….”


    WC: 849
    PWC: 1905
    TWC: 3781

    @Rodadnuf


    _____________________________________________________________________________________

    Rodadnuf
    Rodadnuf

    Player 
    Lineage : Anathema to Divinity
    Position : None
    Faction : The Ironheart Pact
    Posts : 248
    Guild : Silver Wolf
    Cosmic Coins : 100
    Dungeon Tokens : 0
    Experience : 2,561,089

    Character Sheet
    First Skill: Rollins & Schwartz-Brand
    Second Skill: Heaven God Slayer
    Third Skill:

    Cabal in the Capital (Ms. Fortune, Tim) Empty Re: Cabal in the Capital (Ms. Fortune, Tim)

    Post by Rodadnuf 9th July 2022, 7:27 am



    It was a one-man massacre.

    Nita shut-down the officer’s advances with one figurative unsubtle bomb slapped across Summerset’s face, and way she stepped away from him all the way to Tim’s side was the detonation.

    “R-right, let me check-up on the forensics…” He pulled out a smaller iLac. “You two, uh— do what you have to do here.”

    Tim and Summerset might not have the best impressions between each other, not by a longshot, but that didn’t mean he was apathetic to the older man’s pain. He, at least, took off his flat cap and laid it over his chest in respect to the fallen man as he walked away.

    “Poor sod…” He muttered, before putting it back on.

    Nita, as if her little display earlier hadn’t just happened, started talking about the facts Tim laid out for her. She had the situation completely well on hand. As much as he wanted to, Tim didn’t want to look at her directly fearing he’ll end up with the same fate as the officer. He could, however, read his partner in other ways. Before the officer interrupted her, she was empathizing with the victim. She simply said one word when she looked at the man-shaped smoke; Tim picked up on the way she said it too. Even as she spoke, she took his opinion to consideration. Suggesting what she could with the situation and being completely considerate. She didn’t even take the officer’s pedestal and attempted to grandstand over Tim earlier, not for a second.

    “Ruthless and frank.” Tim muttered absentmindedly. “But also, empathetic. I don’t dislike that in a partner.”

    She suggested to follow where the smoke will lead them. It was the most obvious answer, but she didn’t want to do anything without his say. Tim agreed to her assessment. Even if this trail was both tapping a hornet’s nest and jumping into a snake pit all in one disgusting package. Nevertheless, this was the only clue they have.

    Tim huffed out a laugh when she called his little ball of crystal ‘pretty’. After all, the few people who called it that or ‘cool’ thus far he never had any issue with, even made friends with some. It was just a little tidbit from her he tucked into his head.

    After she said her piece, he stood up. “Before the final autopsy comes, we’re at a dead end. You’re right. We’ll need to track it.”

    “Just a little warning though. This whole place reeks of it—” Tim started to slowly waved his ball of light around and, true enough, the smoke formed a trail from where the body was last placed and into a niche by the newer building’s side entrance a few meters away. Tim walked towards the entrance and it was covered by the smoky trail, he swatted his free hand over the smoke. “This thing feels like a god’s taint.”

    Tim didn’t want to make that claim lightly. It was a shuddering feeling. The smoke didn’t smell conventionally; It wasn’t a physical thing. The ‘smell’ felt like a piece of the most shameless thing you’ve done in your life and magnified whenever you are exposed to it, some twisted form of guilt forming as it looms around as your heart sinks, as if you killed the poor man yourself. This was one of those metaphysical traits Tim encountered too often and, while he never gotten to understand exactly what it was, there would always be some god or servant of it lurking in the distance.

    “Dealing with them…” Tim shrugged, not even wanting to imagine it. “I hope I’m wrong and it’ll just be some sick bastard with a really good knife.”

    He walked over to his partner and handed her the crystal ball. “Wanna have a bash at it? The more ground we cover the better.”



    Words:
    Post 641
    Player 2,517
    Total 4,422


    _____________________________________________________________________________________

    Cabal in the Capital (Ms. Fortune, Tim) M7VWYFe
    Fraag
    Fraag

    Player 
    Lineage : Progeny of Arcanos
    Position : None
    Faction : The Luminous Covenant
    Posts : 1038
    Guild : Luminous Rose
    Cosmic Coins : 60
    Dungeon Tokens : 0
    Experience : 3,401,904

    Character Sheet
    First Skill: Arcane Fate Magic
    Second Skill: Night God Slayer
    Third Skill: Relativity God Slayer

    Cabal in the Capital (Ms. Fortune, Tim) Empty Re: Cabal in the Capital (Ms. Fortune, Tim)

    Post by Fraag 9th July 2022, 8:00 pm

    Nita’s eyes followed Officer Summerset as he fled further embarrassment and quickly headed the same way he had come. She would have felt sorry for him, if he hadn’t been the cause of his own embarrassment. She would probably have been more amenable to his advances, had he been less inclined to trample all over another person, just to attempt to show his dominance. In the end, he had inadvertently blown Tim’s trumpet, because the Silver Wolf mage’s refusal to respond aggressively to his insult only served to suggest that Tim was more mature, though younger, than Officer Summerset. And Nita could bet all her proceeds for this mission that the man was married. She chuckled at Tim’s words and replied with a shrug, ”don’t worry, I’ll get him a donut or something when we’re done.” Maria scoffed in her head. ”You’re such a softie,” the goddess sneered, and Nita was grateful that only she was privy to the voice of the deity. ”Filed under ‘Absolutely Irrelevant and Unsolicited For’ Drivel,” she silently shot back.

    The Pergrandian gave Tim a sidelong, appraising look when he commented that she was ruthless and frank, but also empathetic. Her lips moved sideways into a lopsided smile. ”I’ll happily take that as a compliment,” she replied. As the investigation continued, Tim pointed out that the dark smoke-like thing was everywhere, moving his light around to reveal where the strange substrate clumped around. Weird, ominous, but it didn’t seem particularly dangerous. As he swatted, Nita took careful note of his words. He, probably like herself, had had run-ins with deities. Although, Nita was less likely to believe that Primordials were divine. In her opinion, divinity was supposed to come with some degree of benevolence. She idly reached a hand for the dark mist nearest her. ”Taint? I thought gods were supposed to be holy….” If Tim was listening to her, he would notice that Nita suddenly stopped talking, as her hand connected with the substance. ”It feels familiar,” Maria said. Even though the goddess often came off as condescending and snobbish, Nita could sense that she was wary. ”I’d personally like the ‘Sick Bastard With Good Knife’ theory, but I’m beginning to fear it’s more likely not.” She did not like the feel of this dark thing. And Nita knew why Maria had noted that it was familiar. Because it felt like Primordial essence, albeit on a very diluted scale.

    The blonde mage took the crystal ball proffered her, and briefly studied it, not hiding her approval of the light. ”So, Tim, if I’m not trying to pry, you sound like you have some experience dealing with gods, and it doesn’t sound like pleasant memories. Are you comfortable with sharing?” Even though she was trying to make discussion that wasn’t apparently useful to the mission at hand, the young Pergrandian was already making her way to the mass of shadows around the side entrance of one of the buildings. She briefly observed the door, then tried its handle. It was locked. Of course, being with the law enforcement, they could get the cops to get the door open, but that would probably take some time, as well as throw the element of surprise out of the window. ”Suit of Aspect Card: Lady Luck.” Holding up her hand, a black card appeared between her fingers momentarily, before disintegrating into a silvery mist which shrouded her form entirely. The mist dissipated almost immediately, and while Nita was still there, she was dressed differently than she was before. Now she wore a flowing silver evening gown, complete with long, dark-grey gloves and thigh-high heeled boots of the same color. And a fancy hair accessory. She looked like she had just jumped out of a generic spy movie. Pulling her hairpin free from her hair, Nita inserted the sharper end of the accessory into the keyhole of the door. There was an audible click, and when she tried the handle again, the door swung noiselessly inward. She gave a smug smile, then turned to look at Tim. ”All senses on high alert from here on out. Who knows what we’ll uncover? I wouldn’t be surprised if it was some Ironheart Pact ploy, perhaps designed to test how well the Rune Knights have their hands on things at home, since much of their forces are engaged elsewhere….”


    WC: 727
    PWC: 2632
    TWC: 5149

    @Rodadnuf


    _____________________________________________________________________________________

    Rodadnuf
    Rodadnuf

    Player 
    Lineage : Anathema to Divinity
    Position : None
    Faction : The Ironheart Pact
    Posts : 248
    Guild : Silver Wolf
    Cosmic Coins : 100
    Dungeon Tokens : 0
    Experience : 2,561,089

    Character Sheet
    First Skill: Rollins & Schwartz-Brand
    Second Skill: Heaven God Slayer
    Third Skill:

    Cabal in the Capital (Ms. Fortune, Tim) Empty Re: Cabal in the Capital (Ms. Fortune, Tim)

    Post by Rodadnuf 10th July 2022, 10:51 am



    Tim laughed.

    From the way he expected his partner to react he might need to explain himself.

    “You’re not wrong, per se?” Tim scratched his chin. “Being holy, being divine. Gods are like that, yeah. But the way I see it, being divine has nothing to do with being good. Gods aren’t an exception. The ones that you know are out there, but doesn’t do anything, are the ones you can trust the most. They’re like the lifeguards of a town’s public pool. They won’t patronize you, but if you get screwed over and drown it won’t be their fault neither. The worst of them, which is to say most of them, are the cloud-sitting-sobs that put up a temple or two and get to call themselves a patron deity over things from little cults to entire civilizations! The worst part? Those guys believe their own hype—”

    Tim noticed Nita not talking. Admittedly he stopped paying attention to her; he only hoped his drawl didn’t annoy her, or worse, put her off completely.

    The young man found a slight relief when she finally answered back after his comment about wanting the culprit to be some dude with a knife, but her fears about it not ending up being the case isn’t unfounded. Does she also have an experience about this sort of thing? That was a small thought that popped over Tim’s head, but he quickly brushed aside when she asked about his experience in dealing with gods as he handed her his ball of light. Was it curiosity on her part? Or was his random thought just now correct? She didn’t really show any disdain to Tim’s magic, or at least until Tim tell her where the thing came from. He didn’t like the prospect on telling her the whole bit about his lineage. There were a select few that knew, some were even from his guild, but even then, it was a huge leap of faith for the young man.

    “If this job’s going the way I don’t want it to, I might be able to show it rather than tell.”

    Nita was making way towards the newer building’s side entrance when she pulled out a card out of thin air and, as she spoke what sounded like a name of a spell, let the card crush into mist. The silvery mist covered her for a short while and when it dissipated, she donned a completely new outfit! Tim actively clacked his teeth together, keeping himself from getting slack jawed, and hid it with a smile. Her scanty outfit paved way for a long silver evening gown. Tim could’ve sworn there might have been a wind nymph blowing her hair as she pulled out an intricately designed hair pin and used it as a lockpick. She didn’t look like a novice at it too, her silver gloves glistened as her hands went to work with the knob. Tim was all too happy to keep watch, err— for anyone looking at them. While it was part of the job, trying to look for the culprit, this was still breaking and entering.

    Then the thought of actually dealing with a deity like this suddenly dawn on him. He looked over his partner, still picking the lock. “I don’t know if you feel it, the taint—”

    “If you notice something, Nita? Please tell me.” He imagined an encounter akin to his fight with the wolf deity; something suddenly ambushing him and his partner getting dragged to his problem. “I can tell you’re a pretty good wizard, but I don’t want you getting hurt on my account.”

    Tim let out a breath after he said his piece. There was a fine line between blurting everything out and just being mysterious for the sake of it; Tim didn’t want to do either. One click from the pick, and like a wish, it was finished. Tim noticed her look his way.

    The door was wide open, and without any alarms tripped too. “Good job.”

    She then tried to theorize what they’ll end up seeing at the end of this figurative tunnel. With how Tim imagination running wild, he’d rather stick with these sorts of theories rather than the ones he came up with. Tim crouched beside her over the doorframe. With a huff and a nod, he listened to her.

    “Could be. But with a motive like that, I’d rather chalk that up to Desierto. With Joya up in flames, they needed to up their selection of sources for their nation’s biggest imports. Slaves. There are some villages and towns east here that had residents taken already. Well, rescue efforts were there, of course—” His face ended up looking at the distance, trying to see something that wasn’t there. “Just getting a dozen back took me close to a month. Imagine the thousands more that haven’t even identified as missing because of them? What’s more, they’ve been taking a few ‘prisoners’ off the Minstrelian countryside too. The desiertan local slave trade being the mastermind in this… it’s a messed-up thought. But their operation runs deep, even going as far as their capital. Maybe they’re banking on our eagerness to send out our best mages out in the fray, like you said? Get some cargo up circulation while everyone’s preoccupied.”

    With all he just said, they really weren’t progressing on the current case. Despite that, he just felt like talking.

    “Though with that theory. Bellum’s alliance of wizards and wizard-killers would really be called into question, huh? Madam Cardinal’s little holy war fueled by allowing a nation like that feed on enemies and allies alike… the hell kind of God greenlit a war like that?” Tim was rambling at this point. “This all circles back to what I said about being holy and not necessarily being good, doesn’t it?”

    “But that sort of high-and-mighty thinking is beyond grunts like me. I usually just leave it to the snobs and the deities they represent. We get to blame them if go south too, if we want.” Tim shrugged.

    “Regardless,” Tim peered his head over the doorway, it looked like most of the magic sensors were still functional. While Tim wanted to check this place with the officers, he did understand how well people can keep seemingly clean while having the vilest secrets just hidden a-wall-away from authorities. “This case is still first priority. Wanna take the lead?”


    Words:
    Post 1,071
    Player 3,588
    Total 6,220
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    Cabal in the Capital (Ms. Fortune, Tim) M7VWYFe
    Fraag
    Fraag

    Player 
    Lineage : Progeny of Arcanos
    Position : None
    Faction : The Luminous Covenant
    Posts : 1038
    Guild : Luminous Rose
    Cosmic Coins : 60
    Dungeon Tokens : 0
    Experience : 3,401,904

    Character Sheet
    First Skill: Arcane Fate Magic
    Second Skill: Night God Slayer
    Third Skill: Relativity God Slayer

    Cabal in the Capital (Ms. Fortune, Tim) Empty Re: Cabal in the Capital (Ms. Fortune, Tim)

    Post by Fraag 11th July 2022, 5:10 pm

    As Nita worked on the lock, Tim asked whether she could feel the taint, and then said something about not wanting her to get hurt on his account. Okay, that part was downright confusing. Did he have something to do with this? ”While I’m flattered by your professed faith in my abilities, I’m afraid I don’t understand what you mean by me getting hurt on your account. If any injuries are sustained during this mission, it’s simply part of the job, and I chose such a mission with the knowledge that injuries are very likely going to happen. So, I don’t think you should be worrying about such things, unless you were somehow directly involved with this mission, which I think to be unlikely, seeing as you don’t strike me as the villain type, and if you were, you wouldn’t be warning me of danger.” There was a pause. ”Ooooor, am I to be worried that you might break my heart, during the course of this mission?” That last part was just her being mischievous. Still, Tim’s words did seem to be something to think about.

    Upon her completion of the lockpicking activity, Tim applauded her effort, to which she dramatically curtsied. ”I aim to please, kind sir.” As their discussion turned to likely culprits, Nita was quite unwilling to agree with Tim’s suggestion that Desierto might be a more likely candidate for being behind these murders. ”I’m gonna have to say thee nay on that one, Timmy-boy,” she replied. ”Unless we’re looking at illegal, non-government sanctioned raiding parties, it’s definitely going to be terribly stupid for Desierto to raid its own wartime ally. Also, wouldn’t they be better off taking the living? A corpse with a slashed out throat makes for a very poor slave, yes? And the cleanness of the corpse is another thing to consider. I’ve had the displeasure of rolling with a Desiertian war band. Brutal, effective, but they won’t sweat the finer things. That murder, loth as I am to say it, almost looked like art. The average Desiertian wouldn’t care. Then again, we might not be looking at the average Desiertian.” It did seem that Tim had been personally affected by these slave raids, although Nita was sure that Desierto was not involved, at least not legally. Then again, almost nothing was really legal in that country. The Pergrandian’s voice softened. ”I am sorry, in any case, to hear that those near to you were affected. I hope you were able to retrieve them all, and in good health.”

    Tim was right about something though: Bellum’s alliances in this war were strange, but then, that was the way of politics. ”I believe we agree that Bellum does have strange bedfellows, but I think my sympathies are with Madam Cardinal. Did you follow the news of the Joyan summit? All the envoys were killed, except the Pergrandian envoy, and yet Pergrande was the first to declare war, as though they had suffered a grave insult. Was Bellum to just simply apologize for something they were not guilty of, and submit to that kind of injustice? Pergrande has always been heavy-handed and unaccommodating, something I know first-hand. As to Bellum’s god greenlighting such a war, what do you think the most just thing would have been? In the end, the gods give us their blessings, or curses if you will, to do with them as we see fit. I think it’s a bit unfair to blame Arcanos in such a case as this, anyways. Bellum’s drafting of alliances is more political than religious, in any case, and I shall be so bold as to say that I don’t think Arcanos cares about our middling politics. I think he does care, in his own way, about his followers, though.” If Tim was attentive enough, he would observe that Nita seemed to have quite some degree of conviction as she spoke. ”Well, humans have always been great at passing blame. For my part, I don’t intend to leave the ‘snobs and the deities they represent’ to sacrifice untold lives simply based on silly things like pride and apathy. I know I don’t have as much influence as I’d want, but I will do my own little part to see that this war comes to an end as soon as possible, and that the right side prevails.” There was a pause, and the resolve in her voice seemed shaken. ”But who is really right? If I choose not to involve myself, then I am wrong, for perhaps I could have some effect on the conclusion of the war, if I fight. So fight I must, and for the Luminous Covenant I shall. But why? Whose side is really right? In war, does right even matter? All that matters is who, or what’s left. How shameful we are.”


    WC: 808
    PWC: 3440
    TWC: 7028


    _____________________________________________________________________________________

    Rodadnuf
    Rodadnuf

    Player 
    Lineage : Anathema to Divinity
    Position : None
    Faction : The Ironheart Pact
    Posts : 248
    Guild : Silver Wolf
    Cosmic Coins : 100
    Dungeon Tokens : 0
    Experience : 2,561,089

    Character Sheet
    First Skill: Rollins & Schwartz-Brand
    Second Skill: Heaven God Slayer
    Third Skill:

    Cabal in the Capital (Ms. Fortune, Tim) Empty Re: Cabal in the Capital (Ms. Fortune, Tim)

    Post by Rodadnuf 12th July 2022, 12:28 am



    Nita explained how she didn’t agree to his little theory-slash-ramblings. While her hopeful, borderline naïve, expectation of Desiertans not wanting to raid its own wartime ally might make sense on the surface, Tim’s quite fresh experience with the nation was anything but hopeful.

    “Non-government sanctioned raiding parties implies a government sanctioned one, something like that sounds like a worse alternative. How easy is it to lord over others’ lives in such a fashion…” Tim could feel himself frown just thinking about it; the Ring of Blood’s operation and its owners who ended up being ‘rogue’ Fiorean diplomats. Even the last excuses they breathed out as Tim summarily executed them was just as pathetic. “—diplomatic renegades, huh. Easier for the government to disown them when shit hits the fan. A pretty convenient excuse.”

    Tim said it to no one in particular. He seemed to do this often lately. An attempt to make sense of things, he supposed. But he didn’t think ahead how he might be perceived from someone listening to his half-thoughts, how it would be barely made up how he truly feels about the matter, but comprehensible enough for someone to make their own conclusion.  

    But when his partner tried to connect his theory to the current case, Tim managed to take a figurative step back. “You’re…right…” This case didn’t look like it was connected to Tim’s previous jobs, at all.

    “You’re right.” The young man shook his head. “It wouldn’t make sense.”

    Not everything crime is connected to one another. Tim prided himself in keeping himself away from any propaganda-like drawl of any kind, nor having any vendetta against any nation or people. But the more Nita explained as a matter-of-factly how little his reasoning made sense, the more Tim agreed. This no longer felt like a sound argument, his words dripped of xenophobia against them!

    Why did he say all that? He did his job. He rescued his people. He killed the ones responsible. What did he miss that his head was still addled by it all? Why does he still hate them?

    Tim took a small solace towards Nita talking. Even with her hopeful point of view, it was infinitely better than his confusing attempt at reasoning. She talked about the Joyan summit, about the recent incident with the envoys that snowballed into the events the kickstarted the war. Tim had read about it, and knew as much about the incident as the rest of the populace. She talked about how the Pergrandians reacted to the whole event, how they called it an injustice, how they demanded so much from the world when everything that happened thus far had been eyed by everyone as suspect, well, everyone except the Pergrandians.

    She seemed to harbor some amount of personal grudge against the Pergrandians, as well. Calling them heavy-handed and unaccommodating, but Tim somehow knew she was labeling them harsher in her head.

    She then asked Tim if he was in this god’s— this Arcanos’ position, what would have been the ‘just’ thing to do?

    Nita’s disposition shifted when she talked about this Arcanos deity, Tim noticed as much. There was an air of faith emanation from her, something Tim was all to familiar. But having calmed down considerably, he knew better than just outright challenge her faith. She did jab his way then she said humans have been proficient at passing blame, but Tim could only smile thinly at her. His partner ended her thoughts with somewhat of a doubt to her actions, questioning the morality of the war, even hinting an earnest desire to know who the ‘right’ side was.

    Tim decided the case can wait for a while, opting to sit by the building side-entrance’s steps. He set down his duffle bag over his side and scooted over should his partner wanted to do the same. Having this sort of talk while discretely infiltrating a building would be disastrous.

    Instead, Tim started with a story.

    “I have been to a minstrelian village not long ago. They were far enough from the border not to be tied to the border guards, but far from the cities too to be chained down by the world’s current affairs. Officially, they were on Ironheart territory but there wasn’t a single soldier among their ranks, hell, there wasn’t even any signs of them mobilizing a militia. I know this because the place was not fortified at all when I walked through their town. The villagers were nowhere to be seen, not a single body around. No signs of a mass grave being dug too. What I did find was a map, signs of an operation of taking ‘enemy’ prisoners as slaves. Were they government sanctioned? Some of the slaves I ended up tracking in one of Desierto’s largest cities, that’s where I found the people I was looking for too, so I don’t know, must’ve been one crazy coincidence.” Tim looked straight forward, trying to see something that wasn’t there. “I admit, I might have developed an unreasonable hatred for Desiertans because of this. But officially, this wasn’t just Desierto, right? War is a group effort, isn’t it? It’s a faction, after all. So, it was Fiore who burned their homes, then Ca-Elum caged them, and finally Bellum dragged them to slavery. This was the ‘holy war’ they’ve been talking about. The answer in defense to Pergrande’s declaration.”

    “Between the ones the ones who think razing clueless countryside villages in enemy territory is their idea of ‘defending their land’, the ones who instigated the whole thing for such a shallow reason of ‘being brought insult’, the ones who fight and die just because their god said ‘sure, jump into the fire’, and the ones who look at this whole war with a shrug and a spit to the ground. Who do you think is more apathetic to their fellow? It was a pointless thing, this whole war. But it isn’t my place to stop it. There are other people on the front lines right now who think way more highly of themselves to do that for me. I can save a handful of people, spare them any further suffering, but turn the tide of a war?” He smiled as he shook his head. “You’re right in saying blaming’s all I’m good for, though. I’ve done nothing but do that through most of my days.”

    Tim then thought of her question earlier, the one about the god she had a high opinion on.

    “I’m no god. I don’t even want be anything close to one.” Tim had never been firmer to anything he had even said in his life, yet he knew the hypocrisy in that statement, being what he was. “But I gotta say, despite it being seemingly such a benevolent deity, this Arcanos fellow is less useful than a chessboard’s king. You said he cares, in his own way, about his followers? I can honestly believe that. Because most of those people whose villages were being razed probably weren’t his.”

    Tim was risking the success of this job over his curiosity, but he knew this was a question that needed to be asked. “If this god’s whole operation sounded more like a protection racket than a proper religion, what’s he done that had gotten such a high opinion from you?”

    This was it, there really might be a heart being broken after his crass display. Either her heart, or a few of his bones.


    Words:
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    @Fraag


    _____________________________________________________________________________________

    Cabal in the Capital (Ms. Fortune, Tim) M7VWYFe
    Fraag
    Fraag

    Player 
    Lineage : Progeny of Arcanos
    Position : None
    Faction : The Luminous Covenant
    Posts : 1038
    Guild : Luminous Rose
    Cosmic Coins : 60
    Dungeon Tokens : 0
    Experience : 3,401,904

    Character Sheet
    First Skill: Arcane Fate Magic
    Second Skill: Night God Slayer
    Third Skill: Relativity God Slayer

    Cabal in the Capital (Ms. Fortune, Tim) Empty Re: Cabal in the Capital (Ms. Fortune, Tim)

    Post by Fraag 12th July 2022, 6:10 pm

    It seemed Tim really did have a lot to say. He was, in any case, intelligent enough to know that talking while on a mission that probably required stealth was very likely to spell doom for the endeavor, that being the reason he opted to take a moment to sit at the door’s threshold and get all the weight off his heart before continuing this mission. The advantage of having the police here was that if there was indeed anyone involved in this murder hiding inside any of the houses, they would be sure to keep away from any of the visible exits, because the law enforcement folks would most likely be keeping tabs on such areas. Of course, there was the argument which could be made for them not wasting time talking, but based on the amount of time that had passed before the crime was reported, and law enforcement came on the scene, it was very likely that the culprit was far enough from this place, or well-hidden; this was not the first person to have been murdered, and the fact that the culprit had not been caught simply meant that this criminal was good at covering their tracks. And even though the shadowy trail would probably vanish after a while, Nita was willing to gamble that it would take a little while before this happened. And if it did, she was sure she could still pick the trail somehow. Ms. Fortune had a lot of tricks up her sleeves, she did, and they weren’t only card tricks.

    As Tim vented, Nita watched him silently, listening to the pain in his words, her face straight and showing no particular expression. He finished with a question aimed at her, and for a moment, there was no reply. Then the blonde Pergrandian quietly took the space he had earlier created for her on the door step, before turning to look at him once again. ”Oh Tim,”, she finally said, her voice laden with compassion and a tinge of exasperation in it. ”I don’t know whether I should put you across my knee and spank you, or whether I should throw my arms about you and hope to kiss your pain away. Well, I shall not do the latter; it isn’t behavior expected from a well-behaved maiden…” there was a pause ”…ah, the former is questionable as well. But in as much as your words have some, in my opinion, misdirected barbs in them, I think I can, to some extent, understand why you feel the way you do.”

    Nita turned to gaze ahead at some nondescript position in front of her. ”It’s easy to blame others when things don’t go right, but I think we do that because as humans, we’re lazy. We get comfortable, and don’t want to move from the place we are. And we create enemies to blame when we commit crimes to remain in our places of comfort, though the world burns around us. Pergrande started this war. Bellum could most certainly not surrender. So Bellum went to war. Their holy war, because Arcanos probably willed it. What if Arcanos willed nothing, and Bellum simply screamed ‘holy war’ because that would raise the national fervor? Truth be told, I don’t think Bellum really had a say in the matter. What would they have otherwise done? Now, in the face of an incredible foe, Desierto comes and offers allegiance. Why would Bellum not accept? Remember what I said earlier: nobody’s right in war. Only those who are left are who matter. Desierto’s style has always been slaving. Bellum, in order to maintain its allies, simply looked away. I’ve heard reports of Vikings from Iceberg raiding defenseless villages, slaughtering and carrying out heinous crimes on the defenseless people in the countryside of Bellum. So, both sides are equally guilty. But you, being able to save a few, did. That is enough, unless you can do more. I can do a bit more than save a few, so I shall try to do what I can in that regard. As for deities I think Arcanos is more of a quiet influencer, which is why he hasn’t gone throwing meteors and raining damnation on the enemies of his people. You said most of the people devastated aren’t followers of Arcanos? What have you to say about the hundreds, maybe thousands of men, women and children who lie dead, their blood staining the swords and spears of Iceberg? His people’s villages were razed, and apparently, he did nothing. That does lend some credence to your thinking him more useless than a king on the chess board. I won’t say I know what the gods are thinking; I’m not a cardinal or anything special. But Arcanos isn’t on the chess board, so it may be wrong to compare him to a chess piece. He might be one of the players. But remember, even players are guided by the rules of the game. So, what if he’s playing by the rules, whatever they are? There’s so much we don’t know. Jumping to conclusions based on only your experiences isn’t the wisest thing to do, and may lead to more pain.”

    Nita smiled brightly at the tall man, to let him know that she hadn’t been hurt by his words. ”And as to why I hold Arcanos in high regard, eh, I just think a girl’s gotta respect someone who doesn’t give a flying fig about conventions and expectations. I mean, from very trustworthy sources, it seems that Arcanos bestowed his favor on someone at the onset of the war. And of all people, a Pergrandian! That’s quite a bit to think about isn’t it? So one could assume that Arcanos favors the Pact. Except this Pergrandian is in the Luminous Covenant. So maybe that’s Arcanos’ way of saying, ‘you guys are all doing shit down there’. As I said, a lot to think about. I suspect he’s not interested in the war, or at least, isn’t pleased by it, which would be why he would loan his favor to such an unlikely recipient. But that’s all conjecture, I suppose. Still, conjecture is something we humans often run our entire lives on.”

    Nita rose to her feet and stretched. ”Yuck. I feel like some cleric or something. Shall we continue on this mission then, Mr.—wait, what’s your surname again?”


    WC: 1065
    PWC: 4505
    TWC: 9339

    @Rodadnuf


    _____________________________________________________________________________________

    Rodadnuf
    Rodadnuf

    Player 
    Lineage : Anathema to Divinity
    Position : None
    Faction : The Ironheart Pact
    Posts : 248
    Guild : Silver Wolf
    Cosmic Coins : 100
    Dungeon Tokens : 0
    Experience : 2,561,089

    Character Sheet
    First Skill: Rollins & Schwartz-Brand
    Second Skill: Heaven God Slayer
    Third Skill:

    Cabal in the Capital (Ms. Fortune, Tim) Empty Re: Cabal in the Capital (Ms. Fortune, Tim)

    Post by Rodadnuf 13th July 2022, 12:17 am



    They were at an impasse.

    Nita was adamant on her defense on this Arcanos. It was a notable thing too because whenever Tim talked about the gods as a whole she had, at best, a neutral reaction about his misgivings to them. But she would always give a point to address whenever Tim mentioned something about the aforementioned god. He didn’t have any personal problem with people and their faith, it’s a powerful thing. Definitely more powerful than Tim’s abject cynicism on any and all deities. But faith was heavily reliant on the deity in question. It is called ‘blind faith’ on many occasions, after all. Tim took time off their hunt to actually talk to her and they, surprisingly enough, had a rather civil way about doing it.

    In the end, no hands were thrown. They only made half back-handed statements about what they said to each other. Tim has definitely dealt with talks that derailed way harder than this one.

    She admitted to Bellum’s choice in politics too, which made him smile, a smile that never reached his eyes.

    “You just said it. In order to maintain its allies, they turned a blind eye. I really want The Cardinal of Peace to say that to every single one of those people.” Tim gave a short laugh when he uttered ‘Peace’. “I want her to lean over their rusted cages and say ‘What you are doing is strengthening our alliance with your slavers. You’re doing good. I am proud of you.’”

    “‘Nobody is right in war, and the only who matter are the ones who are left’ applies to the sides who are engaged in it. Can you really just spit that statement out to people who just happened to get dragged into that war? ‘Sorry, you weren’t born with the martial capability to win the conflict you didn’t start, so you don’t matter’? Now that’s just the sort of thing one of those sobs from the Icebergian pantheon would say.”

    Tim listened to her talk about the mirror between Desierto and Iceberg’s little escapades. Nita then hit Tim with a question about him complaining about Arcanos’ participation in the war when Iceberg had a similar code in civilian protection. Tim just shrugged, but a grin shortly followed. “I have nothing to say about Iceberg. The scar I left on one of their deities proves my opinion of them a whole lot more than any insult I throw their way.”

    She ended her talk with her introspection on how little they knew about the things happening beyond, and by beyond she meant on a metaphysical sense. On a ‘game’ where even gods are no more than players. Tim had nothing to say to it, it was a thought process he doesn’t think about. He’d rather spend an extra second more helping fellow staff members in the guild house than think about things that doesn’t send a tangible result. But Nita somehow made it sound meaningful, in a way.

    Their rather heated talk notwithstanding, Nita kept a bright smile towards Tim. Her bubbly attitude was still in full force, and it was slightly more infectious than he’d like to admit.

    When she talked about why she respected Arcanos though, there was only one thought that passed through Tim’s head. ‘Yeah, she’s talking about herself. She is one-hundred percent talking about something that happened to her.’

    “They do say personal experience is the most trustworthy source.”

    Ideologically, they won’t agree with each other, that much was clear. But knowing her faith in a deity had some grounds that Tim understood and sympathized with was already leagues better than what he thought the source of her faith would be. So long as this Arcanos god was anything similar to Hemera, he won’t press the matter any further.

    “You wouldn’t be the worst cleric if you were. I’d take for a priestess that insults me by saying she’ll kiss the pain away any day.” Tim laughed, but then paused when she asked about his family name.

    “Surname? Watt—no! it’s, uh, Timson. The 42nd. It’s Tim T. Timson the forty-second.” He shook his head in embarrassment. Since becoming a mage, he tried to ease up into using his real name when making conversation. It was bad enough he had gotten used to the false name Watt for the past years, but he really never realized how unnecessarily long his name was. “You know what? You can always just keep calling me Tim…”

    When Nita stood up Tim followed suit. He swung his duffle bag over his shoulder and straightened his flat cap, trying to shrug off his clumsy display. “Our culprit can’t arrest itself. Lead the way, boss.”


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    Cabal in the Capital (Ms. Fortune, Tim) M7VWYFe
    Fraag
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    Third Skill: Relativity God Slayer

    Cabal in the Capital (Ms. Fortune, Tim) Empty Re: Cabal in the Capital (Ms. Fortune, Tim)

    Post by Fraag 13th July 2022, 6:06 pm

    While Nita did consider Tim to be a rather decent fellow as far as behavior went, she did find his apparent stubborn fixation on Bellum carrying the blame for the war to be annoying. ”Maybe he’s simply annoying because you’ve found someone just as stubborn as you, and you humans are so bad at condoning your own vices when they’re reflected in others,” Maria said smugly within her thoughts. That only made Nita feel slightly more annoyed, much of this being that the goddess was probably right. She was about to prepare another riposte, but she decided against it and kept her thoughts to herself. If Tim thought Bellum was responsible for the war, having a discussion with a Bellum sympathizer would do nothing to adjust his beliefs otherwise. Her resolve to not speak further cracked though, when Tim commented that the statement of those being left at the end of the war was something some cruel Iceberg deity would say. ”Why are the good-looking ones the most annoying?” she said to no one in particular. ”When I talked about being right not mattering in war, what I meant is this: the victor gets to write history. The dead have no voice, no matter how innocent or undeserving of suffering they are. Only survivors do. Which is why the major goal during wartime is to survive. Fighting for ‘what is right’ eventually gets blurry when both sides get down and dirty in the trenches. At the end of all this, if peace comes, in the unlikely event that restitution is made for the crimes committed on both sides, who will receive the restitution? The dead?”

    Tim’s statement about leaving a scar on a member of the Iceberg pantheon elicited a raised eyebrow and a half smile from the Pergrandian. ”Mmm, sounds like someone has been a bad boy,” she intoned, but said no more. While she was quite curious to know exactly what had happened between Tim and the Iceberg god whom he had scarred, she was also aware that asking questions about one’s past could be seen a sort of invasion of private space, so she did not venture further. If it was someone she was more familiar with, she probably would have attempted to hear the story. In any case, that did make Tim somewhat similar to herself, although she wondered whether the Iceberg gods were vindictive bitches like the Primordials. Nita had to laugh at his evaluation of her acceptability as a cleric. ”I guess clerics would be more loved if they gave more kisses than sermons, then.”

    Nita’s eyes widened as she heard the man’s surname. The forty second? So there had been forty one Tims before him, and all with the surname ‘Timson’? ”Wow!” she said with a giggle. ”Sorry, I’m not mocking you. I think it’s funny though, in a cute way. There must be some heavy love for the name Tim in your family. But wait, do you have brothers? If so, what would they be called? Or is the firstborn the official ‘Timbearer’ of the family? And what does the other ‘T’ in your name stand for?” She paused, realizing that her questions might be embarrassing him. ”You know what? You don’t have to answer my silly questions, but I’ll just have to assume your second name is ‘Tim’ as well. Tim-Tim,” she said in a singsong voice and laughed her silvery laugh again. ”Someone may have just been added to my favorite list of people.”

    Nita took a step forward but stopped short when Tim called her boss again. She turned sharply, giving him a comical scowl, before turning back to the doorway before her. ”Stop being naughty, Tim-Tim.” There it was, he had developed a nickname. Not the most imaginative, but Nita liked the sound of it. Nita realized she was still holding Tim’s light, and held it aloft. The shadowy trail illuminated by its gleam snaked off into the dark corridor. Expecting Tim to follow, Nita stepped into the building, following the ghostly trail, after doing a quick sensory check of the area. No cameras installed, apparently. The corridor branched sharply to the right, and after this turn, it ran into a cul-de-sac, although there were doors on either side of the corridor now. Suddenly, Nita sensed the presence of a group of people, about six of them; it was like they had suddenly just appeared out of thin air. If Tim was paying attention to his magic sensory perception, he would probably sense them too. They were obviously mages, and from the way they moved, it was clear they were already aware of the intruders and were coming to apprehend them. In any case, Nita still planned on utilizing the element of surprise. She would just have to improvise, and hope Tim played along. She dropped the light and quickly flung herself against him, grabbing his arm with both of hers.

    ”But then I told Mishish Smith that I’d be very mush willing to take it up with Mishter Graft when he appeared, but Mishter Graft was nothing but the cat. The cat!” She burst into loud laughter, just as two of the doors along the corridor opened, and six robed people stepped out, three in front of the pair, and the other three behind. Nita had seen enough of drunk people to be able to imitate the effects, and she was doing a good job of it. ”Uh, Jake? I thought you shaid thish plache was unoccupied… hey!” She suddenly turned sharply on Tim, and struck at his shoulder. ”Shtop touching me like that. I’d have shlapped you if I could reach any higher. Men!” She turned and staggered towards the three robed figures in front of her. ”My boyfriend’s an eeeeediot,” she slurred. ”One of you gentlemen take me--”

    One of the robed figures gestured, but Nita was already within striking distance. She felt a sharp pain in her shoulder but ignored it, dashing forward as she grabbed the man’s head with both hands and directed his face to her rising knee. Without putting her raised leg down, she delivered two kicks, one to her right and the other to her left in quick succession, even as the other two robed figures were trying to react to her attack. Despite her small size, Nita’s physical attacks were nothing to be scoffed at, and she did not need second blows against the opponents she had attacked. Swiftly, she wheeled around to see if Tim needed help. And then they would find out how these guys got the jump on them. Hopefully, that would present some clues to solving this mission. But Nita felt like face palming. Robes were almost certainly the garden-variety uniform of the standard cultist.


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    Cabal in the Capital (Ms. Fortune, Tim) Empty Re: Cabal in the Capital (Ms. Fortune, Tim)

    Post by Rodadnuf 14th July 2022, 12:36 pm



    Tim decided he liked it more when they were at each other’s throats.

    Nita was laughing, at his name’s expense. And as much as he wanted to retort, he couldn’t. Her laugh was very infectious. Even with the ominous mist clouding around them her laughter, despite her belting it out, rang clearly and resonantly. He couldn’t help but huff out a laugh of his own. Her short apology didn’t really help, not that Tim was angry in the first place. Her little retort about his family having ‘some heavy love’ with the name Tim was an understatement.

    “I think you’re right in saying that. But ‘Timbearer’…is a word, yeah…”

    She then asked what his middle initial stood for, before cutting herself off and just assumed it would also be Tim, as well. And she wasn’t wrong. In fact, she was completely spot on! The ‘T’ of his family line was from the ancient davni name which was the name of Nyx’s special son and the first of their line. And thinking about his actual full name aloud made Tim cringe. Nita did not need to know that, of course. She was grilling his name well enough already!

    When he finally started to pay attention back to his partner, she somehow decided to nickname him ‘Tim-Tim’. What is with Tim and the people he meets branding him names? When he first came to the guild, their resident Ace dubbed him ‘nightlight’, and now this.

    But as much as Tim liked to idly chat with Nita, it looked like it was finally time to head in. With the young man’s crystal ball of light on hand, they headed inside the building. Not even two steps in and Tim could already feel something off with the place, it was hollow. Well, the interior was exactly something you’d expect from a modern building. But it had an air to it, a freshness of a place that had never been used before. Tim had been in many workhouses and company warehouses in his life; each and every building he would work at, especially if he was left alone in it, had an air to it. Chalk it up either to dumb worker’s sentimentality or just plain instinct kicking in, but Tim could only tell the only people that spent more than a few days in this particular building were the construction workers who painstakingly made it. And the further they went in; his little gut feeling was spot on. There were no signs of any rack, scaffolding, nor a single prop that betrayed what business this building was being used for. Even a criminal’s money laundering business front looked more legitimate than this hunk of hollow concrete!

    Tim wanted to talk to his partner about it, the building’s air, but he heard the distinct clack of oxfords hitting the concrete floor echoing from behind one of the doors they were now facing. Tim’s chest bucked as he noticed the footsteps unnecessarily paced gait. Whoever these people were, they knew about the pair of trespassers! Tim was a hit or miss when it came to actively using magic sensory, the thought of using the ability had not crossed his mind. It was when Nita grabbed Tim by the arms, dropping the ball of light and making a thud as it noisily fell on the cemented floor, the doors in front of them was forced wide open. Without warning, Nita began laughing and rambling nonsense!

    Tim was wide-eyed the entire time, half thinking she might have been controlled by the newcomers somehow. He kept his level head and instead darted his eyes over the six robed figures in formation of two rows of threes.

    The young man was ready to detonate the ball of light on the floor and make a quick getaway with his partner so they could escape, but Nita suddenly staggered towards three of the robed figures closest to her! With a shout of ‘No!’, Tim tried to grab her. But, with a practiced motion, she made quick work against them! Having been to illegal cage matches, Tim was slack jawed at her martial arts prowess. Especially despite her current dress-code.

    Tim took it as a sign to take the other three down. With a flick of his foot, as if kicking a hacky-sack, he sent the crystalized ball of light flying to the guy in between and folded the poor sucker’s nose! Tim detonated the crystal ball and sent a pair of focused rays of light towards the other two, blinding them. Without skipping a beat, Tim stepped in with his knuckles facing the sky, already an armlength away from one of the remaining two and sent a textbook right straight over the other one’s jaw! It was remarkable how unremarkably textbook his punch was, but the power behind it sent the hooded figure spinning back into the door they busted out of.

    Now only one conscious hooded figure was left.

    Tim kicked the figure and sent them towards the doorframe. He then unzipped a few inches off his duffle bag and, with a clean sound of metal, brandished an Iserheim sword. The crystal ball, with Tim’s Grav-à-tête spell, was now floating above them keeping the room well lit.

    “Talk.” Tim growled.

    Tim kept the tip of the sword firmly over the hooded figure’s neck, just barely nicking a millimeter of flesh off, slowly turning it as if taunting the figure. The blade glinted under the pronounced light, and should anyone capable reading the Iser runes over the sword’s fuller, the words ‘Tim Timόtheos Timson’ on one side and ‘from one god’s slave to another’ over the opposite side could be found hollowed out unto the blade.

    “I’m open to suggestions, ‘honey’.” Tim clicked his tongue when the figure didn’t even flinch. “That’s what lovers call themselves, right?”



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    Cabal in the Capital (Ms. Fortune, Tim) M7VWYFe
    Fraag
    Fraag

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    Cosmic Coins : 60
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    Character Sheet
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    Third Skill: Relativity God Slayer

    Cabal in the Capital (Ms. Fortune, Tim) Empty Re: Cabal in the Capital (Ms. Fortune, Tim)

    Post by Fraag 14th July 2022, 6:45 pm

    It seemed as though Nita’s concern about Tim being able to handle himself was unfounded. She did note that his movements seemed to be more of those of someone that learned to fight by fighting, as opposed to training in a martial art. Although in the end, practice was the bet teacher, and martial artists only became better by fighting, it was difficult to hide the forms, the practiced steps, the regimentations that one had to subject their body to, in order to learn the art of kicking ass and taking names. Tim seemed to have little to none of those, although this was not to say he was ineffective. On the contrary, his unembellished moves were effective enough to make short work of the three opponents he faced, with him managing to leave one yet conscious to be questioned. Nita shook her head at herself with a small smile. Sometimes it was difficult for her to remember that she hit like a high-speed train. That was probably expected, when almost everyone was larger than she was.

    So far, Tim looked alright. Nita did not understand what one of the strange men had done when she had approached, that had hurt her shoulder, but Tim did not seem to have taken any damage. As his shining orb rose to illuminate the hallway, Nita was able to take notice of her shoulder. The skin there looked discolored, like some strange form of localized necrosis, although the discoloration was quickly fading away, thanks to her incredible healing faculties. ”If I said I wasn’t impressed, I’d be lying,” the blonde Pergrandian said, as she stepped over the fallen bodies around her to reach Tim and his captive. She studied the sharp blade held at the man’s neck, easily reading the runes on the weapon, thanks to her knowledge of Ishgar’s languages. If not for the markings, she would have had no idea of the blade’s origins, as she wasn’t as knowledgeable about sword designs as she was about languages. That she could read the writing meant she realized the message on the cold metal. While she was amused about the rightness of her guess as regarded his middle name, the writing on the other side of the weapon made her do a bit of thinking. Perhaps the weapon was a family heirloom, passed from father to son, with Tim’s family being some sort of vassals of a deity? That could explain why the fellow didn’t seem too pleased with the gods.

    With a dramatic gasp, Nita placed her right hand over her heart, as Tim asked for ideas on how to make their captive talk. ”Did you just call me ‘honey’?” she asked. ”Oh dear, I think I’m beginning to feel faint.” She fanned herself with her other hand while ignoring the disdainful sneer on the face of the hooded man. ”Stop pretending you don’t know what lovers call themselves. It’s very cruel to give a young maiden ideas.” This was the problem with many people: they did not realize when they were out of their league, until it was too late. The hooded fellow probably felt confident enough to brave Tim’s threat; perhaps he felt that as the “good guys” they were unlikely to really hurt him, or he wasn’t scared because he was really brave. Well, whatever his reasons were, they were about to change very soon. Sometimes, Nita felt using her magic in situations such as this was cheating, but there were no rules regarding cheating in situations such as these. ”Maybe he’ll come around if we ask him nicely,” the blonde mage said, stepping closer till she was within touching distance. Then she held up her hands, revealing a deck of black cards. ”What’s your name?” No answer. ”Do you like card tricks?” No answer. She smiled brightly, as though she had received an answer that pleased her. ”Well, since they say silence is consent, I’ll assume you answered yes to both my questions. So, Mr. Yes, I shall oblige you and show you a card trick.”

    ”Neither your flippant antics, nor that ape’s steel can get to me, whore. I fear no mortal being, nor death of any kind,” the man spat. Nita began shuffling the cards as though in response. ”Well, I must confess that fellow is rather good-looking for an ape, wouldn’t you say?” she asked, as she worked the cards dexterously. ”And against popular opinion, I may be many things, but your descriptor of my person could not be more wrong. Wild Card: Briscan!” As she called the spell name, she deftly drew a card from the pack she was shuffling, and the other cards dissipated into a silver mist, while the drawn card released a pulse of shadow that washed over everyone in the hallway. Tim would feel just a slight tingle and nothing else. The robed man, however, was not so affected. His knees began to shake visibly, as obvious terror slowly etched itself on his face. ”Do you know what you’re scared of?” Nita asked in a soft, gentle voice, which would have been quite soothing to the ear in a different situation; presently, it only served to lend an eerie feeling to atmosphere, reminiscent of the threat of something highly dangerous, lurking behind an innocuous shell. ”That’s right, love; you’re scared of me. Because you’re just realizing that you have no idea of who or what I am, and there are things to be feared far more than death. Now, you will tell us what you’re doing here, and who you are.”

    Nita did not add a threat as a consequence of the disobedience of her command; she did not need to. The man gulped, and then began to stammer out his response. ”We—we are servants of the Great Dead One… we—we were told to make sacrifices to bring about its resurrection. The re—recent murders were done by us. It is all for the resurrection of our god. When it feeds off enough of the souls of those we send to it, it will be resurrected, and we will join it to rule the earth.” Nita gave Tim a worried look. God problems, all right. ”How did you escape law enforcement, after committing your crimes?” she asked. The man seemed unwilling to reply, but his fear got the better part of him. ”There is a portal glass in the next room. It looks like a regular mirror, but we can use it to move from here to our temple. We have a number of safe houses in the city, so we could easily escape and the cops wouldn’t know where we’d gone.” Well, that did explain why the police had been so unlucky. ”There was something one of your colleagues did to me as I approached. What was it? What did he do?” Nita asked. ”The power of Death!” came the reply. ”The Great Dead One is a god of death. It has given our leader the ability to cast death on his enemies. This death is as conceptual as it is physical. He casts death on a victim’s willpower, then we sacrifice the victim and leave quietly.”

    ”But surely, magic systems would have picked up on your death spells being cast, no?”

    ”Wrong! This is the power of a god! It is not magic, so the rules of magic do not apply to these castings. Like death, it is inevitable. It will come for us all. It will come for you, and your ape, and your--” A swift but brutal uppercut to the jaw silenced him, knocking him out. Nita flicked the hand she had used to silence him, as she stared at his unconscious form with distaste. ”Well, that does explain a few things, wouldn’t you say?” She stood silently for a while, as though deep in thought, and then the serious gravity of the moment was broken by Nita’s voice, which sounded inappropriately tickled for a time such as this:

    ”Tim Timόtheos Timson!”


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    Cabal in the Capital (Ms. Fortune, Tim) Empty Re: Cabal in the Capital (Ms. Fortune, Tim)

    Post by Rodadnuf 16th July 2022, 5:16 am



    Their trap could’ve been setup slightly better.

    Considering it was their first time teaming up in a fight, the lack of teamwork and synchronization was expected, but despite that they handled it pretty well. Though not well enough that they weren’t left unscathed. Tim only noticed the wound over Nita’s shoulder when she took over the interrogation. He saw what was already a recovering wound, but what troubled him was he didn’t see any of them outright hit her. Had this happened to him, it might have done a completely different damage taking into account how his only source of recovery was a spell that was more along the lines of a glorified band-aid than an actual healing spell. On the surface it looked like the attack didn’t faze her, but Tim knew a thing or two about acting tough. He decided to keep an eye on her.

    His little concerned thought was then interrupted by the hooded mage’s sudden burst of cooperation. But not even a sentence in and the cultist already called Tim an ape, and labeled Nita as—a very promiscuous person. Tim didn’t like using the word.

    It set her off. ‘It’ being either the insult or the one of the culprits giving her lip, Tim couldn’t tell, but his partner resorted to using magic to persuade the hooded mage. Majority of the time, the only magic Tim would often encounter was the ones directed at him, so by instinct he took a measured step back. His sword, however, was unmoving; it was long enough for Tim to keep the tip trained at the hooded wizard. Just like when Nita first popped up her—card magic? It was still as unsettling to the young man. This time, she casted a spell that amplified something for the hooded mage, because the terrified look on his face was plastered after Tim felt the tingle of her magic at work. With the wizard now completely terrified, he didn’t waste time disclosing any and all information Nita could wring out of him.

    Each information leaving the wizard’s lips made Tim flare.

    So it was still about a deity, a god of death— in some form, to be exact. A dead god they planned on resurrecting. While the cultist was explaining their modus operandi, Tim pulled out his iLac and dialed in an ID.

    “Summerset? It’s Tim.” He looked over the unconscious wizards sprawled all over the hallways. “The hired-help? No—look, bring your men inside the F&T building… yeah, over the side entrance. We have a lead and five unconscious wizards.”

    Tim’s attention fell back over the wizard hyping their little cult and whatever death deity they serve. He called their master’s ‘power of death’ something conceptual, something that damaged things beyond the physical aspect of its victims. Tim wanted to scoff at the man believing his own hype, but Nita’s shoulder was proof enough for the young man to take his propaganda seriously. But the other fanfare he took his speech was nauseating for a completely different reason, Tim ever so slightly rolled his eyes at the sheer tone-deafness of his justification. The wizard ended his speech with a last series of insults directed at three people; Tim the Ape, Nita, and someone who he failed to name, because she clocked his jaw and sent him to dreamland in a single blow before he could say it.

    The sudden silence after the wizard got knocked out was a bit deafening now. Tim wanted to ask about the third name but suddenly, with her distinct silvery yet mocking tone in full force, she let Tim’s full name roll off her lips with gusto!

    “How—?!” Tim’s face couldn’t decide between embarrassment, confusion, and a frown so he ended up looking completely dumbfounded. Just then the Næġl-mækir’s engravings reflected, courtesy of Tim’s ball of light, over his face.

    “You can read it.”

    Tim really wanted to say something about the sword, but the building’s lights suddenly turned on all over the building. As if on cue, officers in formation swarmed over the unconscious mages, binding them with magic sealing stone handcuffs. Officer Summerset was with the team who came in, but the older man’s disposition was completely night-and-day compared to earlier.

    He had a full scowl over his face.

    “I need a sweep over the building two-minutes-ago!” He barked.

    “Hey.” He nodded over to Tim and Nita. “They finally finished the full autopsy.”

    He began shuffling his larger iLac’s screen and showed a document. “Long story short, nothing made sense.”

    “The kids over lab said the poor bastard’s body already had Rigor mortis settling in way before his body was first found.” Summerset started. “The field snoops also confirmed that it was the victim’s blood over the scene, but the weird thing was they said the only wound on his body clotted less than an hour earlier. I know magic’s a bitch and all— but, this takes the cake.”

    “Rigor mortis meant a body has been dead for more than three hours, right?” Tim didn’t even try to pretend knowing all those terms by heart. “So the guy was killed…?”

    “If we go by the book, we have this mess of a story: the guy was killed was already rotting between eight and three hours ago and his body, somehow still retained enough blood circulation until his throat was opened in a separate incident and began clotting not an hour earlier. If we go by that logic, the throat wound wasn’t the one that killed him, or while he was dying on the ground his body was dry aged eight hours ahead.” The man laughed dryly at the assessment.

    “His body tissue corroded so fast it looked like he was already dead eight hours ago.” Tim wracked up his head, then finally leveling it over Nita’s shoulder.

    “You know something?” Not that Tim tried to hide it, but Summerset still needed to ask.

    Tim explained their little scuffle with the cultists, and as much detail as he could about how one of them managing to cast a spell that corroded Nita’s shoulder. Tim didn’t notice the spell being cast; he really wanted to say it was because he failed to use his magic sensory, but it could also be because of the nature of the spell. Regardless, he told the officer both possibilities.

    Summerset scratched his chin, looking over Nita’s way with a worried frown. “There’s a bus outside, you should get that looked at. Even if you have some magic healing, the boys outside could at least cross reference it between the latest victim.”

    “Bus?” Tim quirked his brow.

    Summerset flicked his fingers, as if the words had just popped up. “Ambulance. An ambulance is waiting outside.”

    The officer then stepped deeper into the doorway. “My guys are bleeding the place dry as we speak. I’ll go guard that mirror with the rest while we wait for you two.”

    Tim and Nita were left alone in the hallways as the officers’ organized calls echoed around the building. Tim wanted to leave it up to her whether she wanted to get checked or not.

    But before they could, Tim wanted to get something out of the way first.

    “Hey, Nita. About this sword.” Tim was gripping the thing the entire time.

    The Næġl-mækir, or the Nail sword, was a blade Tim had been armed with when he fought an old Iser warrior in a duel to the death. The warrior had given himself the honor of forging a pair of swords and shields for them to use. When Tim had mentioned other than his old pen knife, he had never owned a weapon, the old warrior took time to engrave the sword. ‘It is an old Iser custom.’ He told Tim at the time. Tim had never figured out what was written on either side of the blade, only that he was told the engraving was his name in old Iser runes.

    Tim never really delved into looking up what was written, he trusted the old man enough. But now that he had met someone who could read it just as easily, he had to ask— “Can you tell me what’s written on the other side? Please.”


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    @Fraag


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    Cabal in the Capital (Ms. Fortune, Tim) M7VWYFe
    Fraag
    Fraag

    Player 
    Lineage : Progeny of Arcanos
    Position : None
    Faction : The Luminous Covenant
    Posts : 1038
    Guild : Luminous Rose
    Cosmic Coins : 60
    Dungeon Tokens : 0
    Experience : 3,401,904

    Character Sheet
    First Skill: Arcane Fate Magic
    Second Skill: Night God Slayer
    Third Skill: Relativity God Slayer

    Cabal in the Capital (Ms. Fortune, Tim) Empty Re: Cabal in the Capital (Ms. Fortune, Tim)

    Post by Fraag 16th July 2022, 7:01 pm

    It seemed that Officer Summerset was still hung up on referring to Tim as the hired help, judging by what Nita had overheard when her colleague called the policeman over his iLac. That was a good call. With police swarming the place, the building would be secured, and it would be less likely for it to remain as an enemy asset, with the police in control of the building. Well, with the expiration of whatever useful things the cultist had to say, the police, when they arrived, would find out that they had a lead and six unconscious wizards, as opposed to the former number given by Tim.

    The Silver Wolf mage’s expression when Nita called his full name was priceless. Nita laughed again, as he could only ask a single word in confusion. ”You have such an adorable look when you’re confused, Tim-Tim,” she giggled. ”Of course I can read it, love.” Although speaking as though just about any random Fiorean could read older Iser runes, Nita knew that this was a skill few people had. Tim was so much fun to tease, though. She wasn’t allowed to explain how she could read the runes, in any case, as the lights came on in full force, and the sound of shouts and running feet heralded the coming of the police. The cavalry had arrived. Summerset didn’t look too pleased, but at least Nita was sure the source of his annoyance was not the two mages. As she drew closer to hear the results of the autopsy, she could understand why the officer felt that the autopsy was an unreadable mess, seeing as he wasn’t privy to the information she had wringed out of the presently comatose cultist lying on the floor. Tim however brought the man up to speed on the case.

    Concerning the spell which had hurt her, Nita felt the answer was the latter of the two possibilities that Tim had suggested. ”As someone who relies on senses granted by my magic, I’d say it’s more the nature of their spells that make it difficult, if not impossible, to detect and thus avoid,” she replied. ”And that would explain why despite these ‘death spells’ being cast, no magic alarms went off at the sites of the committed murders. As that poor fool there said, the conventional rules of magic don’t seem to apply to their spells. Which means we’ll have to hit fast and hit hard when fighting these guys, because we won’t otherwise be able to discern when they cast, which means we should assume their spells to be impossible to avoid once cast.”

    Nita herself was confused at Summerset’s mention of a bus, until he clarified that he meant an ambulance. Personally, she had no intention of going for medical treatment which she was sure that she didn’t need, but cross-referencing her injury with the latest victim did sound like a sensible thing to do. But as the officers vacated the hallway, Tim called the young Pergrandian’s attention to his sword once again. So he wanted to know what was written on the other side of the blade. ”Isn’t it your sword?” she asked. ”I thought you knew what was engraved on it. What if you’d been carrying around something with a naughty message, and you had no idea? Lovely name, by the way.” That last one was said with a mischievous smile. But still she stepped closer and gently held out her hands for the weapon. ”I’d have charged you, but since you asked nicely, I’ll do this one for free. May I?”

    Seeing as Tim desired to know what the writing on the weapon said, Nita was sure he would have no qualms handing it over to her. The sword was quite a decent work of art, and with a good edge. She turned the blade over in her hands, to read what was engraved on the sword’s fuller. ”Fortunately for us all, modern Iser runes still use much of the old language’s alphabets and syntaxes, so being one who has studied quite a deal of languages, I can read it. ‘From one god’s slave to another’, it says. I personally would have preferred ‘make love, not war.’” Nita handed him back the sword and began heading for the exit. ”While I’m sure I don’t need any medical aid, it may help the investigation to compare my injury with the body’s. Give me a moment to check with the guys at the bus. It shouldn’t take long.” Whether Tim decided to wait for her or accompany her, Nita made sure she spent minimal time with the medics, despite their protests, leaving as soon as they had observed her injury, without even waiting to hear if there were any similarities. She already knew the answer to that one. By the time she was back in the hallway, only a couple of minutes had passed. She had also changed back to her black, two-piece ‘work clothes’.

    ”Before we go further, unless it’s too personal to reveal, may I ask what sort of deity you were supposed to be a slave to?” the Pergrandian asked Tim, just outside the door which had the mirror portal. ”It’s alright if you’re not comfortable with telling me. I promise to try not to use the information to harass you. I am afraid I may not try very hard, though.”


    WC: 900
    PWC: 7870
    TWC: 15830


    Last edited by Fraag on 27th July 2022, 11:59 am; edited 2 times in total


    _____________________________________________________________________________________

    Rodadnuf
    Rodadnuf

    Player 
    Lineage : Anathema to Divinity
    Position : None
    Faction : The Ironheart Pact
    Posts : 248
    Guild : Silver Wolf
    Cosmic Coins : 100
    Dungeon Tokens : 0
    Experience : 2,561,089

    Character Sheet
    First Skill: Rollins & Schwartz-Brand
    Second Skill: Heaven God Slayer
    Third Skill:

    Cabal in the Capital (Ms. Fortune, Tim) Empty Re: Cabal in the Capital (Ms. Fortune, Tim)

    Post by Rodadnuf 17th July 2022, 10:20 pm



    “‘From one god’s slave to another’, huh?” Well, the one who engraved those words didn’t lie.

    Tim didn’t accompany Nita as she went out to the medics. How could he? He was too dazed, not from the fight, but from the translation she gave him before she headed out. Since the time they met, Nita and Tim were exchanging ideological jabs and inquisitive prodding between each other. It was far from a hostile relationship, but the things she could extrapolate just from that could completely shift with a single misunderstanding. Tim had never given her so much as a glimpse of his life, except for his name—which already ended up being a small blunder on his part. He purposely used as little god-slaying magic as he could for that purpose, relying more in his old job’s company lacrima. But the possibility of her linking Tim with the current case wouldn’t be an impossibility, as much as he wanted to believe she was seeing him in a better light. Was this just his paranoia at play? Tim had often been old by old coworkers of having that bad habit.

    It seemed his worries had been proven when she returned from that short backtrack.

    After Nita returned, she stopped Tim right by the doorstep of the room which housed the mirror portal the wizard told them. She asked about what deity Tim was a ‘slave’ to; she was blunt as she was serious. Though, she did promise not to pester him should he refuse to share.

    Tim frowned at her, looking straight at her sapphire and emerald eyes for… something. His gaze lasted not more than a second and the young man huffed out a laugh and a smile.

    “Okay, I’ll tell.”

    Trust was in short supply lately, for everyone. Be it from the front-lines of the war the pair had been heatedly butting heads over to the last thoughts of a man who had just been murdered in the streets outside. For once, Tim will go against his usual way and take a stab at trust, for once.

    “…that being said. I honestly don’t know how to answer your question.” Tim looked at his weapon again. He was holding his sword by the blade, the grip he pointed at the sky to keep the tip pointing at the ground, not harming anyone.

    “A slave to who, and in what sense exactly…?” He tried rephrasing her question. “Through blood? I’m a slave to Nyx, the primordial personification of night. The man forty-one generations before me, Timόtheos, was her son, after all.”

    He leaned over the doorframe, carefully sheathing his sword through its scabbard sticking out of Tim’s duffle bag. He hummed as he kept on thinking. “Through fate? Nyx’s consort, the primordial personification of darkness, seemed to fit the bill. See, my ancestor was Nyx’s child, but the ‘father’ not Erebus’. It became one big clusterf— you know what, I’ll spare the details. Their little extended family spat became an old legend among Sinnites, anyway, so you’ve probably already heard about it.”

    Tim paused. “Or maybe he knew the reason I agreed with the Hólmganga— one last middle finger to me for selling out to the gods’ games, I don’t know…” He wasn’t even saying things to Nita anymore, he was just rambling.

    “Or he could’ve meant ‘slave’ in a metaphysical sense. The god’s domain I bastardized in exchange for all that power…” Tim was looking at the opposite wall, staring at nothing and, again, trying to find something that wasn’t there. “That kinda made me a slave to my own arrogance, doesn’t it? All that ego, and I worshiped it unconsciously like a nameless god.”

    Tim snorted. “Shit, that actually sounded like a proper homily all of a sudden.”

    He pushed himself off the doorframe and scratched his chin. “I’m really cutting the story as short as I can, I know.”

    “But if there was one unfiltered truth I can say with full confidence, is that I have no connection to this case. If we can prevent this death god from taking another breath in the living, it’ll be a win in my book.”

    Tim looked at Nita. “Now that we’re needle deep over each other’s past, though. I wanna ask, who or what did that wizard mean to add when he cursed our names? He spat out three names—or, tried to, at least. It was right before you knocked him out.”

    He smiled, raising his arms placatingly. “Of course, our clause still applies: ‘I promise to try not to use the information to harass you’, was it?”

    But before Tim could hear Nita’s answer, a loud crash reverberated from inside the doors! Tim didn’t waste time ramming the thing open; only for them to be greeted by an officer yelling at them.

    “Stop!” She wasn’t looking at them. “Stay back!”

    The room containing the mirror was unnervingly shiny! The walls and the floor were as smooth and as reflective as any mirror. Yet, there was still a single full-length body mirror dead center facing on one of the room’s corners.

    The officer stole a glance their way. “Where did that guy go?!”

    “Pearson! Summerset’s down!”

    “I know, damn it!” The officer pulled out her gun. “You two, you need to find the one that got him. I couldn’t see the fuckers, but I swear he was in the room earlier.”

    Tim was looking at Summerset, a rather pronounced wound was over his throat not unlike the latest victim. He didn’t have much long, if the autopsy was to be believed. He needed to reach him, fast. Along with Summerset, there were a dozen officers in total inside the room. They were separated in teams of three on each corner. Officer Pearson was closest to Summerset, who had two other officers on the furthest left corner.

    The problem was, the mirror was facing in front of them.

    Tim, cursing himself, knelt down and placed a hand over the reflective floor. It was still concrete. Tim didn’t even have time to react when a completely black figure that resembled closely to a silhouette of a man in a top-hat quite which literally swam out of the floor and took a swipe off Tim’s hand! But with Tim’s ‘Bastardized Domain’, the blade passed through his hand as if his hand was nothing but a ray of light.

    “He won’t last long.” Tim knew Nita would be completely capable of dealing with whatever this thing was. “I’m going to keep Summerset and the others from dying. I’ll leave— whatever that thing was, on your pretty hands.”

    “I’m going in.” Tim yelled at Summerset, who couldn’t even reply even if he wanted to.

    “No! Stop—” Pearson tried to lean back against the wall, but with how reflective the surface was and how they all saw the assailant traveled across the reflection, it seemed like a lousy attempt at cover.

    “Don’t worry.” Tim let out a breath and a smug smile. If there was one thing he thanked for actually telling Nita the truth? It was how he didn’t have to worry about holding back anymore.

    Tim slowly stepped inside with very pronounced steps. He then crystalized the light bouncing off the room and formed a floating purplish glass platform for Summerset and the two officers taking care of his wound. Tim slowly lifted them towards the only entrance that wasn’t the mirror portal.

    “I heard you sad sacks want to resurrect some dead god.” He said out loud. “Why bother? Gods are nothing impressive, you know?”

    It was the most theatrical Tim had acted since he arrived. But the situation called for it. Even if he couldn’t see where the enemy came from, his bombastic showcase is a perfect distraction to compliment Nita’s subtle spells, or at least, the ones he saw her use. Tim counted Nita to look for any reaction from the enemies while Tim gestured to the officers to leave the room.

    And as if on cue, a shadow jumped from the mirror!

    “Jackpot.”

    Tim crystalized the light between him and the assailant’s path. A similar looking purplish glass formed a wall and blocked the enemy’s attack. The glass wasn’t even scratched. Tim counted for Nita to be on the action so Tim took a blind step back and let his partner do her thing, but then another hand grabbed Tim by the leg! Tim barely turned when he let his foot phase through another enemy’s grapple with his ‘Bastardized Domain’.

    But that single touch was more than enough, Tim couldn’t feel his calf anymore.

    “The hell…?” He jumped back and landed over the platform Summerset was in, they were slowly moving towards the entrance. Tim was kneeling with one knee, whatever that spell was, Nita had a better counter for it than he could think of on the fly. Taking down a cult of self-centered wizards was one thing. But the second enemy felt more powerful than the ones they beaten up earlier.

    Now coupled with this shadowy figure, Tim didn’t like how the situation was morphing into.


    Words:
    Post 1,516
    Player 9,476
    Total 17,346
    @Fraag


    _____________________________________________________________________________________

    Cabal in the Capital (Ms. Fortune, Tim) M7VWYFe
    Fraag
    Fraag

    Player 
    Lineage : Progeny of Arcanos
    Position : None
    Faction : The Luminous Covenant
    Posts : 1038
    Guild : Luminous Rose
    Cosmic Coins : 60
    Dungeon Tokens : 0
    Experience : 3,401,904

    Character Sheet
    First Skill: Arcane Fate Magic
    Second Skill: Night God Slayer
    Third Skill: Relativity God Slayer

    Cabal in the Capital (Ms. Fortune, Tim) Empty Re: Cabal in the Capital (Ms. Fortune, Tim)

    Post by Fraag 18th July 2022, 5:43 pm

    Nita had to admit she was a little bit surprised that Tim had decided to acquiesce to her request, and tell her a bit about himself. He did look like he had been about to refuse, given his furrowed brow and pointed stare. Apparently, he had been descended from the gods, in a literal sense, but this did not really explain why he would be a slave to the gods. If anything, he was supposed to be closer to demigod than slave, but gods of different climes had different ways they worked, it seemed. Nita could see how the thing about Erebus entering the equation would put some complications to the whole ‘who is loyal to what’ spat, but she was not particularly sure she had heard the old legends. The names Nyx and Erebus did sound like Sinnite deities, though; that was the closest she came to the matter in terms of information. The Pergrandian did not feel her lack of knowledge on the subject was a thing to be ashamed of, in any case, seeing as it was one thing to know the language, and another to know the culture of a people. And given the terrible state of Sin, and the fact that it was practically isolated from the rest of Ishgar by sea and the Great Wall of Sin, Sinnite lore was quite lacking in other nations. Davni had been the last, and hardest, language she had mastered, even though it did have a few similarities with her native Pergranti.

    Tim’s rambling was unexpected. ”Ganga-who in the what, now--?” Nita asked in confusion, though she might have just been talking to herself with the way Tim had mentally withdrawn into a place where he was alone with his thoughts. It did seem like the young man had a lot of introspection to do, and for some reason, the blonde mage felt it would be in poor taste to interrupt him. So she just waited and watched him, her face a mixture of slight worry and curiosity. The word ‘holmganga’, though, wasn’t that a name for some sort of duel in the Iser tongue? In any case, without context, it was impossible for Nita to know what he had been going on about. Nita chuckled at his snort. ”If homilies are meant to confuse their hearers and create more questions than answers, then yes, a first-class homily that was.” For Nita’s part, though, she had never really suspected that Tim had anything to do with this case. And even if he did, that he was trying to sort it out was a good thing. And then Tim asked an interesting question. To be honest, Nita had no idea herself. She had just grown tired of the cultist’s ravings, and determined that he had said everything useful that she wanted to hear. Going into justification about the crimes he and his associates had committed, and insulting others simply meant he had run out of helpful things to say. And she had to admit, she had gotten impatient.

    Just as the Pergrandian opened her mouth to answer, the sound of a great commotion startled her, preventing any further discourse. Tim barged into the room, with Nita hot on his heels, only to see a confusing sight: Summerset with a grievous wound, and the other officers looking confused and bewildered. Also, the room seemed to be lined with mirrors, although there was an extra one in one of the corners. That was likely the means of transportation these cultists used. In any case, there was no enemy to be found, and Nita could not sense any extra persons in the room apart from the people presently there. And then she felt a sudden presence, just as some fellow garbed in black seemed to swim through the reflective surfaces and slash at Tim. Fortunately, by some spell or other defense, the attack phased through the mage’s hand. As Tim asked Nita to deal with the assailant while he tended to Summerset, she nodded. ”Leave it to me!” From the orb Tim had created before, to the platform he now made, Nita could surmise that he was able to manipulate light. An interesting choice of elements, seeing as the gods he had mentioned earlier were associated with darkness and night. Tim called out a challenge, and it was answered. It seemed these guys were able to travel within mirrors and were thus using the reflective surfaces in the room to assist them in combat. As her partner created a purple shield from light to deflect his assailant’s attack, Nita sailed airborne past him as he stepped backwards, planting both knees into the face of the black-garbed figure who had just attacked Tim. An alarmed exclamation by Tim alerted Nita to the fact that there was more than one assailant. That they could attack from the safety of the mirrors suggested that they could see the mages, wherever they were hiding. And that gave Nita an idea, as her mind quickly worked through the situation. First, she had to keep Tim and the other officers safe from further attacks. ”Suit of Diamonds: Piquet Deck!” She drew a card as she delivered a vicious elbow to the man she had just kneed in the face. The drawn card split into numerous flying cards, some of which formed a rotating shield around Tim’s platform, while the others covered the mirror which wasn’t part of the rest of the room. She drew another card immediately afterwards. ”Wild Card: Quadrille!”
    A bright burst of light exploded from the black card she held up, the light being intensified by the reflections cast by the specular surfaces of the room. There were a number of cries, as three shadowy figures stumbled out of various corners of the reflective room. Without pausing for a bit, Nita drew yet another card. ”Wild Card: Bezique!” There was a dull thud, as the explosion rocked the room, making a heavy mess of the reflective walls and sending the revealed assailants flying to smash painfully into wall and floor, although it did no damage to anyone else. As for the room, it was nothing near smooth and reflective any more. It would be very unlikely that anyone would be able to use its surfaces for any sneak attacks. It was likely that the Bezique spell would have pounded the portal mirror into bits, if said mirror hadn’t been protected by her Piquet Deck shield. The mirror’s surface being obscured by the shield spell would also hopefully prevent anyone from using the mirror to attack the law enforcement group.

    Nita turned to look at the platform on which Summerset lay, even as she communed her Orison of Desire: Kiss of Life. Everyone would feel the healing spell take effect, bringing life to damaged and dead cells and tissues. If the policeman was still alive, she couldn’t afford to have him die, not while she had the power to do something about it. ”Is Officer Summerset alright?” she asked, walking towards the platform. As the other officers began restraining the downed assailants, Nita pointed at one of them. ”Do you see these guys? They’re dressed somewhat differently than the ones we encountered first. And evidently stronger as well. Judging from what the cultist we interrogated had said back then, I had hoped it would just be a bunch of mooks and their leader, who would be at the other side of the mirror. But now, I’m beginning to think that there is a more complex structure to this organization. I think we should press the offensive as soon as possible. Unless you’re hurt, and this is where I kiss the pain away.” That last sentence was thrown at Tim with a roguish grin.

    ”As for your question earlier, to be honest, I suspected that fellow had nothing else to say, and I was getting tired of his insults, so I shut him up,” she said honestly. ”When someone goes all ‘you, and your ape, and your dog, and your cat,’ you know they’re out of useful things to say. Well, I’m ready when you are, Tim-Tim.”


    WC: 1360
    PWC: 9230
    TWC: 18706

    @Rodadnuf


    Last edited by Fraag on 27th July 2022, 12:02 pm; edited 2 times in total


    _____________________________________________________________________________________

    Rodadnuf
    Rodadnuf

    Player 
    Lineage : Anathema to Divinity
    Position : None
    Faction : The Ironheart Pact
    Posts : 248
    Guild : Silver Wolf
    Cosmic Coins : 100
    Dungeon Tokens : 0
    Experience : 2,561,089

    Character Sheet
    First Skill: Rollins & Schwartz-Brand
    Second Skill: Heaven God Slayer
    Third Skill:

    Cabal in the Capital (Ms. Fortune, Tim) Empty Re: Cabal in the Capital (Ms. Fortune, Tim)

    Post by Rodadnuf 19th July 2022, 11:58 am



    It was either their teamwork was improving, or Nita was really good at supplementing Tim’s slightly reckless plans.

    While his partner was doing an exemplary job holding off their assailants, Tim was beside Summerset. The two officers were doing their best to keep him from loosing any more blood than he already had. A quick glance over the only bloodied area on the otherwise spotless room was evident enough, he was horrifyingly close to bleeding dry.

    “Good job.” It was impressive how the two managed to keep Summerset from bleeding out while fending off wizards.

    The two didn’t look like they agreed with him. “We didn’t even realize he was cut until his body keeled over from losing too much blood.”

    “I don’t think he even realized it himself.” The other officer added.

    “Like I said, good job.”

    Despite the two officer’s protests, Tim peeled off the bandaged cloth over the man’s throat and quickly used his ‘Aid’ spell. The aforementioned spell only accelerated the body’s natural ability to heal. Tim was counting on Summerset’s body clotting itself fast enough before he bled out. From the way the edges of the cut were corroding unnaturally, whatever was used to shank Summerset was their murder weapon. Tim spell stopped the bleeding now, at least, but there was still a risk of an infection despite the clotted wound. Tim didn’t have any time to clean it; he’ll have to make do with it for now.

    Tim’s instincts flared when he heard a loud thud, he felt an incoming explosion and dashed over the edge of the glass platform between the officers and the source to shield them. But even with the substantial damage it dealt to the room, Tim and the others weren’t affected. And even if they had, there were flying cards floating around, trying to shield them.

    Nita was walking towards them when the fighting finally died down. Tim was too focused on healing Summerset he just noticed there were now three enemies thrown all over the room, which was now roughed up and cracked barely resembling the deathtrap it was just a few minutes ago.

    “Remind me not to actually piss you off.” Tim was looking up at Nita.

    Tim suddenly felt a weird feeling over the part of his leg which was grabbed by the enemy wizard earlier. He sat down and pulled his trouser leg up to see his corroded flesh slowly recovering, actually growing some flesh and shaping back to his leg as if it had never been wounded! It was a bizarre feeling.

    “Healing magic, huh.” Tim noticed Summerset’s clotted wound dissolve and properly heal. “Definitely leagues better than what I’ve got.”

    Tim wished he had that sort of ability instead of God-slaying magic.

    Tim’s idle thoughts were interrupted when Nita asked about Summerset. The man was unconscious, but otherwise alright.

    “He should’ve been alright, if he didn’t shield be from that shadow…thing…” Officer Pearson was frowning.

    “Is that what happened?” Tim quirked a brow.

    She nodded.

    “He does that.” The other officer butted in. “He wouldn’t have wanted a rookie getting jumped on her second case.”

    Officer Pearson smiled at her coworker.

    This little moment the two suddenly had was a can of worms Tim didn’t have time to get into, the young man stood up and stepped off the platform before Nita could go up. “He’ll be going fine, thanks to you.”

    Nita started assessing the three new assailants that were cuffed by the other officers. She was right noticing them being stronger. They had more people to spare within their ranks too, which begs the question how big this whole cult really was? It was one thing to be organized; but even an unorganized mess that believed they were, and had the manpower to spare was just as threatening. She then suggested going in the offensive. Tim agreed, the officers can mop up whatever trail the pair will leave. But her last little comment earned her another deadpan glare from Tim, shortly followed by a resigned sigh.

    “As much as I’d like that, your healing spell’s doing wonders.” He moved his leg slightly; it was good as new. “Though you have my blessing to do that if I ever end up biting the big one.”

    “For now—” Tim steered the conversation back. “Going along with the authorities’ pace will leave more bodies in the long run. Either civilians, from us taking too long, or them being free targets for these cultists. You’re right, we take them head on.”

    Tim walked towards the untouched mirror in the middle of the room. “That being said, this whole thing reeks of a trap—”

    As if on cue, the mirror’s glass exploded on Tim’s face! He was flung back a meter away, landing on his back with an ugly grunt. It wasn’t an explosion in the traditional sense, the glass merely broken itself and stabbed the young man turning him into a makeshift pincushion. Not even giving Tim time to react, the glass was sucked back into the mirror and morphed itself back into its smooth clean surface, leaving Tim as a lacerated mess.

    The three assailants laughed at the whole spectacle.

    Tim, groaning as he tried to sit up. He licked his cheeks, it looked like one of the shards ripped his cheek from the inside.

    “Pricks.” He sent a glare the cuffed wizards’ way, spat out blood off the side and then smiled sheepishly at Nita. “Like I said…trap. We gotta be careful for them.”


    Words:
    Post 920
    Player 10,396
    Total 18,266
    @Fraag


    _____________________________________________________________________________________

    Cabal in the Capital (Ms. Fortune, Tim) M7VWYFe
    Fraag
    Fraag

    Player 
    Lineage : Progeny of Arcanos
    Position : None
    Faction : The Luminous Covenant
    Posts : 1038
    Guild : Luminous Rose
    Cosmic Coins : 60
    Dungeon Tokens : 0
    Experience : 3,401,904

    Character Sheet
    First Skill: Arcane Fate Magic
    Second Skill: Night God Slayer
    Third Skill: Relativity God Slayer

    Cabal in the Capital (Ms. Fortune, Tim) Empty Re: Cabal in the Capital (Ms. Fortune, Tim)

    Post by Fraag 19th July 2022, 6:27 pm

    ”Oh please,” Nita replied to Tim’s request that she remind him not to get her in a bad mood. ”I’m harmless. Mostly….” In any case, it was good to hear that, despite his injuries (which had been now mostly taken care of), Officer Summerset would be fine, even though he was presently unconscious. From the words of the officers, he had put himself in the line of danger to prevent one of his underlings from getting hurt. That was actually quite impressive, if Nita had anything to say, because it showed that Officer Summerset placed value on the lives and wellbeing of his underlings. Despite his initial, less than stellar impression on Nita, it did seem that he had a decent streak. It was often easy to forget that everyone had their good sides and their bad sides, and it was the side one paid more attention to that manifested more in their lives. Even then, it was quite rare to come across a completely good, or completely evil person, unless said person was not human. It was even more annoying, in the Pergrandian’s opinion, that one was more likely to come across a completely evil creature than a completely good one.

    ”As much as you’d like that… how lewd,” Nita said in mock disapproval, when Tim replied that he was fine and ready to go on the offensive, but giving the green light for his pain to be kissed away if he ‘bit the big one’.  And just as Tim mentioned the possibility of a trap, the whole mirror, which he was close to suddenly splintered with no apparent trigger, cutting the man’s face and sending him flying. Just as surprisingly, the broken shards of glass reformed themselves after this assault, and the mirror looked as though nothing had happened to it. Nita took a worried step in Tim’s direction, when the sound of laughter caught her ears. Furious, she wheeled round, her shoulders rising as her eyes widened and brows furrowed, her glower coming to rest on the handcuffed cultists. But unlike Tim, the Pergrandian went for them. On seeing the irate woman stomping their way, their laughter died a quick and natural death, and they tried in vain to get away. Ignoring the other two, Nita went for the one closest to her, and grabbed him by the collar, ignoring the protests of the officers attending to the cultists.

    ”Please, give me one good reason to make you feed through a nose tube for the rest of your life,” she snapped. There was silence. But even as Nita glared at the cowed cultist, the formations of a plan coalesced in her mind. But first, she needed to be sure Tim was quite alright, though despite the obvious cuts, he did seem to be still in shipshape condition. Pushing the cultist away, she returned to her partner’s side. ”Oh Tim, if I didn’t know better, I’d have said you were getting desperate to have that kiss,” the Pergrandian quipped, although the concern was quite evident in her voice. ”Will you be alright, or do you want patching up? I do try not to use that spell too often, unless there are critical injuries involved. As for that malevolent mirror...,” she held out her free hand, and the swirling cards of her Piquet Deck flowed towards the mirror. Just before they touched it, the glass exploded outwards, scattering the mass of cards, before reconstructing itself without a single visible seam. ”It looks like anything in proximity to the glass triggers that… defense mechanism, so to speak,” the Pergrandian theorized, tapping her jaw with the index finger of her right hand. ”And yet, the cultists seem to have been able to pass through it without any issues whatsoever. I believe there must be some spell that detects the cultists; maybe their clothes or magic signatures or something else; time won’t allow me to determine the exact trigger, but I have a plan. Officers, I’d like to borrow a cultist.”

    She returned to the cultist she had just harassed some moments ago, and smiled at him. ”Congratulations, you’ve been chosen to aid the forces of Light in the battle against darkness and your zombie god, blah, blah and blah,” she intoned, pulling him to his feet. ”Now since I know you’re not going to come along nicely, and you’ll probably try to raise an alarm or do something ridiculous, I’ll have to hobble you. Nut shot!” The cultist’s eyes widened in horror as he doubled over, trying to defend his groin from the pending attack, which was almost impossible without the use of his hands. But as he bowed his body, his head descended into Nita’s rising knee, knocking him senseless. Nita shrugged at the cops giving her weird looks, and began dragging the cultist to the mirror. ”So, I believe this mirror has an equivalent in all the safe houses these guys have, if that other mook is to be believed,” she said. ”And I want to assume that the mirrors would be used for transporting not just people, but maybe goods as well. Seeing as the mirror responded to my card spell, it’s safe to assume that it will respond that way to anything that comes within a certain distance of it, human or not. So, if my plan works…” she thrust the unconscious cultist’s face towards the mirror. Nothing happened. She slowly pressed the cultist’s head on the reflective surface, which rippled like the surface of oil. This was their way in.

    ”Okay, guys, I’ll need one of your radios; you guys can track your radios, ya?” Nita asked, hurrying to one of the officers and taking his radio. ”Once we pass through that portal, you guys begin tracking this radio, and home in on its position. We’ll be cleaning house before you arrive. Ready, Tim? Let’s move together!” So saying, she hurried back to the cultist, gestured to Tim to help her pick him up, and then attempted to enter the mirror. There was an alien but cool feeling on her skin, and a ringing sound, and she was in a room with rough stone walls, with a large obvious magic portal, not a mirror, just where she had stepped out of. Five cultists in simple robes were hanging around in the room, apparently waiting for something. As the figures exited the magic portal, the cultists stared at them in surprise, just before the black card in Nita’s hand flashed a bright light, and they all dropped to the floor, unconscious. ”I think we can throw them all back through the magic portal or something, or what do you think?” Nita asked Tim.

    Suddenly, the door opened, and a cultist in ornate robes stood in the doorway, as five cultists of the ‘top hat’ variety swarmed into the room and took battle positions. ”Deal with them and then bring them to the sacrificial chamber,” the ornately dressed cultist said, as he began to leave. ”They will make an excellent sacrifice for Xavuul.” And if Tim could see Nita, he would observe that she paled visibly with horror, as her hair turned practically snow white. ”Xavuul? Oh no….”


    WC: 1200
    PWC: 10430
    TWC: 19466

    @Rodadnuf


    Last edited by Fraag on 27th July 2022, 12:07 pm; edited 2 times in total


    _____________________________________________________________________________________

    Rodadnuf
    Rodadnuf

    Player 
    Lineage : Anathema to Divinity
    Position : None
    Faction : The Ironheart Pact
    Posts : 248
    Guild : Silver Wolf
    Cosmic Coins : 100
    Dungeon Tokens : 0
    Experience : 2,561,089

    Character Sheet
    First Skill: Rollins & Schwartz-Brand
    Second Skill: Heaven God Slayer
    Third Skill:

    Cabal in the Capital (Ms. Fortune, Tim) Empty Re: Cabal in the Capital (Ms. Fortune, Tim)

    Post by Rodadnuf 20th July 2022, 3:22 am



    Tim appreciated how fast Nita flared at the three mooks. She was impossible to argue with, but when it came down to it, she was kind. Even as she quipped at Tim as she walked back, her words had a hint of worry in it. Joking might have been the only way they were able to properly converse without ending up annoying each other, but it seemed she wears her heart on her sleeves a bit more than Tim had noticed up until that point.

    “I think I would’ve done something that stung a lot less if I really wanted that kiss.” Tim smiled her reassuringly. “I don’t feel any corrosion on my wounds, I’ll made due with my magic band-aid.”

    But his clothes were a different story altogether. His jacket was ripped apart by the shards. It was also damp from the inside and when Tim unzipped it completely, the white dress shirt his old boss gifted to him was red all over. Only his jeans and shoes were strong enough to survive, but with a lot of scratches that made him look even more rugged. He didn’t mind that. But when he put his hand over his flat cap only to feel his hair sticking out, he let out a breath.

    Tim materialized three chains, balled the tips like makeshift flails, and flung to each of the cuffed wizards! The balled-up tips hit them on their face, Tim didn’t even look at them. He merely took a deep breath as he heard them crash on the ground, throwing curses at him.

    He didn’t care. It was a very old gift and these pricks damaged it.

    The young man casted ‘Aid’ as he slowly stood up; his freshly lacerated body began to slowly clot by itself.

    “Great.” Tim shrugged. “More scars for the pile.”

    As Nita was busy investigating the mirror it was a good time as any to actually wear something that resembled something like armor. Tim made a four-sided glass wall around him that covered up to his torso. He made the wall a one-sided mirror so anyone looking from outside could only see their reflection. Levitating his duffle bag while pulling out the contents inside, Tim then quickly changed his old work clothes into his armor. From his steel-toes shoes to oxfords, jeans to slick black trousers with suspenders, his bloodied dress shirt into fresher ones, and his rugged (and now tattered) into a jet-black double-breasted vest. He also belted his sword around his hips.

    Finally, Tim put his flap cap on top of the pile inside his duffle bag and wore the cat-person ear accessory to complete his ensemble. All of that took no more than a quarter of a minute.

    Nita was happily getting the attention of the officers with her little show of force towards one of the cultists’ groin so they didn’t really notice Tim’s quick change. She actually managed to cook up a sneaky plan on going through to the portal, all without getting herself wounded. Calling her ‘boss’ was him poking fun at Summerset’s earlier shenanigans, but she really was capable doing the role. She even gave an incentive for the officers not to join on their little suicide charge, instead sending them to flank on the outside of wherever they’ll end up going.

    Tim noticed her already gesturing to help her pick the guy up, so Tim went and levitated the cultist with his ‘Grav-à-tête’ spell and nodded when she asked if he was ready. “On you, boss.”

    Going through the portal was nauseating, the sudden chill and the ringing made Tim grunt. “I don’t feel like hurling, that’s a good first-time experience.”

    Nita took care of the five cultists that were in the room the just popped out of. Tim thought of her suggesting of throwing them out the portal and let the officers remaining on the other side deal with them, but he was too distracted by the place.

    Tim was looking over the stone walls of—wherever they were—and noted its age. It was old enough to look like the ruins Tim was protecting in Quanny village when he first started doing jobs for the guild. The architecture was not as faded, though. More importantly, the room they were in was distinctly dusty and moist, not to mention the place was devoid of any wind from any source except the heavier air from their side being pulled into the warmer room they came from. “We’re underground? Or whatever magic these guys are cooking up is making the air feel like in a deep mine.”

    Then, the doors leading to outside of the room swung open and six cultists, resembling the stronger ones they fought, took formation while listening to a single wizard who Tim assumed was the leader. When the leader tried to leave, Tim materialized a chain and tried to grab him. But just as the chain was about a meter away from its target, the chain rusted unnaturally and so fast it became metal dust by the time it hit the wizard, only hitting him with a faint gust of wind.

    “Predictable…” He spat and continued to go away, continuing his short speech about them being sacrifices to someone named Xavuul.

    “The hell kinda name is that?” Tim muttered, but quickly thought about what the other cultist mentioned earlier. Was it the name of that dead god?

    “Sacrifice, eh? So they haven’t resurrected it.” He glanced over to his partner. “Good news for us—”

    Nita was pale as a ghost. Tim didn’t even realize it! What happened? Did they get her? A spell? Tim, as a precaution, unsheathed his sword and crystalized the light coming out from the portal behind them, making a wall of light between them and the cultists.

    “You good?” Tim stepped beside her. He might not know what the hell happened, but he can at least pull her out of this place should the situation called for it.


    Words:
    Post 995
    Player 11,391
    Total 20,461
    @Fraag


    _____________________________________________________________________________________

    Cabal in the Capital (Ms. Fortune, Tim) M7VWYFe
    Fraag
    Fraag

    Player 
    Lineage : Progeny of Arcanos
    Position : None
    Faction : The Luminous Covenant
    Posts : 1038
    Guild : Luminous Rose
    Cosmic Coins : 60
    Dungeon Tokens : 0
    Experience : 3,401,904

    Character Sheet
    First Skill: Arcane Fate Magic
    Second Skill: Night God Slayer
    Third Skill: Relativity God Slayer

    Cabal in the Capital (Ms. Fortune, Tim) Empty Re: Cabal in the Capital (Ms. Fortune, Tim)

    Post by Fraag 21st July 2022, 1:52 pm

    Nita was mildly surprised and impressed to see that Tim had managed to quickly change outfits in the short time she had spent harassing the cultists and figuring a way to get through the mirror. She would have time to attempt to crack a jab at him regarding this in due time, but for the meantime, the most important thing was getting through the portal in one piece. Being one who was by now used to the strains and subtleties of dimensional long distance travel, Nita was less likely than Tim to call the experience of traveling through the mirror an unpleasant one, but she would agree with him that not having to throw up after such a means of travel was a good thing. Nita had been a little more concerned with clearing out the room in which they had found themselves, so she had not taken so much cognizance of her surroundings. But Tim’s observation was quite astute, and very likely correct; an underground hideout would be much easier to conceal from the public and law enforcement agencies than one above ground. From his words, he did sound like he was familiar with the environment of such subterranean structures, but there was no reason to ask him about that.

    As expected, Tim had been too bothered about the naming of the cultists’ dead god, seeing as he had no connections to it, but on seeing his partner’s reaction, had made a shield to provide them with some time, in order for her to get her act together. Nita slowly turned and looked at him, as the fear in her eyes diminished, as though hearing the sound of a friendly voice did something to cut through the horror of facing something she had never wished to come in contact with again. ”I—I’m fine,” she said, taking in a deep breath. ”Thank you for asking. While it was a foregone conclusion that these cultists had to be stopped, my motivation to see this cult squashed has been intensified.” The shield Tim had set up reverberated, as the cultists on the other side pounded against it. ”We have a significant advantage presently: I don’t think our enemies have placed sufficient priority on our invasion; I was expecting us to be swarmed in droves when we got here. At least they graced us with a welcoming party. Let’s not keep them waiting.”

    Whether Tim dispelled the shield, or the cultists broke through, Nita was ready to press the attack. She drew a card which dissolved into silver mist, and a dark brown scepter with a crystal ball at its head appeared in her hands. The shaft of the scepter suddenly extended, transforming the weapon into a staff. ”Now is your chance to impress me. See you on the other side,” she quipped, before drawing another card and vanishing along with the card into thin air. In the same second, she had appeared behind the cultists, whose attention was so fixated on the purple shield that they only realized the counteroffensive had begun when one of them felt the Pergrandian’s weapon strike him in the knee. Before they could rally to face her, she had introduced the head of her staff to the head of the kneeling cultist, twirled the weapon, and batted another cultist across the face with it. She trusted that Tim would take advantage of the fact that they would all momentarily have forgotten about him as soon as the attack was sprung from an unexpected angle. One of the cultists raised his hand towards her, but she whipped her staff on his rising hand, causing him to cry out in pain. She wasn’t so sure of how they cast their insidious spells, but with the one that had attacked her shoulder, and the attack on Tim’s leg, she would suspect that those spells required some sort of gesture to be cast. As far as she could allow, her opponents would not be gesturing much today.

    Planting the base of her staff on the stone floor, Nita used it to vault onto the shoulders of the cultist whose arm she had just clobbered, and performed a back somersault, slamming him head-first into the earth, before rising as she swung her staff upwards to catch the jaw of the fellow whose face she had stroked with the staff. That was three down. She looked over to Tim to see if he needed any help, though she was sure he would not be so unwilling to carry his own weight.

    ”We make a good team, don’t we?” she asked, hoping to steer discussion away from Xavuul and why she had reacted the way she did. The less she thought about what she likely had to face, the better her state of mind.


    WC: 800
    PWC: 11230
    TWC: 21261

    @Rodadnuf


    Last edited by Fraag on 27th July 2022, 12:09 pm; edited 2 times in total


    _____________________________________________________________________________________

    Rodadnuf
    Rodadnuf

    Player 
    Lineage : Anathema to Divinity
    Position : None
    Faction : The Ironheart Pact
    Posts : 248
    Guild : Silver Wolf
    Cosmic Coins : 100
    Dungeon Tokens : 0
    Experience : 2,561,089

    Character Sheet
    First Skill: Rollins & Schwartz-Brand
    Second Skill: Heaven God Slayer
    Third Skill:

    Cabal in the Capital (Ms. Fortune, Tim) Empty Re: Cabal in the Capital (Ms. Fortune, Tim)

    Post by Rodadnuf 22nd July 2022, 8:41 am



    She knew something.

    Tim was looking at her the entire time. Even as Nita tried to distract him by saying fighting the cultists was the perfect time to impress her, Tim was thinking about her connection with this dead god. Despite Tim’s personal vendetta against deities, he was proven time and time again on the potential of such beings, and others influenced by them, to be more than what their domain represented. His ancestor’s fight against Erebus, Hemera’s compassion for her half-brother and his descendants. Tim knew there was more to them than their pride and apathy. Nita would be no different, unless he proves it otherwise. Was it his pragmatism at work again?

    Tim crushed his crystalized light wall and sent the shards flying towards the cultists. He wanted to say this was in no way his attempt at revenge for earlier, but he would be lying. Nita vanished into thin air, appearing behind their enemies in no time at all. The cultists stunned by Tim’s shards; she was able to catch them off guard when she began her counteroffensive. Using an orbed staff she summoned, Nita made quick work off the three cultists. It was the same dynamic they had been doing earlier. But Tim was too busy questioning whether probing Nita with the question would be better or not, so he martialized two chains which had their tips balled up. Tim flung the two lengths into the other cultists! The chains’ ends wrapped around their cultists’ arms while the balled-up ends slugged them like they were thrown by a bunch of gangbangers.

    With no officers to restrain the unconscious cultists, Tim connected the two chains and pulled the rest of them together to the center of the room, chaining them.

    Nita suddenly asked rhetorically if they made a good team. She knew he knew; her mismatched eyes had an earnest wish for him not to ask it. From the way they argued earlier and the views they practically announced to each other were polar opposites. She was pestering him about his past a lot of times too. But he didn’t know how she’ll perceive his question. Tim bit his lip.

    “Falling for me already?” He couldn’t let her get distracted, not when they were neck deep in enemy territory. Summerset almost died because Tim had taken time to idly explain his case. He won’t let that happen a second time.

    But a piercing scream filled the room! The cultists chain together screamed in unison: “DEATH-MAKE!”

    Suddenly, their bodies crumbled into dust eerily similar to the trail that led them to this place. The dust filled the open area of the room, and what came out of it was something Tim expected the least to face in a place like this. It was a rotting corpse of a wyvern! Its limbs were leaving lumps of flesh as it crawled out of the fog, revealing how truly huge the monster was as more of its body crawled out.

    “I heard dragons were majestic creatures.” Tim brandished his sword, spiting on one side from the smell of this rotting thing. “You, my friend, look like you didn’t age too well.”

    The creature reacted by clawing Tim! The young man took a step back, dodging the claw. But the monster’s mangled bones were protruding enough to reach him. He couldn’t see what his partner had been doing, but he hoped she was not forgetting the real threat.

    “Argh-!” Tim was swatted across the room, through the doorway the leader escaped, smashing it down.

    By the time it fully left the fog, its back was scraping the ceiling. Its tail was digging through the walls, trying to give itself more room. Tim crawled back up, punching the ground as he stood. “Nita? I don’t know how much time we have. Take care of the leader, I’ll hold this one off.”


    Words:
    Post 645
    Player 12,036
    Total 21,906
    @Fraag


    _____________________________________________________________________________________

    Cabal in the Capital (Ms. Fortune, Tim) M7VWYFe
    Fraag
    Fraag

    Player 
    Lineage : Progeny of Arcanos
    Position : None
    Faction : The Luminous Covenant
    Posts : 1038
    Guild : Luminous Rose
    Cosmic Coins : 60
    Dungeon Tokens : 0
    Experience : 3,401,904

    Character Sheet
    First Skill: Arcane Fate Magic
    Second Skill: Night God Slayer
    Third Skill: Relativity God Slayer

    Cabal in the Capital (Ms. Fortune, Tim) Empty Re: Cabal in the Capital (Ms. Fortune, Tim)

    Post by Fraag 23rd July 2022, 7:30 pm

    Tim using the act of dispelling his light spell wall to serve as a means of attack was impressive, being both magic energy conserving and unexpected to the opponents. Though they were outnumbered, the two mages were anything but outclassed. It was the unexpected shattering of the light wall, and trying to dodge its shards that caused the cultists attacked by Nita to be less able to respond as effectively as they normally would have, if they weren’t having to avoid sharp flying shards, while trying to prevent their faces from being introduced to bludgeoning abuse by Nita’s mage staff. To Nita, it rang of some degree of poetic justice: Tim had had his face attacked by sharp magical shards, and now these guys were having to deal with something similar. The other two cultists were quickly subdued by Tim’s chains, and all five of them were bound together, courtesy of said chains. Tim’s light magic was quite a versatile thing, and although the Silver Wolf mage had not seemed quite as impressed with his healing spell as he was with hers, his magic did seem to be quite useful in other applications. Or, it could be a different magic. Many mages tended to end up using more than one magic type; Nita, for her part, had seemed only to be able to use Arcane Fate magic. Why, she could not exactly say. Maybe it was because seeing as she was originally not a magic user, the Arcane Fate magic was the only one she would ever be able to use, due to her natural predilection to not use ethernano, being a Pergrandian. Or, she simply had not explored her abilities well enough.

    If anything, Tim seemed to be a rather decent person, seeing as he had not asked Nita to start explaining about her reaction to the mention of the name ‘Xavuul’. She was sure that if the situations had been reversed, she would have probably asked him about it. She was quite curious and talkative, after all. To be fair to her, though, if she had asked Tim, or anyone else for that matter, to divulge some information that they were unwilling to, she would not have pressed them for it, unless it was pivotal to succeeding at the mission, or preservation of lives and property, or some other such thing. She was sure that Tim had seen her frightened response, yet he had not asked her anything about it. Perhaps she could take a few notes and learn a thing or two from him. In any case, he did throw a subtle jab at her when she asked if they made a good team. She couldn’t let that pass, despite her recognition of his consideration towards her. ”Don’t get your hopes up or anything, Tim-Tim” she said, feigning a haughty air. ”Granted, you have the looks, but I’ll have you know that a maiden of as high a moral standard as mine would--” Whatever barb her sharp tongue was aiming to loose at Tim was forgotten, as the restrained mages yelled in unison, and brought, by their deaths, a horror into the world.

    Nita did not particularly hate dragons. She had no grudges against them, but a rotten corpse of one, that still seemed quite mobile enough to want to make them as dead as itself was not pleasant in any form. Okay, technically, it wasn’t a dragon. Dragons had four limbs and then wings. This one had its forelimbs as wings, so it was a wyvern…. ”Do such inconsequential technicalities as this really matter at this time?” Maria asked with a bit of irritation. In another situation, Nita would have probably laughed at her and chided her for her inability to understand the finer aspects of academic pedantry. But she couldn’t as her attention was on the giant putrid beast as it swatted Tim through the doors of the room. Despite its stench making it difficult to breathe properly, Nita cried out in concern, ”Tim!” But she heard his voice, calling out to her to find the cultist leader and deal with him. While leaving her companion alone to face the undead wyvern was not something she wanted to do, there was a part of her that understood that this was perhaps the best way to deal with this issue. She drew a card and vanished, appearing behind Tim, so that he was now between her and the approaching wyvern. ”Don’t go dying on me,” the Pergrandian said. ”I’m yet to punish you for your gross presumption about my vulnerability to your charms.” And then she was off.

    Finding the lead cultist would probably not be as difficult as she had imagined. As Nita focused on her magic sensory faculties, she realized that she could faintly sense the weird black mist that was normally invisible except by the light of Tim’s ball spell. While the death mist seemed to weave everywhere, it did seem to be getting more concentrated the more Nita ran in a particular direction. She met no one as she went, until she burst through a set of wooden double doors and into a wide room, empty with no features, save a raised structure like an altar at the far end of the room. The black mist seemed heaviest there, and a lone hooded figure stood before the altar, a sheathed sword strapped to his side. ”Ah, she has arrived,” he said with glee, as he turned to face her. Nita noticed that while old, he did not seem as frail as someone his age was expected to be. There was a manic look in his eyes as he turned and pointed at her. ”Come, come! I’m sure Xavuul is eager to meet you. With your power, you will make a perfect sacrifice to reawaken the dead god!” Nita made a grimace as she stepped into the room. ”I’d rather your god remained dead, if you must know.” The staff in her hands dissolved into silver mist as she drew a card, summoning two graceful chakrams, Arcturus and Altair. These weapons would be hopefully a good choice; they had little defense, but were quite focused on offense, and she could use them to attack from a distance. Time was of the essence, and the advantage belonged to the one who struck first.

    Nita flung one of her chakrams, the circular blade making a graceful curve through the air as it approached the head cultist. The old man drew his sword, deflecting the blade, as he gestured. ”Death Make: Ravagers!” A pair of black, smoky wolves coalesced from thin air, slavering and snarling as they bounded at the Pergrandian. Things just couldn’t get better.


    WC: 1120
    PWC: 12350
    TWC: 23026

    @Rodadnuf


    Last edited by Fraag on 27th July 2022, 12:11 pm; edited 2 times in total


    _____________________________________________________________________________________

    Rodadnuf
    Rodadnuf

    Player 
    Lineage : Anathema to Divinity
    Position : None
    Faction : The Ironheart Pact
    Posts : 248
    Guild : Silver Wolf
    Cosmic Coins : 100
    Dungeon Tokens : 0
    Experience : 2,561,089

    Character Sheet
    First Skill: Rollins & Schwartz-Brand
    Second Skill: Heaven God Slayer
    Third Skill:

    Cabal in the Capital (Ms. Fortune, Tim) Empty Re: Cabal in the Capital (Ms. Fortune, Tim)

    Post by Rodadnuf 24th July 2022, 11:45 am




    “My charm, huh? Never had someone to admit I had any before…”

    Tim didn’t look back, but he could feel Nita’s presence getting further and further.

    He was glad she took his suggestion and went ahead. Tim knew she was good enough not to just keel over mid-fight, keen enough not to get ambushed, and hoped she was smart enough to wait for him should she find the fight with that bastard overwhelming. Though, if he was frank, he wanted to fight this monster alone. He had been very careless as of late; the traps he sprung, the crippling injuries he had been afflicted with had Nita been absent in healing him, and people he had almost gotten killed because his mind was distracted.

    Tim needed a reminder why he should not slack off.

    “Dragon…wyvern…whatever the heck you are.” He adjusted his suit’s gloves. “Mind helping me out for a bit?”

    The monster inhaled hard, hard enough Tim’s hair was pulled by the breath it took. Not even giving out a warning, it unleashed an ugly breath towards the young man! Tim easily let the attack through with his ‘Violated domain’. Whatever that attack was, Tim didn’t want to be hit by it. From the look of the stone floor grazed by its breath, it was corroded.

    This thing had the same magic as the other cultists. This wasn’t the dead god they mention, was it? It couldn’t have been, else Nita would have been able to recognize it.

    But just because it wasn’t their main target, it didn’t mean it was dumb. In fact, Tim wondered if whether the cult leader had been controlling this thing remotely. Because the overgrown lizard was smart enough to ram its belly to one side, spilling unearthed stone and dirt over the portal they had popped out from and covering it up completely in a mound it was now stepping over with one of its rotted feet. Its wings were stretched out to one side, the other was banging over the ruins’ walls. Not that Tim saw any of it, only its gleaming red eyes were visible in the now pitch-black room.

    But did it really think the dark would help it? Its eyes were two targets waiting for—

    There was a crash starting from one side and suddenly Tim felt his sides flare up, his vision blurred, and he was now flying across the room again. This time, he was flung across the room’s circular walls, his body feeling the rough stones. With a thud, Tim crawled back up again. There was a metallic taste over the liquid slowly running over the apples of his cheeks and into his lips.

    It was either a blind swipe off the wyvern’s tail, or it could somehow sense Tim’s magic signature and attacked accordingly. Both possibilities were equally irritating. Tim materialized his signature crystal ball of light, trying to counter this monster’s attacks. But the wyvern swiped its clawed wings at him before he could put the light to good use. The crystal ball cracked along a few of Tim ribs as the monster punched him so hard, he went through the pitch-black room and into another, same sized area which was just as equally pitch black. How did he know it was the same sized? Even as he was slowly sitting up, he could hear the monster’s limbs scrape the walls.

    Minus his nightly fights in the cages, he never managed to have himself trained in any form or formal martial arts or any fancy fighting school. Other than his magic sense telling him the wyvern in front of him was the size of an airship, he was out of luck trying to fight this thing in the dark. His head hurt; light magic was no good unless he could conjure a light source. The only way he could do that was with his ball of light, but that made him an even bigger target. He could do the same thing he did with that Wolf God, but he never figured out how to unleash that power. He really did bit more than he could chew with this one.

    Was he better off running instead? But then he thought of leading this thing to whatever Nita was dealing with further ahead.

    “Shit—”

    Bam! Another blow, and Tim was flying again.

    He was really all talk back there, wasn’t he? Trying to act like he was in a team of heroes. Trying to be the one who holds off the baddies while the rest of the party goes off the fight the good fight. All that talk about a god’s arrogance and pride when he was the one brimming with it.

    Or was this his lightheadedness talking?

    Tim shook his head and closed his eyes; he could feel the bored gaze of the monster. His performance so far didn’t leave much to be impressed about. He really was getting dizzy, even as he closed his eyes, he could see little stars surrounding him. Tim knew it was the trick of the darkness, the sort of optical illusions he could associate with magic when he was a child.

    His thoughts landed in the seemingly dim lights again, and had an idea.

    Tim’s fists glowed from the inside so intensely that the room they were in were illuminated as if it was daytime for a fraction of a second. In that fraction of a second, the wyvern again clawed towards Tim. The young man opened his eyes and saw the same move the monster did before. He dodged, throwing both his hands towards the monster. Nothing came out.

    Again, Tim flashed his hands, again, the wyvern attacked, and again, Tim threw nothing at the darkness.

    “I don’t know if you can see things like I do.”

    This happened over and over for a better part of a few seconds, Tim and the wyvern trading blows. It was enough action for Tim’s head to spin looking at the constant flashing lights from his hands!

    “Or you have been using magic sensory like I should’ve started doing a few minutes ago.”

    But the young man steeled himself, because his little plan of throwing nothing at the darkness was bearing fruit.

    “Frankly, I don’t care. Because either way, you can see it now.”

    Those ‘nothings’ Tim had been throwing around were now surrounding the entire room. They were dim crystalized light orbs kept afloat by his ‘Grav-à-tête’ spell. In the dark, the orbs themselves were barely a millimeter across. Without touching one directly, it could’ve easily been mistaken for optical illusions or dust in the dark.

    “You can’t resist looking, can you?”

    Had the walking corpse been seeing as little as Tim had in the dark, it would’ve been seeing the same stars, zigzags, and flashes as he had. Those optical illusions were perfect for Tim to hide his tiny orbs of crystalized light. On the other hand, had the wyvern been relying on its magical sensory, it should be dazed by the orbs’ sheer number. It knew Tim’s spell was there, but it couldn’t see its target.

    Either way, Tim was at an advantage.

    And from the way it had been failing to find Tim on one second and getting confused in the next, it was doing both. Tim then detonated the orbs closest to the monster’s eyes. The wyvern reeled its head back, roared, then blindly swiped its clawed wings at the young man! But the two orbs kept illuminating the room which made Tim easily use his ‘Violated domain’, letting the attack hit nothing but air. Even as it shifted its target from Tim to the orbs, it was like trying to catch dust in the wind. With a final roar, the wyvern summoned its great breath. It was inhaling harder than earlier!

    Tim had to grip his sword and dig it into the stone floor to keep himself from being pulled into the monster. Tim needed to finish this.

    After all, a lightshow wasn’t Tim’s endgame.

    The wizard detonated all of his tiny orbs of light, most of which were already exploring the wyvern’s insides. The young man smiled as he crystalized the light illuminating through the torn rotten flesh of the abomination from both inside its lungs and from the crystal pellets hovering outside. But the damned monster pushed through and exhaled its corrosive breath!

    Tim used the same spell as he had before, letting the attack pass through. But the creature’s eyes eerily changed from red to pitch black.

    “Oh f—”

    Tim managed to desperately shield himself with a crystalized wall of light, bracing himself. But the force of the attack’s new properties was something Tim failed to handle. The wizard was blown back rooms away from the dragon. Tim could only try and crystalize more of the light around the wyvern as he was blasted through the ruins. Only when the breath was at its end when Tim was able to kneel on one leg, not even able to stand.

    Tim spat.

    The wyvern, now completely immobile, had its tendons cut to ribbons by the crystalized shards of light acting as blades. Tim frowned at the sight of it still somehow alive. It was vomiting the same breath attack as earlier, but with little to no breath to take from the cut-up lungs, it could only wheeze and garble out the corrosive substance.

    “It’s…a draw…” He couldn’t even beat it properly.

    Worse still. He couldn’t feel half of his right leg, the leg he was kneeling on. His shoulder felt the same, that being, it felt like it had the same as being cursed by one of the cultists earlier. Tim cursed under his breath as he stood up. He achingly materialized a palm sized ball of crystalized light and walked out of whichever room he now ended up being in.

    Tim gritted his teeth and followed a trail he thought was separate from the secretions of the rotten wyvern.

    'She said not to go dying, so losing a limb or two isn’t breaking any promises, right?' He held tight to that thought as he limped deeper into the ruins.



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    Cabal in the Capital (Ms. Fortune, Tim) M7VWYFe

      Current date/time is 21st November 2024, 1:06 pm