Breaking and Exiting (TacticalFallacy)

Admin wrote:Job: Breaking and Exiting
Rank: D
Player Requirements: D-Ranked Wizards

Job Requirements: Catch the bandits before they make it took the docks and escape with their gigantic sack of Jewels! Minimum of 10 posts! Must defeat one batch of bandits.

Job Location: Hargeon Town

Job Description: A group of bandits has broken into a Shipping Co. and made away with their entire payment for a whole months work! They seem to have already planned their escape, as a ship is waiting for them at the docks; ready too take off with a moments notice! Throw a hitch in their plans and stop them before they get there! It won't be hard too spot them, follow the trail of jewels if you can't immediately find them, they stuffed their sacks so full that they're leaking Jewels.

Enemies:
Weak: Clumsy Bandit x 10(These guys are the ones responsible for leaving the trail of Jewels, they use knives and longswords. Not truly skilled at fighting at all; one or two hits will down them.)

Normal: Quick Bandit x5 (These guys are pretty fast, and even if you catch up too them they won't just hand over the Jewels! They attack 2 times each round! Roll 2 "Block Dice" and fight back! Knock em silly with 3 hits each!)

Strong: Pirate x4 (These guys are pretty skilled as they've been around the block of the open seas more than once. This isn't their first Rodeo. They'll come whirling at you with curved swords for 3 "Attack Die" every round! Roll 3 "Block Die" and do your best too put them in their place! 5 hits each will do it! Be careful, they're pretty quick and crafty!)

Boss: N/A

Reward: 1000 Jewels

Hargeon Town. Found in the southern part of Fiore, this large port town was famous for its fishing business, beautiful marinas and pretty good restaurants that usually take advantage of the aforementioned fishing business and hence serve out excellent and fresh fish-based dishes. However, right now, Aldous does not really feel so peckish as to really splurge on such a fancy meal.
"Oi.........."
It's not like he has anyone else to feed.
"Oi."
Even after getting the reward from their last mission, it's still took too large a proportion of their savings to really go and have that meal. Besides, they have instant noodles. What can top instant noodles?
"OI! DON'T JUST IGNORE ME!?"
After staying three days in the hospital of Hargeon Town due to his over-exertion in the Vulcan mission, Aldous has now recovered to walk with a minor limp, but he can walk nonetheless. As a result, he decided to get himself discharged and go for a little tour around the town. In his wanderings before, he had came here three times in the past and still the salty smell of the sea breeze has not changed one bit, nor has the pungent odour of raw sea-life from the fishermen's catches.
Not that any of those smells could, in Abraxis' view, overcome the lovely scent of spectacular fish-and-chips.
"Fine. Fine. We'll have lunch." Aldous sighed in resignation. It was not like he really had a choice anyway, due to his need for Abraxis to support his slightly worn out body. If that was not the case, Aldous would have willingly gone in an entirely different direction, but right now, he could only cring as Abraxis steered both of them towards the nearest restaurant.

“AHHH!!! WHAT’S HAPPENING?!”
“GET OUT OF THE WAY!”
As Aldous pushed open the door, his ears perked up at the sudden intake of noise and his legs stiffened in preparation for the wave of people rushing towards the two sides of the street, the general crowd parting out of the way of something coming from the left, rushing down from the top of a small rise, which only made the citizens ever more panicked.

“STOOOP!” 


His hearing focused on this new sound through the cacophony, Aldous squinted his eyes to spot a duo of familiarly dressed men coming from the right, holding their trademark long staffs that ended in a small crystal sphere. “IN THE NAME OF THE MAGIC COUNCIL, CEASE AND SURRENDER!” Decked out in their garish priest-like uniforms, loosened to keep it practical on the field, the two Rune Knight soldiers crossed their staffs together, no doubt planning to block the way of the now visible group of the dark figures, cloaked in black drapes, that continued to surge down the road, undeterred by this flimsy mockery of an obstacle. “They’ll get themselves killed,” Aldous murmured under his breath, as he begun to push his way through the pavement crowds, determined to get into the fray before the figures slaughter the Rune Knights.


In fact, as he did this, the head runner of the black-cloaked men sped up, swiftly pulling away from the rest of the group in an instant. As his headlong charge at the Rune Knights brought him just ten meters away from them, the man whipped out his arms from beneath his flowing cloak, revealing his knuckles protected behind rings of hard brass. Yet at the same time, it was not just his brass knuckles that glimmered under the sunlight against his night-black clothes; there were also two keen dagger blades sticking out from the side of each knuckle, as if he was wielding both daggers and knuckles at the same time.
Aldous pushed through the throngs of now crying people a little harder. He did not understand what this was all about. A robbery? A murder? Fugitives? Aldous could only guess and he would be none the wiser anyway.


He’ll just have to fight his way to the answer.


BATTLE BEGINS:
Allies
Rune Knights (2/2)

Enemy
Quick Bandits (10/10)

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

'Monster Dice' :

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

#1 'Damage Dice' :


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#2 'Block Dice' :


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#3 'Damage Dice' :


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#4 'Block Dice' :


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#5 'Damage Dice' :

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

#1 'Damage Dice' :


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#2 'Block Dice' :


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#3 'Damage Dice' :


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#4 'Block Dice' :

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

#1 'Damage Dice' :


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#2 'Damage Dice' :


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#3 'Block Dice' :

However, just as Aldous begin to advance forward to get in the final strike, the sound of a familiar hand-flick and the growing glint of metal at the corner of his eyes prompted him to reflexively raise his Cross, just in time for a knife to bounce harmlessly off the magical shield. Still struggling to get himself off the ground, Dean had exhaustion smeared all across his face with tiny streams of sweat. His deep and stressed breaths indicated to Aldous the extent of will that the man had expended to even try that attack. “Such comradeship is unheard of,” Aldous frowned, scrutinizing at the two men before him. “Lost my chance.” Aldous quickly backed away as Carosi shook himself back to normal, his face too the same twisted expression of a mixture of determination and pain.

“Dean! Carosi! Get away!” Aldous would have jumped a little under normal circumstances, but now that he has heard Garrotte’s cries for quite a while, all he could do was sigh inaudibly; he was beginning to grow tired of feeling that he might be turning into the bad guy here. “I told you to return to the ship!”

“Ship?” Perhaps it was the sudden break in the fight that gave him a little more calm or that he did not have to deal with the swathes of fearful and frightened people, but now Aldous suddenly chanced upon the one important word from Garrotte’s mouth.

“Oi! You two sirs,” Aldous called out to the Rune Knights, who had been watching luxuriously from behind his back this entire time. “Go and get proper reinforcements. Search the entire docks of Hargeon and find the escape ship he was talking about! The bandits’ bags are leaking jewels, so you should be able to easily find them by following the trail!”

“But what about this guy?” When he turned to look at what the questioning Rune Knight was referring to, he felt himself scowl within his own mind. He had been deliberately ignoring them for the entire time to focus on the fight, but now he witnessed the brutality that the Knights were showing to their captive first-hand. Garrotte was in an utterly down-trodden state: blood was leaking out from at least twenty different kick wounds across his body. His muscles were shaking uncontrollably under the abuse of electricity, one of his eyes was beaten in, a lump forming around it, nearly concealing the man’s iris. To think that the people that he had been fighting had been seeing this happen behind him the entire time. No wonder they pushed themselves to such extents.

“If you don’t do this, you will lose the other bandits and in turn the robbed jewels! Who cares about a simple criminal?!” Aldous yelled back.

“Ah…..uh….fine. But you take care of these guys, alright?” Aldous did not need to look back to know that the Rune Knights were off. Their large fat feet left quite the impressive sound that Aldous could not help but hate.

“LIKE AS IF WE WILL LET YOU!” All of a sudden, Carosi and Dean pulled themselves together, with Carosi supporting Dean so that he can stand up on one leg. Shoulder-to-shoulder, with scimitar and knife, the two men charged straight for Aldous, whose lowered expression was hidden under the shadows casted by his unkempt hair. Determination led to desperation and the two men supporting one another resultantly left themselves completely open to his next assault. His arm shakingly raised itself up, before fully steeling itself as Aldous straightened its fingers. As the six Formula #1: Breach Lines that had just been redrawn came rushing out from his fingers, Aldous whispered something that was lost in the overriding screech of the lasers, but even then his paining ears could still hear the anguished screams of Garrotte behind him.

“You have earned my respect.”

Dice Rolls:
1st Roll - Aldous attacks Bandits with six Breach Lines. As both Bandits are close together, both of them get hit and they cannot dodge.

Magic: 
MP at 71% (5% recovered naturally)

Duration:
Sword and Cross (1 posts)


Cooldown:
Formula 1s x 6 (3 posts)

Forgot to roll.

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

'Damage Dice' :

The moment he had reached what he estimated to be an optimal combat observation distance of thirty meters, Aldous quickly stopped his descent, the air turning into solid ground beneath his feet. As he watched from above, noting that one of the two bandits on look-out duty was just about to raise his head and spot him, he quickly determined in the split-seconds that followed that the best way was to get the boat going and half-way out of the dock, where he would be able to strike the boat directly and hopefully(he cringed at the word) drown the bandits or at least leave them helpless in the water.

Aldous instantly dived straight down like a peregrine falcon that had found his prey, his right fore-arm straightening out to reveal two circular disks, black as sin, forming around its front, one on top of the other. By the time the man at the prow of the ship managed to see him, he, no doubt looking like a black ghost underneath his billowing cloak, slammed his feet against the boat floor, right in front of the still shocked man. The enemy, half-way to crying out "YOU!", reached for a gun at his belt, but using his boosted speed granted by Seal Floater, Aldous dived straight across the deck, weaving aside the first man just as his extended right arm slammed two Breach Disks simultaneously into his exposed torso. All Aldous allowed himself to hear were the death-throes of a man being burned alive by the conflagration wrought from the combined Disks.

"WE GOT COMPANY!" Aldous nodded at the second look-out who had gave out the cry, just as planned. Now, he was no more than a liability. Raising his two fingers as if he was pointing a finger-gun, Aldous then allowed his momentum to pull forward straight towards the lookout, while the mid-air mobility provided by the levitation-providing Seal Floater allowed him to shift his lower body forward, sending his boots crushing the man's face and sternum through his brutal speed. As the man, who continued to give muffled yells of pain from behind Aldous' sole, fell towards the ground, Aldous pressed his gun-fingers straight into the man's chest, briefly shutting his eyes away from the sight as he fired off two Breach Lines right through the man's vulnerable heart. 

The body, not knowing that it was dead, twitched a little beneath his feat and Aldous, in a brief regrettable moment, opened his eyes, only to see the half-accusing, half-suffering blue iris of the dying bandit staring straight back at him from under his boot.

Enemy
Quick Bandits (5/10)

Status
Health: 
MP at 57%
Seal Floater Duration at 3 posts

Cooldown
Formula 1s x 2 (3 posts)
Formula 8 x 2 (4 posts)

"You should not have robbed the same town where I was stopping off," Aldous whispered towards the man, who could only gasp at him, choking on his own life blood. Realizing that he was trying to rationalize his actions before they were even done, Aldous crushed the anger within him out with a will.

"Yuki! Mark!" Aldous' ears piqued up at the sounds of yelling and cursing coming from behind and he quickly bent his knees on the ready for that inevitable screeching of door hinges being opened. When they came, he shot straight up with Seal Floater, slightly aware that the one named Mark had left his bloody mark on the sole of Aldous' boot, but Aldous was more alert about the fact that he had just been seen flying off from the dead body of a bandit by the rest of his fellows. "Shit! It must be that bloody mage from before!" 

Aldous listened for the right words to come out, the wind halted from rushing around as he stopped at his designated optimal combat distance, looking down at the five bandits dispersing across the deck,. They were no longer dressed in their disguising black robbery gear, instead arming themselves in brown leather armour, unsuitable for sea-work, but very suitable for combat. They had been expecting him, perhaps with incredible enthusiasm, from the looks some of them were giving him, undoubtedly brewing with fury, while others were heading for other parts of the ship. One in particular, a female with her long hair tied in a ponytail to the side, was heading for the wheel fixed prominently at the stern.

"Shoot the bastard down!" Once the female had her hands on the wheel, she gave off a cry that prompted three of the bandits to pull out flintlock pistols, aiming at the only target that was worth shooting.

"Tch," Aldous spat as he jerked his right leg, prompting three shimmering circular bars of  light, criss-crossed by the rings supporting a globe, to form around the tip of his foot. His activation took a little too long and the cockiest of the three bandits managed to pull off a shot before Aldous could avoid it. The loud bang of the pistol was only background noise compared to the bee-like whizzing of the bullet passing just under Aldous' left ear, but before it reached that, Aldous gritted his teeth as his left cheek exploded in pain, the bullet having managed to scrap an already bloodying cut across it.


"BRINGER DARK!" Aldous called out in the midst of his pain, twisting his foot in against the solid air to push him off towards the side. Just as he was about to launch himself, the three circles begun to shrink into a tiny ball at the very tip of Aldous' foot and then, with all of that concentrated energy, the ball spurted into a black cone, propelling Aldous and sending the world flying about him in the briefest of supersonic instances. In that moment, he no longer had the time to care about the other two bullets that clearly sailed through where he was a moment ago, missing entirely. In the faster-than-sound speed, he couldn't even hear the pistol shots. In that moment, his perception of time slowed down by adrenaline, all he could hear was silence as the world seemed to stretch around his speeding body.


Frankly, in the past, he had little time or will to try out this new spell he had found from a rotting book in an old, dilapidated library left abandoned in the wilderness of Spooky Forest, but as the sun turned into a streaking comet of orange fire and the snaking waves of the clouds blurred into a monotonous splash, Aldous knew, from the muscles straining from the speed and the cloth on him nearly tearing at their seams, that Formula #20 was not the most pleasant of high-speed movement spells. As he instinctively drove his foot into the solid air to call upon whatever little friction his Seal Floater could give him, Aldous realized that the lack of a stopping mechanism in the spell made it difficult to manage, even though it faded away just as quickly as it had appeared. Initially, he had expected himself to be 7 metres to the side, but instead, he had gone a little further than that, about, from the steam clouds evaporating from red-hot friction even in solid air, 15 metres.


"C'MON, WE ARE SETTING SAIL! LET'S GET OUT OF HERE!" And that was 8 more meters than he wanted to be away from the boat now starting itself up, as he could hear from the groaning engines and the humming of energy lacrima powering up, turning its bow towards the dock entrance and the open seas.


"Not on my watch!" Aldous yelled with as much mock-bravado as he could summon up, as he extended out four fingers, sending off four Breach Line straight for the boat now running forty meters away from him. He had no one target in particular, just hoping that he could scare them to sacrifice straight-line speed in return for evasive manoeuvres. As the black lines, a deep contrast to the rays of the sun, bit and chewed into the ship's floor, one of them in particular managed to strike one of the bandits who was trying, what Aldous could guess from the lever mechanism he was turning, to pull up the anchor. It blazed its way right through his arm, leaving a smouldering hole where his biceps would be, and as he gaped at what gruesomely looks like a giant and twisted bite mark into his arm, one of the bandit shooters rushed up to take over the anchor, while the other hooked his arms around the now screaming man, pulling towards the door leading to the boat's inner sections.


As the boat begun to veer right and left, just as Aldous hoped (he cringed again), he would wonder later on whether that man had drowned in the torrents swallowing the boat's wreckage or he was instantly killed in the blast that was to come. Either way, he was going to die. Aldous knew it then and so without hesitation in his movement, he extended out his arms to his sides, sweeping them around in front of him in a circular motion. He did not flinch at the appearance of two thick-edged circular seals, with the bigger one joined to the smaller one by a bar of intricate and thick runes. As the Formula begun to pitch itself down to angle its face perfectly towards the boat below, Aldous knew that at 40 meters and growing, the boat now at the deep end of the docks was beginning to reach the maximum possible range of Formula #21, but sadly, it is at the maximum range that spells, with their users utterly focused due to the lack of a permissible margin of error, are at their most frighteningly accurate. He continued to aim with that same focus.

Enemy
Quick Bandits (5/10, 1 injured)

Status
Health: 
MP at 44%
Seal Floater Duration at 2 posts.
2 Bringer Dark usages left before damage to body.
Aiming Formula #21.

Cooldown
Formula 1s x 2 (2 posts)
Fomula 1s x 4 (3 posts)
Formula 8 x 1 (3 posts)

For some time, Aldous had wondered why in the world the creator of the Vorpal Stalagmite ever gave it such an awful mixture of deathly howls and glass-breaking screams. Now, as he watched his own handiwork mercilessly breaking through the calm of the dock-waters, Aldous found the answer.

He could not tell which screams were real. The Stalagmite was an eerie purple-tinted black, like a forever-staining pool of oil that utterly violated the perfect picture of the sunset ocean, the masterpiece-ruining brushstroke made by a jealous understudy. “And I am that understudy,” Aldous stated, knowing that he did not want the beautiful sunset, no matter how gorgeous it was.

He did not want something that told him that things can be improved, that there may actually exist things as idealistic as being purely good. He did not want something that told him that he was not one of those 'things'.

“You should enjoy it more.” Aldous felt an utter shiver zip across every fibre in his soul at the unexpected intrusion of his unwanted tenant. “Don’t worry, I’m just here for the view. You don't get to see your moral brat's destructive side everyday.” Purgatory cackled in glee when he laid his eyes on the howling pillar of dark energy. Aldous had expected nothing more from him than to laugh and cheer at the sight of his mortal enemy being in doubt. And yet, even though Aldous knew he was just giving Purgatory more to hoot about, he could not easily take his eyes off the scene of destruction.

The little boat, its centre completely obliterated by the 7-meter wide structure-destroying spell which would last for a good minute, was little more than two less-than-halves of fractured metal, both of which are beginning to get sucked inside the pillar by the vacuum, ripped back up into shreds as the cries of murderous and blighted souls roared throughout the entire town. Aldous was absolutely sure that the entire population had heard its call. And while part of him hoped that they would come so that he could be assured of getting his payment, a good deal of him just wished they stayed afraid and did not come close enough to see him. And for some reason, even as he now turns around to head back to town before his Seal Floater runs out and allows gravity to take over, all of him encouraged his eyes to look a little closer at the wreckage, as if he wanted to see something that would have been miraculous, even though it was utterly 'wrong' to even hope for such a possibiity.

Sadly, no miracles would happen that day.

Enemy
Quick Bandits (0/10, All Obliterated)

Status
Health: 
MP at 24%
Seal Floater Duration at 1 posts.
2 Bringer Dark usages left before damage to body.

Cooldown
Formula #1s x 2 (2 posts)
Fomula #1s x 4 (3 posts)
Formula #8 x 1 (3 posts)
Formula #21 (6 posts)

After that, everything else passed by him in a flash. He learned what the whole thing was about: apparently a group of petty bandits managed to break into a warehouse owned by one of Hargeon's Shipping Companies, whose specific name Aldous did not care to remember, and managed to steal the payment for an entire month's worth of work. It was, in the public eye, a despicable act. Aldous reasoned to himself that no matter what good traits they had, their actions were still breaking the law, hence he had done right by disposing of them and in turn preventing future robberies.

Yet, as he gave a stern and unwavering face to the cameras while receiving the reward of 1000 jewels(a pittance of the stolen amount, for a great deal of the jewels had sunk into the waters after Aldous' had destroyed the boat without thinking ahead in his confused state) from the both grateful and slightly spiteful company manager, Aldous wondered whether he could have done the whole thing another way. Given how desperate and how hurried the thieves, Aldous determined that he probably could not. 

Yet the fleeting possibility of a different outcome continued to wreck havoc in his heart and after a few answers to some of the reporter's questions, Aldous relieved himself away from the humdrum, clutching his stomach in an attempt to ease the tight coiling that it had undergone. His head smarted from the ever-lasting conflict of ideologies in his head: things that he did not expect he would have to deal with when he first saw the commotion from the restaurant.

"Abraxis, we are leaving," Aldous would later call out to the bicycle, the two slipped away while the reporters were beginning to lose steam and thus turned their attention to the shipping company, which apparently was also undergoing a corruption scandal Aldous had no interest in hearing any more about.

"Aye, I have enough of cameras. They can't hope to fully capture the beauty that is ME," Abraxis cracked a small joke, an obvious ploy to settle Aldous down and cheer him up. Aldous did not return a word, but instead his grip on Abraxis just lightened a little and the bicycle knew that he had contributed in his small way. This time, deciding that a little relaxation could not hurt, Abraxis peddled himself slowly away towards out of town, with Aldous laying his head onto the handlebars to get some shut-eye and allow his chaotic emotions to finally return back to peace.

At the same time, as the duo passed by the entrance of an alleyway, Aldous caught a glimpse of a silhouette, cloaked in black that merged with the alley shadows. The only thing of colour from the figure were eyes in a cold dark brown of dead bark. "You..." Aldous muttered before Abraxis moved past the alleyway, causing him to lose sight of the all-too-familiar figure.

"We'll see him again," Aldous assured himself as he laid his head back down on Abraxis, knowing that he is leaving himself completely wide open. However, there was no attack. And as Abraxis finally pulled out through the town's walls and into the wide open world, Aldous did not breath a sigh of relief, but a sigh of sorrow.

Enemy Gained: Garrotte.