Mishiro

she hears a second blade slice through the air. then her companion's frustration. the rattling of metal as the second iron knight, hale and whole, tries to pummel its assailant with its greatsword. they're doing fine. this is what she troubled herself the switch to rapier for. her confidence is solid after taking out the first iron knight in a single hit -- if its hp was that low, there was almost zero possibility that it would deviate from the script and suddenly pose a significant danger to her. and sibyl wouldn't have sent her if she couldn't handle it. so, as she silently decided

these days, she and an don't talk. these days, she drops by the old shop on the date she marks every year on her calendar for an's birthday to greet her in person and inform her of an incoming delivery of books -- her favorite genres of course, she'll never forget that, hopefully the courier arrives on time -- and her merchant girl hugs her, delighted, then an picks out her favorites once she's read through them all twice and sends her copies with her personal reviews attached. she falls to the back of her mind until she reads the next written reminder. she passes through the town of begi

cerberus has fully emerged from the lake and is coming at them unrestrained. everywhere, fires continue to rage. (breathe.) "g-got it!" she can't help but notice that he's fighting different. pinball likes his distance and surprise attacks but now he's shoving himself between her and the danger at every opportunity. he's swift as always, dancing out of the mob's reach before it could bite and claw at him, but they're both bleeding hp. she doesn't want to know what a direct hit would look like. they have to make this quick. the second head: mishiro locks herself into an

as the beasts disperse, she holds her sword hand to eye level, the tips of her gloves singed by the hellhounds’ flames. she rubs her index and thumb together, trying to wear out the encroaching numbness. a thorns effect had taken out a small percentage of her hp and her en is half of her companion’s. she looks to pinball for a verdict. cerberus doesn’t give either of them a chance. the gatekeeper of fire emerges from the back of the cavern with an earthshaking roar. she almost staggers, her free hand rushing to cover one ear on instinct, and she prises an eye open to take in its full sigh

she comes off of it feeling a little ill. but it's all in her head. "i'm shopping for us next time," mishiro tells pinball, taking point as instructed. they slip into the narrow passage and in the momentary dark she glances back. "right, and don't hesitate to switch with me, if ever. i can take a few hits." it's as much of a reminder to herself as it is to him. the air reaches them before the light does. it is impossibly hotter than before; so thick that every breath taken is an inch short of suffocating. from the shadow of the passage they emerge into the reconstructed cavern a

(grabs) oh we getting drunk tonight, baby

a corpse is talking. down here once more. the rockfall that had blocked out the cave earlier is nowhere to be seen and at its entrance, player and shadow pause to gather themselves before the most difficult challenge of the day. her mind is clear. she's run through the script at least a dozen times. she brings up her interface with a swipe of a gloved hand and bulk summons the buffs she had stored in a folder. except... she should have checked those, too, because pinball's selection of consumables is enough to stagger a man i

[Vanguard's Timepiece] has broken. thread summary. Mishiro + 2,203 exp | 1,000 + (573 * 3 * 0.7) + 200 col + cerberus soul (2) Pinball + 4,208 exp | 1,000 + (573 * 8 * 0.7) + 200 col

she's looking at the depths of an emptiness she didn't know she had within herself. grief. shame. injustice. the WEIGHT OF A SOUL. when your days all blend together, one sunrise bleeding into another into another sunset, at what point do you recognize that time itself is spilling from between your fingers like water? your other half is at the window, the softest he's ever appeared in this light. she cracks open the ring of the binder, spreads detached clippings over the table. her palms come to rest on either side of the first leaves. foreign words. foreign handwriting. as though someone

with three separate instances as evidence, mishiro concluded that socially speaking, an was a little disaster-prone. but she cleaned this one up quite well, so mishiro wasn't about to complain. as though to compensate for her outburst, an completely took over their talk with dorian and accepted the quest for them both. then she hurried them in the direction of the alchemist's location, still rosy-cheeked. and quiet. perhaps she needed the time to recover again. "do you want me to speak to the npc this time?" she was prepared to deal with her companion's personal idiosyncrasies. "yes

"..." the steam rising from her cup feathers outwards at a softly expelled breath. no, it isn't a question of trust. hasn't been for a long while. most of the conversation dies down as they finish their meals occupied by their individual thoughts. only murmured comments or requests to pass something from one side to the other occasionally break through. the plates are cleared, the bones picked through cleanly, and all is neatly stacked and pushed to one side of the table despite the amount ordered and her initial hesitation to use anything but chopsticks. after allowing herself a muc

"the tragedy is personal." they were well on their way to the plaza where the quest giver was stationed. the two women walked side by side, neither leading the other; mishiro had fermata's files and an must have studied the important npcs' locations somewhere despite never having finished the quest before. guiding her clients was part of the job. providing good company wasn't, but she seemed to be enjoying their conversation so far. "and an..." mishiro continued, curious. "did you use to study greek mythology? i doubt that i've ever come across anyone who can talk about it as much as you.

"i feel the same in that sense, other than the crystal. someone's expecting it from me. let's keep it an even split." their journey continues. yogan's gates pass them, then the steps leading down to the combat zone. without stopping or slowing down, she transfers her weapon to an equipment slot through her terminal and a gust of strangely cool air rushes between her and her pair as her violin-blade and parrying dagger appear in their sheaths. she brushes her fingers against walpurgisnacht's strings, soundless. centering herself. they avoid the maze of lava pools entirely, keeping close to

probably. it ends there. and she lets it rest. he hadn't run into the issue before, despite her belief that questions of those sort would be more common in the higher tiers. had their numbers been just that sparse, then, that running into each other unintended was simply not a concern? she quietly nods along when pinball shifts away from the topic, continuing to pick through her food. nothing she likely didn't already know, when they had arranged all this. (she needs to read those notes.) but her eyes raise, questioning, at his proposal. she stops eating. "a tier four dungeon?" she c

the walk from the markets to the grotto is short. painless, unlike the cerberus quests. the two players make decent progress within the brief time that neither of them speaks; they had both met their match, it seems, in their equally quick pace and their mutual quiet. she's used it, the silence. she usually provides it herself. for most of her life, she has tended to drift towards companions who love to chatter and simply find themselves in need of a patient and attentive listener. she isn't inclined towards small talk with strangers, especially not in the middle of a quick errand, and sh

water rushes down the falls. the tavern door past the bend opens and shuts to the tromp of heavy boots and jovial greetings. she listens; prises the layers of white noise. he’s lost to her in sight. and she can’t find him in sound, either. she feels the weight of his presence the instant he comes out of hiding. “welcome back,” she breathes. pinball has a leg up on the windowsill, crowding her away from the middle, and she leans further to the side to allow him the space to slip in. “it wasn’t that long.” outside, the town is undisturbed. drawing away from the window, she undoes the c

the second [soul] falls into her inventory. if she had spoken strangely, and if it had provoked any response from him, she does not notice. they're back to deciding the logistics of their break. "i'm not, either," she admits. there was little reason for her to visit floor 16's combat zones. pinball had left the final decision to her but she thinks she can tell his preference. "and looking around takes time. i'll find us an inn." floor 16, like floor 9, is a volcanic region, but on the surface the two could not be any more different. the teleport takes them to a rainfore

"i, actually, pffft--" pandora slapped a hand over her mouth, but she couldn't take back what she had already started. the merchant girl didn't seem so mean-spirited as to laugh at someone for no reason, so mishiro was struck with the certainty that she had just said something very wrong. she was just clueless as to what exactly that was. she almost shrunk back in doubt, but pandora grabbed her hand and shook it rather aggressively. "an," she said, her voice tremulous around the shape of a suppressed laugh. "my name is andromeda, but everyone just calls me an." oh. mishiro felt a fai

soon as they had reached a safe distance, the passage collapses. rocks fill out the entrance, turning the area temporarily inaccessible, but its indent against f9's fiery landscape remains clear. paused beneath the slight overhang that remained, the player reaches into her cloak and clicks a small button on the side of her timepiece. she had previously calibrated it to follow the next quest's timer, or so she thinks she would have. in her head, she still feels like she's running. her heart is light and every sodden thought occupying her mind has been shifted to the side to make way for the phy

"watch it--" oh, this one is real. "i'm sorry," she turns in the direction of the voice and quickly apologizes, but as her sights land on a sharp-eyed woman, so does the other take notice of the hooded individual who had stopped her. recognition flashes through the stranger's face, then returns her displeasure as she turns to her and forces out courtesies as though at knife point. a party request. the hooded individual is silent throughout the interruption. (and if she had recognized it with a single glance, then nothing was really wrong, was it...?) she nods her assen

"you... want an assist from me?" disbelief colored the merchant's tone, her voice pitching upwards at the end of every word as though each one of them was its own question. "i've been... it's new. i just put the sign up the other day." she had started to drum her fingers against the wood of the counter again, a dull, unobtrusive sound. her nails were cut short. "um, normally, for half the col equivalent of the shop hours i'll miss, i can tank anything from a tier two or lower quest. i'm lower tier three -- and um, obviously, a tank." "there's an exception." "er, yeah! if it's somethi

a corpse is talking. @SYL SYL: Forgot to ask before you left. SYL: If you pass by F9 today, could you pick something up for me? SYL: [Crystal of Support] SYL: 2 enemies, west of Yōgan. Drops from the last one. SYL: [kgrh29sha.docx] MSH: / floor 9 was the last place she would ever put in her agenda but sibyl asking her for a favor is rare. much more if it entails any level of combat. so, the rapid-fire pings from her terminal do give the woman pause, hardly twenty minutes away from their house, floating between dis

thread summary. Morningstar + 4,330 exp | 2,500 + (523 * 7 * 0.5) + 5,100 col | 5,000 + 100 + extra skill: assault mode Pinball + 4,592 exp | 2,500 + (523 * 8 * 0.5) + 5,100 col | 5,000 + 100 + extra skill: assault mode Oz + 2,761 exp | 2,500 + (523 * 1 * 0.5) + 7,950 col | 5,000 + 100 + 2,850 + 4 materials + terra firma scale (3) + Tier 4 Rare Trinket (1) | [228541] + extra skill: assault mode Mishiro + 3,284 exp | 2,500 + (523 * 3 * 0.5) + 5,100 col | 5,000 + 100 + terra firma scale (1) + extra skill: assault mode

"oh, no, no," mishiro starts, apologetic, "i meant the extras that were looted from terra firma, not the quest reward. i think i'll keep mine. oh, but..." she switches to addressing pinball before he could open a trade. she wouldn't covet the excess if there was someone else who might have better use of it. "can you hold onto your scale instead? i'll just take it from you later." sometimes the system logs show a trade from one player's inventory to another when an item is physically handed off. sometimes it doesn't. it is inconsistent. mishiro does the former and makes a mental note to he

the entire body comes crashing forward, the flaming jaws of cerberus' last head chasing pinball. it misses. she doesn't give it another chance. (maybe, in an objective sense, it's almost inconsequential. does she care?) her hand is tight around her weapon's hilt. from the side, the player approaches and winds her blade into position for a sword art. target locked -- the system carries her off like a bolt, carving a lethal strike through the hound's throat. the entire body falls, the three heads reduced to wriggling stumps. she lands on one knee, shoulders dropping at an exhaled breat