Freyd

Sitting akimbo on the padded mats of a sparsely used dojo buried deep within the Cathedral of the Lost, Freyd had been staring at the same simple blade for hours. Set loosely on the ground before him was an ornate wooden bokken of black walnut, crafted by special request from the limbs of a fallen treant down on floor eight. A friend among the elves of Ellesmera had secured the rare materials and one of the local craftsmen had been kind enough to work it into the proper form. Its wrappings still lay scattered all around it. A dozen more, far more weathered than the prize before him, lay cra

"Yes. Climb. Think... uh... well, it's kinda like beating up a mountain, actually. Or, I suppose you could substitute your favourite Kaiju, if you prefer. The point is that we need to hit its weak spots to do any notable damage to something that big. Go for the joints. Stone doesn't like to bend. We can help it break itself apart with selective applications of force." Pausing for bearings, Freyd merely smiled a little smile at her innuendo about Elora, offering nothing concrete, yet hinting that things were also going swimmingly. "We're doing just fine. It's been an adjustment

Papers lay scattered throughout Freyd's office; the mechanism of logistical planning strewn about the room as evidence of an impending raid. Even their sheer volume belied the truth, as tenfold more information hovered in digital format above, invisible save to his own keen eyes. A dozen exhausted saucers stacked three cups high apiece played hide and seek behind and beneath piles, some folded like origami in an effort to alleviate the maddening drudgery of coordinating so many unknowns. Would they have enough tanks? Or the right types? How to mesh fractious personalities and volatile ego

Melt down the following items into 6 mystic essences: Base item Reroll #5 (16,000 col), spend 3 mystic essence from above to add PHASE Spend 1 demonic shard to upgrade to demonic quality. Spending three more mystic essence from above to add ABS.ACC. To produce: Total cost: 1 demonic shard and 16,000 col

Folding the memorable clothing with care, Freyd bundles each part of the garb separately, taking extra caution with the cowl. Maybe the time had come for someone else to wear it? He'd been debating a change for some time. This felt like the next necessary step towards that moment. "Wulfrin will need this in the raid." The item itself wasn't anything all that elaborate, save being of demonic quality. But that wasn't the point. It carried legit street cred and recognizability. Handing this over felt like handing off a part of himself, even if he hadn't worn it in some time. But th

"Son of a..." The expression died on his lips, unfinished as Freyd's brain struggling to connect the rest of it with the giant feline that had just bypassed him completely and pounced on Wulfrin instead. The Lion was hurting, but apparently not enough to keep it from being a threat. Lunging towards the beast, he wrapped his arm around its thick neck, earning a face full of shaggy mane for his trouble. It felt like bear-hugging one of those huge carny plushies, except if someone had filled it with lead. Every muscle straining against the giant cat's weight as the Whisper ripped it off

Mac's combat flair was certainly drawing the beast's interest. Enough so that Freyd wondered whether a howl would manage any more than snatch it back momentarily. Combined with NIGHT's distracted state, another tactic seemed wiser. Slipping between shadows, the Whisper reappeared right behind Katoka, catching the raging rhino's eye with a pointed strike, discombobulating the beast without managing much damage. Piasuhon veered and rolled over itself, slamming into the arena wall with a crashing thud that sprayed blood-soaked sand all over the crowd. Judging by the cheers, this was deemed a

Chalk was getting everywhere. As necessary as the sticks were when trying to navigate through this god forsaken maze, Freyd hated having to clean it off his black on black adventure wear after every foray. "Here," he called, flicking one of them to a nervous looking Morningstar, the floor's perpetual morning gloom apparently bringing him down. "Don't look so tense. Finding this thing is harder than killing it, and I brought plenty of snacks." A modest platter appeared, supplementing the party's needs and ready for others to partake as they arrived. Freyd downed several additional ite

"DINGO!" The sudden barked caused a hefty clang and thump to follow from around one of the ruin walls, sounding suspiciously like someone falling out of a hammock. "You've got a punter, ye lazy lout. Git yer butt oot 'ere 'n' deal wi' a' this stuff. Ah juist finished sorting freyd's ridiculous 'piling system' while ye napped th' efternoon awa'. Sae ye git tae deal wi' th' customers!" Nearly frothing at the mouth as she terrorized her brother back into a waking semi-functional state, her temper vanished just as suddenly as she beamed up at Ariel, admiring her impressive garb and regal

An opening, in a slime? Why not. "Tits up. Mouths closed." That was all the warning they were given. Dashing through the hole left by Star, Freyd plunged into the melee with the subtlety of an overtuned weed whacker sporting adamantine blades instead of filament, an army of shades covering his advance like a spoopy vanguard. The mobs couldn't keep straight which one was the danger. Truth was they all were, depending on the moment. The Whisper seemed to vanish from one shadow, reappearing through another and assuming its position, repeating the pattern to devastating effect. Plants

Blushing at the unexpected compliment, Freyd wasn't used to such attention in the slightest. "Erm. Yes? Smash. Smash is good!" The flush of colour nearly reached the full length of his ears before he could summon and retreat before his cowl once more, a hint of warbling, reassuring smile still visible beyond its edges. Poking her in the side seemed only fitting, as she so often did the same to him. "And, you're welcome. I think?" Ribbons of purest night spun themselves back into existence, twisting and twirling like the most menacing of magical girl routines Katoka could imagine,

Invigorated by Shiina's unique brand of wumbo juice, Freyd felt like his veins were vibrating internally, pulsing with extra power. The rest of the gang was readily pounding the poor troll into paste, Ugzeke reeling under the relentless assault. "Nice one, Eruda. Good to see you in action. Oh, and you're hair's on fire." It wasn't, but Freyd was too busy jonesing over getting the gang back together to care, and Eruda was fun to tease. Besides, fire was really her thing, as their enemy was in the process of learning. Maybe. Ugzeke really wasn't that bright. Actually, he was about

Even from their earliest days spent together in the death game defining their existence, Freyd had never seen Katoka look so shaken or vulnerable. Sadness pouring from her smiling eyes initially made him flinch, unaccustomed and unprepared for the intensity of witnessing his friend's raw and unbridled agony. Even the Whisper's chronic intensity, perceived as harsh by many, softened in the face of so much unspoken anguish. As Katoka's heart opened its floodgates, he felt lost to do anything other than stand and become a sea wall against her surging emotional tides. This was her moment of cat

"Yeah. In here,..." Smiling without mirth, Freyd merely nodded his appreciation to Oscar for not pushing the issue more than he might have. Trivializing the events they'd just witnessed fared no better. It wasn't as simple as just dismissing the whole thing as a game, regardless of its veneer. These were lived experiences, whatever their 'real world' merits. "First we dismiss the mobs as inhuman conjurations. Then we tar the NPCs with the same brush. Inevitably, we start to turn on each other, forgetting what it even means to be human." More hung on his lips, remaining unspoken even as

"A sound plan." Freyd's eyes were focused on the dark elves and darker shadows of Kalanaes. This place held many secrets and malicious memories, many of both still lingering or festering to this day. "It would be best if we keep moving," he urged them along from beneath his cowl. Any of them who turned would note that the Whisper's appearance had changed, skin darkening as his hair did the opposite. Unruly black became shock of tempestuous white. A rueful grin was the only admission on the man's face as his features morphed to better suit their surroundings. Even his clothing had taken o

An auspicious start, to be sure, but the Whisper's luck ran out swiftly this time around. His fellow players scrambled down the cliff face into the fray, each taking aim with an expected degree of difficulty. Firm Anima was no slouch. "Nice hit, uh..." he needed a moment to check the party stats, having glossed over introductions a bit for the sake of expediency. After so many, runs on this mob were starting to blur together into one gigantic shark-tooth infested melee montage. "Typhoonflame... sound like TIFF, if I think it fast enough. Apologies in advance if you don't like nickname

"Hey now. Don't food with your play. You have no idea where that's been, and neither one of us ever wants to ever consider it again, capiche? Now finish up so we can get out of here." Sliding his boots back on in an way that felt like laterally re-attaching Velcro, the Whisper just sighed and focused on making his way towards the exit and the slowly rising haze on the left. Given that the sun had already set behind them, by this point, he was fairly certain that would be Glyndebourne. "Come on, Persi. Finish up so we can go home." The tiny pair of blue eyes with slotted i

"Persi? Did you want to take this bunch? I wouldn't mind a break." Finding something he could legitimately sit on without impaling himself, risking some form of infection, or that wouldn't otherwise squelch in some disgusting way proved to be a greater challenge than anticipated. Finally finding a wooden barrel that could bear his weight, Freyd sat and took off his boots, draining the accumulated sludge like some sort of concrete slurry. His pants and socks weren't in much better shape, but there was little point in attempting a proper cleaning as long as he was still here. "Forget a

The last of the basted meat muppets had been dispatched, leaving on the earlier group that had mindlessly entwined itself in the spiked chains. This one was firmly in Walking Dead territory, the golems having shredded themselves to a consistency comparable to pulled pork by the time he returned. It might have been possible to just leave them to destroy themselves, but he really couldn't take that chance. "Minced meat golems? Yeah. Cardinal would do that." There wasn't really much the program wouldn't dare. Even its censorship protocols seemed to have exceptions so numerous that pl

With a little inginuity, Freyd rigged one of the overhead pulleys to a platform that could bear his weight, releasing the large metal bucket that had previously been attached, which promptly fell onto a solitary stone outcrop with a resounding *DONG*. Closing his eyes and shaking his head, Freyd swung over top of the mired meat puppets, using his momentum to provide the needed extra force to make them really feel the full force of his thrusted fists and kicks. Too dazed to effectively resist, the mobs were left to flail aimlessly as he passed, taking a slow but steady beating until all s

If Ojib'we - or Owij'be, or whatever the thing's name was supposed to have been - was indeed the labyrinth guardian, and the Midnight Ripper was its field boss, what did that make Magistrate Aldenbrook?He'd never found any indication of a quest in his UI for any of them, though his current bout might require final clearing of his remaining foes to declare itself. Cardinal could be a weird-ass cranky pants about these things sometimes. The last of the caged meat fell apart, its bits and bobs having stuck themselves into inappropriate openings and paid the price. Glory to the fallen, etc

With half the mooks dead, and the balance being little more than mindless automatons, Freyd managed to maneuver them around the battlefield isolating groups for separate focus. All that remained was culling them one by one. The latest batch were hemmed in by a series of mangled cages where their progenitors were likely kept before being reduced to their present state. Reddish metal, part rust, but mostly blood, marred the pocked and pitted surface, as if acid had been sprayed upon them from the outside... probably to melt the skin. Eww. Tricking the golems into reaching for him throug

Savaging the forward ranks, Freyd finally broke though the enemy's lines. Free to roam freely, what first began as an awkward trap become a massacre. The poor meats were having to face death a second time, though it wasn't like they'd really left him much choice. Nor could he allow them to venture from this place and possibly endanger the populace of Glyndebourne. That place had enough issues already. It also reminded him to check these mobs for any red thread influence. Seeing none, and having found no trace of it on or in the Ripper, he resigned himself to the fact that this was a gut-

The herd... HORDE... The horde was thinning. Preferring to envision the shambling zombies from his old place in Angel's Point on Floor thirteen also helped. Not that they were much better, but the idea of fighting animated humanoid corpses was somehow still preferable. Maybe it was because his brain could never equate them with food? Odd as it might seem, that distinction made all the difference and kept his wrenching stomach from churning any further. Snaring one sack of sausages by its twistings, Freyd spun and smashed it into the nearest pressing foes, desperately trying not to th

They're just mobs like any others, Freyd. Beat them off and... *headdesk* "Great. My own twisted imagination is going to get me killed, and do the bloody Ripper's job where he actually failed." Freyd figured the weirder and less specific his names for them were, the safer his sensibilities. Another wave of zombie golem meat thingies fell by the wayside, spilling their digital guts all over the mucky ground. Does this turn them into fertilizer? Are the sausage-based ones simultaneously full of ass? *groan* He couldn't destroy the things fast enough, and was alre