[F04-PP] Ripple in Time

[Raidou 1]

Tone

A guild hall cleaned after a strange exchange, a small girl revived and made amble. A burning heat still held long dried eyes, as vials now empty are moved to shelving and allowed to sit where it should. His robe still collected in a bundle upon the floor, the pair of bluenettes were long gone. Without them Raidou didn't know where he stood, where he was supposed to stand. Emotionally he was shaken to his core.

Time is a storm in which we are all lost

He needed to redirect, he needed to find some center to allow him to sort himself out. That bone chilling floor, the one that meant so much to him so many times. It stood as the one place where everything seemed to just work out. A lean down and dismissal of his robe, choosing for once not to wear it. In the upstairs bedroom lay his glasses, an anchor abandoned for he could not spare the seconds to look for them.

Popping the teleport trigger of a small blue sapphire, he'd land on all fours in that layer of sleet that was cold in his hands. His eyes were pained, his chest ached from what it had been put through. Where was he, who was he now. There was a sliver of that insanity still peeling away at the fibers that was his persona, his very being as he felt disjointed and broken through this place. So many faces, so many people that he had met throughout his journey.

They all seemed to vanish

This place was some sort of fiend, some monster that swallowed them up or forced them to change. He had changed, even when he tried so desperately to stay himself. It was unforgiving in its waves that pushed his hands, his choices toward a goal that he was never sure he'd reach. A raise to the flat of his heels, a push through the bitter cold almost lay bare on the winds that threatened to skin him. Into the coming storm like a tide that sprayed him with tiny flakes of the stuff that never seemed to stop falling. Now if he could just pick himself back up and keep moving forward.

Mega Slime Farm Activated: +2 SP Upon thread closure (Because why not Raidou, time to learn something new)

Raidou | HP:1790/1790 | EN:176/176 | DMG:19 | MIT:121 | EVA:4 | ACC:4 | BH:89

Spoiler

Raidou, The Lost
Level: 88
HP: 1790/1790
EN: 176/176

Stats:
Damage: 19
Mitigation: 121
Evasion: 4
Accuracy: 4
BH:89

Equipped Gear:
Weapon: Auric Sol - Corona [T3/Perfect/2HSS]: Damage 3
Armor: Red Wanderer's Robe [T1/Perfect/L.A] +3 Evasion
Misc: Tactician's Gaze - Ogma [T1/Perfect/Trinket]: +3 Accuracy

Skills:
Gatherer [Obtained]
Two Handed Straight Sword [Rank 5]
Extended Mod Limit R3 [Obtained]
Parry [Obtained]
Howl [Obtained]
Battle Healing [Rank 5]
Fighting Spirit [Obtained]
Light Armor [Rank 5]
Searching [Rank 5]
Charge [Rank 5]
Extended Weight Limit [Obtained]

Extra Skills:
Concentration
Familiar Mastery: Protector
Survival

Active Mods:
Finesse Rank 3
Athletics
Sprint and Acrobatics
Tracking
Ferocity
Bull Rush
Justified Riposte
Precision

Inactive Mods:
Vengeful Riposte
Focused Howl
Emergency Recovery
Detect
Reveal
Stamina

Battle Ready Inventory:
Teleport Crystal*1
Pillar Fragment [Unique/Glowstone]
Eternal Watch - Tenacity [T3/Perfect/Trinket]: Recovery 2, Accuracy 1
Mass Heal Crystal*5
Incarceration [T1/Perfect/Debuff Song] Double DoT*2
Hypnosis 2 [T1/Rare/Debuff Song/Instant] -2 Accuracy*3
Visions of the End - Epiphany [T1/Perfect/Trinket] Accuracy 1, Prosperity 2
Ebon Star - Vanguard Revenant [T2/Perfect/2HSS]: V.O 2, Taunt

Housing Buffs:
Well Rested: -1 energy cost for the first three expenditures of each combat
Squeaky Clean: The first time you would suffer DoT damage in a thread, reduce damage taken from DoT each turn by 25% (rounded down)
Hard Working: +2 EXP per crafting attempt and +1 crafting attempt per day
Filling: Increase the effectiveness of a single food item consumed in a thread by +1 T1 slot.
Item Stash: +1 Battle Ready Inventory Slot
Delicious: Turn 3 identical food items (same quality, tier, & enhancements) into a Feast. A Feast contains 6 portions of the food items sacrificed.
Relaxed: Increases out of combat HP regen by (5 * Tier HP) and decreases full energy regen to 2 Out of Combat Posts.
Col Stash: +5% bonus col from monster kills and treasure chests
Advanced Training: +2 SP to a thread. Limit one use per month [0/1]
Multipurpose: Gain +1 to LD, Stealth Rating, Stealth Detection, or Prosperity to one post in a thread. Can be applied after a roll
Decor []: This buff affects the player and their choice of up to two party members.

Guild Hall Buffs:
Lucrative: Reduce LD needed for Salvage by 5 (10+ for Alchemist crystals, 6+ for everything else). +2 EXP per craft. Rank 9 crafters receive +1 crafting attempt per day. Rank 10 crafters receive +2 crafting attempts per day.
Col Deposit: +5% bonus col from last-hit monster kills and +10% bonus col from treasure chests.

Scents of the Wild:
Tanos Statue: +15 Mitigation for a thread.

 

[Raidou 1]

Through that tide Raidou pushed, against that which wished to knock him down and take him out completely. A search like none other, where in most instances he would be looking for someone else or attempting to guide another. Here, now he was looking for himself in this harsh landscape of white. A black frame all but consumed by the frost. A flood of memories that matched the physical storm that was battering him. A dark blue haired woman with a voice to boot. A large shield at her side. A blonde male with a cocky attitude and a feeling of self worth that was much too large to fit on his shoulders.

Nikki, Miaki, Zelrius

A single outstretched right hand as he braced against the heavy gust that stood against him, waiting for it to pass like every echo of memory from days long past. A rush of faces, that would have all but forgotten him by now. But he wouldn't. Something about that thing on his shoulders and that drum in his chest wouldn't allow him to. Raidou had a habit of becoming too invested in those around him, eager to make a difference and offer a hand. It was strange to everyone, that heart of his that almost bled for others on the daily. The very same that he concealed through a demeanor that was purposely placed there to not appear weak, to elude to strength and to something you could trust. To care was a weakness, to become so fixated on those around you that you're willing to risk everything for them.

A weakness

[Raidou 1]

A faint blur from it all, buzzing behind his eyes as they would squint. Doing their best to see through the wash of white, his destination unknown and without an obvious purpose. What it was he was searching for in this rough, wasn't a resource. It wasn't a quest. Those so blaring goals that any player would seek out, ever clambering to the top of some pedestal that everyone sought out. That platform that never amounted to anything in the end, it changed nothing.

A number alone, meant nothing.

It was what Raidou always preached, although he was skeptical if any had ever truly heard him. He had his suspicions, but cold hard proof? That was much harder to decipher. His mind raced back into the past, in a jarring twist as his body continued to operate on autopilot. A small child with dark brown hair and a spunky spark, a girl with a personality almost a mirror and a flirtatious pyre. A black haired woman with a cleaver, only met in moments and would be lost, seemingly forever once that wind would blow again.

Pepper, Celes, Zandra

Creeping into his bones and past the clothes he wore, that cold that stuck to his pale skin. It forced its numb as he cut through it like a knife, into his own forest of memories beneath the sleet. Each shuffle of his feet unearthed more of what was buried here. Techniques past down, teachings made and consumed by this age of ice. Every smile, every teardrop. Insults, the smell of tea. That fragrance in an early morning, in the most humid of floors. A signature buzz of insects that were much too large to exist. To the wanderer, to the lost they were just as fresh as they day they were written to the page.

Heartache, Friendship, Brotherhood, Betrayal

[Raidou 1]

Laughter and pain, a faux pas and an estrangement. Raidou was always striving and burning a trail through this sleet, but somehow he always ended up back here. The echoing halls in darkness and the rattle of bones, a screech of apes and a smile given with a thumbs up. A twist of his head and a rolling field in green and gold, a small golden apple in his hand and a maid with an insight he respected. A clattering of metal from a suit of armor as its owner is destroyed. The screams and the sounds of a skeleton breaking. The slight taste of sweet and cold on the tip of his tongue and a pair of rings in a cup.

He was lost, would the storm ever cease?

Raidou couldn't stop the flooding, of every little tidbit of his past and what it was supposed to mean anymore. All those little details, bookmarked for good in the swordsman. The man who wandered through it all, and was that record etched forever on the slab in his head. The crunch beneath his feet carried on, and the weakness in his legs as he pressed on in hours that felt like seconds. A strange shift, when years that felt like an eternity. Fire, Shadow, Brimstone and metal. The dark and the light, a small child who wished a book. A rabbit, a shield and a sword. Another memory, another time. Lost.

Zajcica, Foto, Mari, NIGHT, Griswold, Seldentar, Dracul

Lost to all but the book, the little black book that kept everything. The dastardly villain that wished to change the world with his pen, with his method and his madness. Flipping over the status quo, changing everything and nothing in tandem. What did he want? That was always the question wasn't it? The ill omen in red must have been up to something dark. It could only make sense, why else would he show when things were at their worst and say not a word. An enigma, and not a person, not something that you could take at face value and that was frightening to all that he encountered.

[Raidou 1]

The warmth of an early morning, followed by a snap to a dark cavern with the weight of a bag on his hip. In another instant he was staring down a large slab of slate, on it inscribed a sea of names. A flash of a few faces that he knew before a jerk tore him forward. On a bench with the chattering of a crowd, a blonde woman at his side as he stared with intensity into a lake filled with stars. A howl of a large dragon, the whine of a horse and a bolt of lightning. Two small hands on his chest as he snaps awake an raises from the cold rough stone.

It aims to swallow us whole

On auto pilot the wanderer walked, tired feet ablaze on their soles as the snow grew thicker and more dense. It claimed half of his shins. Becoming one with the floor as the faint blurring white worked to conceal him from view, being buried under it all. This revelation in its melding clarity and obtuse mixture, that moment he had realized that fatality and fiction were not one in the same. That death in isolation was all but assured, and none would escape its clutches. Even now there were some that moved in circles alone, forcing that ticker to count down faster, that sand in the dial to fall quicker. As much as he wished they wouldn't. A blonde with a blade and a hound, a bold and powerful male with moxie and miscolored eyes, another the same with jet black hair and of different hue, with a shift to steel blue hairs upon a songstress and a warrior. blades, egos, bravery, and hatred. chaos and remorse.

Bahr, Lessa, Shanok, Shiina, Ryujin

[Raidou 1]

A slide deeper into that fabric of time, that was all but still pungent in its clarity. Behind his amber eyes that contrast the backdrop, a smoldering of them like kindling as more fumes and bits and pieces flooded from the source. A blushing woman with outstretched hands, the smell of sulfur. The slippery ground to which balance was threatened on a crystalline reflective lake. Another yank and he was within a room with a million faces all new to him, an attempt to speak but with words that made no sound. Break, the background fades to a smile from a blue haired girl holding a sandwich. He can feel himself lean forward and take it, a bundle of nerves making it near impossible. As he turns, the image blurs and ends somewhere else looking to a man with a grin and a decaying Mino's just on the periphery. 

The ties that bind us, are our strength

The guild, the one saving grace within this maelstrom of decay that racked his thoughts. Firm Anima, the phrase triggered in his head force a tide of faces that were seen only in a brief second and then they were gone. Swallowed and dispersed in an instant, the flavors of food, the feeling of dust on Raidou's hands. His eyes narrow as if they were being induced into brightness from a darkened interior, adjusting and fighting against the overwhelming change. A shutter of the past and the stink of freshly cut grass, a destroyed boar screams. A quick glance and he sees that signature white wall that held the first floors settlement in its wide expanse. The beginning, the rebirth, and maybe the end. A soft inhale to take in that scent before it was torn from him in a flash. Trying to find something to latch onto.

Katoka, Rosary, Freyd, Elora, Valentine, Grimm, Haine

[Raidou 1]

But even through his desperate grasping and waving mentally at those dangling kite strings, they seem to slide of his clutches like serpents. Avoiding being tethered into his fist, jumping clean before they can be held. A wave of his hands frivolously and they were gone, passed through like vapor across his palm. The rest that lingered seemed to fade as well, being consumed as this strange room around him vanished back into the pure undriven snow, the flakes assailing his vision. They dance in a harmless yet mockery of what he had experienced before his vision would narrow to another tunnel, whisking his consciousness away again into the faint trail of footsteps burned forever upon a tapestry forgotten. Where no rose was present to guide him, where everything was turned around and directions were lost.

Lost, without direction or purpose, where will that road lead?

That suction and feeling as if he was being drug back, like a current against his chest as lines pulled at his heels. Into a place with a low flickering flame. A woman at first, but once he focuses on her, she shifts into a small child. A shift of his head to another chair, and within that brief instant it was another chamber entirely to which a blonde and tall male, dressed nicely stared back to him with a grin muddied with concern. As he placed his hands to retreat to a word spoken, the found not the table, but a counter of a shop with a pile of crystals next to his fingers. Behind it a rather rough looking male branded by veterancy and next to him a woman with bright orange weave that looked like a nest, twigs hanging out of the lines drawn. A spin of his hands and a dropped weapon, and once that menu closed, he was back on floor 4, staring at a girl with a frown as he outstretched his hand and attempted to hand her a potion.

Oscar, Shield, Kasumi, Mari, Hidden

[Raidou 1]

That vial would fade as he accepted her decline, to his hip and pocket, he moves to remove it before the image evaporates. Again he was left back in that uncolored canvas, more flakes that stuck to the bangs on his head. It never seemed to end, and no matter his efforts that snow would never stop falling. A sharp exhale from the lost male, an attempt to anchor himself here through the coming torrent. But his heels find no purchase, no hook to tether himself down. It only lasts for but a brief respite before his next step forward into the unknown would sunder time itself back into his past. A look to a sword still lying upon a surface, covered in dust from an age untouched. It was his, left abandoned for fear of being unable to make a difference. Raidou reaches for it, and as he takes to the handle it loses its solid shape. 

Was it ever a possibility, to change the world?

The place screams, as the lines that drew it began to smear and are converted. Within the woods on floor 1, and in his arm were a few poisonous barbs but he was not concerned. His eyes seek out the focus, a blonde girl barely fit to fight alone. Ambition had almost taken her life, he could feel a smile on his face. True joy in protecting her when it mattered, and as he took a step toward her in only a blink of his gaze and it was no more. Upon a cliff side, to his back the edge, and as he stared forward to a male with black hair desperately searching for a phoenix. Some bird seed in his hand, wanting it for his own. Raidou was reluctant and skeptical that such a thing could be tamed, but followed that ambition to its source. Another stop, quickly began to start. As he entered that cavern, it was now the one on floor 6. To his side no longer the male with black but brown. A wish for a weapon of deep amber, to forge it from hardship. A notion to respect, a success, but it was forgotten.

Eruda, Will, Fives

[Raidou 1]

Twilight had begun to set in and with it, the floor grew colder. As reality sets back in, returning him to the trek through, but his feet had never stopped moving. In what seemed like minutes had been hours, the sun had grown tired and had been laid to rest. Up to his knees burned from the walk, but even still the desire to find it: the reason his chest continued to pump. Each exhale produced a vapor of white that mirrored his surroundings in a hot mass. His nose flush and attempting to run, it was undeniable that bite. It seemed that no matter how hard he would try, in the end he would fail to keep himself here and only makes it a few steps before it happens again. Within another instant in the flames of Mt. Stygian, a darkness hung in the sky and to his side the flicker of light. A blonde in a mirror of her sister, watching the place with earnest.

Always ready to lend a hand, but did it really change anything?

Falling into a bag to take a night's rest, and he could feel movement around his torso. As a pair of girls did their best to stabilize him, his HP runs on empty. An earth shattering slam in the distance that echoed. A failure, an impossibility, but within that instant it was made real. A fuzzy open of his eyes and he catches only a glimpse of short red hair, and once he finds the strength to open them fully with a jerk he was standing. In the cathedral of the forgotten. A girl in plate armor confiding in him, for advice and searching for her own purpose. He can feel his mouth move, but no words. He remembered what it was he had said, but here the two were disjointed.

Ruler, Vie, Freya

[Raidou 1]

A turn of his head blurs his vision as if being torn along the side of a road, where the pavement would become nothing more than a pastel. The walls shift, and chattering around confirms it a meeting. On a chair a man with platinum white hair and that same untempered ambition. Raidou hardly knew him, but even still wished him the best. The guy had vanished since, but the lost had hardly forgotten him. Still kept a memory devoted to him, even if small. A brief flash in a change of scenery as his eyes were forced to bat, shifting from the wood and warmth to that same layer of sleet. Still white and left absent of color, a reminder of how much he was pushing himself. A couple more steps, the audible crunch becoming fainter with each taken. They echoed, as if being made at a distance. 

They scatter, they disappear, but to some it was as if they were always present.

It swirled back into nostalgia, as memories flooded in like from a pump of water into a tank. At first the smell of a damp exterior, a pivot to a woman with an almost sorrow look on her face. A discussion about her family and her origins, to which Raidou would share his own. A lean forward to rise to the flats of his feet, but once he is upright he is standing in a coliseum. The roar of a crowd at his back, and a glance to his side was a man with a large smile, a yell and a tossed object toward the screaming masses. A look over Raidou's shoulder to a small child clutching a woman that looked like her mother. As Raidou would turn to leave, a pound to his senses. A door swings open, and he was in his store on floor 2. The clattering of items across a countertop, a man with that same joyed smile and an order. He could not decline the man, and was intrigued to what had brought him here of all places. 

Macradon, Ariel, Crozeph, Assassin, Claim

[Raidou 1]

In that same show the man would turn and take a step away, and as Raidou's attentions would shift the glare on his lenses washes his vision white. The numbness in his fingertips return, and with comes the reality of where he was. The steps continue, the journey continues unending. Through the paths he had walked, he was always here, traveling backward and forward through time but to less a degree. Every moment a reflection, every instance a comparison. This was no different, however, exacerbated by the lack of his anchor. Left in that room where he could not stand to enter, left alone upon the floor where they had fallen. That flurry and drizzle from the heavens, from the inked and starless sky, no marker for direction. No bright flare to offer guidance. It was he and he alone upon this place, pushing further into the endless void of ivory. Still untouched, for anywhere that had had since been washed clean.

That which does not kill you

The storm thickens as the petals of frost thicken, thicken to the point that they transmogrify into rose petals. Raidou can feel himself sit, and looking out into the sea of red in full bloom in a scan. As his vision takes in the sight, a spoken word assails his eardrums and forces him to take a second glance. A woman, a familiar like a myth that was wily. A single disk taken from his pocket and offered to the creature beckons a smile and a warning, one that Raidou was not at all worried about overstepping. As he reaches for another, the field was no longer. But now within the pit of the reflection, a hole burrowed through the lake. Her other, him. The blonde with the curved blade of static. A name, a wedding. As Raidou rights his steel and calls for action, by the time his view advances the war had ended. The hall again? How and when? He knew, and with the outspoken word of a father protecting his adoptive child, he swallowed himself and his heart. He couldn't make the choice they sought, for it could very well mean killing another. It wasn't easy driving a nail into a coffin.

Kiluia, Tricolor Mina, Asmura, Morgenstern

[Raidou 1]

A harsh tug in his throat, like blades cutting through that slightly dried bit of his gullet as that false world begins to spin and break away in fragments. Sentiment falling away, motive shortly after and leaving nothing more than a man. Back to a reality that did not agree with him, did not hear him and left him in this expanse of unwritten parchment. A blank space left empty, condemning those who wandered its birth would be forever consumed by it. Every attempt had started here, this bitter frost winding path of trees and ice. Raidou is here for only but a moment, a single sliver of time before fired back and tugged into the threshold that played back his failures and inability. A brand and a mark, a moniker and a scar. To never forget, to form attachments and a weakness that none could possibly understand.

Will make you stronger?

His eyes shut for but a moment, and his world had shifted. Shouting and a body lay dormant, to its side Raidou rushes trying desperately to aid the woman stricken ill. A travel of his vision singles out but one, small sporting a large warhammer. She seemed frightened, and for good reason. A cool head projected as his chest burned with worry, grabbing the basic blade he was given he'd fight for them both. A rush forward and a swing sees the weapon snapped in twain, but even still he was determined, peeling that riddled blade back and another swipe. The blade felt heavier and his target? A warg, as multiple others attack his frame in a violent display of ripping and teeth. They drag him to the floor and through ferocity and the urge to protect, he breaks himself loose. A look battered and scarred to another, shocked by the display. A pivot and a rebuttal, that urge still strong. As he's consumed by black, and when his vision returns? A girl shocked the same, but out of fear. But she had nothing to fear.

Sam, Mishiro, Simmone

[Raidou 1]

The darkness fades and with it, the urge to protect, to defend. It fades away like vapor as the haunting takes it with it. Back to that cold, to that isolation in this forest of memory to which Raidou could not escape. Through this journey faces so great he could hardly see his own, or perhaps they were his face. His ideals and his wisdom, were theirs was it not? Forever learning, listening and hearing them. But that wisdom meant nothing, for it could not be imparted. Desperation did not mix with it, honesty would only get him so far. He was the stranger, the wanderer still even though that name had been forsaken leagues ago. He was still that man in red that could not be trusted, that must have been a monster beneath his crimson red mantle. A rumor alone that had become more than fiction, coloring him black and grim to all that he had encountered.

You either die a hero, or live long enough

The storm of words and phrases that assailed his senses came to a head, his eyes seeming almost fatigued and pained as they sorted through the constant droning. A few select phrases surface, a black haired male telling him to live for the sake of others, another condemning this strange notion he had, while another female in white would ask of him what he wanted, to discredit what was said by others. They conflicted what he was told, and even still he tried to learn from each. Another surfaces from the pond of guidance, but with it sobbing and tears. And from his lips was a mirror of them all, a soft word with no audio and an apology. He couldn't do it all, he couldn't make it right by them all. But he could try, and that was all he ever did.

Life, Alkor, Quinn, Megitsune

[Raidou 1]

His senses return just long enough to find a sheet of ice beneath his feet broken, plunging him into a permafrost congealed over. His skin was torn and riddled and as his hands reach for the rim, the clothes on his back slop with it. Bleeding out from beneath him in a wave of liquid, like blood it oozes from him. His hair in knots and strapped to his skin, from his face in small droplets the lines fall with soft taps. Within that boiling and unsteady ground he could feel himself slipping beneath the waves. That repeated tapping forced him back, passed the place and with it an anger as his hands held close the slips of glass made of water. His vision drops into a long winding tunnel, floundering helplessly for something. For anything visible as it slid past in a trail of images cataloged forever.

To become the Villain

An argument, a disagreement. A fight with elevated words, and the first to back down was the male who thought he knew better. Putting everyone at risk for his ego. That brunette had learned, through force. A glance that advances and scares back a hostile looking a child who is left alone, and a soft hand offered to her finds her purpose. A male that was dealt with swiftly at the hands of justice, after so many wrong steps finally put to the blade. He was once a friend and had earned his gravestone. Another recollection of a field where a harsh word had saved the very lives dangling in the balance, causing another to show disgust of his presence. A small child in a tavern, biting back before being bit harder. The lesson shown. The last was one that preached he'd been wronged, and he was right. There was more to this story, what was the correct course of action?

Gaius, Setsuna, Dazia, Chase, Cordelia, Daeron

Raidou's reality bends back into current, as a detonation of fighting spirit causes his iris to shift quickly from amber to red. The ice beneath him shutters to the sudden climb and the almost feral scream from him that pierces the silence like a razor. The place is washed in red, a toxic miasma of emotion left untamed and wild. The cardinal agreed with his actions, the world seemed to only listen when there was a threat. Was this the correct method? Was this what worked? The fear of dying was not something people seemed to understand. So perhaps to save them from themselves, he'd have to show them?

[Ruri 0]

Lifting herself to the flats of her feet, her hands still numb from where she had fell. That argument still offering her nothing but a maelstrom of thoughts that she could hardly contemplate before they disappear into the ether. It just wasn't fair that this had happened to her. Ruri begins to stumble her way out into the depths, some storm had been brewing here forming a blizzard that made it hard to see. A glance into the rough as she just wanted to get lost in it, without direction slinking deeper into that white opacity as if it would erase her.

The chill in her arms and spine was not unnoticed, helping her body reflect the novocaine that had embraced her heart. She was drowning in it, could not escape it. She finds a place suitable, a single edge that she could not see the bottom. Struggling to find the courage, cowardice offering her pause as she eyed that thing and tried to convince herself to make that plunge. To wipe it all clean. To make what was assumed an actuality. Ruri takes another step toward the rim, watching a pile of snow flail off its edge and vanish into the soft fog below.

Creeping was the thoughts of Haine and Kiluia, being matched together and living happily. Four chairs, two familiars and a wedding ring. No brother and now no sister. Everyone else she knew had not arrived, how many of them were actually left? Shutting her eyes tightly and swallowing hard, sliding her foot forward and feeling the lack of solidity below her toes. A feral sound like a monster breaches the storm like a crash of thunder, something that forces her eyes open and scares the living shit out of her at the same time. Seeking out that noise, she finds a mountain of red mixed with the white. A male dripping wet.

"Raidou"

Ruri | HP:860/860 | EN:86/86 | DMG:10

Spoiler

Ruri - The Blue Bolt
Level: 43
HP: 860/860
EN: 86/86

Stats:
Damage: 10

Equipped Gear:
Weapon: Vanity Katana
Armor:
Misc:

Skills:
One-Handed Curved Sword [Rank 1]
Katana [Rank 5]
Light Armor [Obtained]

Extra Skills:
Survival

Mods:
Ferocity
Finesse R3
Athletics

Battle Ready Inventory:
Requires Extended Weight Limit 1
Requires Extended Weight Limit 2
Requires Extended Weight Limit 3
Obtained via Item Stash (Housing)
Obtained via Dimensional Backpack

Guild Hall Buffs:
Lucrative: Reduce LD needed for Salvage by 5 (10+ for Alchemist crystals, 6+ for everything else). +2 EXP per craft. Rank 9 crafters receive +1 crafting attempt per day. Rank 10 crafters receive +2 crafting attempts per day.
Col Deposit: +5% bonus col from last-hit monster kills and +10% bonus col from treasure chests.

 

Edited March 24, 2021 by Ruri

[Raidou 1]

Beneath the gravity of crimson that weighed heavily on his shoulders, desperately pushing down and felt as though it would shatter the ice below him. The very twist of words in his head as he clung to the strings of a fraying sanity that looked for some answer. There was little for him to latch on to, nothing seemed an accurate answer to the blight of the world. A voice unheard was as if it was never spoken. A fury completely untamed as his very skin seemed to bubble, his familiar attaching to his intentions and expediting them into an actuality.

A single soft voice against the white noise that was drowning out his senses, it echoes through like a single droplet across a pure water lake. It ripples out and with it a slight clarity. Twisting his head to search for its origin, the film of red billowing off of his shoulders like gas. His vision twists and fights against the veil, hunting for the source as the cold liquid in his eyes forced them to burn. As if clawing his way back into his own hide, pushing that hatred away back into its container.

The blackened veins that grew in twisted lines upon his arms and neck begin to recede slowly, his familiar ushering itself back into his clothes. Like fire that red smog continues to bleed off of him, no lenses to offer him an anchor. He was to be the villain and force them to understand. That single word still rung in his ears, and concentrating on it breathes a bit of blue into it. The color shifts into a faint tinge of purple, a skill outwardly showing his attempts to control it. Again, his glance moves for the source, blinded by rage, but just beginning to see. A girl from the past had been that ripple, that anchor that peeled him from the brink.

"Ruri"

[Ruri 0]

A murmur from her breath as her legs began to give way, the cold of the floor offering her no respite. "What are you doing?" planting her butt without her input into the sleet below. He looked strange as she stared at him, something about his appearance was almost haunting. Once her eyes locked to his, that blazing iris of his was almost startling and harrowing. It was as if Raidou was looking plainly through her. A soft gaze toward him as he offers no answer, she takes but a single step toward him after she struggles to her feet. There was a moment, that he was forgotten.

The feeling of warmth and that same feral scream when she began to feel again

Another footfall allows a crunch beneath her feet. Like a wave that was pushing everything else aside, those few moments while she was trapped in her own head began to creep back in and replace what was assaulting her. "It was you, you got me out of that crap." She replies with an earnest recollection, remembering the sound. Followed by the smell, as if it was just yesterday. He looked like a complete creature, something straight out of a boss chamber. But even still she couldn't help but take another step.

The words came next, those little phrases that continued to play back. Like a recording.

The snow breaks beneath her feet, being pressed down. On the rim of the ice she struggles to keep her footing, all of her balance still yet returned and the numbness offering no assistance. "It was your voice, that I kept hearing. Stuck in that bed." It was spoken like a question, but Ruri already knew the answer to it. She wanted him to say something. Anything. She felt like she needed to hear him say it. That it was true, from someone that wasn't her own memory.

It was his robe wrapped around her once her vision returned

"Why me?" She asks him trying to get him to speak, falling on her behind next to his face looking straight into the creature he was. A blanket of red wraps around her shoulders as it becomes visible with a flash, the storm beginning to fade away with its arrival. A word from him as the red began to fade.

"Ruri" A pause as his eyes began to shift from red to orange, still dripping water to the ice below. "It's always been you."

[Raidou 1]

Pulling the robe tight around her shoulders as his vision began to become crystal clear, the clarity returning as his anger began to become contained. "It's always been you." He clarified for her, finding his thoughts becoming his own again as he used her to maintain focus. "It took so long for me to finally find you. It took even longer for me to actually get you back." He spoke to her as he sat with her on the ice still soaked to the bone, doing his best to keep that robe around her close. He was immune to the cold, but she was not and he'd not allow her to succumb to it.

"It was me." He offered, but a single, easy answer to every question in one fell swoop. "I wouldn't let you go, after everything you and the others did for me. How could I not." As he stared her down, he could see that something was troubling her, he knew that expression since he wore it. It was not easy to hide such a thing from someone who did so on the regular, with much more experience. "Let's get off this ice." He'd clutch her much smaller hand, and once he noticed her trouble walking he'd start to carry her. Into his inventory, a single mixture of deep red he'd offer her the bottle. Her face winces into distaste. "It will regulate your body heat and stave off what are making your legs numb." Reluctantly, she drinks it, and then proceeds to immediately regret the choice. A smile finds his mouth.

"You saved me, and you hardly know me Raidou. We were guild mates, that's it." She'd reply and he'd offer his response. "That's the only reason I need."

[Ruri 0]

His response made such little sense to her, they were almost strangers, but it was clear that he had never given up on her. Through how he spoke it, it was so undeniably true. She was forced to accept it as fact. "That's so simple."  Ruri couldn't help but smile along with him, it was infectious. An overhand toss of the vial that was once filled with the vile mixture "But you need to learn to brew better tasting potions dude." Raidou sighs for a moment. "I feel like I am alone, like the entire world just acted like I didn't exist. Not even Haine, seemed like she cared. She rushed off and got hitched with Kiluia, built a house and is living with him. While I was stuck in that bed." Her mood sours rather quickly. "What makes you different, when the whole place just lost track of me." She had more to say but she couldn't convince herself to continue to speak.

"You better give me a better answer, being a guild mate isn't good enough. I don't believe it." Ruri barked at him, pushing the fold. She needed something better than that to cling to. Above she notices the flurry had ended and her legs no longer completely absent of feeling. She stands, still holding the robe around her like a blanket as it drug about in the snow below, it still smelled so damn awful. But somehow it was nice. Leaning forward and sticking a hand onto the side of his face, looking into his eyes with a clear intention of forcing him to answer truthfully. She remembered that he was weak to touch. "Tell me the truth Raidou."

Edited March 24, 2021 by Ruri

[Raidou 1]

A glance up to Ruri, who wouldn't allow him to look away. There was no facade here to hide behind, no clear way for him defer her question. He was laid in pieces and she was here picking up the parts and put him back together like puzzle. "The truth is, Ruri. Is that you three are my family. I would not be who I am today without you three." He felt almost embarrassed to the truth about it, it was as if she was his younger sibling despite it all. She may not feel the same way, but she at least deserved this. "You've saved me from myself more then once. It is the least I can do for you and them. Haine did so because I asked her to, and as she asked I would update her." Ruri winces a bit understanding a bit more the grave mistake she made. "It was tearing her apart and I couldn't stand to see her that way, and I asked Kiluia to keep her busy. They lived in a shared dream for quite some time. Like you, however together. Their relationship is a result of that."

"So that's why." Ruri mutters out, "I said some awful things to Haine." Raidou looks to her and reaches for her hand on his face "Then set them right, message her. Try and move past this. I will help you if you need it." She begins to sob as her shoulders scrunch up. Reaching out and sucking her in close selfishly, Raidou expected her to punch him. But what he is met with is a pair of arms wrapping above his shoulders. "Your wet." She murmurs the obvious statement in the pure undriven snow as it trickles down endlessly. Forgetting, but remembering the path they had made through it for just a while longer.

Thread Complete:
Raidou:
4*SP (1 Closure, 1 Event, 2 Mega Slime)
Ruri Unlocked
2*SP (1 Closure, 1 Event)

400*Col (Simmone)