#armor fabula | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

femme-tank · 2 months

Text

1st Game - Fabula Ultima: Non-Binary Damage

So, here we are again. Masc Support, Femme Tank, so why not do a non-binary damage dealer.

As with the other two entries, I'll post the cover and steps again.

Step One - Identity

Okay, let's see about this "A dancer with a masking smile."

Step Two - Theme

For the Theme I'm going with Vengeance. Kinda channeling Primrose from Octopath a bit here.

Step Three - Origin

For the origin, I'm going with "The Mist-Veiled Forests". This person came out of a mysterious forest. Maybe they're a bit fae?

Step Four - Classes

As with the other classes, I'm going to have this character start with three classes. In this case, (and I did end up grabbing High Fantasy) I'm going to choose the following:

Fury 1 - A class focused on damage.

Rogue 2 - A class focused on trickery and speed.

Dancer 2 - A High Forest class focused on dancing for buffs.

For the skills, I'm going with the following:

Fury: Frenzy - Easier to get criticals with certain weapons.

Rogue: High Speed 1 - Ability to do some effect at the start of a fight.

Rogue: Dodge 1 - Bonus Defense if not wearing martial armor or shields.

Dancer: Dance 1 - One buffing dance.

Dancer: Wardancer 1 - Bonus damage after dancing

For the one Dance they have: Bat Dance, so they can gain either dark resistance or have their attacks deal Dark damage.

Step Five - Attributes

And now for the Attributes, I'm going to go with a Jack of All Trades here and just giving all four a d8.

Dexterity - d8

Insight - d8

Might - d8

Willpower - d8

Step Six - Figured Characteristics

Let's start with Hit Points...

Start with the character level. (5)

The maximum value of Might die times 5. (40)

Having any levels of Fury adds 5 HP. (5)

Total is 50.

For Mind Points...

Start with the character level. (5)

The maximum value of Willpower die times 5. (40)

Having any levels of Dancer gives you either Mind or Hit Points, I chose Mind Points. (5)

Total is 50.

And for the first time, we're going to have something more than the base Inventory Points.

Base Inventory points. (6)

Having any levels of Rogue adds two. (2)

Total is 8.

Defense before armor also has some changes:

Maximum value of the Dexterity die. (8)

Value of the Dodge skill. (1)

Total is 9.

Magic Defense is direct however, no modifiers before armor. So Maximum of the Insight die for a Magic Defense of 8.

Initiative bonus is the base 0.

Step Seven - Starting Gear

We're going to avoid shields and martial armor because it doesn't work well with the Dodge skill. So we're going to go with this set.

Shuriken - Dex+Ins, High Roll +4 physical damage, one-handed ranged.

Chain Whip - Dex+Dex, High Roll +8 physical damage, two-handed melee.

Combat Tunic - Defense: Dex+1, Magic Defense: Ins+1, no initiative modifier.

The shuriken is useful for things that fly or otherwise stay out of range of melee.

This brings their starting Defenses to:

Defense: 10 (Dex+1, Dodge 1)

Magic Defense 9 (Ins+1)

Step Eight - Name and Pronouns

I'm going to name this person... Ainsley and of course their pronouns are They/Them.

Ainsley

Identity: A dancer with a masking smile.

Theme: Vengeance

Origin: The Mist-Veiled Forests

Attributes

Dexterity: d8

Insight: d8

Willpower: d8

Might: d8

Skills

Fury: Frenzy

Rogue: High Speed 1

Rogue: Dodge 1

Dancer: Dance 1

Dancer: Wardancer 1

Dances

Bat Dance

Figured Stats and Gear

Hit Points: 50

Mind Points: 50

Inventory Points: 8

Defense: 10 (Combat Tunic)

Magic Defense: 9 (Combat Tunic)

Shuriken: d8+d8, HR+4

Chain Whip: d8+d8, HR+6

Initiative: +0

And with that, it's time to move...

Onward!

For Attributes, I'm increasing Dexterity twice to d12 coming to a total of this:

Dexterity - d12

Insight - d8

Might - d8

Willpower - d8

For classes, I'm doing the following.

Dancer - Buffs and acrobatics (Mastered)

Darkblade - Focus on fear and pain (Mastered)

Fury - Focus on damage and adrenaline (Mastered)

Rogue - Speed and trikcery (Mastered)

Sharpshooter - Ranged comabt (Mastered)

Dancer has seventeen different dances and thus it would be impossible to get them all even if you didn't pick up other Dancer skills. Some Dancer skills include "Follow my Lead" which allows you to share the effect of a dance with an ally you have a bond of affection with. "Frenetic Footwork" gives bonuses to opposed checks that rely on acrobatics, coordination, or speed when using some dances. "Quick-change" allows you to use a piece of equipment (potions et al) in the same turn that you start a Dance, and "Wardancer" means you do more damage after using a dance.

Ainsley already has Wardancer and a single Dance and I'm also going to give them some other things.

Quick-Change - On the same round you perform a Dance you can take the Equipment action.

Frenetic Footwork 2 - For the round after performing a Dance gain +4 to Opposed checks related to speed, acrobatics, or coordination.

War Dancer 5 - Deal extra 5 points damage the round after performing a dance.

Dance 2 - Bat Dance and Banshee Dance

This means that she's not doing too much with the actual dances, but then the primary thing she's doing is dealing damage so I focused on that over the other things. For the second Dance I'm going with the following:

Banshee Dance - Choose another creature that is able to see you. If that creature is already slow, they immediately become shaken.

Darkblade has two non-ranked skills, both related when the character goes to below half Hit Points. "Dark Blood" gives you resistance to Dark and Poison and "Heart of Darkness" allows you to form a bond hatred toward an enemy so you can now trigger other benefits against them. I'm actually taking both of these.

For ranked skills we have "Agony" allows you to recover HP and MP when you hit creatures you have a Bond with. "Painful Lesson" lets you reflexively study a creature that damaged you. And "Shadow Strike" lets you sacrifice health in order to make a dark attack.

I'm actually going to skip "Shadow Strike" it's good, but we're getting a similar benefit from the combination of Wardancer and Bat Dance. So unlike Chase having three different methods of healing, this feels like it's counterproductive. This is convenient, because the other two max out at 5 and 3 respectively, so I can just max them out and that's all 10 levels.

Agony 5 - recover 10 HP and 10 MP whenever you hit an enemy you have a Bond with.

Dark Blood - Gain resistance to dark and poison when your HP drops below half.

Heart of Darkness - Choose an creature to gain a Bond of hatred with the first time in a scene your HP drops below half.

Painful Lesson 3 - When you take damage you can study the creature that caused the damage for free with a bonus of +3.

We talked a bit about Fury on Althea's build. This is going to be a little different. Damage is her job, so we're not grabbing much of Withstand or Provoke. I think I'll grab one rank of each in case of emergencies, not bad to have an off-tank. Then we'll pick up Frenzy and max out Adrenaline, and the last levels will go into Indomitable Spirit.

Adrenaline 5 - When HP drops below half attacks deal +10 damage.

Frenzy - Critical hits with brawling, dagger, fly, and thrown weapons happen on any doubles as long as the check is not a fumble.

Indomitable Spirit 2 - When spending a Fabula point may also choose one of the following benefits on top of the normal ones: heal 10 HP, heal 10 MP, or recover from one status effect.

Provoke 1 - Taunt an enemy, making them enraged.

Withstand 1 - When taking the Guard action and not covering others heal HP based on strength of bonds with allies and temporarily boost Might or Willpower one die size.

There is one non-ranked skill "See You Later" which lets you spend a Fabula point to flee the scene. I might get that.

For the other skills, "Cheap Shot" allows you to do more damage on enemies suffering from a status effect. "High Speed" lets you get a free action at the start of a fight. "Soul Steal" lets you recover IP from minions during combat or gain special items from powerful enemies. "Dodge" increases Defense.

I'm going to go with the following. I'm leaning into the damage. I considered the soul-steal to fuel her IP, but I think the damage is the bigger thing here. High Speed is important because it's a chance to start the fight off with an enemy having a status effect already, thus allowing Cheap Shot to work.

Cheap Shot 5 - Deal bonus damage equal to 5+the number of statuses on the target.

Dodge 3 - Increase Defense by 3.

High Speed 2 - Can Attack, Hinder, or perform an objective just before combat starts with 10 Mind Points.

The Sharpshooter is basically the ranged combat version of the Weaponmaster and it has some similar skills. There are two non-ranked skills: "Barrage" which allows them to target one extra enemy. "Crossfire" allows you to interfere with an enemy's ranged attacks, causing it to fail.

The ranked skills include: "Hawkeye" which allows for using the Guard option to take aim or Guard and take a free small attack. "Ranged Weapon Mastery" increases accuracy. "Warning Shot" allows for doing no damage with an attack but inflicting either one of two status effects or loss of Mind Points.

I'm taking "Barrage" and "Crossfire" as well as maxing out "Ranged Weapon Mastery", that's 6 levels. I'm going to split the last four levels between the remaining levels.

Barrage

Crossfire

Hawkeye 3 - Guard to add +6 damage to next ranged attack or Guard + one free attack that does less damage.

Ranged Weapon Mastery 4 - Accuracy +4 to ranged weapons.

Warning Shot 1 - Instead of dealing damage, inflict shaken, slow, or the loss of 10 Mind Points.

Okay, for Heroic Skills... let's see what we've got available.

Adversity - Status effects make them stronger.

Heartbreaker - Sacrifice lots of HP to deal massive damage.

Powerful Shot - Ranged attacks deal more damage.

Swirling Swarm - Consecutive attacks with thrown weapons get more powerful.

Vanish - After a successful attack, enemies can't target them.

And for gear I'm going with the following, and this character is going for a dual-wield. Which does less damage, but given all the other ways they have to add damage on top, it's been compensated for:

Chakram - Dex+Mig+1, High Roll +4 physical, Multi (2), One-handed

Chakram - Dex+Mig+1, High Roll +4, physical, Multi (2), One-handed

Desperado Coat - Defense Dex+1, Magic Defense Ins+1, -1 Initiative, Barrage has half cost.

Explorer's Belt - +4 Initiative

Level 50 Ainsley

Identity: A dancer with a masking smile.

Theme: Vengeance

Origin: The Mist-Veiled Forests

Attributes

Dexterity: d12

Insight: d8

Willpower: d8

Might: d8

Skills

Dancer: Dance 2

Dancer: Frenetic Footwork 2

Dancer: Quick-Change

Dancer: Wardancer 5

Darkblade: Agony 5

Darkblade: Dark Blood

Darkblade: Heart of Darknes

Darkblade: Painful Lesson 3

Fury: Adrenaline 5

Fury: Frenzy

Fury: Indomitable Spirit 2

Fury: Provoke 1

Fury: Withstand 1

Rogue: Cheap Shot 5

Rogue: Dodge 3

Rogue: High Speed 2

Sharpshooter: Barrage

Sharpshooter: Crossfire

Sharpshooter: Hawkeye 3

Sharpshooter: Ranged Weapon Mastery 4

Sharpshooter: Warning Shot 1

Darkblade Heroic Skill: Adversity

Darkblade Heroic Skill: Heartbreaker

Sharpshooter Heroic Skill: Powerful Shot

Dancer/Fury/Sharpshooter Heroic Skill: Swirling Swarm

Rogue Heroic Skill: Vanish

Dances

Banshee Dance

Bat Dance

Figured Stats and Gear

Hit Points: 105 (Darkblade, Fury, Sharpshooter)

Mind Points: 95 (Dancer)

Inventory Points: 8 (Rogue)

Defense: 16 (Desperado Coat, Dodge)

Magic Defense: 9 (Desperado Coat)

Chakram: d8+d12+5 (Weapon Mastery), HR+4, Multi 2

Initiative: +3 (Desperado Coat, Explorer's Belt)

Desperado Belt Bonus: Barrage is half cost

#tabletop roleplaying game #tabletop roleplaying #ttrpg #roleplaying games #character creation #character builds #non-binary damage #Fabula Ultima #JRPG

5 notes · View notes

joz-yyh · 3 months

Text

Acta Est Fabula - Ch. 5

SUMMARY: Crimson Court AU. Tardif reports back to the Order to protect the one he holds dear. It goes just as horribly as he expected. No Beta. Read at your own risk.

PAIRING: Bounty Hunter x Flagellant / Crusader x Highwayman / Vestal x Hellion

RATING: M (violence / swearing)

WORD COUNT: 2,857

READ ON Ao3: -> HERE!!

A/N: Lots of characters introduced in this chapter as well as some lore! There's a reason behind every action and mysteries will be revealed in time. Comments and questions welcome~

——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Tardif ascends the marble church steps with a burdensome trudge, the sentries waiting up ahead a familiar pair.

Missandei whistles at his arrival, surprised to see him, “Well, look who it is! We were starting to take bets on whether or not you were dead.”

“Feared the worst had happened,” William concurs, talking with his hands, drawing an invisible arch, “The great Nighthawk finally meets his match, slain at the top of his prime.”

“Teh, ye guys wish,” Tardif badgers, setting the rumors straight, “Ain't no one alive who can beat me.”

“Told you, man,” the female sharpshooter smirks, making a grabby motion with her glove, waiting for the other to pay up.

“Taking money straight outta the dog's mouth, you are,” William sighs, sticking out his lower lip, rummaging through his gear.

The houndmaster finally digs out a small coin purse, but is hesitant, looking down at his canine companion in morose consignment.

“Yeah right,” the arbalest growls, snatching up her winnings, “you know how many scraps I sneak Fergus from under the table? She’s getting fed plenty.”

“Explains why I've had to adjust her harness,” the houndmaster muses, rubbing his chin whiskers in assessment.

With a swivel of her floppy ears, the armor clad pet gives a guilty whimper.

“Serves ye right,” Tardif says, brushing the blonde man's shoulder in a mock punch, “Shoulda never bet against me.”

He takes a step back, eyeing the vanguards expectantly.

“Why do they got you two out here guardin’ the door fer, anyway? Thought ye guys would have better things to do.”

“I definitely do,” Missy adds before jabbing her thumb at the other, “don't know about kibbles and bits over here, though.”

William sighs, his posture a perpetual slump from moping too much, “Enough of your horrible dog puns.”

“But they're so good! Fergus loves my dog puns.”

The shaggy wolfdog barks in reply, making the pony-tailed girl grin.

“Told you!”

“Ignore her,” mumbles William, “I know I do.”

“Hey!”

The brute does just that, blocking out her bravado of puffed cheeks and sore green eyes.

“Ye were sayin’?”

“Right. Guess, the powers that be sent out a battalion while ye were gone. We're just filling in.”

“Hn,” Tardif muses, “Wonder what fer?”

“They didn't say,” the houndmaster drawls, crossing his arms in thought, “Not high enough on the ladder, apparently, strictly ‘need to know,’ but I could find out for you, for a price.

“Tryin’ to earn yer gamblin’ debt back, I see.”

“Any way I can.”

“Nice catchin’ up with ye,” Tardif says, patting them both on the shoulder, stepping past their vigil and into the great hall, “but I should get goin’. They’re expectin’ me.”

“You too,” the arbalest smiles, “good luck in there.”

“I'll be here if you change your mind,” William shrugs, mourning his empty pockets.

Tardif takes a deep breath as he enters the long corridor, ignoring the whispers and stares of those lining it, eyes focused solely ahead. It’s a wearisome walk, one of prejudice and judgment that makes him miss the company of his friends.

Lowly hunters like himself were not as well-received as those who were considered of higher rank. A ass-backwards shame considering others of his caliber had the most to lose, doing the dirty work none of the “purer” folk wanted to sully their hands with.

Another series of guards impede his path, blocking his access to the throne room, a poignant caduceus of axes that nearly clip his nose.

“Halt!”

“You must wait to be announced.”

Tardif swallows down the urge to argue that useless code of conduct. There were far too many stupid rules for his liking.

“Send him in,” Reynauld commands, standing from the dias further inside, “He's late.”

The guards remove their barrier, but sneer at Tardif, thinking him too irreverent for an audience with the knight superior, but Tardif returns their malice, leering right back as he traverses beyond their jurisdiction.

Reynauld seems too preoccupied with the scroll in his hands to pay him any mind, the length of it unfurled around his feet, trailing longer than his cape.

The church of Hamlet was governed by joint authority, Reynauld the decisive hammer of fire and action while Junia had a reputation for healing, a passive, merciful ruler that cherished goodness and virtue.

Tardif strides up to the set of twin thrones, kneeling before them to submit his findings.

“Hunter Darkwing reporting back from codename Rapture.”

“‘bout time,” Dismas barks from the shadows, leaning against one of the long red drapes, “Didn't think it would take ya four whole days, but then again, I was betting on the other guy.”

Of course the crusader’s personal body guard would criticize his work. He and Tardif never did get along, always at each other's throats, this undoubtedly causing more strife.

“That'll do Dismas,” Reynauld advises, looking up from his correspondence, tone gentle despite the scallywag who it’s reserved for.

“Teh, if you say so boss,” he growls, crossing his arms, staring out the window into obscurity.

“Well, I never had a doubt,” Boudica retorts, side-eyeing the ex highwayman, standing proudly with her glaive.

The brute can't help smirking in return, knowing at least the reformed hellion was rooting for him.

“Tardif, how nice to see you again,” the vestal smiles, awash in robes of white gold, the ever present warrior woman by her side.

Just as Reynauld has his right hand man, so too does the vestal have her honor guard, each their own inseparable match.

“I take it the threat has been neutralized,” the knight ventures, skipping past the pleasantries, eager to finish this unsavory business.

“More than that,” Tardif answers.

That earns him the holy crusader's undivided attention. “More? How can it be more? Explain.”

“Got a good reason fer takin’ as long as I did. Not only is the target neutralized, I dispatched the baron along with him.”

The room goes silent, Reynauld stiff as always, Tardif unable to discern his reaction from the narrow gaps in his helmet.

Junia and Boudica waver between shocked and impressed and Dismas is well … Dismas.

Tight-lipped as they are, waiting for the knight to share his verdict, the prodigal messenger instigates it.

“C'mon, don't leave me hangin’ in suspense. Tell me yer impressed.”

“He gotta be shittin’ me with this guy,” Dismas scoffs to himself, trying to hide his laugh of pity, “What an idiot.”

Junia's halo of Light glows brightly, reprehensible of such foul language, but it seems to have the opposite effect on Reynauld, the crusader reconciled for the moment.

"Taking down the entire brood is beyond you, Tardif,” the knight finally speaks, as if preaching to a child, “It does not fall to one man, but to all of us.”

“Didn’t ye hear wot I said,” the huntsman snaps, resentful of Reynauld’s lackluster reception, ”I killed the baron.”

“Yes,” the knight begins, throwing his precious scroll upon the ground, stepping up to the pretentious upstart with self-righteous fury, “I heard you defied orders, took authority beyond your rank and you’re being entirely smug about it, feeling entitled to our praise.”

Despite the knight superior standing before him now, garbed in all his shining, mantled glory, Tardif does not feel the distinction of status, addressing him as he would any other man.

“Who cares ‘bout all that,” the brute argues, doubling down, “I just took out the guy no one else could. Hell, ye should send me out again. Betcha I could slay every last one of ‘em wit’ an arm tied behind my back.”

The knight takes a moment to steel himself, gauntlets gripped into fists, pacifying his enraged tone. “Tardif, while I admit you are an exceptional warrior, you are also arrogant, insubordinate. You fail to grasp what is not your place to decide.”

Tardif can hardly stand the hypocrisy.

“Wot diplomacy is there in killin’ beings already deemed unfit to exist?”

The caped crusader does not entertain this, ignoring his underlings' words, a segway for his own victimized tangent.

“I knew it was a risk choosing you for this task,” the knight laments, bowing his head, “A grave disappointment I now regret. And though it pains me to do so, you’re hereby relieved of your hunter status.”

“Like hell I am,” Tardif barks, done with this charade, turning his back on the injustice, intent on storming out.

A steadfast grip reigns him in by the arm, the apprehender none other than the long-haired wild cat Boudica.

“Do not resist,” the warrior woman advises, a tinge of sympathy in her voice, “you know I have to bring you in.”

“Listen to the lady,” mocks Dismas, striding up to his left, enjoying his fall from grace a bit too much, “wouldn’t want to see ya get hurt.”

“Don't worry,” Tardif smirks, “I won't.”

In another horribly brash decision, the brutish delinquent suckerpunches the scarf-wearing bandit, an elbow jab delivered swiftly between the eyes.

The rebellious Tardif is feeling rather proud of himself, much better once he sees Dismas stagger backwards, blood pouring down from his crooked nostrils.

“Makin’ yer little lap dog do everythin’ fer ye as usual I see,” the axeman taunts, an insult aimed at Reynauld, but he stares at his dark-haired lackey, the injured man snarling, his scarf hanging around his neck to reveal his gruesome face scars.

The ex-highwayman wipes his lip, red droplets speckling the stone floor, drawing his firearm in retaliation, shoving the barrel against Tardif's back. “Go on. Say it again. I dare ya. ”

“Insolent savage,” Reynauld roars, demanding obedience from his flock, “can I teach you nothing of humility?”

“Oh, there is one thing I’ve learned,” Tardif intones, raising a middle finger, “Fuck ye!”

“Tardif, please,” Junia begs, breaking her silence, unable to watch this descent into madness any longer.

“My lady,” the persecuted hunter beseeches, “is this how I am to be repaid for all my years of devoted service? Being stripped and unmade? How many times must I lie naked before ye?”

Junia had been like a mother to him, as much as she could be before being coerced into the tireless position she wields now. A part of her will always see Tardif as a frightened little orphan boy, will seek to protect him above all else, hoping to one day absolve her own sins.

“Reynauld … ,” Junia councils, turning to face her fellow bishop, a chord struck within her, “is this punishment not too harsh? Surely, there must be another way.”

“You are too soft on him,” Reynauld decrees, knowing what angle his disciple was playing, “Let us see how he behaves after a few fastidious nights in prison. Perhaps, if he is remorseful of his actions, I will reinstate his title. Until then, get him out of my sight.”

—-

Dismas shoves Tardif forward, leading him down the stairs, further into the dungeon below.

He’s still sporting his pistol, poking it against the captive’s spine every chance he gets, Boudica’s escort trailing behind them, bottle-necked in such a tight space.

They’re underground, the seedy basement just as historic as the church itself, the old layout left unrenovated since it was built, but then again a prison didn’t have to be inviting. Tardif had visited this place a few times in the past, almost desensitized to it's eeriness.

“That's far enough,” the ex-bandit calls, halting their progress just shy of the empty cell, “Boudica, strip him down.”

Once more, the redhead gives her comrade an emphatic look, the brute raising his arms up in surrender as she moves to relieve him of his weapons.

His belts are unclasped one by one, feeling less like a man and more like a thing, a tool robbed of it’s usefulness, a blade dulled and discarded. The hellion hefts his possessions around her shoulder, hooking his weapons onto her own series of straps while he endures this demeaning penalty.

“That should be everything,” the refurbished warrior announces, taking a step back, dressed to the hilt in his gear, signaling her task complete.

Dismas moves to inspect her work, noticing she's missed one item in particular.

“Forgot this,” Dismas says, ripping off the brute’s scouter.

“That stays wit’ me,” Tardif says, eyes forthright and stern, schooling his tone.

“You growin’ attached to the bloodsuckers or somethin’,” Dismas snickers, raising a brow, dangling the parasite's cage around by the clip, “wouldn’t that be the scandal of the century.”

“Don’t like people takin’ wot’s mine,” Tardif growls, putting on his best poker face. If they take Pierre from him now, the highwayman would probably squash him out of existence or worse.

“Teh, s'pose you two can keep 'nother company,” the ex-highwayman says, tossing the tiny creature at him, “Fine, take it. Don’t say I never gave ya nottin’.”

Tardif catches it, clutching the cage tight to his chest, masking his relief as Dismas shoves the brute inside his cozy new home. The gunslinger means to trip him, but the braided man is too big and his balance too practiced. At most Tardif stumbles, keeping his footing.

“Always knew you were destined for a grimy prison cell,” Dismas smirks, eagerly latching the door closed, locking it with a clatter.

“Always knew yer were destined to take it in the ass,” Tardif parries, face a vindictive glower.

Dismas is understandably incensed by the accusation, snarling as he aims his gun, intending to blow the lips right off his wise-cracking tongue.

“Enough,” Boudica shouts, knocking his gun away with her glaive, the firearm discharging against the bars. The bullet ricochets, missing it’s mark and Tardif silently thanks the Light for the hellion’s quick-thinking reflexes.

She leers at Dismas, anger notched across her nose, hurling a harsh reprimand, “He is our comrade at arms. He deserves some respect.”

“Ain't no more, remember,” the bandit sneers, tearing away from their confrontation to retrieve his pistol from the floor. He curses when he spots a nick in the metal casing, an imperfection caused by her meddling, one he’ll have to grind down if there’s any chance of buffing it out.

“That has yet to be seen,” Boudica says, watching the trigger happy hostile carefully.

Dust filters into the air, the side-shaven bandit following the trail of smoke to track where the pellet struck mortar and stone, prying at the hole with his finger.

“If you ask me,” he drawls, rife with ire, blowing against the debris, “He should rot in here. Better yet if we watch him hang.”

“Only if ye join me there,” Tardif quips.

“You wish.” The gunslinger laughs, twirling his pistol around before holstering it, “Maybe that lil’ bloodsucker there will do us all a favor and drink ya in your sleep.”

He spits at ground near the cell, taking his leave, whistling a funeral march, a trait usually customary of the knight superior.

With him gone the hellion can finally relax, her outward visage finally giving way, allowing her true self to shine.

She strides up to the thick-headed ex-hunter, scolding him through the palisade.

“What were you thinking,” Boudica urges, a grimace upon her face, wrinkling the war paint on her eyes, “You knew your actions would displease Reynauld.”

As much as Tardif trusts the hellion with his life, he cannot burden her with the truth.

“I was thinkin’, ‘ey, if I wipe out all the monsters, then we get a much needed vacation.’”

Her expression eases into a frustrated sigh, shaking her head of dreadlocks, “You are brave, *Kló (Talon), like myself. I admire that, but also very *þrár (stubborn).”

“I’ll take it as a compliment.”

“I would expect no less,” Boudica says, her blue eyes serious despite the more light-hearted tone, “I will speak with lady Junia, see what I can do for you. Until then, keep your head down.”

Her words are reminiscent of the shrewd disciplinary lessons Junia would often instill in him, but Boudica had the fierce wild heart to back it up.

“Can't cause much trouble from in here,” the axeman shrugs, looking around the lame accommodations. Bits of straw are scattered about the cell, iron manacles nailed to the wall, a questionably stained bucket positioned in the corner. Well, at least there was a bed, though it wasn’t much more than a weathered slab of wood suspended by chain.

Her dark lips curl into a smirk, recognizing Tardif as the resourceful kind, an underdog never to be outwitted for long.

“Sure you could. I know you.”

“Heh heh, yer right.”

The well-meaning hellion reaches her painted hand through the bars, offering assurances, “Be strong my friend. I will visit again when I can.”

He accepts the gesture, their palms sealing together tightly, making a vow of his own.

“Ye better, else I'll hunt ye down myself.”

A flex of muscle is shared between them, his and then hers, their arms swelling with combined effort.

“If it ever comes to that, I will meet you head on,” she nods, shaking on it before letting go.

The two friends part ways, Tardif watching as her tabard disappears behind a wall of pewter, headed back the same way she came.

2 notes · View notes

lgcsena · 1 year

Text

stereotype

there’s something to tell you. you want me to share it with you? lgc girls it’s going down

it’s even more obvious today i can see that everyone’s staring at me but the more they do that, the more confident i feel i feel good

as i brush back my hair, i’m passing by so my sweet scent can fly around, yeah i always like to dress myself up i like to look good, but listen

stereotype by legacy girls really spoke to sena from the moment she heard it for the first time. before legacy, there was always someone staring at her, and sena used to hate it. she really didn’t thinks he was anything special. other than being her mother’s daughter, she was just a teenage girl living her life... with the burden of being raised in the shadows of stardom. she felt that all she was thought of was a stereotype. she was the girl with the famous mom, after all. everyone assumed she was a spoiled brat with a lot of money. it’s part of the reason she decided to become an idol; she wanted to be stared at for a reason that wasn’t as negative. she wanted to be seen as more than just at least by being an idol, she would have had a reason to stare that was actually her choice, rather than just the situation she was born into. as she changed herself to better fit this image in middle and high school (though in reality it was mostly as a way to shield herself), she just noticed that even more stereotypes were being pushed onto her, like a never-ending cycle. she just wanted to be seen as herself, and not a stereotype. this would end up being the message she wanted to convey through her music: that you are more than just the stereotypes people associate with you.

i know that i may seem pretty, i may seem confident it may seem like i’m tempting you and i’m sorry but

don’t create a stereotype about me i’m a little different i may seem flashy on the outside but i’m still afraid, you should know i’m a good girl yeah if you hold me too tight, i can suffocate i might still be a little sloppy so don’t create a stereotype about me oh baby baby baby

she wants to create songs that help others out there feel okay with not being who people see you as, just as she felt about herself and as sterotype conveys. she wants to break out of her armored exterior and be able to be herself, rather than holding herself so tight that she suffocates. but that’s a hard thing to break out of, and it takes time. the song, and the songs she wants this new group to release, helped her feel that it is okay to not feel confident all the time. it’s okay to feel that you aren’t who people think you are. it’s okay to let down your shield and let others see your true self. just as she realized she wanted to be an idol, she realized she wanted to stand out on her own terms. she wants that to be the concept that is sent through the music, and to be the group with the message she needed just a few short years ago.

i like bold fashion, like it uh huh i like standing out, i can make anything work, yeah sometimes, i don’t even know how i feel that’s just me alright (alright) alright (alright) that’s just how i seem oh why (oh why) oh why (oh why) i hope you don’t just judge me on how i look my natural self me, just as i am i hope you’ll like that too i’m still soft at heart, i hope you know

she also enjoys the sound and lyrics of stereotype as well. she feels that this teen-crush style of music would set them apart from blazing, crystallis, and fabula. having the sound of stereotype would set them apart from blazing by giving them a more youthful approach, making them relatable to students and younger adults. by appealing mainly to students, she feels that the group could build their longevity by establishing a fanbase that can “grow up” with them. it would set them apart from crystallis, whose songs are more whimsical, rather than something more realistic. she felt there was something about the connection you get when you realize a song is basically the theme song to your life (as she did when she first heard stereotype). it would set them apart from fabula, whose songs already exude an established element of confidence. while fabula’s music is much more late-stage in the journey to confidence, sena wants to convey a bit more of a slow approach by making music that explains “i’m not completely confident, but i’m working on it.” by building this concept, she feels the new girl group could establish themselves as a unique concept in the lgcverse and continue to expand their ‘story’ even further.

#lgc:futuredreams #[ stereotype ]#[ headcanon ]

2 notes · View notes

bertie-the-unbearable · 2 years

Text

My contribution to a Fabula Ultima game

So as part of the set up for a Fabula Ultima game, each player contributes aspects to the setting, in this case a Nation, Kingdom, or Megacorp (The theme for this game is dystopian technofantasy), and I more or less decided to rip off Code Vein for my contribution, with a bit of Nuclear allegory and a dash of Cthulhu-Tech: Acropolis, City of Engels and Revenants

Many decades ago, the government of Acropolis discovered a way to trap and harness Seraphim, a light aspected Eidolon. Magitech engineers managed to induce Seraphim to create servitor spirits by feeding the trapped Eidolon refined Magicite. These servitor spirits, called Engels, were ideal for providing Animus to magitech machinery and spurred a new era of prosperity and industry for Acropolis. However, what should have been the start of a golden age for the city state instead signaled it's doom.

Acropolis became heavily reliant on Engel powered magitech for transit, industry, and conquest. Their star was rising in the world, and their potential seemed limitless: Until the day that Containment was breached and Seraphim, empowered by vast quantities of refined Magicite, seized control of its Engel Servitors. The machinery they powered twisted and warped into armored, inhuman beings of steel, smoke, and light: All under the control of the partially freed Seraphim at the heart of the city.

Acropolis was ravaged, the dead and dying began to outnumber the living, and desperate measures were pursued. By calling on entropic magic, and advanced biological science, the surviving scientists of Acropolis created the Resurrection Vector: An otherworldly symbiote that could being a person back from the brink of death, enhance a soldier's capabilities, and allow them to fight the Engels on their own terms. These soldiers came to be known as Revenants, The Returned, and with their deployment the war changed from a series of devastating defeats to a relentless stalemate which endures to this day.

However the cost was dear: The Resurrection Vector feeds on the lifeblood of it's host, and likewise instills a thirst for blood. When deprived of it's sustenance, the RV Parasite begins to consume and replace it's host's tissues, eventually taking over completely and warping the host into a blood crazed Abominant. There is no way to reverse this process, and it can only be halted by the consumption of blood.

The civilian government of Acropolis has long since been overshadowed by MINERVA (Military Initiative for the Neutralization of Engels and Reclamation of Vital Arcologies) the organization that grew from the city state's military. Soldiers of MINERVA all carry the Resurrection Vector, and rely on tithes of blood from the remaining civilian populace, just as they rely on MINERVA for their survival amidst the war torn ruins of their once ascendant city state.

#fabula ultima

2 notes · View notes

thebeautycove · 2 years

Text

NISHANE - SUÈDE ET SAFRAN - Signature Collection - Extrait de Parfum - The avid smeller. SAFFRON SELECTION - PART IV Saffron as a soft armor, a victory omen over the exciting challenge of senses.The fil rouge of a compelling plot where aromas play the everlasting game of love and passion. •••• • SELEZIONE ZAFFERANO - PARTE IV Profumo e identità olfattiva. Il valore dell’unicità. Serena obiezione a chi relega in spazi già vissuti, calpestati, conquistati, un profumo. Un segreto non segreto? Non esistono fragranze simili tra loro. Non esiste il perfetto duplex di un aroma, ma, soprattutto, non ritroveremo mai la replica su pelle dell’evoluzione che la stessa fragranza ottiene su qualsiasi altra pelle.

Chimica? Magia? Verità! Dal punto di vista compositivo poi un ulteriore dogma. I Nasi sono artisti, interpretano, esprimono, decodificano in modo assolutamente soggettivo il loro istinto, la loro energia creativa. Edmond Roudnitska, per citare un grande, componeva a mente, non davanti all’organo di essenze, difficile quindi supporre che le sue formule, la sua arte, potesse in qualche maniera essere copiata. Storpiata forse. Copiata mai. E così a vincere sarà ancora e sempre il piacere della scoperta, ogni volta in modalità sorpresa! a svettare su ogni possibile considerazione ordinaria, superficiale. In Suède et Safran, apprezzatissimo Extrait della Collezione Signature di Nishane, lo zafferano ha un ruolo primario. È incisivo, potente, una traccia rossa da seguire, un comando ineludibile che porta dritto dentro un universo variegato di spezie, balsami e pellami pregiati. Come una morbida corazza, questi accordi plasmano un’armonia d’aromi eterea eppure imponente, la texture tattile convince dai primi passi fino al compimento estremo della sua sostanza. Suadente al debutto, animata dal fervore dei semi di ambretta, la loro nuance è dry muschiata animalica, accesa nel pigmento infuocato dello zafferano iraniano e nel lucore pungente dello zenzero, raggiunge l’acme aromatico tra le consistenti volute cuoiate, un soffice suede spalmato di lusso speziato.Infine il muschio che tutto guarnisce e innalza, espressione di gioia rara a brillare nel sillage. Un caldo invito a spiccare.

Creata da Jorge Lee. Extrait de Parfum 50 ml. Da Fragrans in Fabula. ©thebeautycove @igbeautycove

#nishane #perfume #niche perfumes #suede et safran #saffron scents #livelovesmell #thebeautycove

1 note · View note

moccahobi · 4 years

Text

Amor Erratur [Yoongi x OC]

Warnings: Angst, there was an illegal act but also it is a dystopian world?

Summery: Yoongi’s life was fairly put together. He would go to work organizing the raffles, talk with the one good person at his office, (Y/n), and marry whoever he was paired with. If only pesky feelings didn’t get in the way of it all.

Word Count: 5.2k

A/N: So... this is the first project that @btswriterscorner is doing! It is an amazing network with amazing people and I am excited to continue working with them! Be sure to check them out and the other works that are happening in the same universe as this one!

The monotone tap, tap, tap of office computers filled the air, and an overbearing stench of burnt coffee pushing everyone to keep working. Offices had the potential of being lively with everyone smiling and talking, but not Yoongi’s office. No, Yoongi’s office was a beige government facility that wanted everyone and everything to be utterly silent when possible. Of course it wasn’t always quiet but the cubicles were made of fabric that purposely absorbed sound and there were walls that separated the main social area from the main work area. Yoongi had been working at the raffle facility since he graduated high school and after almost five years of working in it, he had risen somewhat high up on the ladder.

Now he had the final say in the results. His job was to make sure that everything was in place and that there was nothing out of place. It was interesting to see, but Yoongi didn’t always do his job to the fullest of his abilities. One point he even saw a hoobae of his change his partner to be someone else. Not all of the results had much of a rhyme or reason and the original results of Yoongi’s hoobae was one of those results. As Yoongi was the final check, he let it pass. Later that month, his hoobae was transferred but Yoongi was glad the man got to marry someone he wanted. He wasn’t always that lenient, at one point he even had to report a hoobae for trying to alter a major result, but Yoongi tried to be lenient when he could.

With a sigh, Yoongi grabbed his mug and stood up. He had been working for almost four hours without a break and desperately needed more coffee. Of course Yoongi always needed coffee and if it wasn’t for Y/n coming by and refilling Yoongi’s mug with the burnt coffee the office always served, Yoongi would have had to get up much sooner that day. The idea of visiting Y/n while on his break made Yoongi get excited. She was a cool person to talk to. With that in mind, Yoongi took a detour on his way to the break room, heart speeding up slightly as he did so. He found himself counting cubicles before making it to Y/n’s, his heartbeat speeding up more and more (most likely from all the caffeine he drank so far setting in) until he made it to Y/n’s desk. She was laughing and talking to Mina, a coworker who started about a year ago.

“Hey Y/n-sshi, I didn’t say it earlier but thank you for the refill.” Yoongi said, interrupting whatever conversation the two were having. Mina was glaring at him, but he didn’t care. Yoongi never cared when he interrupted people’s conversations at work.

“No problem, Yoongi-sshi! I know how you run on it and I wanted to brew a new pot.” Y/n said with a smile that made Yoongi’s heartbeat pick up once again.

He tried to ignore his feelings though. He learned long ago that emotions, romantic emotions specifically, were not something one should have. They granted harsh punishments ranging from a decade in prison to death depending on where one lived. The tiny crush Yoongi had on Y/n would pass… even if he’s had it for almost a year now. It would go away because it should go away.

“Would you like a refill now? I am going to get myself more coffee too.” Yoongi asked, hoping no one could read his inner turmoil.

“She drinks tea in the afternoons, Yoongi-sshi. I’d love coffee though.” Mina said with a sneer like smile, her hand moving to rest possessively on Y/n’s shoulder.

“She’s right, Yoongi-ssh, I am trying to cut back in my coffee intake, but if there is any hot water, I would love some more of that.”

“Ok. I can do hot water.” Yoongi said with a smile before walking past and into the break room.

As soon as he entered the room and saw no one was there, he closed the door and let his smile drop. Mina was a fake and annoying bitch and most days he could barely tolerate her, given he could barely tolerate most people here. The job was cutthroat. Time and time again he saw coworkers get fired for one unknown reason or another. He even had a new supervisor after the last one was cut randomly before the new year. Yoongi had no idea how he had managed to last in the job for so long, his emotions occasionally taking him over. Which was something that was heavily frowned upon when one works in the government. He even missed a week or so after his mom died because he simply couldn't cope with his emotions the way his job required. He never understood why he was chosen for this job, many of his colleagues are emotionless on good days and Yoongi was simply... reserved. At times he had to be in order to survive in such an office. Yoongi had a fairly high up position and he didn’t doubt that if he showed emotion, his coworkers would be trying to get him in trouble for stuff. Except Y/n. Y/n was too kind and caring to do that… she would never do something like that. Soon enough he had a pot of coffee brewing and a pot of water boiling.

With that done, he looked out the window to see everyone working away in their cubicles. The office was dull and grey and everyone seemed to wear dull and grey clothes that made them blend in. It was like office camouflage. Soon enough, Yoongi found himself staring at Y/n, as he often did when he had a reprieve from work, who was typing away on whatever assignment she was now working on. She was one of the few people Yoongi got to interact with that didn’t seem borderline psychopathic. She was always friendly and helpful, and Yoongi loved that. Soon enough, Yoongi found his eyes slowly raking down Y/n's body, even if he didn’t mean to. She was very beautiful… which didn’t help his crush. There was even a possibility that a small spark of anxiety and hope ran through him when a new list of results came in at the prospect of him and her being paired. It most likely wouldn’t happen though. At least, that is what Yoongi told himself to keep his hope low.

He just... used the word love… for a person. Belatedly realizing this, Yoongi spun around and faced the stove, fear squeezing his heart. He had never felt such a strong emotion before. He barely felt love towards his parents. He never saw or experienced love outside of what he read in old books and movies he got to see in the depths of his grandfather's basement. It was whispered about in his seventh grade history class before the teacher talked about why such an emotion was suppressed and banished for the better of mankind. Never had he seen anyone express love though. Not even his hoobae who got to marry the person he wanted to be with. His government teacher explained that it was frowned upon and punished if one felt love. The teacher never explained how the government found out but spies were everywhere. For all Yoongi knew, the second he thought he loved Y/n his fate was sealed. He could be arrested tomorrow and never see his dad or his brother again. He wouldn’t die even if he was arrested though. South Korea didn’t put people to death because of emotions, they simply jailed them. Of course Yoongi most likely wouldn’t be jailed for thinking such a feeling. At least he hoped.

The scream of the pot brought Yoongi back to the present, quickly turning the stove off before walking out of the break room with it. He needed to keep himself calm and collected.

"Piping hot water for you, Y/n-sshi." Yoongi said with a smile, carefully pouring more water into Y/n's "This Coffee Makes Me Awesome" mug.

"Thank you, Yoongi-sshi. You didn't have to brew me a pot." She said quietly before turning back to work. At that, Yoongi made his way back to the break room, excited to have some coffee and relieved to be away from Y/n. She was amazing but Yoongi didn’t want people to realize his thoughts. As he waited for the coffee to brew, he found himself thinking about what it would be like to be married to Y/n. She would be an amazing partner. He could practically see her doting on him and laughing at all his jokes. Oh how he would love to be married to her.

Yoongi just so happened to get an email about needing to start on the raffle results for people born his year... which included Y/n. If they were both meant to marry someone... Yoongi could easily switch the names and get Y/n to be his partner. He was the last check so no one would have to know. Once the coffee was brewed, Yoongi had it all planned out. He was going to simply change the names if both him and Y/n were on the list. There was no way anyone would know. He quickly made his way back to his desk and went back to checking through the final list of raffle winners that was sent to him. Sure enough, both him and Y/n were on the list and he quickly moved his name down to be with Y/n and her original spouse up to Yoongi's original spouse.

With a sigh of relief, Yoongi leaned back in his desk and took a long sip of his coffee. Maybe he should quit drinking coffee too.

What a joke. He was almost 75% coffee by now.

The second Yoongi swiped in the next day, he felt like something was off. He just knew that some of his coworkers were looking at him more than normal and the air in the office felt stale today. His heart felt like it was having a cramp from how hard it was beating. Was this what a heart attack felt like? Maybe he couldn’t go into work today. He wasn’t having a heart attack though, Yoongi knew that. He was simply feeling paranoid. At least, that is what he told himself. He was feeling unwanted and illegal emotions and now he needed to stump them quickly or he could be jailed. He couldn’t be jailed though. There was no way for anyone to know that he was having these thoughts or that he did anything wrong. No one could know. He was safe.

Yoongi quickly got into his seat and logged onto his computer, hoping that none of his coworkers would notice him acting differently. There was nothing different about today. Nothing at all. Only, when Yoongi logged onto his computer, he knew that there was in fact something different about today. There was an email from his supervisor… that had been marked with a red flag of importance. It mocked him. Yoongi fucked up yesterday by changing those names and his supervisor knew. His dumb infatuation with Y/n was going to get him jailed. He would never see his dad again. Missed calls will be all that his dad will remember him by. Yoongi was doomed.

As Yoongi continued to read the letter, he got even more worried. His meeting was at 9 in the morning. Nothing good came from a meeting so early in the day. Plus, he only had ten minutes to prepare for his inevitable arrest. Was there some way that he could prevent it? Plead that it was an accident? Plead for his life? His heart was beating quickly in fear and if it weren’t for the fact that he was at work, Yoongi might have broken down into tears. This was the end of him and he didn’t want his asshole coworkers to catch on to Yoongi’s demise. Too many of them were working here after working in the jailing unit. They were quick to catch on to anything and everything that might be suspicious. No doubt they were suspicious of the growing sweat stains that were no doubt showing on his shirt. Any of them could have reported him yesterday and any of them could arrest him today.

Y/n gently setting a mug of coffee down at his desk brought Yoongi out of his reprieve, her smile momentarily releasing him from those anxious thoughts. She was smiling at him as she set it down. Yoongi quickly took a sip of his coffee and nodded at her, not able to focus on anything but his meeting that was happening soon. He needed to prepare for that as best as he possibly could. Y/n hung back as if she wanted to say something to Yoongi but Yoongi had no time for any social interaction even if it was from Y/n. Especially if it was from Y/n.

He pulled up a random document on his computer to act as if he was actually getting work done so that Y/n would leave him alone. For all he knew, the document was about a project he did last year, but Yoongi didn’t need to actually read it. Y/n left shortly after Yoongi opened the document and for those few minutes Yoongi had before meeting with his supervisor, Yoongi tried to come up with a valid excuse for altering the results. None of them seemed to work and before he knew it, his time was up.

Shakily, Yoongi got up and slowly made his way towards his supervisor’s office. Each step made his feet feel heavier and heavier as if telling him that he still had time to run and go on the lamb. His life didn’t have to end here. Yet Yoongi didn’t turn around, and soon enough the golden plaque of his supervisor’s name was staring him in the face.

Namjoon.

His supervisor’s name was Namjoon. Namjoon was the name of the man who was about to seal Yoongi’s fate forever. Yoongi took a deep breath in, the office air feeling heavy in his lungs. He needed to relax. Stealing all his strength, Yoongi knocked on Namjoon’s door firmly. If this was the end of his freedom, he wanted it to end with him acting brave.

After a faint “come in”, Yoongi entered. The inside of the office was shrouded in shadows and there was some faint, high pitched noise that seemed to emanate the whole office. In the middle of the office was a large desk that commanded the whole room with nothing on it apart from a lone lit candle. It wasn’t until Namjoon cleared his throat that Yoongi finally looked up to see his supervisor. In the dark, Namjoon looked much younger than Yoongi expected. He might have been Yoongi’s age or a little older. This was the man who would punish him for doing wrong. This man would lead to Yoongi’s demise.

“How are you doing today, Yoongi-sshi?” Namjoon asked, his voice gruff as he looked Yoongi over before looking down at a file.

“I… I… I have had better days.” Yoongi finally settled on, feeling his nervousness grow higher by the minute. Why in the world was Namjoon asking such a simple question.

“Makes sense. You have been in this department for how long?”

Yoongi coughed, “I have been working here for almost six years now. Although you have my file. You should know th-”

“Why did you accept this job Yoongi?”

“I didn’t have a choice. This was the only job that came up when I did the job test in high school.” Yoongi shrugged, worry building as Namjoon kept speaking. Why was he asking so many questions? He did something illegal and he was going to jail for it, right?

“And did you go to college before working here?”

“No.”

Namjoon nodded before getting up and walking over to a file cabinet in the corner of the office. He hunched over the cabinet, quickly thumbing through many files before pulling one out. In two steps, Namjoon made his way back to the desk and set the file down.

It was Yoongi’s.

“From what I have read of you, you seem to be very smart. So tell me, Yoongi-sshi, why in the world did you think it safe, let alone smart, to alter the results from the raffel?”

Yoongi’s gut dropped, this was exactly what he was worried the meeting would be about. His worst nightmare was confirmed now. He was going to jail and it would be the end of him.

“I… I… I don’t know.” Yoongi finally got out. Despite all the attempts of thinking up excuses, he had nothing. Nothing he could say could get him out of this situation.

“You don’t know, or you won’t say because it could be more incriminating?” Namjoon asked, leaning forwards and looking Yoongi dead in the eyes. His stare was piercing. It made Yoongi want to shrivel up in his seat and hide but at the same time, there was something about it that seemed to be curious.

“I… I don’t know.” Yoongi finally got out, his words a mere whisper in the room. He looked down at this point, too scared of looking Namjoon in the eyes and him understanding what he meant.

“You see.” Namjoon started, his voice as quiet as Yoongi’s, “I think you do know why you did it but are just scared of incriminating yourself. I understand that. Thing is, I am on your side Yoongi. I… am not one for the current regime. I won’t turn you in… but I want you to do something.”

“Are you blackmailing me, hyungnim?” Yoongi asked, not believing his ears.

How could his supervisor say that! Yoongi didn’t agree with the regime either but they had ways of keeping people silent. Yoongi barely even dared to think of anything that was too radical because he has heard stories of people thinking illegal things and them being taken away.

Namjoon laughed, “I am not, Yoongi-sshi. It is ok to talk here. I have set it up so their bugs can’t listen in. Before we talk more… I need to know, why did you alter the raffle results?”

Should he believe Namjoon?

Could this all be a lie?

Would it even matter? Yoongi most likely had a life sentence already. There wasn’t much more punishment that could happen if Yoongi talked about his feelings or government distaste. South Korea didn’t have the death penalty.

“I… I did it because I love Y/n. I want to be with her.” Yoongi finally said.

It was a strange feeling to finally voice such an emotion. His whole life, it had been frowned upon to feel this way, let alone speak about those feelings and here he was voicing his love for a coworker to his supervisor. It felt good though.

Namjoon nodded and leaned back in his chair at that, “That is what I was hoping to hear. Sadly, I got a letter from my higher ups that we needed to remove five random couples from the list and you and Y/n just so happened to be one of the couples on the list. I hope you don’t mind. They would have checked it themselves anyways.

“Now, what I need from you,” Namjoon licked his lips and leaned closer once again, “I have ties to the revolution… I want you to do some work on the side to help the revolution. What do you say?”

“What?” Yoongi asked, not fully registering what Namjoon was asking of him.

Namjoon sighed and shook his head, “I want… no need you to do some work with the revolution. If you want to be with Y/n in a romantic way, you will help. If you want anyone else to even have the chance to feel what you are feeling, you will help. It would be small stuff. Volunteering with kids and planting ideas of love in their heads. Tiny stuff.”

Yoongi nodded, barely able to keep track of all that was happening inside his mind. One minute he was scared that his life was over and now he was being asked to join a revolution? How had his day changed so drastically? This was absolutely not what he expected to have happen today.

“I… uh… how does that help with a revolution?” Yoongi asked, his mind still stuck with the idea of him not going to jail. He was going to call his parents the minute he got home from work. It was too long since they talked.

"It makes people want what we preach to them. Never underestimate the magic that stories and care can have, Yoongi-sshi. Now, get out of my office and continue working. I will be sending an email to you some time today about the next meeting you have to do." Namjoon said, dismissing Yoongi with a wave of his hand.

"Wait-- I have to meet another person before I can start working?" Yoongi asked once he stood up, "Why can't I just get to work?"

"The revolution doesn't let just anyone's help. We will not risk the safety of our fellows without doing checks first. Now get to work Yoongi-sshi." Namjoon said, getting up himself to grab something from the filing cabinet. Yoongi didn't stay around to see what Namjoon was going to work on next, instead opting to get to work. He had cold coffee and a large number of requests to sort through himself.

Yoongi sat anxiously in one of the booths at a dark and grimy bar. His hands were limply resting by his sides, not wanting to touch the table and whatever had made it sticky. Namjoon had emailed him that fateful work day and that was how Yoongi found himself in the bar booth, waiting for someone named Jeon Jungkook to meet him. Anxiety made Yoongi come half an hour before Jungkook was said to meet him. Some hoppy beer sat in front of Yoongi but he could barely stomach more than three sips. The bar was in a low income area of Seoul where many manual laborers lived but almost everyone in the bar seemed to be celebrating one thing or another. All yelling happily and ordering more drinks than Yoongi might have ever drunk. The noise was shocking and a wave of pain ran through Yoongi every time some new person entered as the drunk people shouted a cheer. Yoongi watched as someone sauntered across the bar and made his way towards his booth.

Was this man Jungkook?

He was in a simple pair of jeans and a t-shirt but both of them seemed almost too small for him as his muscles were very visible through them. If this was Jungkook, Yoongi had no idea what many other people in the revolution looked like. Were they all strong and scary looking? Before Yoongi had much time to think more about those in the revolution, the man sat across from Yoongi. It was Jungkook. Jungkook's black hair shielded his eyes from Yoongi, but he had no doubt that Jungkook was giving him a once over. A shudder ran down Yoongi's spine and he felt himself shrivel into himself.

"Yoongi." Jungkook said, his voice softer than Yoongi would have expected.

"Jungkook?" Yoongi asked, forcing himself to sit back up and look Jungkook in the eye as best as he could. It was hard, especially when Jungkook opted to keep staring at Yoongi instead of speaking.

They must have sat there staring at each other for a minute before Jungkook cleared his throat and started talking, "Thank you for meeting. Sorry it took me so long to get in. They didn't believe my ID."

"Why wouldn't they?" Yoongi asked, raising an eyebrow at Jungkook.

"I look young. That is besides the point. Namjoon thinks you will be a good addition to the Seoul section of the revolution. Do you think you would be a good addition?" Jungkook asked, reaching across the table and stealing a sip of Yoongi's beer.

Yoongi let him, too nervous to even drink it.

"You have shit taste in beer by the way." Jungkook added, pulling a face from the bitterness of the beer.

Yoongi let a tense laugh loose at Jungkook's comment before starting, "I don't know why Namjoon thinks I am good for the Seoul section... I think I would like to help though... love is a great feeling... I have only felt it a little, I mean I think I have only felt it a little, but I want people to feel free to feel love. Love is a good emotion..."

Jungkook nodded and ran his fingers through his hair. Yoongi saw his eyes for the first time and was once again struck by the gaze Jungkook was pinning Yoongi with. If looks could kill, Yoongi might have been dead.

"And how do I know that you aren't going to snitch and try to get money from ratting out the Seoul chapter?" Jungkook asked, taking another sip of Yoongi's beer.

"I... Why would I?" Yoongi started, "Namjoon found me doing something illegal too. If I even tried ratting myself out I would get jail time as well."

"That means nothing to me. Blackmail or not. " Jungkook scoffed.

"You'll just have to grow to trust me then." Yoongi said with a sigh.

What was he supposed to say to a stranger? Never in Yoongi's life has he had to keep such a secret and now Jungkook was asking for proof that he could keep it? Yoongi had no idea what he could possibly say.

"I think I am willing to trust you, but if I even hear that you are attempting to rat us out, I will find you and hurt you myself... or better yet, I will hurt your precious Y/n." Jungkook said, taking one final swig of Yoongi's beer before getting up, "You'll be emailed a date, time, and location for the first part of your work."

Before Yoongi could ask any more, Jungkook had disappeared into the crowd and Yoongi was once again left alone in the dark and gritty bar.

Was this the right place? Yoongi had no idea but the longer he stood outside of the orphanage, the more stares he got from random people who were passing by and Yoongi hates getting stared at. The building was a monotone and sad looking grey and it made Yoongi wonder if the inside looked as depressing as the outside. He hoped not. The idea of children being stuck in such a depressing place made Yoongi’s heart ache.

“Are you the new person Jungkook sent to read to the children?” Someone asked walking up to Yoongi with a small smile on her face.

She wore a simple pair of blue jeans and a large manilla sweater. Her black hair was pulled into a low ponytail, frizz sticking out all over her head. Yoongi felt over dressed in comparison to her even though he was simply wearing khakis and a polo. He didn’t have time to change after work. He didn’t doubt that by the end of this program he would feel gross, but after seeing the look of the outside of the building, Yoongi didn’t mind. If reading stories to the orphans would bring them happiness, he would do it willingly. They need happiness.

“I am. Yeah. Name is Yoongi.” He finally said, slowly walking into the orphanage with the woman in tow.

“My name is Gi . I have been working here for a year now. I can show you around before the children get back from school.” She said, sliding behind the front desk and grabbing a key, “I am glad that you decided to come a little early. It gives me time to not only show you around but also how to set up for the reading.”

“Wait-- I am here early?” Yoongi asked, not even bothering to ask why the children were arriving back from school so late in the day.

“About half an hour early.” Gi said, walking over to a side door and unlocking it, “Let me guess, though. Jungkook said that this was when you had to arrive?”

Yoongi nodded, following Gi as she led the way into the living quarters of the orphanage. They were as dull and grey as the outside of the building save for the occasional motivational poster.

“That is so like him.” She laughed quietly, “Please continue to come early. It does help with setting up. Anyways, this is where we will mostly be.” Gi started to explain what they would be doing and how to set up.

There was a closet full of pillows and books that Gi and Yoongi would be using. His job was to get the children to relax after a long school day and then help them with their homework if they needed it before cleaning up. It would most likely be a simple job and for the first time since Yoongi was in high school, he felt excitement towards doing something. This excitement didn’t fade after one day of work, nor after volunteering for a whole week. That weekend, he and Gi met up to plan the next week and he felt even more excited. The pattern of working there in the afternoon and evenings on weekdays and planning with Gi on the weekend continued for two months and before Yoongi knew it, he found himself anxiously waiting day in and day out for the time he spent with not only the children but also Gi. His days were bright and colorful even though he worked and volunteered in such grey places.

It wasn’t until he came back from a bathroom break and saw himself admiring Gi help a middle schooler with their math homework that he realized he no longer felt any love towards Y/n. Maybe all Yoongi felt was a strong infatuation but he had never experienced such a strong emotion before that. Yoongi leaned against a wall and smiled at the scene in front of him. Children were playing and working together on homework. In the center of it all was Gi: a wonderful and caring woman who also happened to be part of the revolution. In the time Yoongi has spent with her, he got to know so much. She was in a loveless marriage to a man thrice her age who eventually became a close friend of hers. Her husband and her had a kid who was now two before he passed due to a heart attack. She worked as an editor in some large and boring newspaper. There she met another friend of hers who eventually got her to work with the revolution.

She was an amazing person with a large heart.

Yoongi cast a glance her way before slowly walking over. Maybe he liked her romantically. Maybe she was a reason Yoongi wanted to believe in the revolution. Maybe he would walk to the ends of the earth to be with her. Yoongi chose not to think about that right now, instead getting onto his knees and helping another kid near Gi.

He could get used to this work.

73 notes · View notes

btscreatorscorner · 4 years

Text

Welcome to BTS Writers’ Corner’s first project! In celebration of the establishment of our network as well as the renouned holiday, Valentines Day, we present Amor Fabula, a collaboration between the various writers of the network~

Project Summary: “Love can be a wonderful thing, but it can also breed chaos. Imagine a world where love is absent; where the feeling itself is restricted, misunderstood, or illegal altogether. Marriage partners are chosen for the sake of increasing the population and enhancing socioeconomic growth. Nothing more. It's a world where being in love is criminalized and your options are few: accept your fate, hide the truth in your heart, or turn your back on the world.”

THIS IS PART 1 OF THE MASTERLIST; Go to part 2 here: Masterlist Part 2

@flowerwrites06 presents: Crying Petals

Summary: Story of cotton fields and vanilla kisses as a pair of friends living together for years are hit with a stunning revelation that could strengthen or destroy their relationship.

Released: February 10th | read here

——

@thebiasrekkers (Eden) presents: Touch in the Dark

Summary: Min Yoongi comes from the prestigious family of Blue Blood lineage. However, to appear philanthropic in the eyes of the public, they volunteered their son to marry someone from "humble" origins. Two years have passed since he's been married to his poor, orphan wife. But for the first time in two years, he's starting to take note of things about her that are causing shifts in his views of her, shaking his heart.

Released: Febuary 11th | read here

——

@aroseforyoongi presents: Playing Fiction

Summary: For as long as you can remember, Namjoon has been your best friend. He has been an absolute constant in your life and has never wavered. The problem is that in the world you live in, everyone is matched with someone they are never supposed to love. Despite how much you would love to end up with Namjoon, you understand the gravity of it, and spend your last year together trying to savour the small moments.

Released: February 12th | read here

——

@nightowlfandom presents: Follow Me

Summary: On a small island called Nue Island, there is a rule, a ritual, a curse. It is that love is a myth. Romance is a fabrication by the weak willed and foolish. When the odds seem like they're placed against you, and everything is crashing down. How can you get away, better yet, how can you escape the ultimate fate you'd be faced with and answer the question that's been on your mind for ages...is love real?

Released date: February 13th | read here

——

@moccahobi presents: Amor Erratur

Summary: Yoongi’s life was fairly put together. He would go to work organizing the raffles, talk with the one good person at his office, (Y/n), and marry whoever he was paired with. If only pesky feelings didn’t get in the way of it all.

Released: February 14th | read here

——

@thebiasrekkers (Tomi)/ @darknytemare presents: Way To You

Summary: Taehyung is satisfied with how his life is. Because that's what he's supposed to feel. But, a certain incident changes how he feels. And those feelings begging to unlock memories deep within his mind. He begins to question everything -including why he keeps seeing a woman who is not his wife invading his thoughts.

Released: February 15th | read here: 1 2 3

——

@prisczero presents: Renegade

Summary: ‘The system’ arranged your marriage with Yoongi, but you never truly loved him.

But this was the way your life was supposed to be, and you were content.

Well, until you end up in a bar where you meet a sweetheart with a badboy exterior. The two of you fall head over heels for each other, and you are torn between your emotions and the rules.

Jimin rebels the ‘system' and shows you what emotional freedom is like.

Released: February 16th | read here

PART 2 OF THE MASTERLIST WILL BE RELEASED SOON

153 notes · View notes

mystrangelilartcorner · 4 years

Text

Day one of Flora in Fabula

Hero: Chicorium Intylous

#my drawing corner #FlorainFabula #oc tober 2020 #day 1 #hero #chickory #disabled #wheelchair #knight #armor #flora in fabula

2 notes · View notes

dinopopduck · 3 years

Text

Ezekiel Only Being Unaffected By Certain Kinds of Magic

Let’s just start with me saying this isn’t exactly a new theory. It’s the demigod thing, and it’s a fairly popular one. If you haven’t heard of this headcannon, I put as much as I can find here. If you have, I found a bunch of new stuff that I haven’t seen anyone else mention, so reading this isn’t a complete waste of your time, I hope.

I tried to keep this from becoming wordy, but it got really long anyway, because there was a lot to talk about here.

Ezekiel being unaffected by magic is sort of an ongoing thing in the show. He is influenced by it much of the time, such as by Santa’s Hat, Pan’s Flute, Prospero’s spell, lycanthropy, etc. When it comes to the stuff he was seemingly completely immune to, there is one link that connects them all.

Apple of Discord: Everybody knows this one. The Apple is a Greek artifact, meant to turn you into the worst version of yourself, and Ezekiel was only one completely unaffected. It’s blamed on “he’s already the worst version of himself” or whatever.

Zeus Lightning Bolt: the episode where Ezekiel ends up decked out in Greek armor, and is sent to pick up Zeus’ Lightning Bolt, which was freaking out and zapping everywhere. He picks it up just fine, and he’s then able to hand it off to Flynn. It may have been purely because of the Greek armor he was wearing, but Flynn did not seem so sure about that working.

Cindy’s Love Potion: Ezekiel is able to be near the potion without becoming obsessed with Cindy. At first, it’s blamed on him being obsessed with himself, then later Jacob tells Ezekiel that he was already in love with Cindy. It was an obsession, not a love, potion you literally spent the episode proving that blah blah, he didn’t even recognize her at first blah blah, anyway, I have a better reason.

There are two Greek mentions in this episode. First, the potion project itself is called Project Aphrodite, a Greek goddess. Second, the sunflowers; when asked, Jenkins mentions how sunflowers are a Greek symbol of unrequited love. In addition, “love” potions may have originated in Greece, or at the very least, were common enough to have multiple sites claim that, lol. At the end of the season, where each librarian uses their gifts to turn Apep mortal, this greek potion is what Ezekiel ends up using.

See a pattern here? Everything that he was completely unaffected by was Greek in some way. So, he has an immunity to these kinds of artifacts, but why? I vote demigod.

Anyway, moving on.

Here’s some magic he could have been immune to, or could not have been. Its pretty debatable.

Fortuna: Technically a Roman Goddess, but the show does acknowledge how similar they are to Greek Gods. He may have been affected by the spell, but broke out of it pretty quick. Some think he may not been affected at all; slot machines aren’t exactly fair, especially in a casino that exists to cheat completely. As for Ezekiel getting so upset over losing, what he says, “Not the guy that loses, I’m the guy that wins” sounds very similar to what he was saying in Point of Salvation, but that’s a whole nother topic.

Alternately, he was affected and this point shouldn’t be here. I don’t know, I’m not the writers.

Libris Fabula: He was a little bit affected, just far less than the others, as he acted pretty much the same. He did get a barely noticeable clothing change, became luckier than normal, and was just able to cast a spell for some reason? Speaking out that spell, it froze the guy, and a certain Greek God does have the ability to put people to sleep. Not really the same thing, but worth thinking about. Maybe. More on that later.

Most people think he was immune, but he could have just been similar enough to the character he was portraying that he didn’t need to change a whole lot.

These ones are barely worth mentioning, because have other reasonable (though I guess your definition of reasonable may be different from mine) explanations, but you could see them as magic immunity as well:

Silver Screen: Ezekiel gets into character the least, while Cassandra and Jacob are out singing and calling people by their character names. Maybe less affected, maybe just a spoilsport. Probably the last one.

Point of Salvation: Was the only one able to remember previous loops. Since they were in a video game, it’s explained that since he was the first through the door, he became the player while everyone else became NPCs. I mean, sure.

Christmas Thief: Saint of Thieves only used his truth telly power on Ezekiel’s mother, not him. Ezekiel did not feel obligated to say anything. Could just be that the guy wasn’t talking to Ezekiel. Or, earlier in that episode Ezekiel tells his mother he doesn’t steal anymore (at least for anything other than the Library, I assume, cause he still kinda does) and therefor that made him immune to the spell, since it only works on thieves.

Image of an Image: Both Cassandra and Ezekiel got their pictures taken, and Cassandra was the only one affected by the transfer spell. However, Ezekiel wasn’t one of the “chosen ones” because he snuck in, and jumped in front of the camera while Eve (one of the “chosen ones”, who was later able to be affected) turned away. Either that, or he just didn’t have time to feel the effect, since his picture was taken after Cassandra’s, and Eve’s was placed in manually.

That’s all the possible instances of magic immunity I could think of.

Next, we have some other stuff that is relevant to this point, but wasn’t necessarily artifact/magic immunity.

Prophecy Cube: Created by the Oracle of Delphi, who is from Greek mythology. This isn’t about whether Ezekiel was affected by something, as he was still able to use the prophecy glass/get stuck in the cube. Rather, it’s about the Zeus Challenge in the cube. They probably would have died in there, but luckily, Ezekiel had just happened to steal, and keep on him, the exact thing they needed to get through– a bunch of golden coins, and a prophecy that ensures at least one coin can’t be destroyed. Luck? Prophecy? Divine Intervention? Plot convenience? Okay its probably the last one but STILL

Also, Ezekiel getting pissed at Zeus.

Zeus’s Bolt (again?): There is a promo image I think for season 4? that has each of the Librarians holding their tools. Jacob had his axe, Cassandra had a notebook, Flynn had Excalibur, all normal, except for Eve and Ezekiel. Eve had this big staff thing I didn’t recognize, and Ezekiel had Zeus’ Bolt for some reason?

Lightning, just, in general: If there is wild electricity in an episode, Ezekiel is probably around.

Examples:

City of Light: Gets shocked and knocked backwards into Jacob by a very electrified fence, gets up right afterwards and is fine.

Broken Staff: The Zeus Bolt thing, you get it.

Image of an Image: Ezekiel electrocutes Jacob. Jacob was not really fine. He lived, though.

Point of Salvation: Ezekiel electrocutes Jacob part 2 Electric Boogaloo, but this time on purpose. He was not fine. He died. But don’t worry, he lived.

Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: Mentioned a little bit above, Ezekiel, Jacob, and a student get stuck in the Zeus Challenge, and Ezekiel uses some coins he just so happened to steal recently. Throwing them on tiles shows whether or not lightning will strike if it was stepped on. Seriously, why is it ALWAYS Jacob?

The Dark Secret: Ezekiel is the one sent to wrap a cord around a lightning rod constantly being struck by lighting. “Why am I bloody doing this”, he asks? I mean, Zeus probably isn’t going to kill his descendent(?), right?

Werewolves: Have you heard of the Lycaon of Arcadia? It’s a Greek myth. Basically, this dude named Lycaon wants to test how smart and all-knowing Zeus is. To do so, he kills his own son, cooks him, and serves him to Zeus to see if he notices, ya know, no biggie. Zeus was like “wtf man” and brings the son back to life, and turns Lycaon into, you guessed it, a wolf. So, Zeus creates a werewolf of sorts, maybe one of the firsts. In Fangs of Death, Ezekiel just so happens to be the one (main) character to be turned into werewolf. So, if he was a descendant of Zeus, imagine how big of a “fuck you” that was to the god. That all being said, Ezekiel was turned by an Egyptian god, so that might not have been intentional. Also, they may have just been avoiding turning Jacob, because there is already a werewolf named Jacob and they didn't want another Twilight reference in that episode.

Family/Name: Ezekiel is adopted, and his adoptive mother mentions how she took him in off the streets. Because of that, we don’t know who his birth parents are, and whether or not he, or anyone else, knows is unknown. Soooo, we can take some creative liberties as to who his parents might have been.

As for his name, it carries some religious connotations. It should be remembered though, the meanings I’m talking about here are Biblical, not Greek, so again, might mean nothing for this argument. “Ezekiel” is “God’s Strength” or “God will Strengthen”. Jones might also be something like “God is gracious” or “God has favored”, thought different sites say different things. However, I’m pretty sure the name Jones came from his adoptive mother, and apparently Jones is a common last name in Australia. His first name is more relevant, because all of his siblings have themed names; Mercy, Charity, and Honor. So, either his mom named him differently because she knew something we don’t, or he already had the name before she adopted him. Either way, this probably means absolutely nothing. But what are we here for? To analyze a dead show like an English teacher analyzes the color of curtains in an 100 year old text. If it wasn’t for all the other stuff, I probably wouldn’t think about this too much.

Okay. So Greek stuff, lightning, and Zeus himself come up a LOT when it comes to this guy. So is Ezekiel the son of Zeus? Possibly, but a more popular theory is that he’s Zeus’ grandson. Because Zeus’ son just so happens to be Hermes; god of things such as luck, travel, money, trade, and most importantly, thieves. Oh, and animal husbandry/shepherds and sleep, I don’t know how much those apply but I will try.

Time for some comparisons, honestly most of these don’t even need to be explained so I’ll keep it short-ish, cause this shit has gotten way too long already.

Luck: Ezekiel, especially in the first season, likes to rely on luck, and tends to be very lucky in general. Examples where this is mentioned include Fables of Doom and Apple of Discord. “Smarter to be lucky then lucky to be smart!”

Travel: We can assume that he ended up traveling in his previous job (that being heists all over the world) fairly often, even before the Library. Becoming a Librarian with a teleporting door increased that of course.

Money: Steals very high-value items to sell. Also apparently likes to take money from his coworker’s wallets. And probably everyone else’s.

Trade: The aforementioned high-value pieces he steals are traded/sold for money. In Christmas Thief, we find out he kept none of the money or items, giving it away to others who needed it. That kinda fits this category, I think.

Thieves: I really don’t need to explain this. Unless you haven’t seen the show.

Animal Husbandry/Shepherds?: Basically the care of animals. Um, well he doesn’t keep cows or anything, but he has a tendency to “adopt” magical creatures that need help. Stumpy, Nessie Jr., maybe Frankenstein’s Monster as well?

Sleep: I mentioned earlier how Ezekiel froze a guy (not really in an icy way, just couldn’t move) by hitting him with his coin. Hermes is able to send people to sleep with his Caduceus (the snake wand thing). Yeah, it’s not really the same thing, though you could consider being frozen a kind of sleep. He could have just been lucky enough to find a magical coin, and lucky enough to figure out how to use it at the exact right time without even knowing what it did. It’s a stretch either way, really, and was never explained in the episode at all. Yeah, I can't find anything else that fits.

Hermes is considered to be a thief and trickster, and a lot of the things he is god of are Ezekiel’s main occupations. With all those similarities to Hermes, frequent events related to lightning and Zeus related things, and immunity to Greek artifacts, we can conclude that he is perhaps the son of Hermes, taking after his father in abilities and getting visits from grandpa.

Alternatively, his somehow IS Hermes, but I doubt that. He’d probably be way more powerful. He was also able to see the future with Prophecy Glass, which Jenkins claims is impossible for immortals to do (although in that case he was talking about a Prophecy Cube, but close enough). It’s more likely that he is a demigod.

Okay, that is all I can think of that is relevant. I binged the series about two months ago, and have been thinking about this theory. I went ahead and re-watched the episodes that I mentioned in more detail, as well as parts of others that I remebered. The reason I bring this up is because I may have missed things. I did not rewatch a majority of the episodes, more that I looked at a list of episodes on wikipedia and tried to remember what happened in them, watching clips and episodes if I needed to.

The show was cancelled, so we’ll probably never get a confirmation as to who Ezekiels’ birth parents were, and as such, you can’t prove me wrong! That being said, if I got any facts incorrect in this, please tell me so I can fix it. I’m not well versed on Greek Mythology, in fact I know basically nothing, and did the research as I went along. So again, there could be more. This is just what I found in like, less than a day of searching.

Join me next time on “How is Cassandra magical, where’d she get it from? Also, were we ever gonna meet her parents?” And “In the first episode of season 3, Jacob is just able to hit a heavy punching bag of its chain, across the room, at bullet speed, just because of a shift of his wrist, and later in that episode do the same thing to Apep, and it’s just…never addressed or spoken about again? Like wtf man?”

I'm probably not doing that

If you managed to get through all of this, thank you, and I hope this wasn’t too painful to read.

#the librarians #ezekiel jones #greek #hermes #zeus #this took so long #magic #magic immunity #theory #headcannon #demigod #curse of cindy #apple of discord #broken staff

32 notes · View notes

thepiningpoet · 3 years

Text

Old work:

"Don't become like sea foam for a hopeless love. Don't be like the Dutch siren who gave up her home and Father into arms that wouldn't catch her. Don't be like the lost mermaid who gave up God's gift to her for a man. All that will be waiting for you is the cold sea. When you pucker your lips, all that will come to meet you are the frigid waves and they'll drown you along with your naive dreams. They'll pull you to the bottom of the ocean in their indifferent embrace. Years from now when you are turned to stone along with your heart by the constant rough caress of currents, men will drag you up again in their fishing nets.

They'll peel off the barnacles which served you as armor and pull out your hair which they mistook for seaweed. They'll gamble their liquor for your limbs before trading them at coastlines. They'll fondle your breasts for luck before mounting what's left of your torso on the front of their ships, to break the severity of the winds that meet them. Winds the Lord sends in His anger at your folly and man's; winds the Lord sends in return for your heathen sacrifice of His love for a man's.

And when those same men deem you shipshape no longer, too old and no longer fair in their eyes, they’ll replace you with another idol and cast you coldly to the sea once more. Like in Ezekiel’s Faithless Bride, perhaps the Lord will have pity and take you back again as the “Daughters of the Air” did for the lost sea maiden of years long past. Perhaps He’ll take mercy on your folly. Perhaps He will, but let this be a reminder to you and your daughters, and your daughters’ daughters: don't be like the Dutch siren."

- Excerpt from the "Lost Fabulas" by Kamille Alexandra

The Lost Fabulas was a project of poems and novellas I started as a teen through to young adulthood, telling folklore of fictitious universes of an unprecedented place and time.

#old stuff #the dutch siren #writing #writings #dark writing #dark academia #poems #poetry #free verse #poem #short poem #love lost #love #love letters #hans christen anderson #the little mermaid #little mermaid

34 notes · View notes

easyfella · 4 years

Text

plaudite. acta est fabula: thots on my third vlr playthrough

annnnnd done

with all the alt timelines down and all but two secret files obtained, i’m feeling pretty good ending my 3rd (and probably last for at least a long, long time) vlr playthough at a slick 20 hours. i’m pretty excited for my dual phds in metaphysics and philosophy, earned from completing the famed “tripletion” (triple completion), to come in the mail!! anyway, i enjoyed the game, but holy shit, do i have some things to say (spoilers and everything else beneath the cut as always).

i guess i’ll start with the fact that this is a hell of time to pick this game up again, concerned as it is with quarantines and pandemics and plagues and all that. Radical-6 I think hit me harder than it did when I first played this game when i was 15 (context: i turned 21 this last december), for obvious reasons. I remember at one point the game says that 100,000 people died from R6 and it was a huge, global tragedy ... weird to see that so directly mirrored in just the US headlines alone. I don’t have much more to say about the pandemic aspect of the game, but it was a weird thing to start off my playthrough confronting.

Like I mentioned, my first playthrough was when I was 15, my second I think I was 17, and here I am 4 years later. So why do I keep going back to this game? Well, for one, the plot is dense enough, and my brain is sparse enough, that i find myself surprised by one aspect or another every time. This time, Dio’s blackmailing Sigma to get the Axelever (sp? who cares), how much I liked K, and a lot of the plot after the final puzzle room were surprises for me. That being said, there were also things I dreaded and did not want to revisit: Quark’s and Alice’s suicidality, the part after the first AB game where you go to three different rooms and people info dump on you, most of the puzzle rooms tbh, and good god the part where Luna’s face melts off. I hate it. I hated it at 15, I hate it now.

And, though my memories are quite fuzzy on ZTD, I’ll say (expanding on Luna’s face melting off) that this is the only game in the series that inspires genuine dread from me. I think, honestly, that it’s 70% how uncanny the models are. K is the only that looks remotely OK, and that’s because he’s a big silly suit of armor in a monk robe. On the flip side, though, this uncanny valley I think works tonally very well for the game. It makes me feel uncomfortable to look at the visuals. Half the environments look like they’re from the original Silent Hill, for God’s sake. It’s not good, but it’s serviceable, and even functional in an accidental sort of way. However, the visuals are the reason I’ve never been able to recommend this game to other people (that and the walls of text, the obscure psuedoscientific rants, the way Alice’s tits are just out ...). 999 is far-and-away the more charming game visually, but I think VLR in its own way has carved out a visual style that works, though it’s jarring initially. Though, I do wonder how approachable the game is in 2020 compared to in 2012, or in 2014 when i played it. I think our need for quality graphics and disdain for poor graphics (especially this sort of ugly, gumby shit) have only increased since. I guess if anyone has any more thoughts on how they feel about the graphics and how approachable it makes the game, pls feel free to dm me. I’d love to talk about how weird this game is.

Changing subjects, I remember liking the music quite a bit more on my earlier playthroughs. Maybe that’s nostalgia talking, or maybe I’ve just grown as a music listener since high school. Probably both. I think it’s really appropriate for the game and great for setting a mood (and I love, love the twist in the credits track), but I think some tracks were overused. “Dun dun .... Dun dun ... Dun dun” ad nauseam. Uh oh! I know that track! Looks like something deeply horrifying is about to happen! ^_^ I sure hope it’s not that same ugly rendering of Alice being stabbed in the chest :3c (it is. it is the same ugly rendering of Alice being stabbed in the chest.)

Maybe I’ve come across as overly critical, but I do have a deep appreciation for this game. I think that it easily has the best premise I’ve ever, ever come across in a video game, and, no jokes, every game I’ve played since I first came across VLR has failed in comparison to how absolutely genius i think this game is. I’m not exaggerating. The way the plot mirrors the actions of the player, the unique incentivisation of replaying, the way it lets me just be straight up evil occasionally, the twists, the turns, the way i had to cut off my own arm using a warehouse door. the list goes on. The reveal of Zero Sr. is, I think, the most impactful twist in a piece of media i’ve ever experienced. Perhaps I’m a buffoon, but i think this game slam dunks it in terms of pure plot showmanship. that said, i think the exact details of what’s going on where and why (especially at the end irt Kyle, but that’s more of an issue to do with ZTD, and we’ll come to that when we come to that) can get quite murky.

Admittedly, the game does explain what’s happening; in fact, oftentimes it takes an infuriating amount of time walking through the minutia of what was going on where (the infamous door and map animations are infamous for a reason), but i think that a vague gesture toward the plot is all i need, or really all i get from the game at the end of the day. For me, the plot is more of a vehicle for the scenarios of the nonary games, not the other way around. In a sense, I could care less who’s at what point in time where -- just let me brutally betray this old man in a prisoner’s dilemma situation. And the game, after pontificating, eventually does. and I fucking love that. God, I adore just smashing that betray button.

And that’s the fun of the game. Past the over-detailed plot, the predictable music, the gummy looking character models, I love vlr because of how it lets me interact with its world and its characters. I always get to choose either ally or betray, and what happens happens because of that choice that I made. I wish more video games operated like that. Also, I just love Phi. I know this paragraph isn’t about her, but i love rude girls.

So, I think that’s that. VLR is a mixed bag, but I’m ecstatic that it evens exists, bizarre as it is.

i’ll be starting my ZTD playthrough probably soon. I don’t remember much about the game besides playing on launch day, finishing it within 48 hours, and being vaguely disappointed, but it’ll be good to move on from all this murdering in VLR to a whole different set of murders.

#virtues last reward #vlr #zero escape #zero escape replay

9 notes · View notes

femme-tank · 2 months

Text

1st Game - Fabula Ultima: Femme Tank

All right, for the first game I considered doing something else, but realized I have a TTRPG that is intending to reproduce JRPGs. Unfortunately my group did not quite enjoy the combat of this game the concept and character creation is still pretty cool.

I'm using the core book. There is a "High Fantasy" update which might have a couple of good add-ons, but don't have the money to pick it up just at the moment.

The steps are as follows:

Step One - Identity

For identity, I'm going to go with "A sweet girl who will protect others to her last breath."

Step Two - Theme

For theme, I'm choosing from the suggested list and considering either Hope (hope for a better world) or Justice (side with the weak and defenseless). I think Hope probably feels the best here.

Step Three - Origin

This is another short sentence and I think I'm going to go with "Blessed mountain village".

Step Four - Classes

Okay, Fabula Ultima characters start at level 5, which basically means we start with five skills. These levels can't all be in the same class, but they can't be drawn from more than three classes. (You will only get your fourth class when you master one class by hitting level 10)

In this case, I'm going to go with three classes:

Fury - 1 Level: Provoke 1

Guardian - 2 Levels: Fortress 1, Defense Mastery 1

Orator - 2 Levels: Condemn 1, Encourage 1

Step Five - Attributes

We have three options of spreads:

Jack of All Trades - d8 to everything

Balanced - d10, d8, d8, d6

Specialized - d10, d10, d6, d6

For this case, I think I'm going to go with Balanced and do the following:

Dexterity - d6

Insight - d8

Might - d10

Willpower - d8

Step Six - Figured Characteristics

Now we calculate figured characteristics.

Let's start with Hit Points and we figure that with:

Total Character Level (5)

Five times Maximum Might Die (50)

Having any levels of Fury grants 5 bonus HP

Having any levels of Guardian grants 5 bonus HP

Each level in the Fortress skill increases HP by 3. (3)

So the total is 68 HP

Next, we'll go for Mind Points, this works similar:

Total Character Level (5)

Five times Maximum Willpower Die (40)

Having any levels of Orator grants 5 bonus MP

So, the total is 50 MP

Defense is based on your maximum Dexterity die. 6 in this case.

Magic Defense is based on your maximum Insight die. 8 in this case.

Initiative modifier by default is 0.

There are also Inventory points, spent to draw potions and stuff out as you need them. Rather than keep a precise list of such things, you just spend Inventory points and say "I have a healing potion" Inventory points generally are recovered from some treasures or can be recovered at a shop by spending money. Characters start with 6 and this tends not to go up unless you get one of the classes or skills that increase it.

Step Seven - Starting Gear

We have 500 zenit (the game's currency) and due to our classes, we're able to equip Martial Weapons (Fury), Martial Armor (Guardian and Fury), and Martial Shields (Guardian).

I'm going to buy two items: runic plate (cosmetically renamed to be "reinforced robes") and heavy spear, (cosmetically renamed "war staff")

This changes her Defense to the following:

Defense: 11

Magic Defense: Insight +1, total 9, Initiative -3

And her attack looks like this:

War Staff - Attack Dex+Might: d6+d8. Damage: High Roll +12, Physical

That's all her money.

Step Eight - Name and Pronouns

And now we give her a name... and I think I'm going to expose some of my childhood media and name her Althea with the pronouns she/her

Althea

Identity: A sweet girl who will protect others to her last breath.

Theme: Hope

Origin: Blessed mountain village.

Attributes

Dexterity: d6

Insight: d8

Willpower: d8

Might: d10

Skills

Fury: Provoke 1

Guardian: Fortress 1

Guardian: Defense Mastery 1

Orator: Condemn 1

Orator: Encourage 1

Figured Stats and Gear

Hit Points: 68

Mind Points: 50

Inventory Points: 6

Defense: 11 (Mountain Robes)

Magic Defense: 9 (Mountain Robes)

War Staff: d6+d10, HR+12

Initiative: -3 (Mountain Robes)

Onward!

I think this is a game where carrying the char gen into a full character build to maximum level 50. I'm not going to do it level by level in this because there's really nothing that's tied to level. Attribute dice go up twice and some skills become more effective, but nothing else. So I'm going to just jump to the end-game plan.

As a caveat, I am going to point out again that all my plans are flexible and will change based on the opportunities and challenges I find in gameplay, but I like to have them as a combination of my character's intentions for where to go and also my own interests in where to take her story.

Level 50 Althea

First, at levels 20 and 40, we increase two Attributes by one die size to a maximum of d12. This will be Might to d12 and Willpower to d10.

Now, we have to choose the other classes we'll take. Because, in Fabula Ultima, you can only take each class up to level 10 and you can have a maximum of 3 unmastered classes.

So, we need at least two more classes, or 4 more classes if we're not interested in mastering all of them. However, I think I'm going to go with 5 mastered classes. And those will be:

Arcanist - Merge with powerful spirits.

Fury - Taunting, adrenaline, and berserk.

Guardian - Defense focused skills.

Orator - Communication skills.

Weaponmaster - Attack skills.

Let's start with the classes closest to the concept and go from there. There will also by 5 Heroic Skills, one for each mastered class, but I'll hit those at the end all together.

Guardian I think will start with the two non-ranked skills. There is also a skill called "Dual Shieldbearer" but we're not taking those.

Protect - The dive in front of someone skill mentioned above.

Bodyguard - Ability to use Guard to protect other people.

And now on to the two ranked skills. They can both go to level 5, but we with the above two skills we only have 8 levels to spend. One of these increases HP and the other reduces incoming damage. I'm going to max out the one that reduces incoming damage, as I tend to find that more powerful overall. So:

Defense Mastery 5 - Reduce incoming damage by 5 as long as she's using martial armor or shields.

Fortress 3 - Increase HP by 9.

For Orator, we want to emphasize the character traits of patience and trying communication. There's only one non-ranked skill here, but I think I will get it. It allows you to acquire a temporary friend as long as you are kind and respectful.

Unexpected Ally - Gain a temporary ally if you have treated someone well.

As for ranked skills, the one short scene in the inspiring post has the character speak firmly and not-so-vaguely threateningly, but still kind and patient. So that was why I took "Condemn" before. I'm also going to take "Persuasive" and "Encourage", which lets her talk people down or boost morale.

I didn't think I was going to, but I think I'm going to max out Condemn. It wouldn't take much to max out Persuasive as well, but I'm going to leave it at rank 1 instead as it is pretty expensive to use, and I imagine that role would go more toward other members of her party. Encourage would max out at 6, but I can only take it to 4.

There is a fourth ranked skill called "My Trust in You" but it's a bit more back-rank nature than I want for this character.

That results in the following:

Condemn 4 - Enemy loses 40 MP and suffers shaken or dazed.

Persuasive 1 - Complete an extra step in a clock when using charm, deception, diplomacy, or intimidation.

Encourage 4 - Target heals 20 HP and temporary boosts one attribute.

The Fury is more obviously a damage dealer, but there are some definite defensive skills in there. There is a non-ranked, "Frenzy" but it is for use with brawling, daggers, flails, and thrown weapons and our lady focuses on polearms (ie "spears" reskinned as war-staves)

The ranked skills include "Adranaline" which causes you to do increased damage when your health is low, "Withstand" which lets you beef up your ability to use the Guard action. "Provoke" is a taunt. "Indomitable Spirit" gives extra recovery benefits to using Fabula points, the game's meta-currency.

I'm actually going to dip into all of this. Except Provoke, which will be maxed.

Adrenaline 2 - Add 4 extra damage to attacks when under half-HP.

Indomitable Spirit 1 - When spending Fabual points also heal 5 HP, 5 MP, or remove a status effect.

Provoke 5 - Add a +5 bonus to Might+Willpower checks to taunt people.

Withstand 2 - When guard without providing cover to others, heal HP equal to twice highest Bond and improve Willpower to d12 for one round. (if Might wasn't already max, could improve that too)

The weaponmaster focuses on the use of, unsurprisingly, weapons, and is very much an offense oriented class. There are two non-ranked skills, both of which we'll take. "Bladestorm" which allows for attacking multiple targets. And "Counterattack" which does what it says.

Bladestorm - Spend 10 Mind Points to increase the number of targets attacked by 1 to a maximum of 3.

Counterattack - When an enemy's attack against you has an even number on its accuracy total, whether it hits or misses, you get a free attack.

Now, to the remaining 8 levels. Let's look at the ranked skills, "Breach" allows you to make an attack that will either destroy gear or make them vulnerable to the next attack. "Boneshaker" allows you to inflict statuses or Mind Point damage rather than Hit Points. "Melee Weapon Mastery" improves your accuracy with weapons. I'm going to max out the mastery and then dip into the other two here, so she'll have a little bit of all the Weaponmaster skills.

Melee Weapon Mastery 4 - Add a +4 to accuracy checks with Melee weapons.

Breach 2 - Make an attack that can do one of the following: destroy a shield, destroy armor, or increase the next damage to this target by 4.

Boneshaker 2 - When hit with an attack can choose to deal no damage to do one of the following: inflict dazed, inflict weak, or the target loses 20 Mind Points.

Now we come to the oddball of this build. I could have chosen Rogue for some initiative and speed shenanigans or Darkblade for some alternate grim tankiness. But instead, I'm going to go with her bonding to some sort of spirit.

And this one is fairly easy, one of the Ranked skills only works with spell-casting, which this character does not do. This is "Arcane Circle" which allows a character to cast a spell for free they dismiss an Arcana they summoned in a prior turn. This is on top of the benefits for releasing an Arcana.

So, that leaves us with the following, all of which I can actually max out so instead of describing them and relisting, I'll just list them.

Arcane Regeneration 2 - Recover 10 HP when summoning an Arcana. (yes it maxes at rank 2)

Bind and Summon - This allows you to bind yourself to an Arcana, a sort of spirit. It costs 40 Mind Points to do so.

Emergency Arcanum 6 - If under half-health, the cost to summon Arcanum is reduced by 30.

Ritual Arcanism - You may perform Arcanism rituals, narrative magic not usable in a combat.

As for the Arcanum... I'm going to say she found three of the example Arcanum rather than create new ones:

Arcanum of Gate: While merged, resist Dark damage and +1 Magic Defense. When Dismissed either teleport the party OR deal Dark damage to enemies.

Arcanum of the Oak: While merged resist Earth and Poison. Immune to Poisoned effect. Healing is more effective on you. When dismissed, heal the party and clear poisoned status.

Arcanum of the Tower: While merged, your allies (not you) gain resistance to one elemental damage. When dismissed deal Light damage to enemies.

Now, every time you master a class by reaching level 10, you gain a Heroic Skill in addition to the skill you gain for adding a level to that class. So that gives us several options as there are general Heroic Skills available to everyone and two skills associated with each class (though some are shared on multiple classes, like all the spellcaster classes can get "Powerful Spell"). Rather than list all the available Skills I'm just going to list the options I took.

Rampart (Guardian) - Resist damage and status effects in the first round.

Unbreakable (Guardian) - Survive a fatal hit once per scene.

Tempest Strike (Weaponmaster) - Concentrate "multi" attacks on a single target.

Disarming Rhetoric (Orator) - Convince enemies to retreat.

Extra HP - Have increased HP, pretty simple.

I'm also going to give her some items... these aren't the most expensive items in the game, but they do surpass the suggested increased budget for starting at higher level.

Sanctified Warrior Robes (reskinned Adamantorso) - Defense 12, Magic Defense: 8 (Insight), Initiative -4, Resistance to physical damage.

Whirlwind Staff (base Heavy Spear) - two-handed, Mig+Mig, Damage: HR+16, Multi 2 on all attacks.

Emboldening Scarf - Immune to Shaken and Dazed.

Level 50 Althea

Althea

Identity: A sweet girl who will protect others to her last breath.

Theme: Hope

Origin: Blessed mountain village.

Attributes

Dexterity: d6

Insight: d8

Willpower: d10

Might: d12

Skills

Arcanist: Arcane Regeneration

Arcanist: Bind and Summon

Arcanist: Emergency Arcanum

Arcanist: Arcanism Rituals

Fury: Adrenaline 2

Fury: Indomitable Spirit 1

Fury: Provoke 5

Fury: Withstand 2

Guardian: Bodyguard

Guardian: Fortress 3

Guardian: Defense Mastery 5

Guardian: Protect

Orator: Condemn 4

Orator: Encourage 4

Orator: Persuasive 1

Orator: Unexpected Ally

Weaponmaster: Bladestorm

Weaponmaster: Boneshaker 2

Weaponmster: Breach 2

Weaponmaster: Counterattack

Weaponmaster: Melee Weapon Mastery 4

Heroic Orator Skill: Disarming Rhetoric

Heroic Skill: Extra HP

Heroic Guardian Skill: Rampart

Heroic Weaponmaster Skill: Tempest Strike

Heroic Guardian Skill: Unbreakable

Ritual Domains

Arcanism

Arcanum of the Gate

Merge: +1 Magic Defense, Resist Dark damage

Dismiss: Either Oblivion (deal 30 Dark damage to any number of creatures, ignore resistances) OR Teleport (party travels to a place up to 1 day's travel distance)

Arcanum of the Oak

Marge: Resist Earth and Poison, Immune to Poisoned, Gain +5 HP when receives healing

Dismiss: Blossom: Heal any number of chosen creatures 60 HP and remove Poisoned status on all affected.

Arcanum of the Tower

Merge: Choose on damage type: air, bolt, dark, earth, fire, or ice. All allies (not you) are resistant to that damage type.

Dismiss: Judgment: Deal 30 Light damage to any number of creatures, ignore resistances.

Figured Stats and Gear

Hit Points: 154 (d12 Might, Fury, Guardian, Weaponmaster, Fortress 3, Extra HP)

Mind Points: 110 (d10 Willpower, Arcanist, Orator)

Inventory Points: 6

Defense: 12 (Sanctified Warrior Robes) - Resist Physical damage

Magic Defense: 8 (Sanctified Warrior Robes)

Whirlwind Staff: d12+d12+4(Mastery), HR+16, Multi 2

Emboldening Scarf: Immune to Dazed and Shaken

Initiative: -3 (Sanctified Warrior Robes)

#tabletop roleplaying game #ttrpg #roleplaying games #tabletop roleplaying #character creation #femme tank #character build #Fabula Ultima #JRPG

2 notes · View notes

scoutception · 5 years

Text

Final Fantasy Type-0 review: Depression central

If there’s one Final Fantasy subseries whose fate gets me feeling down, it’s the Fabula Nova Crystallis series, a novel and ambitious concept based around various games and stories of different settings and casts of characters, but sharing common themes and mythos, putting them in different contexts in each. While a fascinating idea, it ran into nothing but trouble with each of its entries, with Final Fantasy XIII and its sequels being very divisive, to say the least, Final Fantasy Versus XIII running into an infamously extended development hell, only to finally emerge as Final Fantasy XV, now almost completely separate from its original concept, and the final big entry, Final Fantasy Type-0, vanishing until 5 years after its announcement in 2006, as a PSP exclusive that only came out in Japan, a rarity for the series when it comes to its higher profile spinoffs. Thankfully, in 2015, Type-0 got a remaster on the PS4, Xbox One, and PC, finally allowing other audiences to enjoy it. Was it worth the almost 10 year wait? Well, that’s something we’re about to find out now.

Story:

Final Fantasy Type-0 takes place on the world of Orience, divided into 4 great nations blessed with Crystals: the Dominion of Rubrum, a place for the study and teaching of magic granted by the Vermilion Bird crystal, the Kingdom of Concordia, a female led monarchy able to communicate and control monsters and, more importantly, dragons, and home to the Azure Dragon crystal, the Militesi Empire, a technologically advanced state able to produce great machines of war known as Magitek Armors, or MAs, through the power of their White Tiger crystal, and the Lorican Alliance, whose citizens are much larger and powerful than any other in Orience thanks to their more direct connection to their Black Tortoise crystal. Orience is, unfortunately, not a place of peace, with each of the 4 crystal states wishing to unite Orience under them, and making plenty of attempts to in the past. The motive behind this is the legend of the Agito, a messiah said to appear during Tempus Finis, an apocalyptic event prophesied in the somewhat dubious, yet widely believed, Nameless Tome, with every crystal state seeing it as their divine duty to create Agito, to the point of Rubrum training so called Agito cadets from its brightest and most magically adept citizens.

The story opens with yet another war being started in the year 842 by Milites, whose emperor has been deposed by the brilliant and ambitious Imperial Marshall Cid Aulstyne (Final Fantasy games have a tradition of having a character named Cid somewhere, and finally, he made it as main antagonist), who immediately sets out to attack Rubrum. What would otherwise be a “normal” invasion quickly turns disastrous for Rubrum when Milites unleashed a new device called a crystal jammer, which cuts Rubrum’s legionnaires from their connection to the crystal, rendering them helpless before the Militesi invaders. Even worse, Milites also deploys a l’cie, a human chosen by their nation’s crystal to become its direct servant, in exchange for immense power and near immortality, the use of which in warfare was mutually banned by each of the 4 nations. Just when Rubrum seems doomed, the mysterious Class Zero arrives, 12 cadets who are unaffected by the crystal jammer, raised by Rubrum’s even more mysterious archsorceress, Arecia Al-Rashia, who proceed to liberate the capital, Akademia. Now, with the addition of two promising but otherwise normal cadets, Machina Kunagiri and Rem Tokimiya, Class Zero becomes a vital part in Rubrum’s efforts to reclaim their lost land and defeat Milites, once and for all.

To just come out and say it, the story’s biggest weakness is the cast, or, more specifically, its use of the cast. While the playable cast alone is certainly large, at 14 characters, and the supporting cast only grows from there, almost nobody gets proper focus. The main 12 members of Class Zero, named after playing cards, consists of Ace, Deuce, Trey, Cater, Cinque, Sice, Seven, Eight, Nine, Jack, Queen, and King, and despite being the “proper” members of Class Zero, they all only have a few character traits each. Trey is a knowledgeable type that tends to ramble, Sice is an arrogant loner, Nine is a violent muscle head, Cinque is nice, but downright weird, and so on. While after a while they all grew on me, it’s still pretty unsatisfying, especially when Ace, the face of the game, gets neglected just as badly. The supporting cast gets it even worse, as outside of Arecia and Class Zero’s commanding officer, Kurasame, most of everyone else that’s notable either has minimal at best story presence, or doesn’t show up in the story, period, being relegated to sidequests. Ultimately, the most focused on characters are the two “normal” people in Class Zero, Machina and Rem, which kinda makes sense, giving a more grounded air compared to off how putting the others can be to begin with, but even they don’t work out quite well. While Rem is fine, she doesn’t do very much interesting with the time she gets, while Machina, on the other hand, is very, very unlikeable to the point of hurting the story, whether it be his own cold attitude or broodiness to put the usual RPG protagonist stereotype to shame, he ends up way more unsympathetic than near anyone else in the story, even most of the antagonists. While the cast overall is definitely flawed, though, they’re definitely entertaining at a lot of points, whether they come from the main cast, mostly Trey or Cinque, or from some of the side characters, mainly the extremely greedy Carla and, most memorably to me, the paranoid, bombing throwing Mutsuki.

Since the story doesn’t focus on the characters very much, the main focus is instead the war itself. While it definitely has a few twists and turns, especially starting in chapter 4, overall, the battles and events of the war aren’t the most interesting subject by itself. More interesting is the elements around the war. This is by far one of, if not the darkest game in the franchise, and it doesn’t shy away from showing just how messed up Orience is. Rubrum’s main strength comes in the form of its Agito cadets, meaning, teenagers, as young as 14, at that, and the tactics the military uses means they tend to die in droves. Even when it’s technically pragmatic, between magic proficiency peaking at teen years and decreasing with age, plus not having many other means to resistance, it’s still very uncomfortable, and keep in mind, this is what the good guys, or the relative ones, get up to. Milites, meanwhile, is all too happy to deploy superweapons, such as literal nukes, and its soldiers are disturbingly fanatic, being more than happy to massacre towns, and even refer to Class Zero as demons. Class Zero themselves were raised to be soliders, and feel almost nothing in battle, and Rubrum’s leadership are paranoid and petty, to the point of the military commander actively trying to get Class Zero killed out of pure spite. Eidolons, extremely powerful monsters able to be summoned by mages, demand the lives of their summoners, and there are outright suicide squads of cadets who are only meant to summon more powerful Eidolons. Additionally, a very important plot point is that the crystals automatically erase the memories of anyone who dies from everyone’s minds, to the point Rubrum’s citizens need to wear dog tags just so it can be confirmed they even existed after they die. While they try to justify it as a blessing from the crystals that allows people to move on and not be held back by the dead, all it’s done is completely desensitize Orience to death, and having characters casually talk about being informed of their friends or family dying, and not feeling a single thing, is pretty disturbing, especially when it’s named character involved. It does a very good job of showing how constant warring and lack of reverence for the dead has corrupted this world, even when many of the characters affected still remain sympathetic.

Unfortunately, the biggest flaw of the story to me is that there simply isn’t a lot of it to be found, at least in regards to the main story. While the game is comprised of 8 chapters, that’s more than a little inaccurate, as half of those consist of a short introduction and a singular mission, rather than the 2 or 3 missions in the rest of the chapters. The story only really gets moving in chapter 4, and even then, many important points aren’t addressed until chapter 8, which is a downright bizarre and sudden change of subject and tone compared to the rest of the game, to the point a second playthrough is required because of how many holes are left otherwise, and even then, it can be a bit difficult to figure out just what is going on. The biggest achievement of the writing, on the other hand, is the lore of the setting. Orience is a fascinating world, with a detailed history of each nation, plenty of info to find on the various characters, and examinations of the various enemies of the game, all stored in a book in the hub called the Rubicus. It’s also quite interesting seeing the perspective flip compared to Final Fantasy XIII; instead of l’cie “merely” being granted the use of magic, and quickly going through their usefulness, at least by their masters’ consideration, along with the main cast being comprised of them, l’cie in Type-0 are near demigods who often live hundreds of years, and are just as fearsome to the party as to everyone else, for instance. Overall, though, while there are certainly many problems with the writing, I can’t help but say it works quite well regardless. Even with the limited time for both the story itself and the characters, it still builds a cast worth rooting for throughout the horrible situations, and an effective atmosphere that’s quite good at leaving you feeling somber. Moments like the entirety of the opening chapter, showing the utter devastation inflicted on Akademia in a mere three hours, and the various costly, large battles are very effective moments, and the ending is easily one of the saddest endings I’ve seen in a video game, for all the right reasons. Even the final chapter, odd as it is, has a lot of cool revelations and setpieces to me, at least now that I comprehend it.

Gameplay:

Type-0 is an action RPG that has you control the 14 members of Class Zero on various missions, each one possessing a different weapon. Ace uses cards, Deuce uses a flute (I swear they aren’t all this weird), Trey uses a bow, Cater uses a magic infused pistol, Cinque uses a mace, Sice uses a scythe, Seven uses a whipblade, Eight fights with his bare hands, Nine uses a lance, Jack uses a katana, Queen uses a longsword, King uses dual revolvers, Machina uses dual rapiers, and Rem uses dual daggers. Each one possesses a vastly different moveset and playstyle, such as Cinque being slow, but strong and tanky, Sice encouraging an aggressive hit and run style of play, even getting stronger for the more enemies she defeats while taking minimal hits, Trey excelling at range to a much degree than anyone else, while being near helpless up close, and Deuce being more of a supporter, having great support abilities, while her attacks are fairly weird to get used to, though effective on their own once you understand them. Despite the huge amount of characters, they’re actually fairly well balanced, all of them having important strengths and weaknesses, and while some can definitely be better than others, with Trey in particular coming to mind, possessing absurd range and the ability to charge his shots, it’s never quite game breaking. You can have up to three characters in your party, though their AI isn’t exactly great. They can certainly distract enemies well, and will make sure to heal you if your HP gets low, they don’t tend to be aggressive, and are terrible at avoiding the attacks of most enemies more complex than your average imperial trooper, and are near guaranteed to die to bosses. Speaking of which, the main wrinkle is that, while it varies, overall, your characters are not very durable, and in fact take hits about as well as wet toilet paper when faced with most enemies. This is balanced by the sheer amount of people you have. One person dies on a mission, don’t sweat it, you’ve got 13 backups. Of course, this also encourages training them all up and learning to play them as well, which is complicated by only characters in the active party gaining experience. Leveling up, in addition to granting the usual stat boosts, also grants ability points, which you can use to purchase or upgrade command or passive abilities and moves.

While just attacking enemies normally is decently effective, it can put you in unnecessary danger, and while you do have items like potions you can use to restore your health quickly, the most efficient way to fight is to use breaksights and killsights. Every enemy has at least one attack that leaves them vulnerable for a short time either before or after using said attacking. Hitting them during this period will trigger a break, or, if their health is low enough, killsight. Breaksights take a good chunk of their health away and stuns them, giving you a chance to attack them freely, while killsights just kill them outright. This one mechanic adds a lot to the gameplay, encouraging you to learn enemy patterns and attacks to see when they are vulnerable, and getting the timing down can make otherwise fearsome enemies easy to take care of. Of course, some enemies won’t take this very well, and may counterattack or even go into berserk states after recovering from breaksights, so you still have to be careful. Every character has 4 commands: regular attacks with their weapons, 2 slots that can either hold abilities or offensive magic spells, and a defensive command, whether it be the cure spell to restore health, putting up a magic wall to nullify some attacks, or just flat out blocking, which, while still causing you to suffer damage, prevents being knocked down, letting you score breaksights easier than if you were to simply dodge. Magic can be upgraded by harvesting phantoma from dead enemies, coming in various types like red for fire magic, green for defensive magic, and purple for unique spells. While powerful, magic usually takes a large chunk out of your magic points, meaning it’s better to save it for more dire situations, though harvesting phantoma restores small amounts of MP. As for equipment, aside from weapons, you have access to accessories that do things such as increasing HP by a certain percentage, giving immunity to status effects, or raising defense, though everyone can only have 2 accessories at a time. You also have three different squad commands: triad maneuver, which simply causes the party to do 3 powerful, rapid attacks, Eidolon, which summons an Eidolon you can control for a short time, in exchange for KOing the character that summoned it, and Vermilion Bird, a powerful spell that, to actually become powerful, has to be upgraded using crystal shards, which, while fairly easy to get most of the time, aren’t very numerous.

Type-0 uses a mission system, throwing you into various locations to complete objectives, though it usually equates to to reach the end of the area and kill an enemy commander. Most locations are pretty linear, though they all have a few side areas you can go to, usually for more items. You get graded based on how fast you completed the mission, how much phantoma you harvested, and how many party members got KOed during the mission, with getting the best rank on all three categories getting you an S rank, which gives a bonus item. Beating each mission on a difficulty above easy also unlocks other bonuses, whether they be additional items up for purchase or unlocking new spells or Eidolons, or just flat giving you a rare item. Completing missions also gives you money, with more the higher the difficulty and the higher your rank. Speaking of difficulties, there are 4 of them: cadet, which is just easy mode, officer, normal mode, Agito mode, which is a hard mode that makes every enemy 30 levels higher than on cadet and officer, and Finis, which is only available after completing the game once, and is, just plain absurd. All enemies have their levels increased by 50, they’re in permanent rage mode, causing them to move twice as fast and hurt twice as much, and you’re restricted to only being able to use one person per mission. It’s not much worth the effort. Aside from completing missions, your main source of items, magic, and Eidolons is from completing special orders, optional objectives that can pop up in various areas. While there’s various generic, white orders that only give items at the end of the mission for doing stuff like not getting hit for 30 seconds or not using magic for a few minutes, there are also specific, red ones with more specific objectives like taking out certain enemies, that give out better rewards. The main problem with accepting them is that, if you fail to complete them, you risk instant being killed over it, though you can avoid it you’re fast enough, as it’s delivered through portals on the ground.

In between missions, you’re allowed to explore Akademia, chatting with NPCs or party members, or engaging in “free time events” which are either conversations with random people, or cutscenes that tend to have much more interesting information. You only have a limited amount of hours until the next story mission starts, with each event taking two hours away, though time doesn’t pass just running around and talking to people without events. While a neat concept that could easily be like Persona, in practice, it doesn’t add much. While you can get some interesting information at times, and doing events also gives you items, it’s not very in depth otherwise. Even the sidequests with the more prominent side characters just consist doing their events whenever they’re available and doing a sidequest for them, eventually getting admittedly very good bonuses at the end of their little storylines. The other thing you can do with your free time is go out into the world map, where you can visit extremely small towns, get into random encounters, visit dungeons, and... not much else. While the world map isn’t tiny, there’s just not much to find. While there’s many towns, they are, again, tiny, only consisting of a single small area with a shop or two, a sidequest, and a little unofficial side quest to get a l’cie stone, which can be traded into a certain NPC to unlock lore entries in the Rubicus. There’s just not much of interest, and you’re very heavily restricted in where you’re allowed to even go on the world map, only being able to go to areas officially reclaimed by Rubrum, or that are the destination of the current story mission. Only in chapter 7 do you finally get some kind of freedom, to the point of being able to gain an airship to allow easy traversal of the world. Plus, most dungeons aren’t even meant to be explored on a first playthrough, with only about one or two being reasonable at that point, not that there’s even much to find besides l’cie stones and a chance at a rare item, emphasis on chance, since they’re always in a specific chest at the end that can only be opened once without reloading your save, and the chance of getting the most valuable item from them is rather low.

As for other activities, you can train in the arena, for downright piddly gains, or take on sidequests, most of which just contain of going out and defeating a certain amount of specific enemies, giving over items, and so forth. Most rewards aren’t great, but a few, namely from the more notable characters like the leaders of Rubrum, Kurasame, and Arecia, give very notable rewards. Sidequests don’t take time to do, but often require you to leave Akademia, meaning you need to weigh the time lost going out to do the quests against the time you could use doing events, which is difficult when you don’t know just what rewards either give out. When it comes mission time, though, you gotta venture out on the world map to your next destination. Speaking of the world map, along with the regular missions, there are also RTS style missions, where you, controlling a party member on the world map, help the dominion army reclaim forts and towns by taking out enemies and having units generated by controlled areas weaken said areas until you can invade them in a regular mission style. Instead of being graded on phantoma harvested, you’re instead graded on objectives completed, as occasionally you’ll get orders to do stuff like defend a fort for a specific amount of time or taking out a large enemy. While technically optional, you get bonuses for completing them beyond mission grade, such as access to “hero units” and direct control of certain areas. There’s a decent amount of these missions in the game, and they do make for an interest change of pace, but they aren’t much notable. You’re even allowed to skip participating in them, though obviously you miss out on rewards.

The highlights of the game are, rather sensibly, the end of chapter missions. Not only are they much longer than typical missions, they have much more unique settings, and, of course, bosses. This game has some very enjoyable, if difficult, bosses, ranging from the giant mech Brionac that is more than capable of wiping you out in a single attack, to the highly mobile mech of Qator Bashtar, Cid’s second in command, to several fights with the near invincible Gilgamesh (another recurring character in the series). My personal favorite is the boss of chapter 5, the dragon Shinryu, which is also all too happy to instantly kill you with most of its attacks, even more so than Brionac, and spend most of the fight enveloped in the darkness surrounding the arena you’re in, only being visible by the lights of its glowing red eyes. It makes for an amazing setpiece, and losing to it is almost more enjoyable than winning simply due to the failsafe implemented since the devs expected most players to lost, the details of which I simply cannot spoil. Finally, on a second playthrough, two new types of missions are available for you: expert trials, and Code Crimson missions. Expert trials are optional missions you can do during your free time, which you’ll likely have a lot of since events you see on a previous playthrough can be viewed again at no time cost on repeat playthroughs. While technically available in the first playthrough as well, they are way too difficult for the average player, i.e who isn’t insane like me. Code Crimson missions, on the other hand, are replacements for the end of chapter missions, consisting of you going off to do other stuff. While an interesting concept, in practice, they aren’t anything special, especially when they’re replacing the most interesting parts of the game, and they barely give any more story context either. The chapter 7 mission is the one exception, being very short, but an interesting concept and adding a bit more to the story. Plus, completing them all on one playthrough unlocks an interesting alternate ending, so that alone makes them worth a go.

As for the hardest challenges to be found, they’re a bit lacking. Aside from the regular optional dungeons, there’s one notable bonus dungeon and two notable superbosses. The bonus dungeon is the Tower of Agito, which can only be reached by airship, which consists of 5 floors where you need to fight 100 specific enemies, such as tonberries and behemoths, with plenty of chests to open in between, ending off on an extremely disappointing end boss that is just a Malboro that happens to be massive. While it certain sounds difficult, and pretty much everything is capable of one shotting you, once you get into a good pattern, it’s really just boring. Most of the time, they just spawn so slowly, and while after a while more of them come out at a time, it takes about an hour and a half at best to get through even if you’re otherwise efficient. As for the superbosses, there’s Nox Suzaku, only available in a second playthrough and onward, who has a chance of appearing whenever you harvest phantoma, stealing everything you try to harvest until it decides to go away. Aside from making it go away on its own, you can beat it up, which is quite a doozy. Instead of fighting you directly, it summons phantoms of various enemies to fight you, and while you could just defeat them all, this doesn’t do anything to Nox itself. Instead, you have to let the enemies defeat you, causing Nox to appear for a short time, allowing you to attack it until it retreats. Rinse and repeat, it’s not that difficult, and the rewards aren’t that great, so the main reason to beat it up is just to make it go away, because it stealing your phantoma is extremely annoying, especially when it can show up during missions, since you can’t just leave to fight it, and it’s entirely possible for it to flat make it impossible to get an S rank on that mission it decides it doesn’t want to leave. Not exactly a fun mechanic. The other superboss is, per tradition, Gilgamesh, in a stronger form than in the story. He only shows up on a third playthrough, at a few different locations on the world map, in the form of a portal. Entering said portals causes him to randomly select one of your characters to challenge. If you win, you get that character’s ultimate weapon, but if he wins, he steals your character’s current weapon. The ultimate weapons are kinda underwhelming, especially considering you may well have everything else done after a second playthrough, and it’s annoying getting specific people picked, but it’s actually a fun and fair fight, if easy to figure out.

Overall, Type-0 has some of the tightest gameplay among all the Final Fantasy spinoffs, and is the main thing that holds it together. It has a fast, hectic pace to it, interesting enemies to tackle, and a wide variety of people to try out. Really, the main criticism I have is the actual missions you have with which to try them out. The other main story missions aren’t much to look at, and same goes for the expert trials and Code Crimson missions. I’m sure this is at least partially due to originating on the PSP, and having to deal with its limitations, something that’s about become a theme in this review. Overall, though, it’s still more than satisfactory.

Graphics:

The visuals of Type-0 are a very mixed big, unfortunately leaning more towards negative. More than anything else, they make it very apparent that Type-0 was originally a PSP game. While the members of Class Zero themselves have decent looking models, if rather unemotive, everyone else, except a few important characters like Arecia, are much lower quality, especially the faces. Here’s a comparison between Ace and Carla.

The textures don’t fare much better, looking very blatantly stretched and blurry, especially on the world map, where bridges are just one long, hideous texture. Most locations outside of, again, the end of chapter missions don’t look anything special, and so many areas are just reused over and over. You go into a town, it’ll look like every other town, at least of that region. You invade a fort, it’ll look like every other fort. Repeat for almost every mission in the game. Thankfully, the big story missions look quite impressive and creative, my favorites being chapter 5′s, taking place on frozen clouds that end up near breathtaking, and especially the setting of the very final mission, which is, to avoid anything too specific, downright insane, in a good way. Another positive are the enemy designs, more specifically, the actual monsters, with enemies such as bombs and flans resembling their earlier FF designs much more than most modern entries. Unfortunately, there’s just one problem: the actual variety of enemy designs is rather lacking, with the majority of enemies being slight alterations or palette swaps. It’s a more minor point than most, but still something. The original enemy designs are quite inventive though, and overall, this is a game that excels more in general design than actual fidelity, like the spiraling Concordian capital surrounded by a sea of clouds.

Sound:

The music of Type-0 is plain great, as is usual for the series. The boss themes especially are fantastic, along with the main theme, The Beginning of the End. It also sounds quite distinctive compared to most of the rest of the series, having a greater focus on metal, fitting the more modern aesthetic. The English voice acting, on the other hand, isn’t quite great. It’s pretty obvious the dub was a rush job, considering Type-0 lacked the simultaneous localization process of the main series games, resulting in it being very lackluster overall. There are some notable voice acting names in it, like Cristina Vee as Cinque, Bryce Papenbrook as Machina, Danielle Judovits as Carla, Cassandra Lee as Mutsuki, and even Matthew Mercer as Trey, and they all do good jobs, but the rest of the cast varies, especially Class Zero itself. Ironically enough, the side characters tend to have much more solid performances, with special props going to Steve Blum as Cid, giving a very menacing perfomance, as well as other characters like Aria, Class Zero’s orderly, and Kazusa, the resident mad scientist. Corri English as Sice and Heather Hogan Watson as Queen also fair quite well. Beyond that though, the performances can be rather forced, like Nine and Cater, or just weak overall, like Rem and Deuce. This is not helped by the normal, in game cutscenes themselves, with their structure causing many long, awkward pauses nearly every sentence. It does, however, improve as the game goes on, to the point of the final cutscenes not being hurt by it near at all.

Conclusion:

Overall, this is a solid recommended by me. Even with the weakness of elements like the graphics and the short, underdeveloped story, the core gameplay just holds up that well, and there’s quite a bit to enjoy in the weaker elements even beyond that. Overall, this is one of my favorite Final Fantasy spinoffs, and the fact that it will most likely never get a sequel due to the departure of its director, Hajime Tabata, makes me very sad. With that unneeded note, this shall be the last of the Final Fantasy spinoffs I play in some time. The next time the name Final Fantasy pops up as the subject of one of my reviews, it shall be about the main series. Till next time.

-Scout

#Final Fantasy #final fantasy type 0 #game review #long post #action rpg #JRPG

6 notes · View notes

cutie-shouta · 2 years

Text

Chapter 13. Larger than a Troll-Part 2

Kratos slowly and finally got to his feet the blood covered warrior standing as he limps his way to the ogre

Foron: well now the human is standing up again? This should be interesting.

Upon this Kratos woukd weakly swing his sword at the Ogre only for him to be throw aside by the ogre who would then pick up Nova admiring her

Foron: such a beautiful form~ so easy to get around great endurance~

The ogre would then lick Nova's face in front of Kratos taunting him showing that he was no matter if the second wind helped he wasn't strong enough to kill this thing

Foron: I wonder what the other elf is like~

Munchkin hearing this be woukd stand up only to fall to his knees again the fear overcoming all his actions tears falling down his face while the still awake Yuka was ripped away from the imps around her as she trashed and swings around at the ogre

Foron: we got a fighter! I can change that!! Haha~!!

Suddenly the ogre bites into Yuka's side ripping out a part of flesh sending Yuka into a loud panicked scream that filled the entire temple Munchkin and Kratos seemingly powerless until that same voice was heard

Voidless: seems your in trouble...

Munchkin: I....I.....I....

Voidless: say the word...and I'll help out as much as I can...

Munchkin: I.......I.......Do.....it...

The black mass grins before grabbing onto munchkins head before what seemed to be draining power from the young furry the mass immediately slashed into the ogres leg sending him down to take a knee the cut was pretty deep and was healing much slower now

Foron: argh!!! Who did that!!

He threw yuka down on the ground making her spit out blood on the impact as she sits up starting to heal her arm all the while that black mass slashing at the ogre all over before it suddenly swings its club hitting the black mass blindly and hitting the black mass sent munchkin flying as far as the mass was hit the young furry now having a few broken bones from the powerful hit

Yuka: munchkin!!!!

She would stand up and the blood from her side flushed out immediately as she limps over to him falling right in front of him as she rushed up to his side healing the young one

Yuka: come on..come on...don't you dare fucking die on me....understand that stay awake!!

Kratos would again start to get up more blood pouring out of his helmet and shattered armor limping his way to the ogre

Foron: your still alive!?! Just die!!!

He swings the club downward into Kratos smashing him under the club he lifted the club laughing at Kratos only to see him getting up once again

Foron: what the hell are you made off!!! If that won't kill you!! This will!!!!

He held his hand up as a ball of fire started to appear in it growing bigger and bigger by the second

Foron: Tenebrae ad lucem Utinam inimici mei vivam ardeant... FABULA!!!!

A large ball of fire comes flying down at Kratos when suddenly aless jumps in front of him using pulling her shield up the ball of fire coming to impact with her shield the ball of fire extinguished but aless now now burnt and beaten as she fell to the ground breathing heavily holding her ground only for her to be kicked away by the ogre Kratos again was back on his feet nearly even standing all the way up

Foron: just die!!!!

The club comes smashing down in Kratos but the smoke cleared to show that Kratos was standing beside the club he dodged the attack and now Kratos was standing his eye glowing red as he jumps onto the club running up it then slashing up into the ogres face staggering the ogre back a bit from the sudden attack when Kratos bloody and beaten stood there as if the pain was nothing the ogre growled and started to swing Kratos parried it's attack sending the other staggering as he ran up jumping into the air driving the blade into the ogres chest then being throwing to the ground by the ogre Kratos immediately getting back to his feet unstoppable by this pain he kept charging the ogre doing all he could with each attack before he was whacked into the ledge his back nearly snapping in two

Munchkin: hey ugly!!!

The ogre spun around when suddenly munchkins sword went flying into the ogres same eye that Nova shot making him roar in pain

Foron: how dare you!!! You little shit!!!

Munchkin started to run along the wall using his small body and momentum to get around the ogre keeping him busy

Yuka: Ut Talos hos heroas mea divina lux

Suddenly their and then Kratos would come flying from the ledge driving the sword into the ogres face knocking it to the ground Kratos watched as yuka was preforming the spell

Yuka: intra lucem ut Talos fulgeat Naturalis Virtus!!!

She slams her staff into the ground as vines appeared around the ogre holding him down to the best of their strength the ogre tho was very easily ripping them appear until Kratos woukd disarm the ogre quite literally but cutting off his right arm from the elbow down the ogre letting out a roar started to tell its own spells

Foron: Serva me tuis tenebris flammis Barondorus!!!!

Suddenly flames of black appeared around the vines burning them which seemingly also was effecting Yuka's staff she was forced to pull the spell back

Kratos: get...Nova.....

Yuka nodded and ran to her friends side while Muuchkin would pull out one of the Imps weapons throwing it at the ogre

Foron: all of you are just bugs!!! You can't kill me!!!

Kratos growls before he lets out a battle cry using his sword to stab into the ogres leg before slashing it to the point of the leg falling off making the ogre fall down Kratos now walking into the ogres body he lifted his blade up

Foron: what the hell are you!!!

Kratos: ....I...am...Immortal...

With that final word he drives the blade into the ogres face before ripping it upward cutting the ogres face open he then turned to the imps his eye still glowing

Kratos: who's. Next.

They all broke off and ran from Kratos scared of this monster whatever it was Kratos started to follow only for him to cough up blood and nearly collapse but Yuka ran to his side helping him stand

Yuka: ...that was fucking insane...you idiot...

Kratos: is..nova...ok...?

Yuka: she's breathing...

Yuka would start to carry Kratos to the rest of them Aless sitting up against a wall while munchkin was rushing through us back to find any potions to help Kratos would kneel down next to Nova, she slowly woke up

Nova: did we win..?

Kratos: ....yes..we did...w-

Suddenly Kratos would cough again more blood spilling out before he collapsed to the ground next to Nova

Nova: Kratos?? Kratos!!..

Kratos

brith date-unknown

Death date- 1356

End of chapter 13.

1 note · View note