HereComesTheSnow

Sword and Dungeon: An Adventurer's Guild-based Fantasy RP

For Casey, mighty Casey, was advancing to the bat.

Name: "Sticky Pete" (Birth name unknown. Earned the "Sticky" appellation by way of the heavy elm branch found at his side by the adventurer who roused him from his catatonia, earned the appellation "Pete" by way of it being the name that hit his ear the best after "Sticky".)

Age: ??? (Could be anywhere from eighteen to thirty-three. Point is, he's young enough to handle himself in a brawl without growing too tired too quickly.)

Gender: Male

Race: Human

Rank: Iron, recently promoted from Copper after a streak of five successful jobs of largely menial grunt work, capped by the extermination of a goblin hive.

Personality: Even-keeled, earnest, and sometimes naive. Pete is by all accounts a genial guy with a permissive temper— perhaps owing to his lack of remembered hangups from the life before himself. Inwardly, he attempts to approach each day with as open a mind as he's able, all in the name of relearning whatever he may have lost— guided only by a deep-seated bedrock of common morality, he lets his personal judgement revolve around the gut feelings that ethical core imparts upon him, approaching each moment on its own. In sum, he has no creed, he remembers no coda, but the ethereal whispers of right and wrong still live in blood, in bone, deep the pit of his stomach. Whoever he used to be, they surely knew very well when they were doing the right thing, and when they weren't.

Inwardly, Pete worries that he may one day discover the rougher, crasser parts of him, those that don't do well with rookies or take some sort of pleasure in cracking skulls, may have stemmed from a man that was indelibly colored more by the latter than the former. He would be happy to never regain that part of himself, surely... but at the same time, he cannot escape the burning at the back of his head, where that heavy branch smashed through whomever that might have been, that he owes it to them to learn who they once were. Who he once was. It is by no means lost upon him that reviving the first may mean the death of the second. Even so, surely there was somebody there— someone who's missing from every life they touched, so long as he is here now. Maybe there is a way he can honor the man that was, without giving up the man that is— or maybe there's a way the man that is can remain, even when if man that was returns.

Outwardly, he's a bit stiff-humored, in a way that suggests a kind nature. Hardly one to balk at a joke, least of all at his own expense, but he seems to lack the bite that might drive a man to let cutting words fly. Content to admit that there is much he doesn't know of the world, he seems content to give most things a fair shake— even if it may lead to him letting somebody take advantage of his commitment to sincerity. At the other end of this, he's not a great teacher, in the rare instances where he encounters people that know less of anything than he does.

Brief Backstory: Found at dusk outside Venne beneath an old elm, with one of its' heavy branches broken off at his side. There were no possessions nor money to his name that could be found— even the clothes off his back were nondescript rags, as though a man deprived of every worldly possession, right down to his name. He awoke with memories of gray fog, flecked with dancing black sunspots, a massive swell upon his head, and a gaggle of unfamiliar faces standing over him. It was there that "Sticky Pete" would begin his life, taking a few days to recover under the watchful eyes of the adventurers of the guild that had taken him in. Eventually, when he was hale anew, his lack of librans would catch up to him well before his stagnant memory— and with the nearest work available coming from the same roof over his head, it seemed worth the old college try.

Equipment: The same heavy elm branch that robbed him of his memory now robs pests and most problems of their lives. It's half his identity at this point: hard to be "Sticky Pete" without the aforementioned Stick. Beyond that, he's earned enough to put some proper clothes on his back again, and is slowly collecting the adventurer's staples to fill a sturdy leather pack— rope, a wineskin, a prybar, a lantern, sturdy leather boots, sturdy leather bracers. He's saving up for some decent brigandine or a shield, next.

Skills: Tall, well-formed, and fell-handed, Sticky Pete is the beneficiary of a clear head in a scuffle, rarely being taken in by nerves or fear. His calm manner and mild disposition give him an easy time getting along with most people alive— already, he has a few friendships forming. Evidently, he's either literate, or has picked up the general gist of literacy quickly. Fairly dexterous with his hands, seems to know his way around a knife despite not remembering exactly why. Holds his drink well. It's been only a couple of weeks, so he doesn't have a lot to work with, but he budgets well— with money, skillset, and time all alike.

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

Rudolf Shilage

Alright, money where your mouth is, Izayoi... Rudolf thought darkly, swiping his own foot into a warning tap against the Samurai's shin in a rare reversal of their punitive dynamic. For as anxiety-riddled as the Viscount was, Rudolf had already experienced firsthand the sharpness of his instincts— and the hair trigger they sat on. Naked bloodlust of the type Izayoi had resurfaced for his father was going to set a land speed record in tripping every alarm in the former SEED's brain¹. Never minding the implicit agreement with his skepticism.

In roughly the same time as the opposite half of the table had elected to run their forms of interference, Rudolf mustered an affable chuckle, nodding along as his provisional spouse-to-be said her piece. "Ahahaha, it's true, she's very dramatic— so protective of me, it's like I've found a second mother." he conferred, glancing towards the new entrance that Halvor quickly rose to meet, speeding through his apologies for any potential slight this brought. Okay, good enough— best Rudolf could do was leave him with a final note reassurance as he headed out the door. "I'm sure things won't need to come to that."

The door shut, and they were all afforded a moment to breathe. Telling the whole truth, he had near as much cause to worry about that line as their high-strung host— his estranged family were not a monolith, he knew that, but against the marauding Limbtaker they surely would be. The thought of her roving down to their home provided quite ample concern— even ignoring the man named, there was no chance she'd get to him without first having to cut through he wasn't half as upset with.²

At the second mention of 'sickly and bookish', Rudolf perked up out of his quick dalliance with the realm of the hypothetical, and raised his glass a touch to acknowledge Anders' interjection as Halvor worked the doorknob. The old boy was sharp as a freshly-stoned blade, that much was clear— if it were a better time and place, Rudolf might have asked if his scars were earned in duels or the field proper. He didn't exactly begrudge either answer, these days— but more important was offering some of his own.

"You have the right of it, sir. And I've been hard at work the past five years to try and shed those descriptions of theirs, as well— but they can be quite the gadflies about it."

Exhausting, talking like this, more than he'd bargained for. Part of having Lene across from him that he didn't expect was the different ease with which she seemed to navigate the amelioration, the polite upspeak, the works. The difference between second children that stayed in the family and those that didn't, you could say. He'd thought himself to have maintained a fair majority of his etiquette schooling in the time away from "performing nobility", but once he was out of familiar waters and left stranded far from his favored taciturn, staccato military necessity when it was around unfamiliar people... It was proving not quite as simple as slipping on an old hat.

He blinked, and catching the look, exaggerated his feelings a little once he heard the story Esben was spooling up.

"You rogue, Esben." the burned man accused, letting a small hint of betrayal hang on the end of the vowel as his eyes narrowed to a glare. "Don't bring that up now, Chisato wasn't there for it either— she'll lord this over me for a fortnight!"

Chisato, naturally, had barely spared this entire dinner two words more than she needed. But this part was theater, and every hand on stage could be leveraged.

... He missed Robin.

---

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• _{1. And here we, both of us, foolishly, took her at her word three weeks ago, when she said we'd be mutually ignoring that house, us and them. Her and him. Mom and Dad.}
• _{2. Says here that they'd all be stoked to take their swing at her. Maybe, let her do you the favor. You're terrible at this "accepting gifts" thing, it bears repeating.}

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

Rudolf Shilage

Rudolf's jaw quietly worked in the blessed gap between moments he may have needed to speak, still reeling internally from Halvor's grand announcement¹. In the moments just after the words had left the Viscount, the black-garbed young man had opened his mouth with a wry smirk, about to genially brush it all off as Halvor getting back at him for all the cheek from the night prior— but had earned a stern warning at the top of his toes from the Mystrel beside him to Shut the hell up, boy. Izayoi's geta were always so persuasive. By the time Eliane spoke up, to congratulate him in spite of detouring her from her family for three whole days behind that impenetrably blank smile of hers, Rudolf had managed to plaster a polite grin over his bafflement and reply with a muted, almost diffident "Thanks, Éliane. This is all pretty overwhelming."

After that, it was Esben who had been called upon to handle further introductions, and Rudolf was bought a moment to sip the crisp and tart sauvignon that had been served and think for a damned second, collect himself again. These days, those seconds seemed to be in ever-shorter supply. So, for the sake of keeping score...

That was one already that he owed this girl across from him for— Lene, her name was. Of all the people he could be suddenly "provisionally betrothed to", the pretty blonde at the other end of the table was Esben's younger sister. What the hell was Vania pulling with this? It certainly explained his guardian's coy reassurances that there was 'something there for both of them', but it had been with a dawning, quiet horror that he'd realized this was more than just a happy little reunion between siblings. Before that, he had weathered her sharp, curious, deep-watered gaze genially, more or less assuming that the scar tissue on the left side of his face was hard to ignore when directly across from you. He could understand the impulse, and blue eyes were nice to look back at anyway. Now...

He tugged at his collar while her eyes drifted along the rest of the Kirins. The damn thing felt stiff as a gorget— he had managed to talk Halvor off the edge of dressing him out completely in Edreni military style, at least— with the way the jacket fit around his frame, he was certain epaulets sized for the bookish ward he'd been sold as would have made for a nightmare to do much more than pose for a portrait in. Still, the customary Red, Black, and Gold made no bones of his heritage— all three being favored by his estranged family even before they had been raised to knighthood.

Now it was his turn to quietly observe, take something like proper measure of somebody the powers that be had seen fit to play matchmaker for him with. In hindsight, it was much more clear that she had known what this was all about coming in— the little laughs, the easy smiles, and of course, the feeling of her eyes settling onto him behind them both, always watching and measuring. The more he reckoned with it, the more he realized that she and her brother, who thankfully seemed about as flabbergasted as he was, operated along similar lines in that respect, despite their presumably very different adolescences.

He was fairly sure that he would have learned by now if Esben had a sister that had enrolled in the Garden after him, for instance. That meant all the signal he was picking up was familial, at the end of the day— the flash in her eyes before her 'chastised-and-demure' routine was all but a dead ringer for something he'd suffered a lifetime's share of in two months.

They look the same when they're making fun of people. So if I can work backwards from there...

He'd caught her appraisal of him in the interstices of the brewing conversation well enough, but now that he wasn't vacantly gawking he noted that there were markedly similar ones snuck Halvor's direction. So, given that the siblings were both saddled with prior understanding of how much of a worrywart the Viscount could be, that meant that she was likely playing some level of crisis mitigation for him, too— at least while he was still hiding behind his genteel facade.

"He's right, Esben," Rudolf piled in, threading the needle between Halvor's scolding and the SEED's put-upon huff with a grin and a gadfly drone. "Bullying me is one thing, but you should take it easy on your family after all this travel."

He did appreciate that, really— for now, just shipping themselves through the opening course without setting off the man breathing down their necks was the course of action to shoot for. Keep things moving, avoid making the mess bigger than it was, and when they had the opportunity, actually come clean about things.

They'd have to handle the meat of what was in front of them a little later, she and he. With the bombshell of arranged marriages suddenly being back on his menu still ringing in his ears, the scarred young man could hardly pull his thoughts about the prospect together— save for that he had a lot of clarifying to do down the road if this was to go anywhere, and that he'd rather do it as quick as possible.

"Really, though."

Even if she weren't the blood of his closest friend, she would still hardly deserve being kept in the dark about the real state of affairs, when it came to the strange northerner she was faced with. Looked a little wrong for a reason. Looked flummoxed for a reason. Traveled with all of these unknown, unheralded faces for a very, very big reason.

"I have to admit, I'm shocked by all this— You say you got my parents to agree to—"

The thunderbolt heel struck the top of his foot again, and it took more willpower than he cared to admit in not grunting or grumbling some invective at the samurai in undertone. But heeding the warning, he maintained his straightest face, and soldiered on, playing it off as a pensive search for terminology. Dammit, wasn't part of this pact of theirs warning him when he was in danger?²

"... foisting their duties onto these two, I suppose would be the phrase for it. My father is a stubborn old gargoyle," he explained, pivoting away from his utter disbelief that the man had anything to do with this arrangement. Their split was sudden and total and five years buried, no matter what Cadmon said about it, to him or to Halvor. "He hates to delegate things, especially when it involves his children. Always been very hands-on, you know how he is."

Slowly, the pressure atop his instep relented, as that had evidently been obtuse enough to satisfy Izayoi's unspoken demands. He wanted to gripe— given that she was evidently informed enough of her field adversaries as to at one point attempt to round up their children a country away, he knew that she probably agreed with his skepticism, at least to a point. It made that element of the charade all the more hollow to uphold.

He cleared his throat, before glancing between his would-be fiancé and the two warriors at his side, favoring her warmly before inclining his head towards them.

"Well, at any rate, we're likewise enchanted, Lene. I do have to admit; your brother, Izayoi-dono, Sir Galahad— the people gathered here, all of them, have been taking good care me during our travels. They keep their eyes on me should I stray, and swiftly correct me when I err. In lieu of my blood, I could hardly ask for better."

---

---

• _{1.—HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA—}
• _{2. Kick rocks, little man, this is hilarious!}

Blades of Iron Roses: An Anime-Inspired Knight RP

Gerard Segremors

@Crimson Paladin

The junior knight nodded, not daring take his eyes off the scene yet, burning it into his memories.

"I've dreamed of this since boyhood." he replied first, casting his eyes across the field like a broad fishing net over the lakeside. "Never once did I really think I would live long enough to see the Valours with my own eyes. To be part of it. I'll remember this moment my whole life remaining— so I'm here to take it all in, should I find I'll one day wake from a passing fantasy, and return to war until a senseless death."

Grim words, but lightly said— the enduring vista all the reaffirmation he really needed as he let it wash over him, and sink deep into the heart. Nodding along and following Sir Fleuri's guiding hand, he listened to each anecdote that matched a pavilion, a banner, a hammered-in post to split a field.

"Consider me warned," he snickered, jutting his chin towards the first patch of dirt his comrade had pointed out. "You'll have to point her out to me when the time comes— I'd hardly want to be insulting the wrong lady unknowingly, and draw my senior's ire so."

At the mention of heraldry, though, his good humor faded behind a quirked brow, and a small, unsure fidget. A first crack in that overawed armor his bearing had worn until now.

"Heraldry... Renar's made mention of that a few times, but am I not able to simply fight under the Order's banners? Is such a thing uncustomary, for men... you know, as I am?"

Blades of Iron Roses: An Anime-Inspired Knight RP

Gerard Segremors

"It's like a festival..."

Those were the words Gerard couldn't help but murmur, almost breathless in awe as he finally crested the rise of the little hill, some hundred meters off the grounds, and turned to look over his shoulder. It was bright day out in one the many meadows that sat between gentle slopes like this one, crowned by a gnarled hickory, and those clear skies shone upon a splash of color that put even wildflower fields to shame.

Dozens, scores, hundreds— more banners and pavilions and blazingly proud colors than the coal-haired knight ever dared count, as if the whole nation had gathered here as the Roses did; to enter the lists, to tilt at the horn's call, to win glory for themselves and their homes. Fair maidens' hands were won on days like this, kingly ransoms changed hands, and names were first writ into chivalric legend— none moreso than that of the man whose name this tourney bore, Valours of Ithillin.

It was hard for him to breathe, almost, knowing that he was about to step into such a rarefied air as that— as the knight whose purity of image had been sung to him since boyhood. From his ideal, how many dreams like Gerard's had been sprung? How many men here were more alike he than different, be they noble or common-born, trying to chase one man's legacy, to live and fight and be remembered as Valours did? Royal blue, blood red, dusky orange, midnight black, seafoam green— the knights below those banners, surely, owed so much of themselves to the example his life had wrought. Was he looking down upon them all now, from just beside Reon's seat on high?

But nonetheless, breathe he did. His lungs were full of the magic in the air.

He was here. He was really, truly here. One of them now.

The barely-cool breeze brushed against his skin, carrying with it the scent of grass, smoke, and sun— the same sun that seemed like it was gently embracing his frame, a whisper from his radiant goddess upon the warm hug of sunlight against his skin. "This day is yours, O faithful child," it seemed to say, "This day alone, I give to you.". The plucking of a dozen lutes floated by, mixed in with the sound of voices from the world over, all talking, jesting, issuing honorable challenge.

He laughed to himself, and took a bit of the honey-smoked leg of turkey he had bought from one of the early stalls as when the knights had arrived. It was sweet and spiced— and to his tongue, richer than even the fare of the Princess's banquet, filling him with vigor unlike any he had found before in Aimlenn. His other hand rested upon the pommel of his trusty longsword, worn today at the hip and sharpened, oiled, polished so fastidiously even the beaten steel shone like new.

Just as much as he, his constant companion had no doubt dreamed of a day like this— to rise, finally, truly, from the mud in which they had both toiled so long, so hard. It was one thing to be accepted to the order, it was another to attend the expected soirees— But he could scarce deny what he felt, this clear and open day.

There was nothing that felt truer to that small, wide-eyed, impossible dream that Valours, Agrahn, and Cyrus had imparted upon the boy that had left home at only fifteen years. Every trial, every brush with death, every life he had taken and saved alike at the edge of that same blade... They had all lead to this.

This was his Knighting. This was his Day In The Sun. Everything before, even his ascension from man-at-arms to the Roses, was the preparation— today he was to announce himself to the world as Sir Gerard Segremors of the Iron Rose.

He could scarcely wait for the Melee.

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

Rudolf Shilage and Viscount Halvor Breien

---

The night that the Kirins arrived was a busier one than Halvor had been made to endure for a while. Not only did he have to continue seeing to the dinner preparations and other guests he had planned for in the coming day, now he had to make sure enough would be made to feed seven others, plus their moogle and all their chocobos kept stabled; more than that, he’d had to withstand Esben’s protestations after the news had been broken to the rest, before making sure his other staff were set to see to them—mending clothes and gear, the doctor and nurses to see to their wounds, taking inventory of what supplies and goods they could still lay claim to and seeing how to prepare them for when they left...

It was while he was engrossed in such continued contemplation that evening, after having fed the group and seen to their lodging, that he was disturbed by a sharp knock at his door. He looked up quickly, peering over the rim of his glasses, half expecting the door to swing open without any greeting or welcome...but it didn’t. He allowed himself a small sigh of relief. ”Du kan komme inn,” he bid whoever was on the other side of the door, eyes returning to the papers on his desk.

The light’s low. Give it the old college try. One last prank for the road, before you inevitably get into one of your “I’m being very serious, take me very seriously” moods. You won’t begrudge the practice—I can tell you right now, this is going to take some serious work.

“I figured I would catch you ahead of schedule.” a distinctly ought-to-be-familiar voice floated in through the wood, as the knob turned. “I train late into the night, but I’m a bit tired of stumbling into people I meant to talk with in the middle of it—always catches me off guard in the ensuing argument.”

Much being left unsaid about how they evidently became arguments rather than discussions. Nevertheless, the door gently swung open…to reveal no ward, no guest, naught but the flickering gloom of his hallway.

Halvor looked up from his desk as the door creaked open, candles flickering for a moment with the pressure change, only to see nobody on the opposite side. One of the group that had arrived earlier that day, of course, speaking in the common tongue of Ibros. A man, younger, not speaking in quite the manner he expected of a Dragoon of such high class like the young sir Caradoc...Rudolf, then, it had to be.

And yet nobody was there. No way to hide behind the door as it swung into the room, either, no sound of footsteps rushing either further in or further away despite the voice being present. Curiously, he hadn’t heard any footsteps as his visitor had come up to the door, either.

He set his papers down, surreptitiously reaching for a hidden compartment on the underside of his desk. ”If you wish to speak, then you should show yourself,” he advised, speaking slowly to the empty air. ”I’m not particularly fond of people hiding themselves from me when they want to have a conversation!”

…

“Humor me. I’ve been humoring you all day.” the voice intoned, after a moment of pensive silence. There was a token attempt at diplomacy in that youthful timbre, but more pressing was its resonance— distant, muffled. A little off to the right, as though he were in the next room over.

Halvor’s office, of course, was at the end of the hallway.

Halvor’s fingers closed, listening closely, head cocked ever so slightly to try and triangulate the voice better. ”That’s a terrible request to make of a lord in his own manor,” he dismissed. ”Are you intending just to play a game, or have a real conversation? Shadows and air are terrible partners, especially this late in the evening.”

“You’d be surprised.”

Haha. You do like hearing me talk. That’s admitting it.

Another moment passed. The shadows drew long with each errant flicker of Halvor’s favored candlelight, soft, orange, and so permissive of ambient gloom. The doorway hung open still, and he could feel a shift in the atmosphere. Another flicker. The far side of his bookshelf, an old, proud tower of oak and the century’s canon, seemed to be almost oppressive.

And then a sighing relent, this time much clearer.

“I’ve been trying to work on something, that’s all.”

A hand, grasping around the edge, like pulling oneself through a doorframe. The walking headache’s voice was now surely in the room with him, muttering in disappointment.

“Only picked it up a couple hours ago….”

Laboriously, impossibly, Rudolf’s sword-laden frame pulled itself into view. His head emerging around the side, he finally gave the poor man the courtesy of eye contact.

“I am here to talk, though, for rea—”

Rudolf's greeting was cut off with the sound of a blade whirling through the air, lodging itself in the wood of the bookshelf just above his fingers. Halvor, white-faced, had barely adjusted his aim before he seriously wounded his ‘charge’ when he made his attack.

“... You know what, that’s fair.”

Gently, Rudolf pried the knife free of the wood after stretching a leg out to hook the man’s office door closed. Hearing a blade flying through the air had seen him almost dive back into the gloom, until his eyes told him holding steady had the best chance of staying out the knife’s path. A good thing he was still good with ballistics.

Halvor paused, straightened, and set the rest of the throwing knives down on his desk. Wiping his forehead with a trembling hand he sat back down, beckoning Rudolf fully into the office. ”What the hell are you doing?”

The door lightly knocked against the frame as it swung closed, and the young man nodded along dutifully, taking a moment to properly inspect the space he was now in, and then another for the knife in his hands. It was light as it danced along his fingers, balanced immaculately for its job— unmistakably different from the heavy, rigid thing hilted in bone on his hip.

He tossed it up and down as he stepped forward, indulging his curiosity. No wonder the man had so many of these— they really were nice. He actually had to fight the urge, just a little, to try and send this one downrange himself, just to watch it soar.

You’d best answer his question before he gets worried again. I doubt he likes you screwing around with his knife, either.

“I was hoping I could get you to the doorway. Pop up behind you, do a whole bit with it.” he whimsically not-answered, flipping the blade one last time in his grip to hold out for the former SEED to take as he sat down. “Learning to use shadows. Stealing ideas from our ninja.”

Halvor took the knife, setting it down with the rest silently. Having the young man that was supposed to have been staying with him for at least a year suddenly arrive was strange enough, especially considering the extent to which he'd been led to believe this strange boy had been there the whole time; for him to suddenly start stepping in and out of shadows was rapidly approaching the limit of his tolerance for such insanity. Regardless of the explanation that was offered.

He stared for a moment, before reaching back to a cup on his desk, lifting it up and looking into it critically. ”Out of tea,” he murmured ruefully. ”It's as bad as my school days. People changing faces, throwing their voices, jumping out of shadows, me jumping at shadows...”

He shook his head once before burying it in his hands.

”Other than trying to scare me, what are you after?”

“Materia.” Rudolf replied, taking further mercy by getting to the point. “I’m fresh out. I trust the others have mostly communicated their needs to you or your people here by now, but outside of having the smith touch up my harness alongside Galahad’s, my resupply needs are primarily materia. I figure I may as well talk to you about it, since I have something a little bigger to ask for after this.”

The bigger ask would probably be much better received if he let the guy solve a problem first, Rudolf reasoned, before he threw another onto his plate. The predictions from earlier in the day had come true— looking at how haggard and deflated the man in front of him was, one ostensibly intended to be fostering him no less… he was starting to feel bad, after all. Perhaps he’d pushed it a little too hard.

“It feels strange to ask this, even as an Edreni, but what might you have on hand?”

”...Materia?” He looked back up, peering at Rudolf in confusion. ”You figure out how to jump between shadows, and you're asking about Materia?”

“‘Figured out’ is strong verbiage, sir.”

”...” Halvor stared wordlessly again, at a loss for words.

“...Look, you’re already stressed. Just trust me when I say I’m very not good at this.”

His gaze flickered over to the gouge in his bookshelf. Just above where Rudolf's hand had crept around it, sidling out of the shadow where there hadn't even been room enough for a man like him to stand. ”I'd just handed some off to Esben, but...Ah!”

He threw open one of the cabinets on his desk, pulling out another pair of orbs. Much like before, as soon as he had the chance to latch onto something that seemed remotely normal to do, he jumped at it. ”Maybe these? Never had much use for them, not like what I gave Esben, but maybe...?”

“Whatever you can spare’ll work.” Rudolf agreed, holding his palm out. “Utility’s just as good as combative power as far as I’m concerned. Whatever we can do to diversify, and take off of Miina’s plate... Which did you end up giving him?”

”Only the most useful thing for someone like him, more time!” Halvor replied proudly, dropping the orbs into Rudolf's outstretched hand. ”I don't think he'd ever have used these, same as I didn't, it feels a bit wrong...But that doesn't mean they won't be useful to somebody else!”

“You gave him Time materia?” a jealous note in the voice, a raised brow.

”...Please take them? I can't think of much else that would be helpful to you that I have.”

He rolled them in his palm, the two orbs sliding end over end with the sound of marble. One was an earthen brown, the other a miasma of cloudy red. He pushed enough aether into them to get a feel for what they were.

His face felt a phantom burn, ghosts of the flames around his eye dancing with the candlelight. For the love of… was that sensation just his new normal? He’d felt it when wrecking his gravity materia, too.

“Quake. That is up my alley. And…”

He snickered, glancing between Halvor and the materia as an incredulous grin wormed its way onto his face.

“‘Felt bad about it’... Is this because I shadowstepped in front of you?”

”What?” Halvor looked genuinely confused. ”I never liked the vampiric materia, they always felt too strange to try and use...But that doesn't mean some of the others of my cohort didn't make off well with them. Might as well pass it along to someone that's likely to have any use at all, no?”

Rudolf rolled them in his palm a couple more times, indulging in his turn for a flat look—

“Well, I was just messing with you there. You aren’t wrong. I’ll have my share of chances for stealing away a little vitality, evening some scores a little.”

— before rising to click open his trusty pouch, and slot the two spheres of compressed aether into their new home.

I’m such a good influence. Look at us. The family’s whole again.

Halvor was visibly relieved once again. ”I'm glad to be of help,” he replied with a grateful nod. ”If that will be all...?”

“Not quite yet.” he motioned with a head nod to the greatsword in the room— he had carefully leaned it against the side of the bookshelf, opposite of where the knife had embedded, before sitting down. “I have a bigger ask, remember? This one’s longer-term, so I figured we’d square the magic away first.”

Halvor’s eyes were sharp. He’d probably notice, once his attention was drawn, to the fact that Rudolf had contributed no further damage to his tasteful wood furnishing despite the size of the thing.

Indeed, an unsheathed greatsword laying up against the oak bookshelf would be expected to at least scratch the wood, or dent the cover of a book where the pommel was resting against it...but nothing. He raised an eyebrow, looking back over at his young ward. ”It looks like the magic hasn't been squared away at all, to me.”

“Well, you have me there— that thing is cursed.” Rudolf explained. “Feather-light in your hands, dances like tigerlily on a strong spring wind, but it can’t cut a single blade of grass. Like it keeps passing through space, no matter how hard or how close you swing it to something it ought cut.”

He folded his arms, leaning back a little in the chair as he regarded the most tiresome seven pounds he’d ever lugged around in his life. “Now that I’m here, I’ve been meaning to follow up on my only lead to breaking its potential free. There’s a cursebreaking ritual that’d circumvent the need to hunt down the person who originally laid hex onto steel— but it has material cost, atop getting ahold of skilled mages.”

Miina, even down her arm, was quickly revealing herself to be as skilled as anyone going, near as he could tell, but it seemed like he’d be asking her to do the work of two lifetime specialists in the respective schools. And they’d put so much onto her already.

“Could I…” he began, turning his head to look Halvor in the eye once more. The churlish glint that had always crept into his eyes when he was pulling the viscount’s leg was notably absent. “Possibly trouble you for a diamond?”

Eugh.

Eeeeeeeugh. Beggar. Begging! Shameless! Gods above, how that felt wrong on his tongue above all else— even after all his talk three months ago about honor being cast aside or whatever surly misanthropy he’d been spewing!

“Not one you’d miss, that is.” he elaborated, holding an open palm and then making a fist. “I need to crush it.”

Halvor nodded along as Rudolf continued. A cursed blade, having to try and undo it, it only made sense that he'd have to ask for materials to do it. No matter how difficult it looked for him to do so. ”Of course, of course, breaking a curse, that's nothing terribly new...The right components and reagents and all that...”

“Wait, really?”

He paused, already in the process of sifting through his cabinets, and looked back up. ”A diamond? Have you gone mad?”

Theeeeeeere it was.

For once, Rudolf elected not to undercut himself by hedging that he probably was psychologically unwell, but that in turn was a different thing. His face betrayed no ill-mannered jest.

“It’s diamond dust, or if you could get your hands on a black pearl when oyster diving season’s in full swing. I figured the diamond was the more, readily available of the two I could ask you about.”

”You'd be better off asking Esben's family about that, they're actually out on the water...” the viscount replied dubiously. ”Nothing about how big of a diamond, then...? I, well, maybe...I'll want it replaced, though! Cadmon will never hear the end of it if it isn't!”

The grumbling continued as he continued rummaging through the cabinet, finally pulling out a small tool kit. ”Do you need something gem quality?” he asked pensively, pulling open the kit and showing it to Rudolf. A glass cutter, some drill bits, blades—and diamond. Rough bort with small gem-quality bits sticking out, little off-white ballas spheroids that gave off a similar luster, and even a rough stone that likely could make for a proper gem if it came under a jeweler's skilled hands, though it had clearly had been cleaved across its planes for little flakes, likely for the same scalpel blades that were lying above it. ”These are hard to get, even for me, so I really hope you know exactly what you need...”

“Sadly, we’re on the same level of operating intelligence.” Rudolf ruefully admitted, plucking the stone and idly holding it up to the light to eye for a moment, before closing his fist around it. “The late Grovemaster only gave me ‘diamond dust’ to work with— nothing specific for quantity or quality.”

Since I’m already teaching you things, we’ll circle back to ‘precious stones as aethereal batteries, catalysts, and reagents’ when it becomes more immediately relevant. Primordial Earth is seated in Edren, you really should know these things— I’m gonna get ahead of myself. The point is “Yeah, probably”.

He squeezed, the corners of his jaw tightening as he figured he may as well try and crush the thing like a walnut, right now, just for the hell of it. Whatever he thought of his standing, of his lagging nerves… it appeared true as well that he had certainly never been stronger than he was nowadays.

”Wait, wait, hold on!” While Halvor doubted Rudolf could crush it in his palm so easily, seeing the tendons and muscle in his hand and forearm move, he wasn't about to risk that the boy would slam it into the table or on the floor or against a wall either. ”A Grovemaster didn't tell you anything more than that? You didn't think to ask more than that? Let's—let's write to Cadmon! Even if that Grovemaster is dead, he should know the others, yes? He can get you in touch with another, probably how he did the first, you can get something more specific...Don't just take the rough stone! The ballas are purer, anyways, if that's part of the question!”

“It was a bad week. Isolde and I were not, as it happens, on the same page about much of anything. Not with breaking curses, not with Leviathan, nothing.”

He set the stone down, something tightly contained in the motion, behind the eyes. Halvor Breien’s fears, thankfully, were ill-applied. Rudolf knew better than to try and test stone against wood, after having maybe left a hairline crack in the thing with all the force he could muster— were even that not merely a trick of the light. His bones were sturdier, of that he had no doubt.

His eyes bored into the lot of them as they sat there, hand flexing. At this point, he was slipping into purely thinking aloud, that familiar quiet grumble.

“Maybe he has a rapport with Zacharias that I didn’t— but I know Neve better, and I doubt she’s had a whole lot of time to advance her grasp of such a niche subject in the midst of rebuilding Brightlam alongside the old man.”

His finger began to rap against the wood, in the pause that followed.

If they’re purer they’re better. That’s pretty basically true. Reduces the overhead— you won’t necessarily literally need to go all the way back to Green Hell for your white mage, for example. With what I’m seeing here, we can manage.

“... I’ll take what you’ll part with. If a problem comes up, I’ll find a way to sort it out. I’ve already got some literature I’m consulting from his libraries, so there may yet be some clarity hidden away for whatever moment I can take to get back to reading.” he concluded, slowly gathering the stones one by one. “You’ve already done a lot with this. I know what writing to Cadmon’s like, you don’t have to put yourself through more correspondence than you need.”

The rough diamond was placed back in the kit, a few of the ballas being deposited into Rudolf’s grasp instead, although Halvor looked up again a moment later with a confused raise to his brow. ”Cadmon’s delightful, though,” he mumbled, shaking his head. ”This sword, those scars...I cannot, for the life of me, figure out what happened to the bookish boy I was watching...”

“...”

The once-bookish boy had nothing for that. Nothing could be said without Everything hot on its’ heels.

He shook his head again, glancing absentmindedly away and back down to the papers he’d been perusing before Rudolf interrupted him. ”Is there anything else you require of me? I do need to get back to figuring out what I can give the lot of you to keep you on your travels, Jorunn made it clear that she was leaving that much to me, and I know Kayliss would probably come start sticking her knives in me herself if I let anything bad happen to you all...”

“Jorunn?” Rudolf inquired, buying a little extra time to think. There was something gnawing at him that he couldn’t place, right on the tip of his tongue. One last way to impose. His eyes followed in the wake of his host’s, falling onto the blade he’d leaned onto the shelf.

”My sister?”

The scarred boy blinked once, then leaned forward, flattening his affect to a dull, insincere monotone.

”I’ve never met that person in my life.”

Please, let me get away with playing this off as a bit.

”...”

Halvor looked up at Rudolf silently for a moment, face a perfectly still, unreadable mask. The moment stretched on without any sound save for their breathing and whatever noise came from the rest of the manor, before he looked back down at his papers. ”Just like your uncle. Knew I should have listened when he warned me. First you stroll into my study, trying to frighten me with shadows, wheedle materia and gems out of my grasp, and now this? Fuck off with you.”

Rudolf pried a smirk free from the dead-eyed, head-tilted Esben impersonation the moment had seen him resort to.

“I thought he was pleasant, sir? ‘Delightful’, you told me?”

”Go to bed, boy.”

Chuckling, Rudolf gathered his things in short order, reaching over to pluck the greatsword from where it laid. True as ever, the blade moved as though an extension of his arm, a conduit for his countless sleepless nights of hard labor, of honing meager skill to as fine an edge as he could hold..

“I will,” he reassured with a small nod of the head. “But like I said, I favor the night for training. More room to move, more room to focus. There’s a good spot, out in the courtyard, for me to get my rounds in with this guy.”

A deep breath, a half turn away. A wistful remark, floating in the precipice.

“I grumble about the curse all the time, but you should see how it moves in a trained hand… It’d put anything in the armory to shame. If it didn’t sing so well under the moonlight, I would hardly have such need to beg at your feet.”

Halvor glanced up once. ”We’re all going to have a busy day tomorrow,” he warned. ”I can’t chain you in your room and force you to sleep, but I’d recommend you get the rest you can.”

”Pinky swear.” he vowed, lifting his smallest digit as if as proof. ”I won’t be out there too long. I got too used to the northern warmth. I’ll look forward to whatever this surprise you’ve got planned for me is. ‘Till then…”

He was still much too new to walking through the dark to leave the room by any other means but the door.

“You get some rest too, Halvor.”

Sword and Dungeon: An Adventurer's Guild-based Fantasy RP

rejected

Sword and Dungeon: An Adventurer's Guild-based Fantasy RP

Understandable, looking forward to the rest of the concepts that come along

Sword and Dungeon: An Adventurer's Guild-based Fantasy RP

The Stickler

Name: "Sticky Pete" (Birth name unknown. Earned the "Sticky" appellation by way of the heavy elm branch found at his side by the adventurer who roused him from his catatonia, earned the appellation "Pete" by way of it being the name that hit his ear the best after "Sticky".)

Age: ??? (Could be anywhere from eighteen to thirty-three. Point is, he's young enough to handle himself in a brawl without growing too tired too quickly.)

Gender: Male

Race: Human

Rank: Iron, recently promoted from Copper after a streak of five successful jobs of largely menial grunt work, capped by the extermination of a goblin hive.

Personality: Even-keeled, earnest, and sometimes naive. Pete is by all accounts a genial guy with a permissive temper— perhaps owing to his lack of remembered hangups from the life before himself. Inwardly, he attempts to approach each day with as open a mind as he's able, all in the name of relearning whatever he may have lost— guided only by a deep-seated bedrock of common morality, he lets his personal judgement revolve around the gut feelings that ethical core imparts upon him, approaching each moment on its own. In sum, he has no creed, he remembers no coda, but the ethereal whispers of right and wrong still live in blood, in bone, deep the pit of his stomach. Whoever he used to be, they surely knew very well when they were doing the right thing, and when they weren't.

Inwardly, Pete worries that he may one day discover the rougher, crasser parts of him, those that don't do well with rookies or take some sort of pleasure in cracking skulls, may have stemmed from a man that was indelibly colored more by the latter than the former. He would be happy to never regain that part of himself, surely... but at the same time, he cannot escape the burning at the back of his head, where that heavy branch smashed through whomever that might have been, that he owes it to them to learn who they once were. Who he once was. It is by no means lost upon him that reviving the first may mean the death of the second. Even so, surely there was somebody there— someone who's missing from every life they touched, so long as he is here now. Maybe there is a way he can honor the man that was, without giving up the man that is— or maybe there's a way the man that is can remain, even when if man that was returns.

Outwardly, he's a bit stiff-humored, in a way that suggests a kind nature. Hardly one to balk at a joke, least of all at his own expense, but he seems to lack the bite that might drive a man to let cutting words fly. Content to admit that there is much he doesn't know of the world, he seems content to give most things a fair shake— even if it may lead to him letting somebody take advantage of his commitment to sincerity. At the other end of this, he's not a great teacher, in the rare instances where he encounters people that know less of anything than he does.

Brief Backstory: Found at dusk outside Venne beneath an old elm, with one of its' heavy branches broken off at his side. There were no possessions nor money to his name that could be found— even the clothes off his back were nondescript rags, as though a man deprived of every worldly possession, right down to his name. He awoke with memories of gray fog, flecked with dancing black sunspots, a massive swell upon his head, and a gaggle of unfamiliar faces standing over him. It was there that "Sticky Pete" would begin his life, taking a few days to recover under the watchful eyes of the adventurers of the guild that had taken him in. Eventually, when he was hale anew, his lack of librans would catch up to him well before his stagnant memory— and with the nearest work available coming from the same roof over his head, it seemed worth the old college try.

Equipment: The same heavy elm branch that robbed him of his memory now robs pests and most problems of their lives. It's half his identity at this point: hard to be "Sticky Pete" without the aforementioned Stick. Beyond that, he's earned enough to put some proper clothes on his back again, and is slowly collecting the adventurer's staples to fill a sturdy leather pack— rope, a wineskin, a prybar, a lantern, sturdy leather boots, sturdy leather bracers. He's saving up for some decent brigandine or a shield, next.

Skills: Tall, well-formed, and fell-handed, Sticky Pete is the beneficiary of a clear head in a scuffle, rarely being taken in by nerves or fear. His calm manner and mild disposition give him an easy time getting along with most people alive— already, he has a few friendships forming. Evidently, he's either literate, or has picked up the general gist of literacy quickly. Fairly dexterous with his hands, seems to know his way around a knife despite not remembering exactly why. Holds his drink well. It's been only a couple of weeks, so he doesn't have a lot to work with, but he budgets well— with money, skillset, and time all alike.

for consideration

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

Rudolf Shilage

It hardly bore any repeating at this juncture, but the five years Rudolf had really spent had left him very, very good at feeling someone's gaze falling upon him. He could see her out of the corner of his vision, probably skeptically raising a brow as he relayed what he remembered the benefits of blue peaflower to be, rather than their shared love in coffee. For his part, he maintained his innocently easygoing smirk, catching Éliane's gaze for a moment during the interplay between Breien and Cadon— before flicking his eyes down to the cushion he'd handed her, leaning forward, and tapping at his own lumbar vertebrae.

Really, it brought him little joy to find those suspicions confirmed, but at least the extra support for the bottom of the spine would serve to— Eyes front, you're back in the conversation.¹

..."W-what happened to you, kid?"

Rudolf's brows rose slightly at the sudden interrogation, the man before them a thoroughly wrung-out rag compared to the tight knot he'd been before he realized that half the skin of his "ward's" face was slag. More than fair to the poor guy, Rudolf himself had been caught in a sputtering loop only weeks before by the absent party of this little farce they'd all decided on— were that it left him any bearing on where this one was intended to go...

"Hm?" he murmured, before closing the burnt eye and appearing to brush the storm of worry off as it met him, like one might an unwieldy swipe with a blade. "Oh, this. Just some trouble I got into after Cadmon sent me on my way— the road these days is getting dangerous. To answer your other question, as it stands," He continued, downplaying the care with which he was choosing his words. This was where even he couldn't deny his father leaping out of him— Rudolf was willing to push this bit as far as it would go, committing to the false pretense for the Viscount's sake as much as anyone's. But speaking personally, half the fun was seeing how far you could go within that by never outright lying— just telling the truth in the right amount, and right way.²

"I met these two not too long after I set off, and they were a great help in getting me back in one piece through all the swashbuckling. You know, mostly, but that's not exactly their fault. At the very least, they both have taught me some valuable lessons— so we at least can say that's worth it." he wryly amended, reclining again as Halvor poured himself likely all of what soothing bluegrass water they had left from the first pot into his own cup.

As the viscount began to chatter with Esben about his graduation from the garden, Rudolf nursed his tea, sipping lightly. So far, so true, as much as he meant to keep score. However, from behind it, he too would inevitably raise a brow at the mention of a surprise. And more important even than that—

He glanced over to Éliane again, before letting his eyes narrow for the first time since the man entered the room. "A full day here?" he demanded, for whatever clarification it may yet wring out of his supposed mentor. "He wasn't lying about us having matters to attend to in Solitude, sir, and we already strayed off that course. People need checking up on, under the curtain—"

But the man was possessed, already letting his mind spin off into all the preparations he was due to make for the upcoming dinner party. "They ought to be here by morning"... who else could the guy have showing up? He tried to steal a look at Esben face for clues, but the SEED seemed like he was just about as lost. Damned old prick, Cadmon— if he was going to drop this distraction on them all, he could have at least let them know something, anything about it. Hell, he'd even made it sound like the place wasn't a third of a day off-course.

He took a deep, long breath through the nose, and quietly bottomed out his teacup. Hopefully, he hadn't let too much of that show on his face— but at least he wasn't actually trying to con a man who had spent five years learning to read his mood through whatever mask he dug up to try and hide behind.

"I did see the primroses, they look nice." he began, figuring it wouldn't hurt to play to the pride the man warding him clearly took in his green thumb. Rudolf had been a sure-hit plantkiller for years now³, whenever he'd gotten it in his head to try. "For now... I guess just let me know what I've been away for while I was up north. The others are probably at the smithy, I'd guess, so we may be putting some work into that... Oh."

A thought struck, and this question was guileless for it.

"There's this village we stopped in at about a halfday down from the border checkpoint that's in rough shape, seems like their steward is AWOL. They had to scrabble together their own militia to try and keep themselves safe. Any idea how that may have gotten that bad? I know they aren't exactly 'the neighbors', but we owe them one for their hospitality..."

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• _{1. I do my helpful bit outside of combat too.}
• _{2. I do my helpful bit outside of combat too.}
• _{3. I do my helpful bit outside of combat too. This one's more of a side effect, though. I don't have that much against plants.}