Konan375

Blood Act I~ Ghosts of the Past

Leith Calder

Leith went whiter than usual when Henri told him that Lyn had run. All the things that could happen to her ran through his mind. Yes, while she was no longer a child, she still had very little life experience outside of the college, and in a city like Shimmerston, even though it had prettied up for the festival, it still had some pretty dark parts. He realized that if Keri saw or heard about Lyn running away she would have gone after the her unless someone else had. While he still worried about Lyn, it was less so.

As Henri explained what was going on in the exact opposite way that Leith had asked, a crowd of children had gathered around, awed by Henri's knife skills. They clapped and cheered once he had finished twirling his knife. They quickly dispersed with giggles and screams once Henri started flirting with Helena.

Leith rubbed his face with a hand. Even though Henri had done the opposite of what Leith wanted, he got a good enough idea of what was going on. He chuckled as something that Henri said registered. "I think Althalus will get a good laugh out of being called an it, but in my honest opinion, I really believe that no one at this college is threatening you near as seriously as you think they are, except maybe Tyrael, but Tyrael threatens everyone. None of who you mentioned would actually do harm to the person who saved Lyn's life. It would destroy her. I actually didn't overhear what was going on in the carriage, which was why I asked, but you have given me enough information for me to say-"

"Excuse me, Henri. If you do not mind, I would like to pull you away for a moment and speak in private. There is something important I would like to discuss."

Ssarak had approached the three of them. Leith had been too busy talking to Henri to notice the Esyire walk up to them.

"Ah, perfect!" Leith said with a smile. "A better mediator than I ever could be." He bowed his head to Ssarak. "I'll leave Henri to you and head back to the others." With that said Leith went back to the group.

"So, I don't think that Henri actually knows you're Lyn's father." Leith said to Althalus as he approached him, a smile on his face.

Althalus would feel something wet on his sleeve. Water mixed with mud for visibility scrawled out a message. Keep a close eye on your hand. The shapeshifter is The Eternal Hunger's sister. Once Althalus had read the message, the water-mud writing wicked away, leaving his sleeve dry and unstained. Leith chuckled nervously. "He called you a goon, too, I think."

Torn Across the Rift

XIII stared at Rozalind. He had been thinking of some sort of item or object collected by TRIDENT that would have been the target of theft or destruction. The thought of the fleet being taken or destroyed sounded even worse. He cast a glance around the walls of the submarine, suddenly feeling claustrophobic. A small part of him thought dryly that the walls were doing a better job than Rozalind's hand and taking his breath. The more rational part of him took the time to calm down, taking a few deep breaths.

"Okay, who would know where these contingencies are? Because if someone is trying to sink us, that would be what they'd go after...after dealing with Tristian, of if they're acting as a group where they'd go while someone else dealt with Tristain." XIII grit his teeth. This was starting to feel like the invasion of his base back home all over again. The air around XIII started heating up. Like hell he'd be fooled again so soon!

"So," he asked. "Where do we go?"

Torn Across the Rift

Coolio, though one thing. Rozalind and Twain had met up.

Blood Act I~ Ghosts of the Past

Leith Calder

A month after the mission to Djarkel

A month had passed since Leith’s mission to Djarkel. After making his choices, a lot of weight had been taken off his shoulders. Now he was able to go to the gardens for the purpose of helping the garden instead of keeping his mind off things. It was as he was pulling at a rather stubborn weed that he noticed Henri, the new student that had helped them on the mission.

He hadn’t gotten to know the man more than what he had learned on their way back from Sanguine.

”Hey!” It was at that moment that the roots gave way and Leith fell backwards with a shout. He was back up quickly and making his way over to Henri. ”It’s Henri, right?”

Things were a bit… tense around the college, especially after what happened with Tyrael. It was safe to say that Henri didn’t feel exactly… comfortable there. Save for a few students that he trusted, Tyrael and even Gray were seen as potential threats by him. That said, the garden was a place where Henri could stretch himself and train away from annoying people such as said teacher and his minion. But to his surprise, he wasn’t alone that day, as another student called him, interrupting his stretching session that was almost uncomfortable to watch as it looked much more like contortionism than stretching per se.

Yes?” Henri said, looking to the other student coming from behind him inquisitively as he saw him with dirt on his hands. Apparently he was tending to the garden.

“Henri Larue. I didn’t knew that there was someone taking care of the garden. I’m afraid I was using it to train. It’s much more peaceful than the normal training grounds.” Henri said as he instead of turning towards him, he simply walked backwards bending his back as he put both of his hands on the ground, slowly, but gracefuly making a cartwheel, stopping only a few steps away from the other student, finally turning around after that.

Leith raised his brow when Henri cartwheeled over to him. ”There’s always people taking care of the garden.” He grinned. ”How do think it got to look like this? Magic?”

”Training in the garden’s perfectly fine, though just make sure that you don’t crush any of the plants or Rathel will have your hide.” He made a grasping motion with his left hand and a ball of water formed around it. ”I’m joking, of course. Rathel wouldn’t hurt any of the students here. Strangest demon I’ve met.”

The ball slowly became murky, and when Leith pulled his hand out, his hand was clean. He made a pulling motion, and the water cleared and a clump of mud soon fell out of the ball. ”It’s Ghell you have to be wary of. Any damage done to any of the gardens here and he knows. It’s uncanny. But he won’t do anything too harsh. Before the mud hit the ground, it was dirt again. He used the ball of water to clean his gauntlet before dispersing it over the plants in a mist.”He’ll probably make you work to fix what you wrecked. And complain about you training here, but that’s it.”

Leith frowned. ”Larue...I’ve heard that name before.”

"I was born and raised in the Larue Circus. It safe to say that we're the most famous circus there is. Most of the people working there trained since they were young." Henri said, looking to Leith’s hands as he used water magic to clear them.

To be honest, it wasn’t very hard to link Henri to a circus of some sorts or to think he was some type of artist based on many of his habits, such as the performatic bow he gave whenever he met someone and other small things.

"Grew up with daggers on my hand. With time my tongue got as sharp as the very daggers I was so used to play with. It also became kind of a habit to always have them with me. Even though we are famous, street artists aren't always loved by everyone, and... well... There is nobody to defend us other than ourselves as we are basically foreigners in every city we go. We are accustomed with having to deal with troublesome situations." Henri said with a chuckle. He more than any other member from the Larue knew very well about that. The amount of times he had to use his skills, his agility or even his creativity to get out of sticky situations was honestly absurd…

“About others wanting my hide… Used to it. Don’t worry. After my little meeting with Mr. I’m going to skin you alive for no particular reason, I kinda got the feeling about how things will be around here.” Henri said, rolling his eyes.

As soon as Leith mentioned that Ghell would probably know about any damage that was done to the garden, Henri pulled his hand away from one of the daggers he had hidden on his clothes.

“So… Probably not a good idea to use the trees as targets to practice… yes?” He said laughing.

”Mr. I’m going to skin you alive for no particular reason?” Leith frowned. ”Oh! You mean Tyrael. Yeah...he’s not entirely the nicest guy, but dealing with demons for as long has he has is bound to make anyone abrasive, wouldn't you think?” Leith shrugged. ”But try not to think that that’s what the whole college is. I mean, even in your circus, didn’t you have at least one abrasive personality? And this college is certainly larger than any traveling circus.”

He chuckled when Henri mentioned not using the trees as target practice. ”Yeah, that’s probably a good idea. Let’s see, there should be a training grounds around here.” He beckoned to Henri as he turned around.”Come on.” With that Leith started making his way towards the nearest training grounds.

“Back in the circus? No… We pretty much treated everyone as family there. And we are all artists. We sell not only our skill, but our charm, our smiles. So we all know very well to control our emotions and exactly what we need to speak to make the public satisfied. Yeah, the college is certainly larger than the circus. Even though we’re very famous, we’re still a… well… I wouldn’t say ‘small’ but we’re not that big of a group since every member has been training under the Larue for a long time. Most of us either were born already in the circus or we were orphans before the circus took us in.” Henri replied as he followed Leith to the training grounds.

“Speaking of training grounds… I don’t want to sound rude but… What’s with the huge gauntlet? It’s certainly not that useful for gardening, is it? If anything, I would think it’s exactly the opposite… Unless you’re going to be punching some demon plants or dealing with a particularly annoying herbamancer…” Henri said with a chuckle.

”You don’t sound rude at all. Imagine all the staring that this thing brings.” Leith picked up a large rock on the path and showed it to Henri. ”Simply put, it’s a demon made gauntlet that fused to my arm, oh, about a year ago. Sure, it might be bulky, but.” Leith closed his hand around the rock and squeezed. He turned his hand over and opened it. Fine dust fell from the gauntlet. ”It has its uses.”

Leith grinned. ”Now it’s my turn to ask a question. What branch of mageblood do you have?” They had arrived at the training grounds. Other than the two of them, it was empty.

A demon gauntlet, he said? Henri himself couldn’t think on using such bulky and unwieldy thing… Much less having it fused to his arm… The added strength was an extra but on Henri’s oppinion? Not worth the hassle… His thing was much more agility and dexterity than brute strength.

“It looks… unwieldly and uncomfortable… Well… at least it makes you stronger.” Henri said, still looking at the big and weird gauntlet.

As they arrived on the training grounds, Henri was grateful that they were the only ones there. It was actually pretty rare for it to be empty like that.

“Me? Aeromancy. It’s actually very nice when i use it together with my daggers when i worked on the circus to give my numbers a bit more suspense and… well I have some tricks up my sleeve in case things get ugly.” Henri said with a mischievous smirk.

“It has actually saved me from some pretty troublesome situations already.” Henri said, as he raised his hand, making the end of one of the long silk bandages wrapped around his arm form a spiral with a current of wind.

”I don’t doubt that. My magic has ended up saving my life as well a few times, actually. And Aeromancy can be quite powerful. One of the guards here is an Aeromancer. There was a fight that broke out a while back, and to this day I have never seen anyone that large move that fast.” Leith shook his head. ”Anyway, do you need help setting up? I’d be happy to lend a hand” Leith chuckled at his joke.

“No need to, I’m fine. It’s just my daily training routine. Something I always did since I started training on the circus. Thanks for the offer though. I would shake your hand, but I’m afraid that my hand will end up like that rock you turned into dust a few moments ago.” Henri said with a chuckle.

”You wound me, thinking that I don’t have the control to not crush your hand.” Leith said as he held a hand up to his chest. A smile on his face belying his words. ”Or that I am unable to use my other hand. Ah, oh well. I should get back to gardening. I hate leaving something unfinished.” He waved to Henri. ”Goodbye.”

“See you around, Leith. It’s always good to be able to meet someone I can trust. You don’t seem to be a bad person.” Henri said as he got five daggers from inside his clothes as he prepared himself to throw them at the target a few meters ahead of him.

Leith nodded as Keri walked away to find Lyn. The vampire could probably find her faster than he could. With a sigh, he turned back to the carriage. He grabbed the scabbard with his new sword inside. Six small pouches and a small sheath for the handle. It was an idea he had a few months ago to utilize his Hydromancy a bit more effectively. He removed his cloak and strapped to his back with the handle sticking over his right shoulder. He put his cloak back on and made sure his sword was hidden well enough.

Satisfied, he left the carriage and made his way towards Ssarak, but from the way that the Esyire sighed and shortly after the other students stiffened up, he figured that Keri had let Ssarak know of the situation. Now that that problem had been dealt with, there was another problem that needed to be rectified. He looked down at the yellow gemmed ring on his hand and tapped it once. He needed to find Henri.

The gem blinked as he turned around and walked into the crowd. Soon enough he heard a voice.

"I'm sorry, Helena. I don't think I'm in the mood to do anything right now. If you want to group with someone else I will certainly understand. You don't need to worry about me regarding the shapeshifter. After all, I'm not Keri's family. The only 'family' I ever had was the circus, which I was foolish enough to leave behind."

Leith frowned. What? What did Keri say to Henri? He rubbed his forehead with a sigh. Maybe he should have been following the conversation in the carriage. No matter, he needed to make sure everyone was on the same page before they went out into the city.

"I'm glad that Keri thinks of me as family, but that's not what's happening. The college is being targeted. That makes you a target as well. It's being targeted by a shapeshifter, so they could become anyone. But before I say anything else, can you tell me, as best as you can, without bias or paraphrasing, what's going on right now? We have a situation right now and I believe this misunderstanding, or argument, or whatever it is will hinder us from working seamlessly against our enemies."

---

Darius Jura

Darius crossed his arms as the half elf walked away. He was sure that the woman would try and challenge Darius in the Grand Melee. He shrugged, oh well. He was still going to join anyway. Less people in his way. Ssarak declined the Grand Melee as well, and Althalus complained that he'd have to place his bet on Darius. Darius grinned and took a few coins out of his pocket and held them out to the man. "And I expect you to place my bet as well. I cannot do it myself." He paused for a moment, eyeing Althalus carefully "I expect to get my winnings back after the fights."

Then Ssarak spoke telepathically with them and Darius sighed seeing the look on Althalus' face drop. He put the coins back in his pocket and folded his arms. "What should we expect from this?" He muttered under his breath used his Aeromancy to carry his words to Ssarak. Too many ears to converse in normal tones.

~Chrono Asylum: Devil's Plague

"Emotional manipulation." Lawrence spoke to Rena as Olivia stared after the man in confusion much like Angel.

"Say the right words and act a certain way and you can convince people that they like you." He had stopped fiddling with his stupid puzzle cube to talk to the Chrono. "Personally, if I'm close enough to manipulate my mark, I'm doing something wrong." He looked over to Olivia and frowned, and a rush of thoughts and images hit her like a freight train.

She was standing outside the Room.

She tried to shake her head, but she was stuck. No, she couldn't be here. She had left that place years ago. She had proven herself able to be trusted. Why was she-

"She's never going listen to you. She surged and killed her captors, she's going to fight you every step of the way." Lawrence spoke, but Olivia couldn't see where he was. All she could see was a man in a suit holding a clipboard. He was looking through the window into the room.

"We can fix that. Why do you care? You've been killing other rogues for how long now?"

"Never children," Lawrence seethed. Strange, Olivia had never heard Lawrence angry. "I have standards."

The man barked a short laugh. "A noble rogue, how quaint." He cleared his throat and consulted his clipboard. "Very well, if you think you can get her to cooperate with us be our guest, but if we think she's going to be a threat to you, we will put her down in an instant. A sharp knife is better than a broken one."

click, click, click, click.

The familiar sound of clicking brought Olivia out of whatever hallucination that was. Lawrence had once again started working on his Rubik's cube. Olivia never understood why Lawrence bothered playing with that thing, he already knew how to solve it without even looking at the thing. Her head was throbbing.

Are you okay? Lawrence was staring at her, his hands moving over the Rubik's cube. Soon all the colors matched and Lawrence paused to take a look at puzzle cube. As soon as he stopped, Olivia was hit with an uncontrollable rage. Her hands clenched into fists and she wanted to punch or strangle the nearest person. Lawrence mixed the colors up, and the rage dissipated.

Olivia nodded. Yeah, fine. I'm just getting a headache

Okay. Seems like... Lawrence's mental voice cut out, and Olivia understood what was going on. They were experiencing a link disturbance. Though that raised a few questions for Olivia. As she waited to figure out where to go one question burned in her mind.

What was Lawrence so angry about?

Blood Act I~ Ghosts of the Past

Leith Calder

The carriage had stopped. They had arrived at Shimmerstone. Leith watched as everyone piled out. The conversation had been getting quite tense. Hopefully the bright and colorful city and festival was enough to lighten everybody's mood. Leith checked his supplies for the festival. Coin purse: check, waterskin: check, lifeline for Althalus' training game: check. The red cloth was tied around the clasp of his cloak. He double-checked to make sure that his gauntlet was covered by his cloak. It still pushed out against the fabric, but unless he uncovered it, it wouldn't scare the locals.

Leith chuckled at the thought as he left the carriage. It had been a long time since he had been in such a populated area of Eanians, and it was the first that he actually had something that made their fear or distrust of him valid. He had spent his entire life surrounded by that mistrust, so he could handle it. He glanced over at Keri, who had just exited out of the carriage. He wasn't sure about the others, though.

He approached Keri with a smile. "So, is this your first time in-"

The shapeshifter is in the city. She has fixated on your firebrand. Careful, careful. She has plans for you and your cohorts, and will never forgive you for murdering her sister.

Leith's smile dropped and he looked at the silver ring on his left hand with a frown. Shapeshifter? He hadn't murdered anyone. The only people he killed were trying to kill-

A shudder ran through his body. The Eternal Hunger had a sister? And she was a shapeshifter as well? Not good. She could be anyone. She could cause so much trouble as one of the students of the college, and it would be hard to disprove that they were the ones who did it. The conversation in the carriage sprung to mind, or she could force one of the students to do something rash and there would be no denying that it was a college student that did it.

Leith realized that he had been staring at his hand for far too long and looked back up at Keri. "Uh..." He lowered his voice "There's a shapeshifter in the city, and she's targeting the college." He glanced at the ring again. "I believe she's associated with the same group that were at Lyn's hunt. We should get Helena and-where'd she go?"

Helena had disappeared into the crowd. Henri and Lyn were no longer with the gathered students, who had also started to disperse into the crowd. The game was on, but now it had another objective: make sure that nothing came of the shapeshifter's meddling. "We need to find Helena. If this shapeshifter is anything like the last one I fought, Pyromancy is a real threat to her."

---

Darius Jura

"Out of the way." Darius growled at the pale man who deemed it necessary to stand just outside the door to the carriage to talk to someone.

The man looked up. "Ah, sorry. He moved out of the way and stood beside the pale woman he was talking to. Darius shook his head. Some people needed to gain some situational awareness. It wasn't healthy for people to be oblivious to the things going on around them. He was here to enjoy the festivities, not lecture someone about their awareness. Darius grinned. Where there was festivities, there was a selection of ales.

As he was leave the group to find the closest tavern, he caught the words of Althalus. I suppose there is some sort of duels and sparring going on somewhere. You and Ssarak could join one together, beat the Pit out of some poor local guardsmen." Darius looked over and saw the elf. His mood soured.

Darius had made it a point to not go anywhere near Alaira after their mission to Djarkel. He didn't think that he'd be able stop himself from starting a fight with the berserker. It was hard enough being in the same carriage with her. With Althalus' words, a thought popped into his head, and he grinned again. He approached the group.

"I would not do that. The elf might start a fire or start fighting you instead."

~Chrono Asylum: Devil's Plague

He has to be. A.M.R.O is the last place to be complacent.

~Chrono Asylum: Devil's Plague

Olivia

Olivia never liked the Fish Tanks. They were small and cramped and gave her a feeling a claustrophobia. Not to mention the fact that she had to give up control to someone else. Needless to say, she fought tooth and nail when they tried to get her to go into the tank. But they managed it, and here she was, waking up in a small pod with a respirator keeping her away from drowning. Oooh, she was going to put whoever it was that injected her with one of those fast acting sedatives into one of these tanks if she ever found them. She snorted as much as she could in the tank, maybe she already had. She had definitely heard a satisfying crunch before they had to cheat to get her in.

The fact that she was thinking these thoughts alerted her to the fact that the tanks were about to be emptied. Sure enough, the machine was humming as the water sluiced out of it. The flash of anger as she woke up was good to clear out her mind from the natural sedation of the pod, but it wasn't fast enough. As the liquid drained from the tank, Olivia raised her hands out of the water and used the moisture from the water to write a sigil on the glass. Once she activated it, the familiar, electrifying feeling of pain washed over her while the tank continued to empty. As the last vestiges of whatever that green fluid was drained away, the pain stopped, and Olivia's mind buzzed with clarity. Now, it was her that was in control.

At least, that was until the door hissed open and she stumbled out of the pod, falling to her hands and knees.

Lawrence

Well that was a disaster Lawrence frowned as consciousness returned to him. The Fish Tank he floated in thrummed with vibration as it emptied. Retrieving this asset had proved far more difficult than it had originally seemed. Not to mention their last minute battle with Ouroboros. But when was that? After they arrived back on Innocence, they were put into the Fish Tanks immediately. Time was never easy to gauge after waking up, but he had a way. It wasn't completely accurate, but it gave him a general time frame.

Lawrence curled his hands into fists. Nothing felt any different, so it must not have been that- no wait! There! There was a weakness in his grip. It wasn't pronounced, so three, maybe four weeks in the tank. While electostimulation helped in preventing major muscle atrophy, there was still always some atrophy from the lack of movement. Oh well, it couldn't be helped. As the door opened, Lawrence braced himself and walked out of the tank. Looking around the room, Lawrence noticed that all of the Asylums that were at Ouroboros were just leaving their tanks as well.

A month in the tank. Lawrence frowned as he grabbed the clothes laid out for him and Olivia, and handed Olivia's set to her. He was sure that he hadn't been that injured when he returned, so why was he and all the other Asylums being released at the same time? He retrieved his Rubik's cube and worked on the puzzle. Lawrence never trusted A.M.R.O.. Why would anyone put trust in an organization that created weapons like Asylums?

"A minute hasn't even passed and already you're fiddling with those stupid things." Olivia approached Lawrence with a frown.

Lawrence smiled, his hands still moving over the cube. "I'm trying to figure something out, like why everybody in our group was in the tanks for at least a month."

"A month?" Olivia set her jaw, her eyes flashed fiercely. She crossed her arms and glared at the machines as if she wanted to set the things on fire with just her glare.

"A month, Lawrence replied. "And it looks like we've got one of the two walking disasters coming our way," he added as he nodded towards Rena as she made her way towards the gathered Asylums.

"Mmhm." Olivia continued to stare a the Fish Tank. Lawrence shrugged. It seemed like both of them had something to think about. He approached the gathered Asylums, still solving, shuffling and resolving the cube in his hands.

Blood Act I~ Ghosts of the Past

Leith Calder

"I think you'd have to be crazy to not be excited," Leith answered E'nasha's question with a smile. "Or a resident, I guess," he added thoughtfully. It felt strange to be going to Shimmerstone. Even though the college and all their inhabitants were welcome at the capitol city, they still had students that either had a taboo Blood, or was a vampire, or... Leith glanced at his hand, tainted demonically. Hopefully they didn't run into anyone that held the values of Eania as close to their hearts as some people he had the pleasure of meeting.

He shook his head of dark thoughts and made sure his had was covered by his cloak, now sporting another patch. Satisfied, he turned to Ssarak's question. "I don't know, really. Maybe we could see what they have for entertainment here, or find some food." He glanced at Helena, the corner of his mouth tugged into a smile. "Play some games." He decided to learn how to fight better than he could about three months back and sought out Althalus. Turns out the man had been training some of the other fellow students, and now he had a test in mind for their time in Shimmerstone, and it's turned into something of a game. One that he intended to win.

Leith glanced over at Henri. The man had the unfortunate luck to be seated next to Lyn, Althalus and Alaira, and because he was an unknown, that immediately made them protective of the hybrid, and while not necessarily hostile towards Henri, definitely quite heated towards him. Leith chuckled to himself before turning to E'nasha. with a smile. "So where's your shadow?"

~Chrono Asylum: Devil's Plague

Information Gathering/Interrogation should be on there, I think.