Psyker Landshark

ArrowFell: The Wizard Queen's Court

Lady Safina Haliel

146 | Elf | | Female | 5'11" | 148 lbs

Goal:
Peace, stability, and quiet. Having known the Queen since she was but a court wizard, Safina stays by her side out of a sense of familiarity at this point. So long as the power-hungry and the grasping stopped having silly ideas of rebellion, perhaps there could be peace for a century for once.

History:
She'd always been an urchin. Her first memories had been of an orphanage, and she'd not taken to it well. Safina lived life on the streets from a young age, picking pockets and committing petty theft to acquire the coin to avoid starving just one more day. Eventually, stealing from the wrong mark got her picked up by the local thieves' guild, who saw the potential in her to be a real sneak.

Over a century passed, and Safina rose to supplant the leadership of that guild, intent on taking it into a more extreme, yet more profitable direction. They still continued to engage in heists and espionage, but now also branched out to assassination, bringing in professionals from other nations to train killers. It was at this time that a battlemage by the name of Evelyn reached out, engaging Safina in a partnership and helping fund the guild's shift in focus.

With both an increase in their lethality and the kingdom's unofficial backing, it wasn't long before Safina's guild either forced out or absorbed all other competition in the underworld within their city. Surprisingly, now that the underworld was centralized, local crime actually decreased overall. Safina was more interested in ensuring that no one within the area had any vested interest in stopping their operations, resulting in greater long term profits, but her and Evelyn's foolish backer didn't quite see it the same way.

When the rebellion came, the guild very quietly stayed out of the entire matter. At least, they did until the king cut Evelyn loose and inadvertently revealed Safina's guild to the kingdom at large in the process. Safina wasn't able to go to her ally's aid, occupied as she was with ensuring the guild wasn't massacred as they escaped the kingdom.

In the end, barely a third of the thieves and killers she'd cultivated over the decades survived that disaster. Over the next decade, Safina remolded her organization into the Concord, traveling from country to country as hired killers as they sought to weather the storm they were put into. But this wasn't an existence she was satisfied with. Too much chaos and risk, all for nothing. No, she wanted a measure of stability back.

It had to be some form of serendipity that the Concord answered the call Evelyn sent out. When Safina realized who the employer was, she negotiated a different contract: her band of sneaks and killers would fight and spy for a position in her new order rather than any measure of gold. Wealth was temporary, as they both knew damn well. But continuity? Quiet? That would keep them alive and thriving.

These days, Safina and her Concord work to enforce the Wizard Queen's order, though it grows ever more difficult between the people's discontent and some of Evelyn's more...ambitious policies. Not that Safina would tell her that. The Concord still wasn't as powerful or numerous as her old guild, even if their veterans were far more skilled these days than they had been in the past. Still, she and the Queen share a similar enough dream of order that she'll do as she's commanded to.

Within Hathforth's court, Safina is publically known as one of the Queen's ladies-in-waiting, her proximity to the throne and travels under her command claimed under the guise of a mere retainer.

Seed: Empty Gaze
A black pearl embedded in a brooch worn on Safina's neck. It allows Safina to remove any perception or memory of her existence from the mind of someone that beholds the pearl for several moments. The more of Safina that is erased from the target's perception, the longer the Empty Gaze takes to recharge.

Magic:

• Shadow Blade: Forms a magical blade of darkness that can be adjusted in length and either wielded in the hand or fired at a target.
• Darkness: Conjure magical darkness to fill a dozen-foot radius. Nonmagical methods of illumination and night vision cannot pierce it.
• Illusory Image: Create a magical image in a chosen location. Physical contact with the image reveals it to be an illusion.
• Shadowstep: Flit through the shadows and reposition one's self to any point within line of sight that has an absence of light. The caster can also submerge their body within the shadows for some time, though this takes much more mana.
• Mind Crush: Engage in a psychic attack against the target's mind. Stuns briefly and can leave a foe catatonic should they be weak-willed enough. Can be repelled with willpower, but will still at least keep their senses occupied for the duration of the attack.
• Swiftness: Enchants a target with magical vigor, allowing them to perform actions quicker.
• Muffle: Target a specific area or body part to prevent from making sound for some time. Can be cast on self.
  ___
• True Sight: Grants the caster the ability to see through all magical conjurations, whether it be darkness, illusions, invisibility, or otherwise.
• Greater Invisibility: The caster and all they carry become invisible for the duration of the spell. Does not dispel on physical contact.
• Time Stop: Halt the flow of time in a given area around the caster for a few seconds, allowing the caster unhindered freedom of movement and action during that period.

Skills:

• Bladework
• Marksmanship
• Stealth, both magical and mundane
• Sleight of hand
• Espionage
• Underworld connections

Faction: The Concord
An organization of spies and assassins personally led by Safina dedicated to enforcing the Wizard Queen's rule by any means necessary. Many among their number are veteran thieves and former assassins from other, similar guilds that were crushed and absorbed into the Concord during Safina's former life as a crime lord.

City:
The Concord controls no territory in the open, but are headquartered in Hathforth, with at least one cell of agents in every major city across the realm.

Assets:
Directly sponsored by the Wizard-Queen, the Concord doesn't want for funding. They hold a wealth of information and blackmail, capable of establishing contacts and connections quickly through judicious use of intrigue and information brokerage.

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

Ranbu no Izayoi

The next day came and went. True to his word, Hien gave the Kirins most of the daylight hours before he called them to convene in the safehouse's primary chambers. The young lord sat seiza before a table containing a map of Osprey as he waited for the party to gather. When they did, he cleared his throat and began.

"Thank you all for coming." Hien smiled briefly before his expression turned solely towards business. "Let's be about it, then. Before my capture, Lady Ciradyl's people had passed along intelligence regarding Valheim's operations in the northern desert. They've been moving men and materiel by airship towards the desert for weeks now. By all reckoning, there's nothing there. Any villages in the direction of where the airships have been traveling have been destroyed by the Blight already." He paused to let the matter sink in and point out the direction on the map before continuing on.

"Now, none of you are under any obligation to obey my commands." Izayoi gave him a brief sideeye at that, to which he didn't respond. "Let me be clear, this is a request, not an order. I hold no illusion I've any power over the lot of you, but our goals are aligned. Everyone here would be benefited more by cooperation in this regard. We've theorized that whatever Valheim is up to in the desert, it has something to do with the Blight. Given that it's your stated goal, I can't imagine why you'd refuse to go. Now, Izayoi's traveled throughout the desert extensively throughout her younger years, or so she's told me. She can guide you through the dunes."

"Indeed." Izayoi nodded, taking the cue to speak. "Minimize exposing your skin to the sun. If you must wear armor, wear cloth both over and underneath it to shield the metal from heat. I will confer with the moogle to stock plenty of water."

"Very good. In any case, Lady Ciradyl's people can smuggle you all back out of the city. Considering the chaos you've all caused among the garrison, there should be enough gaps in their coverage to leave easily, but we'll not take chances when all your faces are likely known at this point. Any questions? You'll be departing in the morning, so do get plenty of rest."

ArrowFell: The Wizard Queen's Court

Alright, sheet'll be out sometime Wednesday at the latest. Think I'm gonna go with the assassin idea.

ArrowFell: The Wizard Queen's Court

@Estylwen

Gonna float some basic concepts past you for approval since I haven't decided which to run yet:

A. Noble mage who takes advantage of the Wizard Queen's rule to delve deep into forbidden magics. Necromancer, training acolytes and raising undead to bolster his domain.

B. Royal spymaster/assassin. Probably originally hired on while Evelyn was conquering the province, then converted/grandfathered into the position of head spook.

ArrowFell: The Wizard Queen's Court

Cooking an idea, but gimme a day or three.

ArrowFell: The Corrupt Queen's Court (A Skyrim-inspired RP)

put me in, coach

SPIRITUM

Kalina Kovalic

Kalina listened quietly as the princess detailed her version of events. Being attacked through a mist storm? And from an apparent third party to the war, at that. As some others in the squad would say, this was a shitfest. Gerard's follow-up didn't make things any better. Not a single person was on the horn? Wake them up, then.

If Lieutenant Setzer had any balls at all, he'd contact a colonel or someone to push this up the chain of command. Unfortunately, she already knew the LT was just a bit of a dick. The way she saw it, Setzer would probably wait until morning to call this in. Which left them with hours on hours to kill.

Kalina looked between Gerard and Justice, nodding.

"Agreed. Truck won't survive another firefight. Between me and Valerie, engine won't last much longer. I'll take us up to the rest stop once everyone's recovered, but we might have a breakdown. Might have to push the rest of the way up."

With that said, Kalina looked aside to Justice, murmuring quietly to her so that the princess didn't overhear.

"You're sure, boss? If you say so, but I think we're being a little soft on her, off the record."

Rise of Rasalhague

Jaromir Zhu

They'd won in all but name, but the job still wasn't done until the DropShip was back in orbit. Jaromir would leave nothing to chance until then. He'd seen too many people relax and let their guards down too early. Hell, he'd been one of those people, once upon a time. No, there was still a chance that a pirate could be a complete son of a bitch and leave some sort of rigged up trap behind. Maybe even a self-destruct.

At first glance, the safest option would be to stay in his Trebuchet and guard the hangar. After all, he'd be behind several tons of armor still in case anything happened. But it was also a tactically stupid option. A long range direct fire support Mech on hangar guard duty? That was asking for him to be pushing up daisies if some sort of attack did happen from the rear. Only worse armament he could have for this sort of close-in knife fight would be a LRM. Actually, no, it'd be an Arrow IV. Regardless, as counterproductive as it sounded, the safest place Jaromir could put his ass while still obeying orders was smack dab in the middle of all the infantry grunts.

He made sure his extra mags were secure and grabbed his autopistol before exiting his Mech, nodding as he joined the others. God, he felt naked in the field without being in a cockpit.

"Trenchbucket's no good for hangar defense if it comes down to it. Who's getting left on guard detail?"

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

Ranbu no Izayoi

&

Esben Mathiassen

She couldn't sleep. How could she, with her temper still flaring after all of tonight's idiocy? First, Reisa had gotten away. The wench had been right there, and everyone else had sought to deny Izayoi the sole thing she'd wanted out of this life.

And second? The young master was being an ungrateful little brat. She wasn't the magical cure-all to his woes that he'd been looking for. Her best hadn't won victory for Osprey against Edren. Why would it against Valheim? Izayoi had told him as much, and yet he'd still rebuffed that. Incorrigible little shit. Hadn't the fact that she'd gotten him out of execution proven anything? Her job had been finished the moment Hien reached the outside with an armed escort.

The samurai shook her head, resisting the urge to put her fist through a sliding door. Instead, she slid it open like a normal person, only to see Esben out in the courtyard. An audible snarl came from her throat. She hadn't forgotten his role in dragging her away from the battlefield.

Esben looked up from his journal, over to the source of the animalistic growling that pulled him out of his notes. "Hmm. Not how I'd hoped to spend such a nice moonlit night." He snapped it back shut over its ribbon bookmark, though he didn't stand up from the post he was leaning against as he wrote. "Can't sleep? Me neither."

He'd already managed to go through and explore as much of the household as was available to explore; he wasn't about to go poking in anybody's rooms as they slept, after all. Regardless, however spacious the safehouse was, he quickly ran out of anything new to explore, and had taken to the central courtyard. Luckily, any smoke from their fighting had blown away from this part of the city, leaving the courtyard actually habitable.

He stared at Izayoi for a moment longer across the courtyard, head cocked slightly to one side, before speaking up again: "For what it's worth, I think he wants you to die about as much as you want to die."

"Then the young master must wish for my death most deeply." Izayoi retorted without a second thought, scowling. "Leave him be. He is merely disappointed at how badly his teacher has gone to rot. Once reality sets in, he will adjust."

Evidently, she wasn't keen on bringing her argument with Hien into a conversation with anyone else.

"If you actually believed that, you'd have done like any good servant and taken those last words of his as an order," Esben replied flatly. "If I was particularly worried about what he thought, I'd bother to seek him out rather than spend my time out here. I doubt he's sleeping any better than either of us."

He glanced back up to the sky, sighing.

"I'm sure you've something you want to say. May as well say it, that way we can get on with things."

"I never was much of a proper samurai in any area outside of combat. The public reviled me as a barbarian before they exalted me as a war hero." She remarked dryly, gazing up briefly at the stars before back to Esben.

"Of course I've something to say." She snapped, her moment of introspection finished. "Why did you even bother dragging me from the field? Avenging my family is my foremost wish, and not a single one of you deigned to grant me it. Only Ciradyl has the excuse of friendship for saving mine life."

Esben stared wordlessly in reply, his normally placid expression an utterly blank, unreadable mask in the moonlight. After a point, it was obvious that he was expecting more; when nothing more came, however, he did eventually speak up before the silence could become too awkward.

"I expected a statement, not a question you should already know the answer to." He finally pushed off the post he was leaning against, walking towards the center of the courtyard and pointing over Izayoi's shoulder back at the main dwelling of the household, where the others were all resting or sleeping. "What is our team's mission, Izayoi?"

"I know full well what you imply." Izayoi glared, unwilling to entertain this. "If you wish to lecture me about cohesion, do not bother. I do my part when it does not directly interfere with my own stated mission. Caradoc ought to be glad if and when I do die to complete it. He's simply pragmatic enough to put off avenging his brother for the moment. There is no logic or rhetoric to use here. Save your breath."

"They'll be a cohesive unit with or without you," Esben replied, just as dismissive of Izayoi's reply as she'd been to what she thought she was saying. "Possibly even moreso without. That's not what I'm talking about, and I have trouble believing someone like you is so short-sighted as to believe it is."

He pointed again, in the general direction of Galahad's room. "Caradoc first. From what I've gathered of what you all have told us happened prior to Rudolf and I running into you, he's basically gotten himself disowned over his willingness to put national rivalry aside and work with you." He turned slightly, his hand now falling over Éliane's space. "I know Elly came with an entire unit, and I know they aren't around anymore. I'm not particularly willing to ask who they all were, both because I don't want to pull up a painful memory for her and because I don't want to know if any of them were people I knew yet. Eve has never even known a normal existence at all, and what little she had that was close to it was taken from her and she was left to fend for herself before finding us. Arton is obviously displaced. Miina, wrong place at the wrong time, and now she's stuck with us and gets to hope we remember her in any of the rest of what we do. Rudolf and Robin, there's something pathological behind each of their choices to seek this out, and they're already starting to pay for it."

He shifted as he called out each in turn, before his pointing finger fell on Izayoi. "And then there's you. And Hien, for that matter. Ciradyl too, soon. Displaced. Multiple of those close to you killed. Whether determining the source of the Blight or trying to fend off Valheim, we're all in the same spot: All fighting from an extremely disadvantageous position. Valheim has assets to spare. We do not."

His hand dropped, as he looked to the sky again, back where the glow of the fires from before was still diminishing as Valheimer troops and local citizens worked to stop the spread.

"You are an asset we can't afford to lose at this point, especially taking out a singular captain, no matter how personal the enmity there. It was far from the most expedient choice. Hien himself, injured though he was, was still putting up quite a fight to drag you back. If we abandoned you, he wouldn't have, and he'd have even more reason to fight against us than you did. Even if the rest of us did get him out of there alive, we'd have lost him as an asset letting you get killed. Not only that, the odds are good that he would have perished as well, and likely myself, Ciradyl, and Chisaki along with him. On top of that, even losing just you, this early on, would only be a stronger blow to the morale of the group to pile atop all the rest they've already had, and that is one asset we and this local resistance cannot afford to lose ever. Not while we're still this far behind."

He turned away from the sky over the walls of the courtyard, starting to walk back towards the main dwelling.

"Be angry with me all you like for this last night. If sacrificing you is ever the most expedient choice, I'll take it without any hesitation. This time it wasn't."

"Tch," Izayoi scowled, her expression stuck in a glare. Of course she understood all of this full well. The difference was that she could barely bring herself to care.

"Perhaps you are a SEED after all, to have so effective a mindset. Though it continues to boggle the mind why you would openly declare yourself a spy." She admitted begrudgingly.

"Fine. Expedient choices are what keep me stuck here to begin with. I continue to hold a better chance of killing Reisa and as many Valheimr as possible while with you lot. Pray that continues to hold true."

She gazed out at the smoke and flame still rising into the air, her eyes less hard. More forlorn.

"Ranbu no Izayoi lost the war against Edren. None of the others should give one whit about anything past my diminished sword arm if they had any ounce of sense. Before the war, might was the only thing that defined me. I needn't tell a SEED of the quality of the majority of Osprey's other generals during the conflict. And afterwards, I had Isshin and Suzume. Now I am stripped of my godspeed sword, my credentials as a military leader, and my family. The resistance are fools to place any faith in me."

"Hien considers you close enough to worry so about you, and individual might and skill aren't the only things to define a person's worth in circumstances like this." He passed Izayoi, sliding open the door behind her. "Try to get some sleep. Don't give him reason to call you out as tired, as well as slow."

The door slid shut again, Esben's soft footfalls barely audible as he left Izayoi standing outside.

"He forgot to mention 'old'." Izayoi remarked dryly to herself, continuing to stare out at the skyline for a few minutes before turning to return to her quarters as well.

Iris Ascendis

Iraleth Kyrios

They'd returned just in time, it seemed. At this rate, it looked like almost everyone she knew was choosing Wund. Hmph. It wouldn't impact her decision in the slightest. The choice was symbolic, to be sure. But symbols mattered. Armies didn't win with shattered morale, even when they held a technical advantage.

Iraleth was interrupted from her thoughts by both Ciara and the imp. The absolute impertinence of these two. Did they think she was an idiot? She knew very well how this went. Take eyes off the little bastard for a moment, and it'd find a way loose, even if it was tied up. No, she'd do this right before anything else first.

The half-elf took the rope, first tying the imp's hands behind its back before using the remainder of the length to wrap around its neck in an improvised leash. Or a noose, if one were feeling uncharitable. After Ciara and Otis went, Iraleth practically dragged the imp along as she stepped forward, turning to Principal Raja before anything else.

"Principal, if you wouldn't mind?" She offered the end of the rope to the woman. "This creature was found in the woods, attacking Hildegunde. It surrendered, and accepted being taken to you for judgment in lieu of death." Iraleth reported before stepping over towards the side, keeping a hand on the rope if Raja didn't take it. Her other reached up to touch the pillar.

"Shield of Nero."

@Sifr @Estylwen