Yes, I've decided to go with that, and yes you have some enhanced degree to see in the dark over a normal human.
These Grim Days (RWBY)
- Thread starter jakjjjj
- Start date
- Fantasy Action
Yes, I've decided to go with that, and yes you have some enhanced degree to see in the dark over a normal human.
Tyrant_Rayne
Probably Not Evil… Maybe
- Location
- Canada
Ruby and Jaune were appointed the leaders of their teams and I'm positive they had abysmal charisma at the time just like us. Taking that precedent into account we're probably setting ourselves up for a leadership position.
Ozpin is a troll, and the conflict that would result would be hilarious. The possibility is more likely than you think. You gotta get your kicks while fighting a perpetual shadow war that you keep reincarnating *Cough* bodysnatching to participate in somehow.
Tyrant_Rayne
Probably Not Evil… Maybe
- Location
- Canada
Speaking of teams I'm wondering who we'll be paired with. Team RWBY has to exist, I'd rather not mess with the dynamic of Team JNPR, and I swear if you end up associating us with Cardin and his stooges... That doesn't exactly leave us any options though... More OC's maybe?
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Birthday
Have a Happy One!
- Location
- Somewhere
I don't think their charisma was anywhere near where ours is though. Besides his confidence issues, JNPR didn't have any issues with Jaune as a leader. And beyond the first few missteps with Weiss, Ruby hasn't had any problems leading either. I don't think social awkwardness is an indicator of low charisma, I think abrasiveness is. Like, I think Weiss has less charisma than Ruby when you look at their overall attitudes. Picture Weiss trying to lead Team RWBY. Blake has her own biases against Weiss, and her arrogance is going to push a lot of her buttons. Yang's free spirit is going to be fighting against Weiss' need for order and control every step of the way. Heck, she even got Ruby mad at her during the initiation.
Again, I'd much rather go over to Atlas. So many quests already take place in Vale and Beacon. Atlas just has so many more opportunities for interesting story beats as a Faunus, especially one with a hot temper and no tolerance for cruelty. Besides, with the Vytal Festival starting, we're all going to be heading towards Beacon eventually anyway.
There's also the argument that they're at beacon to learn and grow and pushing someone not naturally inclined to take charge into leadership is a part of that.
I'm really iffy on Atlas. Besides the obvious plot hook with Oz, constantly dealing with more obnoxious brats than usual isn't all that interesting, and really the only thing atlas has for it over anywhere else given we don't seem likely to have much interest in their technology.
I'm really iffy on Atlas. Besides the obvious plot hook with Oz, constantly dealing with more obnoxious brats than usual isn't all that interesting, and really the only thing atlas has for it over anywhere else given we don't seem likely to have much interest in their technology.
UNKNOWN01
Nobody knows me... I feel lonely!
- Location
- Nowhere
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I honestly would prefer Vale over Atlas, I mean, what are we going to do there? Weiss is going to Beacon anyways, with Penny we will have a hard time even seeing her, you know, 'Secret Atlesian Project'. The closest thing we have to a Plothook in Atlas is Ironwood, and I also have my doubts about being able to see him, and as much as I like him, he alone is not worth it.
In the other hand Vale has Ozpin, Team RWBY, the new plothook with Summer, and is where the most important things will happen, I honestly don't see a good reason to go to Atlas even IC, why would Setanta go there knowing that the dificulties that he would have in Vale are going to be much greater in Atlas?
In the other hand Vale has Ozpin, Team RWBY, the new plothook with Summer, and is where the most important things will happen, I honestly don't see a good reason to go to Atlas even IC, why would Setanta go there knowing that the dificulties that he would have in Vale are going to be much greater in Atlas?
Birthday
Have a Happy One!
- Location
- Somewhere
Sure, but it's more that Jaune and Ruby have potential as leaders as they naturally stepped into those positions during initiation.
I mean, the show doesn't portray Faunus racism all that much, but it's pretty heavily implied that it's pretty widespread in every Kingdom except Vacuo. Vale is probably the second-best Kingdom, but when your only other examples are Mistral and Atlas, that isn't saying much. Cardin is a thing, plus Blake still felt the need to hide her ears, and Adam's faction of White Fang was situated in Vale.
Also, not everyone in Atlas is automatically a jerk. This is the Academy that has Neon and Flynt after all.
Just because we don't have that much interest in technology, doesn't mean that we can't benefit from it. I don't think Setanta would be opposed to Gaebolg getting an upgrade or some additional modifications.
I've already pointed this out, but Penny is a registered student of Atlas Academy as she attends the Vytal Festival. Due to our connection to a member of Oz's inner circle and our mentor's military background, we have a much higher chance of being assigned to her team since Ironwood has more reason to trust us over every other first-year student at his school.
Our mentor has clear Atlesian roots, as well as a background in the military. Ironwood is a member of Oz's inner circle, so it stands to reason that he and our mentor must have known each other in some capacity. Also, if anything, I think it's been proven that Ironwood involves himself in his student's lives a great deal more than Ozpin, seeing as how the Academy has gotten flack for potentially influencing students to join the Atlas Military. We see Ironwood's involvement with Winter, with Velvet (supplying her with Hardlight Dust) and with Yang (Robot Arm). I also think he'd be much more open to us considering that a) Ozpin's biggest flaw was always his tendency to hold things too close to his chest and b) Ironwood's biggest plan was to reveal all of the secrets Ozpin had been hiding to all of Atlas and Mantle.
Ozpin is more likely to have a hands-off approach to us beyond finding out what happened to our mentor. The new plothook with Summer definitely is interesting though. Still, I don't think we're likely to interact with her all that much if at all, considering that she complained to Ozpin that she rarely gets enough time with her family as is. Vale is indeed where the most important things will happen, but most of them take place around Volume 2, which already has students from the other Kingdoms arriving. The only things we would miss if we headed to Atlas is the Torchwick fight at the docks. Everything else important takes place during and after the preparations for the Vytal Festival.
Heck, if we do end up on a team with Penny, we'd arrive earlier than that considering that Penny showed up in Vale early enough to participate in the dock fight with Torchwick.
There would be tighter security on people entering into Atlas due to the standing military, meaning that it would be harder for our pursuers to follow us. And then we have our Mentor's background with the military. I don't think it would be weird for Setanta to be curious about his mentor's past, considering that he was always tight-lipped about it. Not to mention that it would be faster and safer to go from Argus to Atlas than Argus to Vale.
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We'll never get away from it, but the whole selling point of Atlas was conflict with racists as a Faunus. We can hit those points anywhere without willingly walking into Jacques' backyard.
I'm not trying to go neo-Luddite on you here
I'm not opposed to upgrading our weapon(I mean RWBY without mechashift is just sad) but I don't see it being a big draw for our character, certainly not enough to walk into a place where he's likely to face much more discrimination.Where are you getting this? He mentions Oz, and says Vale or Atlas, but given that we're in Mistral those could simply be the closest options that don't involve Leo. There's also no specific indication of any military background that I could find, only that he's never led a quiet life.
Proven is pretty strong. Structuring an academy to indoctrinate students into the military doesn't require involvement in their personal lives, Winter is his protege/right hand, there has to be someone, and Yang is the niece of another member of Oz's inner circle and someone he happened to have personal interaction with due to the Mercury incident. Velvet got the dust due to her father, and none of these things suggest Ironwood is likely to just pluck us straight into the war against Salem. Oz was "hands off" due to wanting to protect them somewhat and allow them to still be kids, but he still clearly and directly bent the rules to allow them to get involved. On the other hand, Ironwood's biggest flaw was his need to control everything and the fact that he never really trusted anyone but himself, the plan to reveal everything was a desperation move as he was slowly falling apart.
Regardless, things are going to happen wherever we go, and I'm not going to prioritize one to chase one canon event/character or another. We do have a direct hook from our dying mentor with Oz, and I'm not seeing a compelling reason to go to Atlas.
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- Pronouns
- Male
@Deuterium Dawn why would Jacques give a shit about a random Faunus?
I mean, he wouldn't. Atlas is simply where his influence is strongest and conditions for Faunus are generally the worst.
Birthday
Have a Happy One!
- Location
- Somewhere
Well, that and its ties with our mentor, along with the possibility of being on a team with Penny. Also, it's not like Jacques will go out of his way to make sure we're properly discriminated against. Even if he cared that much, he doesn't have the influence to do so. Not while we're attending Atlas, anyway.
Normally, our mentor meets with potential clients for jobs in Argus, the northern-most town on the continent and the only one with a heavy Atlas influence due to them owning a military base not far off the coast. The fact that his murderers needed to drag him all the way down to Mistral implies he has friends, or at the very least allies, there. We've also described our mentor as an "old soldier" before, and Atlas is the only Kingdom with a standing military. Finally, Jak has specified that the rations we carry around are Atlesian Military Rations.
Why does there have to be "someone"? It's not like he needs a protege. Ozpin has Glynda as his right-hand, but I doubt he would call her his protege. At the very least, I think Ironwood's relationship with Winter is way less manipulative compared to how Ozpin treated Pyrrha.
And based on that small interaction as well as a tangential relationship to someone he knows, he sends her a robot arm created by Atlas' top scientists.
Velvet's father showed her designs for her weapon to Ironwood, who was so impressed that he used his connections to let her gain consistent access to Hardlight Dust, which is normally very rare and very expensive.
I never got the impression that Ozpin wanted to protect the kids. He let them get away with stuff like the Food Fight, but he never made any steps to keep them from danger. He essentially sent them to scout out the White Fang hideout after all. He's hands off because Ozpin is a very secretive person by nature. He knows he's training these kids for a war that he doesn't know how to win, and so he tries to avoid getting attached and interacting with them beyond the wise old man giving advice.
No. His biggest flaw is that he views every single situation like a battlefield, which leads him to make more and more authoritarian decisions when playing politics. It's not about a need for control. Bad people can use dust against us. I stop that. People could infiltrate Atlas. I stop that. Ironwood is playing at a game he's never really thought about before, with the responsibility for the world on his shoulders. He's overly direct, has no subtlety, and rarely thinks about how other people may see his actions. But he doesn't have a need for control that he needs to satisfy.
He does recognize that he needs people he can trust though. He says as much when Team RWBY + JNPR arrives. As opposed to Oz, who kept the secret that Salem is unkillable from everyone, even his closest friends and allies.
The plan to reveal everything was a direct response to him disliking Ozpin's cold war of espionage, subterfuge and agents, which he sees as the reason why Beacon fell. As he is unaware that Salem can't be killed, he's trying to unite all of the Kingdoms in a united front against Salem. It isn't a plan he's constructed out of desperation or paranoia. That would be his current plan of sacrificing Mantle so that he can lift Atlas and the relics out of the reach of Salem.
Fair. I do think Atlas is more interesting as it has the Faunus racism, its connection to our mentor, the conflict between our character's personality and the rigid order of the academy as well as a whole cast of characters and a setting that isn't the focus during the actual show that I want to explore. But the plot hooks leading to Oz and Summer Rose are pretty interesting too.
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[X] Plan Onwards to Argus
Well, that natural 1 sucked... Hopefully we will be able to fill that emptiness with incandescent rage. The fire of our fury will keep us warm in the cold North!
Westward Flight 2.1
Westward Flight 2.1
Two days later, East of Argus
A hand grabbed your arm, fingers digging deep into your skin. Your muscles locked up as an unnatural numbness soaked through your body. Then the pain begins: a tearing, burning sensation spreading all over your body. You try to open your mouth to scream, but your lips refuse to move. You are a prisoner of your own flesh. No matter what you did. You. Couldn't. Move.
You could do nothing but watch helplessly as a torrent of dark, clawing hands emerged from below your feet and clung all over your body. Your eyes widen in horror as they pull you underneath, your wordless screams unable to escape your throat. As the darkness consumes you, you feel it forcing its way into your nose and mouth. Your silver eyes dimmed like burnt-out embers as you can't breathe, you can't breathe, you-
You woke with a start from your small bed roll, practically leaping out your makeshift sleeping arrangement and onto your feet.
Your heart still pounding with adrenaline, you take deep yet shaky breaths until you finally manage to calm down. With your heart no longer pounding in your ears, you slump down on a nearby rock large enough to sit on; your furry tail pressed at your side.
The nightmares didn't seem to care that you found them unpleasant but it wasn't as if there was anything you could do about it. You no longer had that luxury of someone watching your back. Better get used to it fast. Besides, falling into a deep sleep would just be an open invitation for any nearby Grimm to maul you in your sleep. You try to keep all of that in mind as you stifle a yawn and rub your sleep-deprived eyes.
Keeping your thoughts on anything but the horrible nightmares you been having, one of your hands reached for your weapon on your back and settled its shortened form on your knees. You fiddled with Gáe Bolg and released the partially used gravity dust crystal from its chamber on the crimson-hued spear. You'd wager that it had only 1 or 2 more uses before it burnt out and dissolved. Good thing you had a couple extra from where those came from.
Setting your weapon aside for the moment, you pulled out the medallion from where it hung underneath your clothes and turned to the mystery that had been bugging you for the last two days. Dust could do a lot of shit. You knew that of course. The Old Man had drilled the basics of Dust usage into your head when you found out you could use it with your semblance after all.
So... You knew there was no way that Dust was responsible for how the metallic medallion you kept from the Old Man had morphed with a new etched image on its opposite side. While Dust could do many things, it couldn't do everything. It wasn't magic after all. Your eyes would be more like a familial trait that you could draw up a ancestral history to explain rather than call them magic.
Your understanding of this was, in all honesty, too incomplete to give a sure answer that you would be satisfied to stand behind. You needed to know more.
You ran a fingernail over its surface, just to check if there had been a layer of paint or metal foil that had been covering the opposite side, but find no trace of such a thing. You frown at the medallion, teeth clenched in frustration. Apparently, the Old Man's belongings had inherited his tendency to be annoyingly cryptic and mysterious.
Tracing your fingers over the newly appeared wolf etching one last time, you realized that the cold metal surface warms up to your touch far too quickly for it to be just from your body heat. Curious, you try interacting with it the same way you would with Dust.
Medallion (??? +20 Intelligence +20 Willpower): 1d100+40 128 DC 80/120 (You successfully attune to the Medallion and gain one of its magic-related abilities. Future Medallion attunement checks are now locked until otherwise noted.)
(Lore-keeper's Eyes Gained, Character Sheet will be updated)
You closed your eyes and concentrated on your aura, the invisible manifestation of your soul currently surrounding you like a warm blanket, shielding you from the cold morning air. A crimson light briefly flickered around your form before waves of blood-red energy shimmered into existence, pulsing up and down your body.
You then turned your attention on the medallion in your hand, directing your aura around the medallion. Strange. You were meeting... Resistance? That was the best way you could explain the weird sensation you were currently feeling. Almost as if the medallion had an aura of its own. You narrowed your eyes, undeterred. This time, instead of simply surrounding the medallion with your aura, you try to force your way inside. You were rewarded with a spark of green energy from the medallion as you felt your aura run into that strange resistance you had just felt. A bead of sweat appeared on your forehead as you close your eyes and focus once more.
No, resistance was the wrong word for it, you decided after a moment. Pushing up against it a second time helped you understand what you were feeling a little bit better. It was more like trying to open a lock using the wrong key. Unless the key was a certain shape or size, the lock would stay shut. You pause. Maybe... The medallion was keyed to the Old Man's Aura? You've never heard of anything like that before, but its the best and only explanation you've come up with so far. You reach up and wipe off the sweat that had collected on your brow before it started dripping down your face. Well, you weren't the Old Man. You guess that meant you had no choice but to be the next closest thing.
This time, as you once more try pooling your aura into the medallion, you focus your mind on a single thought. A single image. A single moment. Something that conveyed everything that the Old Man meant to you. As your soul pushes up against that strange force, you picture...
Choose one of the four options listed.
(The wolf glints dangerously on the surface of the medallion. Its fur-coat coat shimmering briefly before going back to its normal inert self.)
-[] His Hand, Grasping Yours: You'll never forget the day you first met the Old Man. When he held out his hand and asked if you wanted to leave with him, you saw something in his eyes that you had never seen before; belief in you. That you could be something more than some poor orphaned Faunus. That you could be more than the violent, wild child that parents warned their children to stay away from. And before you realized it, your hand was reaching for his. A furred tail wagged happily behind you.
-[] His Back, Shielding Yours: He was there. Always. A steady, reassuring presence at your back. Still, it was tough at first. Your past made it difficult for you to trust anyone ever again.
Though you could barely recall the hazy face of the man and his blonde hair you once called dad. His turning away and never returning to the place he left you is what stuck with you the most. A blue-haired, older girl with her wolf-ears peeled against her head in shame looked back at you. Angry tears welling in her shining eyes before she moved to follow close behind him. You were so confused at the time. That moment left its scars on you even now.
When you struggled to use your eyes at first, you became terrified that the Old Man was going to abandon you just your real dad did when you failed and decided to run away to spare yourself the pain. It wasn't until the man risked life and limb rescuing you from the Grimm you attracted that you realized that the Old Man wasn't going to abandon you just because your eyes weren't working. And he would not until he could no longer draw breath to raise his hands to protect you.
(The fingers grasped the flower, nurturing its growth.)
-[] His Footsteps, Alongside Yours: Your thoughts turned to the small things that you enjoyed doing with him, and all the time you had spent walking alongside the Old Man on the trails you walked together. His tendency to lecture you about all the mundane facts about fauna that you saw nearly brought you to the point of attempting to strangle him. Now, you look back at those moments and wish they hadn't come to an end.
-[] His Smile, Echoing Yours: The Old Man's happiness was always difficult to gauge at the best of times. Even then, you could tell at his lowest moments that he appeared as if the weight of the world was pressing in on his shoulders. Although the brief times when his mind was occupied and he was busy training you, he smiled the most genuinely when you achieved a milestone that you were proud of. You tried your best to get the man to smile like that whenever you could.
Sometimes, you had to take heart in the littlest of things, or problems you had would just swallow you whole. You think he knew that better than you ever did.
______________________________
As you held that moment in your mind, you felt the resistance suddenly fade. Your eyes opened to see the green energy from the medallion and your red waves of aura meld into each other in the palm of your hand. As the waves of light danced with one another, you could feel something like a wall inside of you begin to break down. It was as if you were filling an open hole in your soul with something you never realized was missing. You staggered to your feet and moved to drop the medallion but realized much too late that it was fixed in your hands.
It was all you could do to just drop to your knees and clutched the medallion while it finished whatever it was doing to you. Your meager little campsite was illuminated in the contesting colors. The small little clearing you choose for its lack of snow from overhang of rock that laid over head, had particles of dirt and grass floating around it as a burnt orange blossomed from the medallion. Just as quickly, it ended. Both grass and dirt gently glided back to the ground where they came.
You blinked and stood back up with unsteady legs. You felt... odd was one way to describe it.
"That just happened. Alright then," You say to yourself as you check that you still had all your body parts; A tentative wag of the tail confirming that you hadn't suddenly turned into a plain human. Maybe you should be a bit more careful of objects doing weird things they shouldn't in the future.
At least It didn't kill you, so that was a plus right? You must be doing something right if thats the case. There was something else other than your semblance that you felt like you could reach for now. It was filling an open space that you would have never had noticed if you hadn't had your encounter with the medallion.
Well, the existence of magic is no longer as laughable as it once was a minute ago. Dust was not what just messed with your soul.
_________________________________________________________________
Running into small fry Grimm while not hunting for them was aggravating. You ended up scaring away the game you were stalking with your speedy dispatches of them. Your eyes narrowed in silent accusation at the evaporating small pack of Beowolves in front of you. They weren't a threat. Their numbers were too small to swarm you, and they lacked an elder variant that could lead them. Honestly, you would almost call them annoying.
You sighed as you flicked the fading black blood from your spear with a small swing to the side. Walking through the snow for hours without end really sucked. You'd give anything for a vehicle or even a horse with an unlocked aura.
Hunting (+20 Agility): 1d100+20 60 DC 30/50
Thankfully, you already managed to spear a doe and dragged it back to your temporary camp earlier. It looks like you'd be able to eat and ration the other portion of it for another rainy day, or snowy as it was in your case. Thank the gods for small miracles.
(Gain One Ration, Lose no Rations this update.)
_________________________________________________________________
Another day of walking awaited you when you opened your eyes again. You groaned in despair from the discomfort of your perch in the tree you were sleeping in. You were just glad you didn't fall out of the damn thing like the last time you had slept like this.
The Old Man didn't stop laughing for a full minute. Recalling that memory gave you a bitter sweet smile that you shook off quickly. You had more Walking to get to after all.
But, there was something you wanted to get done before you set out again.
Ruminating on Runes (???) +20 Intelligence: 1d100+20 68 DC 60/110
Initially, you were disappointed by your semblance when you were younger. After all, who would want something like writing shapes to make aura barriers when you could have gotten super strength or something more cool like super speed. That was what you thought before you realized that your runes were attached to concepts and you used their meanings to change what they did.
You now have a greater appreciation for what your semblance can do. You just needed to figure it out first. Unfortunately, that was the hard part. You figured that dwelling on that symbol you saw scrawled on the stone chest in the temple would help you derive some kind of addition to your arsenal of tricks.
Pulling out your scroll, you used the picture that you took as a reference. Your fingers traced the air in a similar pattern to the glowing symbol on the chest. For a moment, the rune hovered in the air before fading into red particles. You frowned. Something wasn't meshing quite right.
So, you closed your eyes. Simply copying the symbol wouldn't work. It had to come from within you. Picturing the symbol within your mind, your fingers unerringly draw it as a concept started to rise from the depths of your soul. You suddenly felt a surge of energy that dulled your aches and pains as it swept through your body like a warm sunray. Then, just as quickly as it appeared, you lost the concept. Still, despite your failure, you couldn't stop a gigantic grin from breaking out on your face.
Unlike all the previous hours wasted on meaningless shapes, this new one seemed to be going somewhere. It was progress. Even if your semblance was giving you trouble, it couldn't dampen your enthusiasm to get a better grasp on this new concept. You didn't get many chances to add another rune to your arsenal, after all.
(The symbol on the sealed chest allowed you to derive ᛋ Sowilo, You require more time to understand it before using it fully.)
_________________________________________________________________
Three days of travel have occurred. You have exited the region that the settlement of Aston lies.
EDIT: A.N: A big thank you to @Birthday for going over my work before posting it. Much revision of the update can be attributed to him for its better quality.
[X] Plan Onwards to Argus
-[X] It was time to go due west. A full week at most or six days would take for you to make your way over the landscape. There was snow, trees, and frosted hilltops between you and Argus. You had rations for three days, and you could hunt wildlife to supplement your diet and boil water. Encountering more Grimm isn't too far outside the realm of possibility. But, this kept you out of the way of civilization.
-[X] Intelligence
-[X] You meditated while thinking about the various concepts your runes represent.
--[X] That symbol that was encrusted on that sealed chest… It inspires you, in what way you do not know yet, but you were going to find out (Roll Intelligence)
-[X] Hunting and keeping from having to pull out a ration pack. Those Altesian ration packs were bland as all hell, but you eat them because you need to not because you like them. (Lose no rations this turn, and may gain rations.)
-[X] Something… happened to the medallion you took from your father. You weren't sure how it changed. The leaf covered wolf now on the surface of the polished silver pulled at you in a way that made you feel strange. (???)
-[X] It was time to go due west. A full week at most or six days would take for you to make your way over the landscape. There was snow, trees, and frosted hilltops between you and Argus. You had rations for three days, and you could hunt wildlife to supplement your diet and boil water. Encountering more Grimm isn't too far outside the realm of possibility. But, this kept you out of the way of civilization.
-[X] Intelligence
-[X] You meditated while thinking about the various concepts your runes represent.
--[X] That symbol that was encrusted on that sealed chest… It inspires you, in what way you do not know yet, but you were going to find out (Roll Intelligence)
-[X] Hunting and keeping from having to pull out a ration pack. Those Altesian ration packs were bland as all hell, but you eat them because you need to not because you like them. (Lose no rations this turn, and may gain rations.)
-[X] Something… happened to the medallion you took from your father. You weren't sure how it changed. The leaf covered wolf now on the surface of the polished silver pulled at you in a way that made you feel strange. (???)
Two days later, East of Argus
A hand grabbed your arm, fingers digging deep into your skin. Your muscles locked up as an unnatural numbness soaked through your body. Then the pain begins: a tearing, burning sensation spreading all over your body. You try to open your mouth to scream, but your lips refuse to move. You are a prisoner of your own flesh. No matter what you did. You. Couldn't. Move.
You could do nothing but watch helplessly as a torrent of dark, clawing hands emerged from below your feet and clung all over your body. Your eyes widen in horror as they pull you underneath, your wordless screams unable to escape your throat. As the darkness consumes you, you feel it forcing its way into your nose and mouth. Your silver eyes dimmed like burnt-out embers as you can't breathe, you can't breathe, you-
You woke with a start from your small bed roll, practically leaping out your makeshift sleeping arrangement and onto your feet.
Your heart still pounding with adrenaline, you take deep yet shaky breaths until you finally manage to calm down. With your heart no longer pounding in your ears, you slump down on a nearby rock large enough to sit on; your furry tail pressed at your side.
The nightmares didn't seem to care that you found them unpleasant but it wasn't as if there was anything you could do about it. You no longer had that luxury of someone watching your back. Better get used to it fast. Besides, falling into a deep sleep would just be an open invitation for any nearby Grimm to maul you in your sleep. You try to keep all of that in mind as you stifle a yawn and rub your sleep-deprived eyes.
Keeping your thoughts on anything but the horrible nightmares you been having, one of your hands reached for your weapon on your back and settled its shortened form on your knees. You fiddled with Gáe Bolg and released the partially used gravity dust crystal from its chamber on the crimson-hued spear. You'd wager that it had only 1 or 2 more uses before it burnt out and dissolved. Good thing you had a couple extra from where those came from.
Setting your weapon aside for the moment, you pulled out the medallion from where it hung underneath your clothes and turned to the mystery that had been bugging you for the last two days. Dust could do a lot of shit. You knew that of course. The Old Man had drilled the basics of Dust usage into your head when you found out you could use it with your semblance after all.
So... You knew there was no way that Dust was responsible for how the metallic medallion you kept from the Old Man had morphed with a new etched image on its opposite side. While Dust could do many things, it couldn't do everything. It wasn't magic after all. Your eyes would be more like a familial trait that you could draw up a ancestral history to explain rather than call them magic.
Your understanding of this was, in all honesty, too incomplete to give a sure answer that you would be satisfied to stand behind. You needed to know more.
You ran a fingernail over its surface, just to check if there had been a layer of paint or metal foil that had been covering the opposite side, but find no trace of such a thing. You frown at the medallion, teeth clenched in frustration. Apparently, the Old Man's belongings had inherited his tendency to be annoyingly cryptic and mysterious.
Tracing your fingers over the newly appeared wolf etching one last time, you realized that the cold metal surface warms up to your touch far too quickly for it to be just from your body heat. Curious, you try interacting with it the same way you would with Dust.
Medallion (??? +20 Intelligence +20 Willpower): 1d100+40 128 DC 80/120 (You successfully attune to the Medallion and gain one of its magic-related abilities. Future Medallion attunement checks are now locked until otherwise noted.)
(Lore-keeper's Eyes Gained, Character Sheet will be updated)
You closed your eyes and concentrated on your aura, the invisible manifestation of your soul currently surrounding you like a warm blanket, shielding you from the cold morning air. A crimson light briefly flickered around your form before waves of blood-red energy shimmered into existence, pulsing up and down your body.
You then turned your attention on the medallion in your hand, directing your aura around the medallion. Strange. You were meeting... Resistance? That was the best way you could explain the weird sensation you were currently feeling. Almost as if the medallion had an aura of its own. You narrowed your eyes, undeterred. This time, instead of simply surrounding the medallion with your aura, you try to force your way inside. You were rewarded with a spark of green energy from the medallion as you felt your aura run into that strange resistance you had just felt. A bead of sweat appeared on your forehead as you close your eyes and focus once more.
No, resistance was the wrong word for it, you decided after a moment. Pushing up against it a second time helped you understand what you were feeling a little bit better. It was more like trying to open a lock using the wrong key. Unless the key was a certain shape or size, the lock would stay shut. You pause. Maybe... The medallion was keyed to the Old Man's Aura? You've never heard of anything like that before, but its the best and only explanation you've come up with so far. You reach up and wipe off the sweat that had collected on your brow before it started dripping down your face. Well, you weren't the Old Man. You guess that meant you had no choice but to be the next closest thing.
This time, as you once more try pooling your aura into the medallion, you focus your mind on a single thought. A single image. A single moment. Something that conveyed everything that the Old Man meant to you. As your soul pushes up against that strange force, you picture...
Choose one of the four options listed.
(The wolf glints dangerously on the surface of the medallion. Its fur-coat coat shimmering briefly before going back to its normal inert self.)
-[] His Hand, Grasping Yours: You'll never forget the day you first met the Old Man. When he held out his hand and asked if you wanted to leave with him, you saw something in his eyes that you had never seen before; belief in you. That you could be something more than some poor orphaned Faunus. That you could be more than the violent, wild child that parents warned their children to stay away from. And before you realized it, your hand was reaching for his. A furred tail wagged happily behind you.
-[] His Back, Shielding Yours: He was there. Always. A steady, reassuring presence at your back. Still, it was tough at first. Your past made it difficult for you to trust anyone ever again.
Though you could barely recall the hazy face of the man and his blonde hair you once called dad. His turning away and never returning to the place he left you is what stuck with you the most. A blue-haired, older girl with her wolf-ears peeled against her head in shame looked back at you. Angry tears welling in her shining eyes before she moved to follow close behind him. You were so confused at the time. That moment left its scars on you even now.
When you struggled to use your eyes at first, you became terrified that the Old Man was going to abandon you just your real dad did when you failed and decided to run away to spare yourself the pain. It wasn't until the man risked life and limb rescuing you from the Grimm you attracted that you realized that the Old Man wasn't going to abandon you just because your eyes weren't working. And he would not until he could no longer draw breath to raise his hands to protect you.
(The fingers grasped the flower, nurturing its growth.)
-[] His Footsteps, Alongside Yours: Your thoughts turned to the small things that you enjoyed doing with him, and all the time you had spent walking alongside the Old Man on the trails you walked together. His tendency to lecture you about all the mundane facts about fauna that you saw nearly brought you to the point of attempting to strangle him. Now, you look back at those moments and wish they hadn't come to an end.
-[] His Smile, Echoing Yours: The Old Man's happiness was always difficult to gauge at the best of times. Even then, you could tell at his lowest moments that he appeared as if the weight of the world was pressing in on his shoulders. Although the brief times when his mind was occupied and he was busy training you, he smiled the most genuinely when you achieved a milestone that you were proud of. You tried your best to get the man to smile like that whenever you could.
Sometimes, you had to take heart in the littlest of things, or problems you had would just swallow you whole. You think he knew that better than you ever did.
______________________________
As you held that moment in your mind, you felt the resistance suddenly fade. Your eyes opened to see the green energy from the medallion and your red waves of aura meld into each other in the palm of your hand. As the waves of light danced with one another, you could feel something like a wall inside of you begin to break down. It was as if you were filling an open hole in your soul with something you never realized was missing. You staggered to your feet and moved to drop the medallion but realized much too late that it was fixed in your hands.
It was all you could do to just drop to your knees and clutched the medallion while it finished whatever it was doing to you. Your meager little campsite was illuminated in the contesting colors. The small little clearing you choose for its lack of snow from overhang of rock that laid over head, had particles of dirt and grass floating around it as a burnt orange blossomed from the medallion. Just as quickly, it ended. Both grass and dirt gently glided back to the ground where they came.
You blinked and stood back up with unsteady legs. You felt... odd was one way to describe it.
"That just happened. Alright then," You say to yourself as you check that you still had all your body parts; A tentative wag of the tail confirming that you hadn't suddenly turned into a plain human. Maybe you should be a bit more careful of objects doing weird things they shouldn't in the future.
At least It didn't kill you, so that was a plus right? You must be doing something right if thats the case. There was something else other than your semblance that you felt like you could reach for now. It was filling an open space that you would have never had noticed if you hadn't had your encounter with the medallion.
Well, the existence of magic is no longer as laughable as it once was a minute ago. Dust was not what just messed with your soul.
_________________________________________________________________
Running into small fry Grimm while not hunting for them was aggravating. You ended up scaring away the game you were stalking with your speedy dispatches of them. Your eyes narrowed in silent accusation at the evaporating small pack of Beowolves in front of you. They weren't a threat. Their numbers were too small to swarm you, and they lacked an elder variant that could lead them. Honestly, you would almost call them annoying.
You sighed as you flicked the fading black blood from your spear with a small swing to the side. Walking through the snow for hours without end really sucked. You'd give anything for a vehicle or even a horse with an unlocked aura.
Hunting (+20 Agility): 1d100+20 60 DC 30/50
Thankfully, you already managed to spear a doe and dragged it back to your temporary camp earlier. It looks like you'd be able to eat and ration the other portion of it for another rainy day, or snowy as it was in your case. Thank the gods for small miracles.
(Gain One Ration, Lose no Rations this update.)
_________________________________________________________________
Another day of walking awaited you when you opened your eyes again. You groaned in despair from the discomfort of your perch in the tree you were sleeping in. You were just glad you didn't fall out of the damn thing like the last time you had slept like this.
The Old Man didn't stop laughing for a full minute. Recalling that memory gave you a bitter sweet smile that you shook off quickly. You had more Walking to get to after all.
But, there was something you wanted to get done before you set out again.
Ruminating on Runes (???) +20 Intelligence: 1d100+20 68 DC 60/110
Initially, you were disappointed by your semblance when you were younger. After all, who would want something like writing shapes to make aura barriers when you could have gotten super strength or something more cool like super speed. That was what you thought before you realized that your runes were attached to concepts and you used their meanings to change what they did.
You now have a greater appreciation for what your semblance can do. You just needed to figure it out first. Unfortunately, that was the hard part. You figured that dwelling on that symbol you saw scrawled on the stone chest in the temple would help you derive some kind of addition to your arsenal of tricks.
Pulling out your scroll, you used the picture that you took as a reference. Your fingers traced the air in a similar pattern to the glowing symbol on the chest. For a moment, the rune hovered in the air before fading into red particles. You frowned. Something wasn't meshing quite right.
So, you closed your eyes. Simply copying the symbol wouldn't work. It had to come from within you. Picturing the symbol within your mind, your fingers unerringly draw it as a concept started to rise from the depths of your soul. You suddenly felt a surge of energy that dulled your aches and pains as it swept through your body like a warm sunray. Then, just as quickly as it appeared, you lost the concept. Still, despite your failure, you couldn't stop a gigantic grin from breaking out on your face.
Unlike all the previous hours wasted on meaningless shapes, this new one seemed to be going somewhere. It was progress. Even if your semblance was giving you trouble, it couldn't dampen your enthusiasm to get a better grasp on this new concept. You didn't get many chances to add another rune to your arsenal, after all.
(The symbol on the sealed chest allowed you to derive ᛋ Sowilo, You require more time to understand it before using it fully.)
_________________________________________________________________
Three days of travel have occurred. You have exited the region that the settlement of Aston lies.
EDIT: A.N: A big thank you to @Birthday for going over my work before posting it. Much revision of the update can be attributed to him for its better quality.
Last edited:
UNKNOWN01
Nobody knows me... I feel lonely!
- Location
- Nowhere
- Pronouns
- He/Him
-[X] His Hand, Grasping Yours: You'll never forget the day you first met the Old Man. When he held out his hand and asked if you wanted to leave with him, you saw something in his eyes that you had never seen before; belief in you. That you could be something more than some poor orphaned Faunus. That you could be more than the violent, wild child that parents warned their children to stay away from. And before you realized it, your hand was reaching for his. A furred tail wagged happily behind you.
Not sure what to do about all of this, but for now, I'll go for the first memory we have of him.
Not sure what to do about all of this, but for now, I'll go for the first memory we have of him.
- Location
- USA
-[X] His Footsteps, Alongside Yours
-[X]His Back, Shielding Yours
That was rough.
That was rough.
Tyrant_Rayne
Probably Not Evil… Maybe
- Location
- Canada
-[X] His Hand, Grasping Yours: You'll never forget the day you first met the Old Man. When he held out his hand and asked if you wanted to leave with him, you saw something in his eyes that you had never seen before; belief in you. That you could be something more than some poor orphaned Faunus. That you could be more than the violent, wild child that parents warned their children to stay away from. And before you realized it, your hand was reaching for his. A furred tail wagged happily behind you.
They're all important but this seems the most to me. It was the first time someone finally accepted him, the first time someone offered him love.
They're all important but this seems the most to me. It was the first time someone finally accepted him, the first time someone offered him love.
[X] His Hand, Grasping Yours: You'll never forget the day you first met the Old Man. When he held out his hand and asked if you wanted to leave with him, you saw something in his eyes that you had never seen before; belief in you. That you could be something more than some poor orphaned Faunus. That you could be more than the violent, wild child that parents warned their children to stay away from. And before you realized it, your hand was reaching for his. A furred tail wagged happily behind you.
JmonsterNEO
Spouter of nonsense
- Location
- The quest forums
-[X] His Footsteps, Alongside Yours
it looks like we can learn more runes by finding ones across ancient ruins, so we should check out any ruins we can find to get more runes, either that or think about specific concepts and work on finding runes in the reverse order
it looks like we can learn more runes by finding ones across ancient ruins, so we should check out any ruins we can find to get more runes, either that or think about specific concepts and work on finding runes in the reverse order
Last edited:
- Pronouns
- Male
-[X] His Hand, Grasping Yours
On The Move, Interlude 3
On The Move, Interlude 3
Near the settlement of Aston, Anima
Two days ago
A formation of unmarked, yellow painted bullheads slowly circled overhead of a sleepy settlement. The dull hum of the VTOL craft in the sky was washed out by the steadily worsening weather. Stiff cold winds wound up the growing storm of falling icy flakes. After a few revolutions repeating a holding pattern, they peeled off from the settlement's airspace and the roars of the engines followed after their increased speed toward their final destination.
They landed in a spread out formation and were just a small walks distance from the partially collapsed ruins that were their target. Snow met the boots of the teams of plainly armored men disembarking in cautious huddles and their compact bull-pup style rifles drawn from slings. Each team had one man with a collapsed cylinder that had stringent warnings printed on side in caution of its use in a particular direction. A man and a young woman in very contrasting manners of dress proceeded down the ramp of the bullhead that landed closest to the arch way that was the entrance to the temple's inside.
The man, black haired and wearing a wide-brimmed hat and dressed in mostly brown leathers with a long coat that stopped at his knees. He wore a brace of pistols. Each one of them used a revolving mechanism. A grin was growing wider on his lips the closer they got to the entrance. His eyes scanned the vacant space ahead of the advancing teams before he gave himself a small nod in confirmation
The woman was dressed in both warm clothing and armored plates that provided more protection than leather. Her identity was hidden behind a helmet that obscured her face completely. It looked similar to the kind of headgear that Altesian soldiers would wear, but sleeked in an opaque glass the color of obsidian and covered her mouth. An extendable, bladed grip hung from her belt. Her form mostly remained stoic and betrayed no emotion; That was easy to do when your face was covered. Yet, if you looked at her hands, they were slowly transitioning between balling into fists and flatly resting at her side. The very annoying man next to her did not help matters either.
"How much do you wanna bet that shiny helmet of yours that they're all dead," The cowboy dressed man asked aloud, mirth present in his tone.
She stayed quiet and ignored him while trudging forward in the snow. He clicked his tongue in disappointment.
_________________________________________________________________
1-(???) 2-(Karma): 1d2 1
Reaction: 1d100 1 Natural One!
(Interest in your presence from the Yellow Path has not risen or fallen.)
They had entered the ruin and found the mess made of the team that was sent here. The man, Karma, chuckled audibly at the sight as if he was in on a joke that the others weren't. Smeared blood was present on the floor and walls that made the hallway look like a macabre start of a crimson painting between the main chamber room. The broken bodies of all the mercenaries were an unpleasant sight to witness.
"Looks like the name Mimyir Hellebore is one to still take seriously, even in his advanced age, how quaint," Karma commented, drawing one of the oversized revolvers from his gun belt, "Keep your weapons at the ready for both him and any Grimm that might be attracted to this place."
He turned to his female subordinate, "Navan, would you be a dear, and search the helmets of our departed friends for footage of the encounter?"
She curtly nodded before stepping away from the group while they moved deeper into the temple.
Standing off to the side, armored mercenaries shuffled around her while she began interacting with a hard-light interface that sprang to life from her gauntlet. Within moments, she had all the footage from all the cameras on the deceased team's gear on her scroll. She started skipping through it.
That was odd. They hadn't informed her of anyone that accompanied Hellebore when the strike team picked him up for the job.
When she first saw the familiar vivid blue hair of a teen-aged human, dressed like a huntsman, on the feed she chocked it up as coincidence. After all, there were other people in Remnant with natural blue hair. Getting impatient, she increased the playback speed of the video files.
She watched Hellebore, even as they ambushed him in the middle of using his eyes on the Grimm, managing to completely dismantle every single man and woman on the strike team like they were rank amateurs with his pearl white gauntlets. He had almost killed all of them before one last burst of rifle fire shattered his golden yellow aura in a crackle on his form. She saw Dante, one of the guns-for-fire in charge of the team, raising his mechashift sword before he plunged it into the chest of that man. In spite of that, Hellebore grabbed him by the neck and muscled through his aura before snapping it like one would a twig. She grimaced underneath the cover of her helmet.
Most laymen would discount his eyes as a use of a weird semblance. She was not most people. No, his semblance was the rapidly duplicating chains from his hunter weapon caught on video crushing most of the fire-team to death. And her employer wouldn't be one to make that mistake either.
Then that young faunus, she corrected herself now, she picked up a camera angle that allowed her a decent enough view, released from Dante's semblance and frantically rushed to his fallen ally. Some of the other prone positioned cameras picked up the lengthy, blue-furred tail he had.
She paid rapt attention to the exchange between the dying man and his student, a whisper about Atlas and Vale then mentioning the current headmaster of Beacon Academy: Ozpin.
Navan recognized the disconnected empty expression when he stood back up to scan the area; He was traumatized. His eyes blinked away tears.
Fast forwarding, she blinked slowly at the video of the faunus fighting the Grimm that did not die from exposure from Hellebore's eyes. The use of his semblance was captured clearly on video, a red symbol burning into existence in the air. She watched in morbid fascination as the Chimera cracked its own skull on its weapon with a command from him. Her eye's tracing red lines of the flickering rune on video, Its meaning whispered softly to her.
Navan paused on a still image of the spear-wielding teen failing to use his own silver eyes before just opting to drive his weapon into the Grimm and split it length-wise. She sped it up the footage to check for anymore instances of the blue-haired faunus on any of the recordings and failed to find any more. And, for a while, the mercenary stood there in shock.
Navan's teeth grinded together underneath her helmet. Her hidden, simmering gaze drifted to the mercenaries cleaning the area and removing the bodies around her. She had quite the temper, but that was usually kept in check by her strict discipline. A gloved hand drifted toward her collapsed mechashift glaive at her side.
They had lied to her. But, she still wouldn't mourn the death of Mimyir. As far as she was concerned, he had it coming.
She paused, hand trembling, before relenting with a shaky sigh. Instead she motioned on the hard light interface on her gauntlet and tapped her scroll, deleting the all the other instances of the incident she just played back from the digital storage she accessed. Her finger hovered over the deletion of the composition of the video she made. It paid to be thorough. Being found out later would mean trouble for both of them; she tapped once more.
Hellebore was dead and that was what mattered to her employer as far as she knew.
"Did you get anything from the cameras?" Karma's drawling voice crackled through the radio in her helmet.
She licked her lips nervously, "No," Navan replied, voice modulated from from her helmet, thoughts still lingering.
He hummed aloud in thought, then spoke, "Mimyir and his little partner must have covered their tracks then. It's to be expected of a man of his caliber. Come back here, we'll need you for transport once we get the equipment set up to open our, ahem, acquisition."
'So he knew,' A little voice whispered to her, raising her professional paranoia a notch higher.
"On my way. Are we planning to pursue the secondary objective?" It had been a quite bit since she had thought far back before her current job. Half remembered memories of a more happy family life lost before being fast-tracked to specialist-training in Atlas floated to the forefront of her mind while she walked to the main chamber of the temple.
The Yellow Path wouldn't take her insubordination lightly if it was ever discovered. Yet, her suspicions were great enough for her to act out of turn. The identity Navan was a name soaked in enough blood to fill a community pool and more. Thankfully, It was easy enough to wear her real name to avoid the awkward questions. Their group operated with monikers for a reason. That included the low-level grunts.
"We'll have a few feelers look around for 'em. Our priority is right here for now. You know how unpleasant it can be if the head honcho doesn't get what he wants," Karma politely reminded her. She almost snorted in disbelief at the gunslinger's wording.
Unpleasant was an understatement.
Near the settlement of Aston, Anima
Two days ago
A formation of unmarked, yellow painted bullheads slowly circled overhead of a sleepy settlement. The dull hum of the VTOL craft in the sky was washed out by the steadily worsening weather. Stiff cold winds wound up the growing storm of falling icy flakes. After a few revolutions repeating a holding pattern, they peeled off from the settlement's airspace and the roars of the engines followed after their increased speed toward their final destination.
They landed in a spread out formation and were just a small walks distance from the partially collapsed ruins that were their target. Snow met the boots of the teams of plainly armored men disembarking in cautious huddles and their compact bull-pup style rifles drawn from slings. Each team had one man with a collapsed cylinder that had stringent warnings printed on side in caution of its use in a particular direction. A man and a young woman in very contrasting manners of dress proceeded down the ramp of the bullhead that landed closest to the arch way that was the entrance to the temple's inside.
The man, black haired and wearing a wide-brimmed hat and dressed in mostly brown leathers with a long coat that stopped at his knees. He wore a brace of pistols. Each one of them used a revolving mechanism. A grin was growing wider on his lips the closer they got to the entrance. His eyes scanned the vacant space ahead of the advancing teams before he gave himself a small nod in confirmation
The woman was dressed in both warm clothing and armored plates that provided more protection than leather. Her identity was hidden behind a helmet that obscured her face completely. It looked similar to the kind of headgear that Altesian soldiers would wear, but sleeked in an opaque glass the color of obsidian and covered her mouth. An extendable, bladed grip hung from her belt. Her form mostly remained stoic and betrayed no emotion; That was easy to do when your face was covered. Yet, if you looked at her hands, they were slowly transitioning between balling into fists and flatly resting at her side. The very annoying man next to her did not help matters either.
"How much do you wanna bet that shiny helmet of yours that they're all dead," The cowboy dressed man asked aloud, mirth present in his tone.
She stayed quiet and ignored him while trudging forward in the snow. He clicked his tongue in disappointment.
_________________________________________________________________
1-(???) 2-(Karma): 1d2 1
Reaction: 1d100 1 Natural One!
(Interest in your presence from the Yellow Path has not risen or fallen.)
They had entered the ruin and found the mess made of the team that was sent here. The man, Karma, chuckled audibly at the sight as if he was in on a joke that the others weren't. Smeared blood was present on the floor and walls that made the hallway look like a macabre start of a crimson painting between the main chamber room. The broken bodies of all the mercenaries were an unpleasant sight to witness.
"Looks like the name Mimyir Hellebore is one to still take seriously, even in his advanced age, how quaint," Karma commented, drawing one of the oversized revolvers from his gun belt, "Keep your weapons at the ready for both him and any Grimm that might be attracted to this place."
He turned to his female subordinate, "Navan, would you be a dear, and search the helmets of our departed friends for footage of the encounter?"
She curtly nodded before stepping away from the group while they moved deeper into the temple.
Standing off to the side, armored mercenaries shuffled around her while she began interacting with a hard-light interface that sprang to life from her gauntlet. Within moments, she had all the footage from all the cameras on the deceased team's gear on her scroll. She started skipping through it.
That was odd. They hadn't informed her of anyone that accompanied Hellebore when the strike team picked him up for the job.
When she first saw the familiar vivid blue hair of a teen-aged human, dressed like a huntsman, on the feed she chocked it up as coincidence. After all, there were other people in Remnant with natural blue hair. Getting impatient, she increased the playback speed of the video files.
She watched Hellebore, even as they ambushed him in the middle of using his eyes on the Grimm, managing to completely dismantle every single man and woman on the strike team like they were rank amateurs with his pearl white gauntlets. He had almost killed all of them before one last burst of rifle fire shattered his golden yellow aura in a crackle on his form. She saw Dante, one of the guns-for-fire in charge of the team, raising his mechashift sword before he plunged it into the chest of that man. In spite of that, Hellebore grabbed him by the neck and muscled through his aura before snapping it like one would a twig. She grimaced underneath the cover of her helmet.
Most laymen would discount his eyes as a use of a weird semblance. She was not most people. No, his semblance was the rapidly duplicating chains from his hunter weapon caught on video crushing most of the fire-team to death. And her employer wouldn't be one to make that mistake either.
Then that young faunus, she corrected herself now, she picked up a camera angle that allowed her a decent enough view, released from Dante's semblance and frantically rushed to his fallen ally. Some of the other prone positioned cameras picked up the lengthy, blue-furred tail he had.
She paid rapt attention to the exchange between the dying man and his student, a whisper about Atlas and Vale then mentioning the current headmaster of Beacon Academy: Ozpin.
Navan recognized the disconnected empty expression when he stood back up to scan the area; He was traumatized. His eyes blinked away tears.
Fast forwarding, she blinked slowly at the video of the faunus fighting the Grimm that did not die from exposure from Hellebore's eyes. The use of his semblance was captured clearly on video, a red symbol burning into existence in the air. She watched in morbid fascination as the Chimera cracked its own skull on its weapon with a command from him. Her eye's tracing red lines of the flickering rune on video, Its meaning whispered softly to her.
Navan paused on a still image of the spear-wielding teen failing to use his own silver eyes before just opting to drive his weapon into the Grimm and split it length-wise. She sped it up the footage to check for anymore instances of the blue-haired faunus on any of the recordings and failed to find any more. And, for a while, the mercenary stood there in shock.
Navan's teeth grinded together underneath her helmet. Her hidden, simmering gaze drifted to the mercenaries cleaning the area and removing the bodies around her. She had quite the temper, but that was usually kept in check by her strict discipline. A gloved hand drifted toward her collapsed mechashift glaive at her side.
They had lied to her. But, she still wouldn't mourn the death of Mimyir. As far as she was concerned, he had it coming.
She paused, hand trembling, before relenting with a shaky sigh. Instead she motioned on the hard light interface on her gauntlet and tapped her scroll, deleting the all the other instances of the incident she just played back from the digital storage she accessed. Her finger hovered over the deletion of the composition of the video she made. It paid to be thorough. Being found out later would mean trouble for both of them; she tapped once more.
Hellebore was dead and that was what mattered to her employer as far as she knew.
"Did you get anything from the cameras?" Karma's drawling voice crackled through the radio in her helmet.
She licked her lips nervously, "No," Navan replied, voice modulated from from her helmet, thoughts still lingering.
He hummed aloud in thought, then spoke, "Mimyir and his little partner must have covered their tracks then. It's to be expected of a man of his caliber. Come back here, we'll need you for transport once we get the equipment set up to open our, ahem, acquisition."
'So he knew,' A little voice whispered to her, raising her professional paranoia a notch higher.
"On my way. Are we planning to pursue the secondary objective?" It had been a quite bit since she had thought far back before her current job. Half remembered memories of a more happy family life lost before being fast-tracked to specialist-training in Atlas floated to the forefront of her mind while she walked to the main chamber of the temple.
The Yellow Path wouldn't take her insubordination lightly if it was ever discovered. Yet, her suspicions were great enough for her to act out of turn. The identity Navan was a name soaked in enough blood to fill a community pool and more. Thankfully, It was easy enough to wear her real name to avoid the awkward questions. Their group operated with monikers for a reason. That included the low-level grunts.
"We'll have a few feelers look around for 'em. Our priority is right here for now. You know how unpleasant it can be if the head honcho doesn't get what he wants," Karma politely reminded her. She almost snorted in disbelief at the gunslinger's wording.
Unpleasant was an understatement.