Gray
Dedicated
Roleplay posts: 125
Registered: Jul 2, 2021 10:00:37 GMT -5
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Post by Gray on Dec 9, 2021 15:32:24 GMT -5
“Do you take me for a fool, legionnaire?”
Armoured boots clanked together.
“No, sir!”
“A...what did you call it?”
Danger, that was the word. That drawled-out tone, the half-heartedly pointed finger.
“Ghost, sir. That's what the soldiers say.”
"A ghost." There was not enough life in the word to resurrect an ant.
"Yes, sir!"
“I knew there would be consequences if we allowed peasants in.” The officer groaned, head held in his hands. He removed his helmet to better rub his temples. “So you're telling me that someone has been messing around in the armoury, nicking our arsenal from under our noses for a week or more..." With every sentence, his tone dropped another step. His eyes grew harder. "Weapons which, I hasten to add, might be irreplaceable...including a halberd," he nearly spit out. Although the man behind the desk didn't move, the soldier thought his voice seemed to step around and dig into the nape of his neck. "And I haven't been informed...Why?”
“They're always back, sir. The weapons. One day, at most two. Often in better condition than they were before. Actually, we probably wouldn't have noticed they were missing if it weren't for the order they're put in".
“You've told me before but I didn't understand." The officer narrowed his eyes. "Is this thief trying to mess with our inventory to cover their tracks?"
“No, sir. Whole sections of the armoury got cleaned up. Oiled, polished, everything. We thought it might be you, at first, but..." The soldier, clad in full Isran-issue armour, shook his head. "I saw...daggers," he said carefully, "placed precisely the same distance from each other. Down to a hair's width. It's inhuman.”
There was more to it than that.
There was one of the practice dummies, gone missing but ignored. Its place was marked with the regulation 'replacement needed' strip of cloth. There was a crack in the palisade, covered with a legionnaire's red cloak, but the palisade was under construction, and such carelessness with uniform could be tacitly excused when most of the enlisted soldiers had been busy building roads. There was one figure whom many had seen, but never looked at, striding between the old army tents.
There had been a couple of curious folk who'd lingered by the armoury, including an insomniac or two, but they never saw anything and saw unfit to share their failure. There were at least three soldiers who knew more about the ghost than they let on, but would never tell. And one, who knew nothing, but would shudder and grumble about spoons.
“Spoons, legionnaire?”
“Markus – First Cohort, the Wildcat conturbenium, sir. He thought he'd prank the prankster, sir. He left a bunch of spoons among the daggers in the armoury, to see what the 'ghost' did.”
“And?” The officer asked, interested despite his best wishes.
“Very well organized, sir. The next morning, the spoons were nearly all in neat little lines all around his bedroll. One was stabbed in the ground in front of his face. One was in his metal canteen. Another was tied to the metal tongue of the good-morning bell. The last one, Markus found in the evening, in his drawing block.”
“I didn't realize we had an artist in our employee,” the officer said, thoughtfully. Wildcat, he thought, which meant he was one of the rare scouts and should have known better than to be taken by surprise. The army desperately needed cartographers, too.
“I have it on trust that he is decently good at drawing half-dressed men in romantic poses, sir.”
There were the clues around the barracks. The bushes some way into the forest, on one side, were cut down as from the blows of various weapons. But no one noticed, for most people who walked in the woods were mainly glad to have their firewood-gathering chore thus aided. There was the occasional strike carved into trees, occasionally deep enough to raise eyebrows. Sometimes, those strikes grouped together, almost reminiscent of runes. As one walked deeper into the forest, in a certain direction, one would see more and more of these scars on the bark. If one dared follow them, the path would loop around and eventually spiral towards one specific place...
There was, that night, a full moon. There was a meadow glimmering with fog, white wavelets rolling at ankle-level. There was a man who looked like a shadow, pale in the face, spinning a pair of daggers around, like a meditation. He started simple, but the arcs that the blades drew around him grew increasingly complex, silvery glimmers developing into feints and feints within feints, before unexpectedly returning to simpler motifs, like a melody. With equal focus, he juggled the daggers, and drove one into the heart of an unseen enemy. A large, one-and-a-half sword was hung across his back.
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Alden
Dedicated
Roleplay posts: 266
Age: 53(?)
Appearance: The reference image is a commissioned piece and is accurate.
Alden is 6 even, with shoulder-length messy black hair, and several days worth of beard stubble. He is handsome, with a powerful jaw, mid-set cheekbones, and a perpetual grin that makes him seem younger than he really is. His bright green eyes, constantly sparkle with barely contained mirth. He has the lithe well-muscled body of a swordsman, and he moves with considerable grace and dexterity.
If one were to do a more thorough examination of Alden's eyes they may notice a further detail. Around the outside edge of his iris, there's an intricate series of minuscule grey runes.
Underneath his shirt, Alden's skin is a mass of scar tissue. Starting from just below his neckline, there is very little space that does not sport some relic of a past injury. A particularly observant person may also note that among these scars, some are a bright scarlet. These scarlet scars form an intricate series of runes hiding amidst the rest of the scars.
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Equipment: Alden's general loadout when he goes fighting consists of the following:
A twin set of enchanted shortswords. The simple straight blades are unnatural dark, absorbing rather than reflecting light. Giving the enchanted steel an appearance closer to cold iron. The guard has the Isran sun emblem emblazoned in a medallion shape just above the guard, which is wrapped in simple leather. The enchantments increase their sharpness and durability, as well as being able to ignite the blood of anything that he has pierced with either blade.
Numerous braces and hidden throwing knives all over his body. At one point, these were also enchanted but when the calamity struck he didn't have time to grab his original set. So these are all well-made but ultimately mundane weapons. Still, with his strength and skill, they can be quite deadly.
Unfortunately, at present, he is also missing his armour. His preferred armour is leather dyed in mottled black and greys, with strike plates sewn between layers for added protection. His old set was also enchanted for increased protection from physical and magical attacks.
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Skills and Abilities: Alden is, for lack of a better term, a weapon master. He has been trained to use almost any weapon you can think to name. Relentless daily training with each, with extraordinarily demanding expectations on performance and harsh incentives for failure giving a level of skill with most of them that make him formidable.
However, his preferred style involves twin short swords. While he is skilled with all of his weapons thanks to training, he discovered a natural talent with the blade. His level of skill when wielding his short swords is on another level entirely, nearly transcendent in his skill.
On top of that, he is a living magical enchantment. Carved into his body are a variety of runes that grant him numerous innate abilities. He is inhumanly strong, around three to four times stronger than a man in a similar state of physical fitness would be. This also applies to his endurance, speed, reflexes, and other physical traits. He also has regenerative abilities exceeding human normal, able to heal from even broken bones in a matter of days rather than weeks.
In addition, he is immune to most poisons and resistant to the rest. The runes etched into his eyes ensure he can see the same no matter the level of light and reveal magical auras to him. Runes along his back make him impossible to scry on directly and provide him a measure of resistance to magical attack. This, combined with training, also makes him immune to magical mental influence. Finally, runes on his feet dampen any sound he might make taking his already considerable stealth abilities to another level entirely.
Speaking of his training also included all of the skills one would think an Assassin should have. He knows how to mix poisons, move without being seen or making noise, scale walls, lie or disguise himself, pick locks, pick pockets, just for starters. He is also quite skilled at clerical work and he has some diplomacy ability after thirty years leading the Sun Marshals.
Beyond all of this, Alden also possesses an incredible amount of willpower. If Alden decides that he will do something, there is very little that can stop him from doing it. In fact, at present, the only thing that could deter him from a course of action is Captain Naoki. The former Empress is the only person he has any loyalty to and he often values her judgement on matters above his own.
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Biography: Alden was born to a small farming family in an out-of-the-way village. His parents named him Toan and until he was five his destiny was most likely to live and die on the same farm he was born. However, that all changed when Pride arrived.
The leader of a criminal group known as The Set, Pride offered his parents a sum of money that would make any poor farmer's heart stop. Enough money to change their lives forever and all he wanted was Alden, one of nearly a dozen children. A child that wasn't even old enough to help with chores around the farm yet. And the man as so nice, he wanted a ward that he could train to be a retainer how bad of a life could that be?
The answer to that question was basically Hell. Pride was a potent alchemist, enchanter, and scholar and he had but one goal in mind. To create a superior warrior. Alden was subjected to hellish daily training along with six other children. Forced to learn to fight with every weapon, against any foe, in any condition. His limbs were broken deliberately and he was forced to continue to fight and train in constant agony. And this was among the mildest of the ways he was trained.
The culmination of the training came when he was twelve. When he and the six other children were locked in a room and told that the only one who got to leave... was the only one to survive. Of course, surviving was hardly a reward.
Once Pride had only the strongest of the children left he proceeded to the next step of his plan. Alden's memories and identity were seared away as Pride carved runes into his flesh and his very soul. Transforming the young man into a living magical artifact and keeping him on a drug that suppressed all of his emotions.
From there Alden became the new Wrath of the set, a weapon meant only to slay those he was told to. That may have been all he would be but Pride made a miscalculation, Alden's runes helped him to build an immunity to the dosage meant to keep his emotions in check, a weakness made worse by Pride having let him keep his anger thinking it would make him a better weapon. Eventually, events conspired and Alden snapped when the only member of The Set to be kind to him, Sloth, was killed for threatening to expose Pride.
Alden, driven into a deeper rage than ever before killed Envy, Lust, Gluttony, and even disembowelled Pride. Greed manage to escape and Alden slaughtered everything in his path trying to catch the man. Eventually succeeding in his goal. Bereft of a target for his rage and the chase having left him in the middle of nowhere Alden finally collapsed the trauma and coming off of the dosage causing him to bury most of his memories.
He wound up in Isra where his talents and skill soon earned him the eye of the then, criminal Madam Naoki. She recruited him as one of her enforcers a role he continued as her power expanded and grew until she finally became Empress. His reward for his loyalty? Appointment to the head of The Sun Marshals her special police force, effectively making him her right-hand man.
During this time he also uncovered his own past and learned that Pride had survived, the man had made preparations for such an eventuality and his death only saw his soul moving to a phylactery as he became a lich.
Pride created a new Set, this time making each member just as he made Alden. Eventually, this culminated in Pride attacking Isra and his eventual, final defeat.
Decades have passed since that time and Alden, whose power kept him at his prime for years continued to serve Isra until the new calamity took him to The Island of Mists, his empress reduced to a captain and he now serving as her first mate.
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Allegiances: Naoki and Port Argentum
Place of Residence: Port Argentum
Registered: Mar 21, 2021 13:21:25 GMT -5
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Post by Alden on Dec 12, 2021 16:52:21 GMT -5
The rumours that the Legion camp was haunted reached Alden when he was checking up on Chamvert. Considering that the Malachite Knight who had agreed to train the militia was an animated corpse, Alden was not quick to dismiss the possibility of it being a ghost. But as he listened to the rumours and what was being done it did not take him long to realize that there was no spectral hand at play. Oh sure, there was some argument that it might have been a spectral quartermaster but it was what happened when someone tried to prank the ghost that made it clear that it was a more... directed will at play.
While nothing too untoward had happened it was starting to unsettle the guards. Missing equipment was never a good sign and even if it was returned in good repair, there was still the worry of the evening watch being so easily circumnavigated. Blaming everything on a ghost might have unsettled some but for others, it was a comfort. After all, a ghost wasn't something the normal legionnaire had to be ready to deal with. So it could be more readily dismissed, filed away, and ignored. Even if the truth was it wasn't a ghost, it was just something that had spent its entire life learning to be like one. A shadow forged of flesh and bone that could dance past them in the flickering light of a torch.
Like recognized like.
Alden recognized the behaviour, the compulsive order and the need to train. Switching between weapons, ensuring everything was in its place, that everything was just so. When your life was ending others being methodical was important. A lack of discipline, a hair out of place could spell disaster. A poisoned knife left a fraction of an inch askew from where you remember it and you get a scratch that leaves you dead. A foot landing onto hard tile instead of a soft carpet could alert guards. If the ghost was so skilled then the guards had no real chance of catching the intruder but that was fine because Alden could.
It was time for shadow to dance with shadow.
Only the practicing figure would know exactly when it had an audience. No normal person would have figured it out, no one was visible, no sound was made but when you lived in the shadows that sense of eyes on you was heightened. Though if they could spot where their watcher was hiding in the shadows was another question entirely. Not everyone had eyes that let them see perfectly in the dark after all and mottled greys and blacks bled into the darkness enhancing already exceptional hiding skills.
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Gray
Dedicated
Roleplay posts: 125
Registered: Jul 2, 2021 10:00:37 GMT -5
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Post by Gray on Dec 14, 2021 14:50:27 GMT -5
Absorbed in his practice, Gray would have nearly missed the unseen watcher. Arguably, forest was not the man's natural environment; the assassin could make himself lost in a glittering ballroom as easily as in the dark alleyways behind it, but nature was to him a space in-between to the places he usually wanted to be in. He could grin and bear it, as he'd done before. It had germs and a painful lack of books. Reader, I'll tell you a secret, but Gray's greatest strength was his shocking normalcy. His ears could not catch what was beyond hearing. His eyes, though sharply attuned to detail, would not pierce through darkness beyond what moonlight would allow (and perhaps a bit less due to the months of subsisting on hunger and drugs). What magic he once had was, apart from his sword, lost. What Gray had, however, was a remarkable mind.
'You enter a room,' he remembered the old game. 'Count to five. Then step out. What objects are on the table? How many? There were coins – how many of them were face-up, and how many face-down? From what countries? How are they arranged?'
There was a patch of the undergrowth that carried different shadows than the last time when he'd looked at it. That was all.
And so he did absolutely nothing.
The two daggers kept stabbing and slashing, and once again he picked one up by the hilt and threw it in the air. He kept fighting his imaginary enemy, the second dagger switching from one hand to the other while the first sketched circles over his head. Then the second dagger, too, joined the swirling circle. He bent down to pick something from the ground, redirecting a weapon that was just about to stab into his shoulder, and threw upwards some sort of wooden baton along with the blades. The circle grew to accommodate it, one spin, two spin, then split into two, some sort of figure-of-eight pinching just in front of his face. But this turned out to be a mistake, as the objects were now too unwieldy to handle. Imperceptibly almost, they grew out of sync.
One of the daggers started to slip, followed by the baton. And so, clumsily, Grey reached out to catch it with both hands. It looked like a murder about to happen. One hand grasped the handle.
One, the blade.
There was a burst of sparks, as steel met the flint he'd sneaked from a pocket. The baton, or rather the torch as it were, came to life. He's thought it reasonable to have a torch nearby, in case it got cloudy. As the torch spun through the air like the spoke of a wheel, once more under the control that was never lost, movement made its crown of hay burn brighter. There was light in the meadow.
Gray saw everything.
Or did he?
For he kept juggling, entranced, with fire and steel, hands moving faster and faster in a blur while he slowly spun on his heels, as if there was no one else in the world but him. A large action, he knew, hid a small action. And so, from his sleeve, hiding behind himself, he pulled out a small throwing knife.
For just a moment, the knife pointed straight at the mismatch in the dark greenery, his equally sharp gaze just above it. Then it was flicked straight upwards.
For a moment, it hung in the air, motionless, while he continued juggling right underneath. Then it turned point-down.
When it fell, there was nothing there but smoke and steam, from the torch that had been rolled across the damp grass, and a thin dark figure, that the scattering smoke revealed to be but a sheathed long-sword stabbed into the soft ground with a cloak attached.
Gray was gone.
There existed assassins who specialized in poisons. There were those who would swear by their bows and snipe their targets down from afar. There were those who didn't have a specialty themselves, but excelled at commanding large mercenary groups.
Among shadows, Gray was the Magician. And he'd been invited to a dance.
Above all, he knew how minds worked, how the eye was drawn to tragedy, be it the hint of risk in a performer or danger to oneself. People like him, in particular, he bemusedly thought, tended to be very aware of sharp things pointed at them.
Pressed against a tree, he strained his senses. He'd gotten closer to where he guessed the intruder was now, but it would be a challenge to find the other before being found. Swift step by careful step...
Perhaps it was nothing, he thought, with the same weariness that gnawed on him day after day. Perhaps it was just someone who was good at hiding, but who had already been scared off. Perhaps it was stupid to hope when he was too sleep-deprived to tell what he was hoping for. And yet...
And yet.
Just before the mist engulfed him, there might have been, on Gray's face, the slightest hint of a grin.
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Alden
Dedicated
Roleplay posts: 266
Age: 53(?)
Appearance: The reference image is a commissioned piece and is accurate.
Alden is 6 even, with shoulder-length messy black hair, and several days worth of beard stubble. He is handsome, with a powerful jaw, mid-set cheekbones, and a perpetual grin that makes him seem younger than he really is. His bright green eyes, constantly sparkle with barely contained mirth. He has the lithe well-muscled body of a swordsman, and he moves with considerable grace and dexterity.
If one were to do a more thorough examination of Alden's eyes they may notice a further detail. Around the outside edge of his iris, there's an intricate series of minuscule grey runes.
Underneath his shirt, Alden's skin is a mass of scar tissue. Starting from just below his neckline, there is very little space that does not sport some relic of a past injury. A particularly observant person may also note that among these scars, some are a bright scarlet. These scarlet scars form an intricate series of runes hiding amidst the rest of the scars.
-------------------------------------------
Equipment: Alden's general loadout when he goes fighting consists of the following:
A twin set of enchanted shortswords. The simple straight blades are unnatural dark, absorbing rather than reflecting light. Giving the enchanted steel an appearance closer to cold iron. The guard has the Isran sun emblem emblazoned in a medallion shape just above the guard, which is wrapped in simple leather. The enchantments increase their sharpness and durability, as well as being able to ignite the blood of anything that he has pierced with either blade.
Numerous braces and hidden throwing knives all over his body. At one point, these were also enchanted but when the calamity struck he didn't have time to grab his original set. So these are all well-made but ultimately mundane weapons. Still, with his strength and skill, they can be quite deadly.
Unfortunately, at present, he is also missing his armour. His preferred armour is leather dyed in mottled black and greys, with strike plates sewn between layers for added protection. His old set was also enchanted for increased protection from physical and magical attacks.
-------------------------------------------
Skills and Abilities: Alden is, for lack of a better term, a weapon master. He has been trained to use almost any weapon you can think to name. Relentless daily training with each, with extraordinarily demanding expectations on performance and harsh incentives for failure giving a level of skill with most of them that make him formidable.
However, his preferred style involves twin short swords. While he is skilled with all of his weapons thanks to training, he discovered a natural talent with the blade. His level of skill when wielding his short swords is on another level entirely, nearly transcendent in his skill.
On top of that, he is a living magical enchantment. Carved into his body are a variety of runes that grant him numerous innate abilities. He is inhumanly strong, around three to four times stronger than a man in a similar state of physical fitness would be. This also applies to his endurance, speed, reflexes, and other physical traits. He also has regenerative abilities exceeding human normal, able to heal from even broken bones in a matter of days rather than weeks.
In addition, he is immune to most poisons and resistant to the rest. The runes etched into his eyes ensure he can see the same no matter the level of light and reveal magical auras to him. Runes along his back make him impossible to scry on directly and provide him a measure of resistance to magical attack. This, combined with training, also makes him immune to magical mental influence. Finally, runes on his feet dampen any sound he might make taking his already considerable stealth abilities to another level entirely.
Speaking of his training also included all of the skills one would think an Assassin should have. He knows how to mix poisons, move without being seen or making noise, scale walls, lie or disguise himself, pick locks, pick pockets, just for starters. He is also quite skilled at clerical work and he has some diplomacy ability after thirty years leading the Sun Marshals.
Beyond all of this, Alden also possesses an incredible amount of willpower. If Alden decides that he will do something, there is very little that can stop him from doing it. In fact, at present, the only thing that could deter him from a course of action is Captain Naoki. The former Empress is the only person he has any loyalty to and he often values her judgement on matters above his own.
-------------------------------------------
Biography: Alden was born to a small farming family in an out-of-the-way village. His parents named him Toan and until he was five his destiny was most likely to live and die on the same farm he was born. However, that all changed when Pride arrived.
The leader of a criminal group known as The Set, Pride offered his parents a sum of money that would make any poor farmer's heart stop. Enough money to change their lives forever and all he wanted was Alden, one of nearly a dozen children. A child that wasn't even old enough to help with chores around the farm yet. And the man as so nice, he wanted a ward that he could train to be a retainer how bad of a life could that be?
The answer to that question was basically Hell. Pride was a potent alchemist, enchanter, and scholar and he had but one goal in mind. To create a superior warrior. Alden was subjected to hellish daily training along with six other children. Forced to learn to fight with every weapon, against any foe, in any condition. His limbs were broken deliberately and he was forced to continue to fight and train in constant agony. And this was among the mildest of the ways he was trained.
The culmination of the training came when he was twelve. When he and the six other children were locked in a room and told that the only one who got to leave... was the only one to survive. Of course, surviving was hardly a reward.
Once Pride had only the strongest of the children left he proceeded to the next step of his plan. Alden's memories and identity were seared away as Pride carved runes into his flesh and his very soul. Transforming the young man into a living magical artifact and keeping him on a drug that suppressed all of his emotions.
From there Alden became the new Wrath of the set, a weapon meant only to slay those he was told to. That may have been all he would be but Pride made a miscalculation, Alden's runes helped him to build an immunity to the dosage meant to keep his emotions in check, a weakness made worse by Pride having let him keep his anger thinking it would make him a better weapon. Eventually, events conspired and Alden snapped when the only member of The Set to be kind to him, Sloth, was killed for threatening to expose Pride.
Alden, driven into a deeper rage than ever before killed Envy, Lust, Gluttony, and even disembowelled Pride. Greed manage to escape and Alden slaughtered everything in his path trying to catch the man. Eventually succeeding in his goal. Bereft of a target for his rage and the chase having left him in the middle of nowhere Alden finally collapsed the trauma and coming off of the dosage causing him to bury most of his memories.
He wound up in Isra where his talents and skill soon earned him the eye of the then, criminal Madam Naoki. She recruited him as one of her enforcers a role he continued as her power expanded and grew until she finally became Empress. His reward for his loyalty? Appointment to the head of The Sun Marshals her special police force, effectively making him her right-hand man.
During this time he also uncovered his own past and learned that Pride had survived, the man had made preparations for such an eventuality and his death only saw his soul moving to a phylactery as he became a lich.
Pride created a new Set, this time making each member just as he made Alden. Eventually, this culminated in Pride attacking Isra and his eventual, final defeat.
Decades have passed since that time and Alden, whose power kept him at his prime for years continued to serve Isra until the new calamity took him to The Island of Mists, his empress reduced to a captain and he now serving as her first mate.
-------------------------------------------
Allegiances: Naoki and Port Argentum
Place of Residence: Port Argentum
Registered: Mar 21, 2021 13:21:25 GMT -5
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Post by Alden on Dec 16, 2021 17:09:16 GMT -5
Block, thrust, parry, turn, strike.
Gray accepted the invitation that was given in silence. Noticed that something was out of place, did not tip his hand, and with clever hands and quicker wits managed to turn the tables on his watcher… Or did he? It appeared as though Gray’s opponent was no more prone to tipping their hand than the magician. Even with a torch in hand and eyes scanning everywhere he did not see his target. Did he even have one? Or was the ghost jumping at ghosts of his own.
Deflection, pivot, step back, lost momentum.
Darkness returned and the clearing was empty. Now two shadows moved among the trees. Gray and his own, the only question was if it was being cast by moonlight or not? Gray had thought it himself, after all, his physical condition was perfect for breeding paranoia in a person. Yet the weight hadn’t lifted had it? Someone had to still be there he couldn’t just be alone in the woods jumping at shadows.
On the back foot, take a step, something under the heel, slip, fall.
Closer and closer creeping to where that strange spot of shadows had been. Except no one was there, nothing was there, no sign of another shadow amidst the trees… Until, there, just a few trees back so he couldn’t have spotted it from the clearing. Something pale enough to stand out in the moonlight not a person but a message. The shape of a dagger’s hilt driven through a sheet of white paper just pale enough to be visible with reflected moonlight.
Impact, pain, ignored, have to get back up, have to do it fast.
What made Gray dangerous was his normalcy and his remarkable mind? Did he suspect the nature of the enemy he faced? Did he know the name? Did he listen in on the legionnaire’s as they gossiped? Did it go deeper than even that? Had he heard tales from the old world? Or perhaps even just had young Nina speak of the man who’d struck her at the picnic. Gray was impressive in his own way the specialty, the moniker of Magician was one that was certainly intimidating for those who dwelled in the dark. However, his foe had a moniker as well and a specialty all his own.
Wrath.
An emotion, beyond anger, beyond rage, the all-consuming desire to bring destruction upon those it was turned against. If Gray’s strengths relied on how remarkably normal he was, how he could blend into any surrounding and make a plan with his brilliant mind to reach his target, how would he fare against a foe that was defined by how exceptional they were? One that was so skilled in stealth that they had no need to blend into a crowd? One that was so skilled in violence they had no need for grand strategy?
How would Gray fare against a monster?
After all, he was just a man. But then again, that could be a far, far more dangerous thing. The monster who danced with him in the dark had been forged by a man. A man could reason, a man could take precautions, a man could take something as powerful as Wrath and direct it. Use it against its enemies or turn it back on itself.
But it all came down to how much he knew.
After all, Wrath had been a monster but the man trying to salvage himself from the ruins of that beast was another matter entirely. Which raised the question of what message was intended by the sheet of paper and the dagger? Was there more to it? Ink on the paper, too dark to tell in the dark with normal, human, eyes.
What did Gray know?
What did that tell him?
What would he do?
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Gray
Dedicated
Roleplay posts: 125
Registered: Jul 2, 2021 10:00:37 GMT -5
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Post by Gray on Dec 18, 2021 8:55:29 GMT -5
Content warning: short mention of ambiguous self-harm There was a message left for him onto a tree. Large sheet of paper; couldn't have been thrown with the dagger. Trajectory would've been unstable. Gray saw it all in his mind's eye, as his gaze brushed over the surroundings from behind a low leafy branch. Therefore, the culprit still had to be close by. Possibly behind that tree. Except that... There had been no sound. Gray forced his breathing into very long, shallow fragments. The message could have been there for hours. A cold sensation ran down the nape of his neck. The paper was bait, just like his sword had been. Did the other think they could catch him with his own hook? His teeth gritted in a grin. And yet, for all he knew, it had worked. Maybe he'd already gotten too close. The effort from his training was making his heart drum. His arms felt like painfully stretched udon noodles. For a moment, the man retreated from his vantage point into the deeper shadows near the tree-trunk, to think. He felt as loud as a whole stable of horses with his pulse thumping in his ears, which was irrational. His feet itched to run and find another hiding place, which was stupid. He calmly worked through his thoughts. It was entirely possible that the message was just that, a message, and the culprit long gone, but it would do him no harm to be cautious. For the first time that day, it occurred to Gray that he might die, and that thought soothed him so much that he nearly fell asleep. Risk held familiarity to it, much like the smell of old books. It was all quite reasonable, really, he thought, watching the world through the speckled layer of leaves. How do you best catch one who is unseen? By luring them out into the open. But this told him that the stranger was bound by much of the same rules as he was. An invisible man would have had no need for subterfuge; one gifted with unnatural senses, such as the ability to detect life that his apprentice used to hold, would be undeterred by mere cover. Of course, there was always the possibility that the stranger was merely toying with him; he'd done that more than he could count. But overestimating an opponent could be as deadly as the converse. And so Gray waited in order to test his guess. The waiting game was, to the uninitiated, one of cruel simplicity. The aim was simple: remain silent, and wait for the other person to make the first move. 'Will you find me? Will I sense you before you do?' It was simple, but it turns out that if you remove nearly all stimulation and left people with nothing but their thoughts, many cracked. There was the time, trickling down slower than burning molasses down your skin. There were the sounds. For a forest is rarely completely silent and, now the human element had gone into hiding, strange nature came to life. There were hoots of owls and shining, reflective eyes. Was the rustling of leaves a mouse, or your opponent dragging their feet closer? Are you going to react to that swish of air behind you, or is it just a night bird? Is a forest even supposed to make these sounds? Gray felt something cold and and many-legged scuttling down his arm. Then there are the thoughts. Maybe, you think, maybe the other person isn't quite as good. If they were, they would've already found me. Maybe I can go look for them. But Gray's chagrin at not having been able to catch a good look of his opponent was proof enough of their skill. Maybe the other already left and is on their way back with the guards. Act quickly, or else- Maybe they never were. The dagger, the message, just a coincidence left from another day. Maybe you imagined all of that, you pitiful excuse for a spymaster. You've nearly broken your apprentice's arm, haven't you, when she tried to wake you up from a nightmare. Perhaps next time you'll kill her. You're losing control. You're reaching too readily for the fruits of your poisonous plants. Trying to find solace in pain and in disrupting the perfect mechanism that you've become, just enough. Just enough. Remember, that look of pity in Nina's eyes. The arguments. The sickly-sweet taste on your tongue of two berries that could kill a normal man twice over, and probably aren't doing you any favors. Remember. Not fear. Not defiance. Pity. How many of those plants can cause hallucinations, again? Being left with no information made people second-guess themselves. It drove them insane. It helped, then, that Gray was already was a bit so. He crouched down, among the leaves and nettles, and slowly let his breathing fall into a slower, regular rhythm. He guided his mind into a path of meditation, fighting the fuzzy shackles of insomnia, accepting thoughts as they came but not allowing them to take over. Rather than focusing inwards, he encompassed the world that he could perceive within his mind. Behind him was the deeply grooved bark of a beech. On his left, beyond a couple of trees, there was the moonlit meadow where his sword still stood like a black streak. On his right, some way away, the tantalizing white of the message burned his eyes. In-between, stretched the forest, trees merging into one another like the sharp, elegant strokes of a calligraphy brush on a hanging scroll. His hearing reached even further, through a soundscape of faint creaks and rustles, blanketed over by a thin layer of fog. Somewhere close, was the other player of games. Will the other head to investigate the abandoned sword? Will they recover their own dagger first, miffed at their failure? Time passed. All was perfectly still. There was about an hour of waiting before Gray reacted again. Imperceptibly, he shifted his shoulders. His focus dimmed, as he reconsidered his strategy. If there was anyone still out there – he thought - then they were remarkable. Insane, after his own heart. And if they were not, then there would be no one else witness his ridicule; there would be no harm in indulging his failure for a bit longer. He blinked forcefully. Alas, the game couldn't go on forever. In fact, waiting longer was unlikely to bring him more advantages and, rather, it would be harder on him, sleep-deprived and weakened, than on his opponent. He also needed to return tonight's daggers to the armory. He thought of what he knew. Was the other trying to kill him? He supposed not, for the barracks would have been a more appropriate place for an ambush, but he also wasn't naïve enough to think that things might not get violent shall he, say, refuse to work for the Isran government when offered. He thought of what the silence was telling him. For silence could tell many things. Neither of them had tried to leave (or perhaps the other had successfully left long ago, but that was for another thread of thought to deal with). Which meant that they were, both, intrigued to meet the other. Like two teenagers at school, or two competing athletes, sneaking glances from their benches but too proud to make the first step. Shadows can be proud beings, and no one wanted to take that first step out into the open. For to do so would be to weaken one's position, to risk everything. Gray considered his options. He could leave. He did not want to. He could have, at another time, tried projecting his voice around as a lure, but that ability required the arduous practice that he no longer had. He supposed he could sneak back to the barracks, put on some armor, get some guards to go on a night patrol and spin a yarn so tangled that it'd be morning by the time they figured it out, and he'd be far away with his sword. But the thought of executing a plan so complex left him feeling unexpectedly empty. It stepped too close to the part of his mind that wondered what was it all, really, about. So Gray ended up doing what many men had done throughout the ages when faced with the unknown. He turned to religion. Specifically, to prayer. Gray moved to the edge of the bower-like shelter sketched by branches. And he sang. His voice suddenly filled the forest, soft yet clear, like a filigree of silver. It was often that people were surprised at how soft the assassin's voice could be. Only tiny wisps and cracks betrayed his current weakness. He chanted the Moonlight Mantra. He spoke of paths of darkness towards pools of light, of knowledge and the space beyond. He beckoned the other closer. Except that...if the other would move closer, they might find it difficult to pinpoint exactly where the voice was coming from. Instead, they'd get a vague direction. For not only was the chant bouncing off the trees, with tiny echoes called reverberations breaking off the edges of words, but also the chant itself reverberated. Gray was singing in overtone. Multiple pitches, or at least the illusion of them, were woven together in his voice. The effect, at least to where religious chants were concerned, had been to fill a room with an ethereal, all-encompassing melody. Even trying to judge distance, or movement would be hard, for the chant grew louder or quieter almost without warning. An additional advantage - as it was in Gray's native language, anyone holding the slightest doubt on whether he might be a ghost might now be jumping out of their skins. Still, will the stranger accept his invitation and step closer? Will Gray spot him before he was, in turn, seen? Spinning ever closer, the two characters of this ghost story might finally meet. ooc: The Moonlight Mantra (inspiration)
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Alden
Dedicated
Roleplay posts: 266
Age: 53(?)
Appearance: The reference image is a commissioned piece and is accurate.
Alden is 6 even, with shoulder-length messy black hair, and several days worth of beard stubble. He is handsome, with a powerful jaw, mid-set cheekbones, and a perpetual grin that makes him seem younger than he really is. His bright green eyes, constantly sparkle with barely contained mirth. He has the lithe well-muscled body of a swordsman, and he moves with considerable grace and dexterity.
If one were to do a more thorough examination of Alden's eyes they may notice a further detail. Around the outside edge of his iris, there's an intricate series of minuscule grey runes.
Underneath his shirt, Alden's skin is a mass of scar tissue. Starting from just below his neckline, there is very little space that does not sport some relic of a past injury. A particularly observant person may also note that among these scars, some are a bright scarlet. These scarlet scars form an intricate series of runes hiding amidst the rest of the scars.
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Equipment: Alden's general loadout when he goes fighting consists of the following:
A twin set of enchanted shortswords. The simple straight blades are unnatural dark, absorbing rather than reflecting light. Giving the enchanted steel an appearance closer to cold iron. The guard has the Isran sun emblem emblazoned in a medallion shape just above the guard, which is wrapped in simple leather. The enchantments increase their sharpness and durability, as well as being able to ignite the blood of anything that he has pierced with either blade.
Numerous braces and hidden throwing knives all over his body. At one point, these were also enchanted but when the calamity struck he didn't have time to grab his original set. So these are all well-made but ultimately mundane weapons. Still, with his strength and skill, they can be quite deadly.
Unfortunately, at present, he is also missing his armour. His preferred armour is leather dyed in mottled black and greys, with strike plates sewn between layers for added protection. His old set was also enchanted for increased protection from physical and magical attacks.
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Skills and Abilities: Alden is, for lack of a better term, a weapon master. He has been trained to use almost any weapon you can think to name. Relentless daily training with each, with extraordinarily demanding expectations on performance and harsh incentives for failure giving a level of skill with most of them that make him formidable.
However, his preferred style involves twin short swords. While he is skilled with all of his weapons thanks to training, he discovered a natural talent with the blade. His level of skill when wielding his short swords is on another level entirely, nearly transcendent in his skill.
On top of that, he is a living magical enchantment. Carved into his body are a variety of runes that grant him numerous innate abilities. He is inhumanly strong, around three to four times stronger than a man in a similar state of physical fitness would be. This also applies to his endurance, speed, reflexes, and other physical traits. He also has regenerative abilities exceeding human normal, able to heal from even broken bones in a matter of days rather than weeks.
In addition, he is immune to most poisons and resistant to the rest. The runes etched into his eyes ensure he can see the same no matter the level of light and reveal magical auras to him. Runes along his back make him impossible to scry on directly and provide him a measure of resistance to magical attack. This, combined with training, also makes him immune to magical mental influence. Finally, runes on his feet dampen any sound he might make taking his already considerable stealth abilities to another level entirely.
Speaking of his training also included all of the skills one would think an Assassin should have. He knows how to mix poisons, move without being seen or making noise, scale walls, lie or disguise himself, pick locks, pick pockets, just for starters. He is also quite skilled at clerical work and he has some diplomacy ability after thirty years leading the Sun Marshals.
Beyond all of this, Alden also possesses an incredible amount of willpower. If Alden decides that he will do something, there is very little that can stop him from doing it. In fact, at present, the only thing that could deter him from a course of action is Captain Naoki. The former Empress is the only person he has any loyalty to and he often values her judgement on matters above his own.
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Biography: Alden was born to a small farming family in an out-of-the-way village. His parents named him Toan and until he was five his destiny was most likely to live and die on the same farm he was born. However, that all changed when Pride arrived.
The leader of a criminal group known as The Set, Pride offered his parents a sum of money that would make any poor farmer's heart stop. Enough money to change their lives forever and all he wanted was Alden, one of nearly a dozen children. A child that wasn't even old enough to help with chores around the farm yet. And the man as so nice, he wanted a ward that he could train to be a retainer how bad of a life could that be?
The answer to that question was basically Hell. Pride was a potent alchemist, enchanter, and scholar and he had but one goal in mind. To create a superior warrior. Alden was subjected to hellish daily training along with six other children. Forced to learn to fight with every weapon, against any foe, in any condition. His limbs were broken deliberately and he was forced to continue to fight and train in constant agony. And this was among the mildest of the ways he was trained.
The culmination of the training came when he was twelve. When he and the six other children were locked in a room and told that the only one who got to leave... was the only one to survive. Of course, surviving was hardly a reward.
Once Pride had only the strongest of the children left he proceeded to the next step of his plan. Alden's memories and identity were seared away as Pride carved runes into his flesh and his very soul. Transforming the young man into a living magical artifact and keeping him on a drug that suppressed all of his emotions.
From there Alden became the new Wrath of the set, a weapon meant only to slay those he was told to. That may have been all he would be but Pride made a miscalculation, Alden's runes helped him to build an immunity to the dosage meant to keep his emotions in check, a weakness made worse by Pride having let him keep his anger thinking it would make him a better weapon. Eventually, events conspired and Alden snapped when the only member of The Set to be kind to him, Sloth, was killed for threatening to expose Pride.
Alden, driven into a deeper rage than ever before killed Envy, Lust, Gluttony, and even disembowelled Pride. Greed manage to escape and Alden slaughtered everything in his path trying to catch the man. Eventually succeeding in his goal. Bereft of a target for his rage and the chase having left him in the middle of nowhere Alden finally collapsed the trauma and coming off of the dosage causing him to bury most of his memories.
He wound up in Isra where his talents and skill soon earned him the eye of the then, criminal Madam Naoki. She recruited him as one of her enforcers a role he continued as her power expanded and grew until she finally became Empress. His reward for his loyalty? Appointment to the head of The Sun Marshals her special police force, effectively making him her right-hand man.
During this time he also uncovered his own past and learned that Pride had survived, the man had made preparations for such an eventuality and his death only saw his soul moving to a phylactery as he became a lich.
Pride created a new Set, this time making each member just as he made Alden. Eventually, this culminated in Pride attacking Isra and his eventual, final defeat.
Decades have passed since that time and Alden, whose power kept him at his prime for years continued to serve Isra until the new calamity took him to The Island of Mists, his empress reduced to a captain and he now serving as her first mate.
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Allegiances: Naoki and Port Argentum
Place of Residence: Port Argentum
Registered: Mar 21, 2021 13:21:25 GMT -5
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Post by Alden on Dec 20, 2021 18:06:07 GMT -5
Not fast enough, failure, pain as the blade slides through flesh.
Patience was a virtue. An odd sentiment that, the ability to maintain ones calm for extended periods of times was to be lauded. Yet the use of patience could be extended to many different things. Assassins often had to use it. Be it hiding for hours in a wagon to sneak into a keep or holding up in a hiding spot long before your target was to arrive, there were all kinds of ways the ability to sit and wait could be used to allow violence to happen. So why then was it a virtue?
Pain, failure, failure, pain the two are the same.
In the silence of the night two shadows waited, two shadows proved their virtue. That they were capable of sitting in the dark for their opportunity. But there was a dance to be done and it appeared as though Gray decided it was time to make a move. The haunting chant would have done little to quell rumors of ghosts if any of the guards had been close to hear it but as it stood the concert was for the benefit of none. Or perhaps one.
A potion forced down, back up, ready stance, side burning with pain from the recently closed wound.
As the last few haunting notes fade through the woods Gray may think there was no answer to the invitation. No one appeared near the dagger or out of the trees, no one was making their presence known by trying to locate the source. There was just silence, darkness, and the dagger sticking out of the tree, and his sword... gone from the clearing. But the clearing was not empty.
Next day same as the first, do better this time, observe the ground commit it to memory. Pain is failure, failure is pain.
A shadow stood in the clearing. Only standing out because it should not be where it was, nothing should be casting a man shaped patch of darkness in the night. With Gray's normal eyesight he couldn't really make out more than that. If he got closer he would be able to see the tightly wound mottled grey cloth bound around the other man's body. But for now, there was just a shadow waiting to be addressed.
Failure is pain, pain is failure. To avoid pain the only option, perfection. But how long could that be maintained?
Alden stared into the dark in the rough location he knew the other shadow to be. They were good, Alden had lost track of them during the flash, his eyes did not adjust to changes in light levels with the same speed they once had, and he hadn't managed to pin point the exact location but the song had given him a rough idea. Knowing that the other shadow's focus would be diverted Alden gambled the other would be focusing more on the dagger than his own sword and it appeared to have paid off. Especially since Alden still moved with unnatural speed and silence.
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Gray
Dedicated
Roleplay posts: 125
Registered: Jul 2, 2021 10:00:37 GMT -5
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Post by Gray on Dec 25, 2021 18:15:28 GMT -5
Clap. Clap. Clap.
“Impressive. Do I get invited to dinner as well, or are we waiting to be on a first-name basis?”
The chant had stopped. The man who now rested against a tree at the edge of the meadow watched intently. He would appear to have a thinner frame than Alden, but was of similar height. In the moonlight, his hair was ashen white, his tunic sooty black-blue, and something about him seemed indescribably fragile, like a smoldering log about to cave in. There was the hint of a smile in the corner of his eyes. Awareness still burned in him, the sort of thing that could reach you no matter where you were, asking why would you insist on describing him in cheesy metaphors.
He wasn't too worried about his sword. It was heavy, two to three times the weight of a sword its size; most people would have difficulty carrying it. And if the fellow in the neat camouflage surprised him, well,...he longed to be surprised.
It's not that the stranger's voice lacked emotion. It's that it lacked any intonation at all. Despite a moderately strong accent, the kind to stubbornly punctuate each syllable, something about his pronunciation rung flat and unnatural. Every now and then, he would lazily gaze over his surroundings, because one could never be quite sure of having a single opponent.
“You can call me Gray.”
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Alden
Dedicated
Roleplay posts: 266
Age: 53(?)
Appearance: The reference image is a commissioned piece and is accurate.
Alden is 6 even, with shoulder-length messy black hair, and several days worth of beard stubble. He is handsome, with a powerful jaw, mid-set cheekbones, and a perpetual grin that makes him seem younger than he really is. His bright green eyes, constantly sparkle with barely contained mirth. He has the lithe well-muscled body of a swordsman, and he moves with considerable grace and dexterity.
If one were to do a more thorough examination of Alden's eyes they may notice a further detail. Around the outside edge of his iris, there's an intricate series of minuscule grey runes.
Underneath his shirt, Alden's skin is a mass of scar tissue. Starting from just below his neckline, there is very little space that does not sport some relic of a past injury. A particularly observant person may also note that among these scars, some are a bright scarlet. These scarlet scars form an intricate series of runes hiding amidst the rest of the scars.
-------------------------------------------
Equipment: Alden's general loadout when he goes fighting consists of the following:
A twin set of enchanted shortswords. The simple straight blades are unnatural dark, absorbing rather than reflecting light. Giving the enchanted steel an appearance closer to cold iron. The guard has the Isran sun emblem emblazoned in a medallion shape just above the guard, which is wrapped in simple leather. The enchantments increase their sharpness and durability, as well as being able to ignite the blood of anything that he has pierced with either blade.
Numerous braces and hidden throwing knives all over his body. At one point, these were also enchanted but when the calamity struck he didn't have time to grab his original set. So these are all well-made but ultimately mundane weapons. Still, with his strength and skill, they can be quite deadly.
Unfortunately, at present, he is also missing his armour. His preferred armour is leather dyed in mottled black and greys, with strike plates sewn between layers for added protection. His old set was also enchanted for increased protection from physical and magical attacks.
-------------------------------------------
Skills and Abilities: Alden is, for lack of a better term, a weapon master. He has been trained to use almost any weapon you can think to name. Relentless daily training with each, with extraordinarily demanding expectations on performance and harsh incentives for failure giving a level of skill with most of them that make him formidable.
However, his preferred style involves twin short swords. While he is skilled with all of his weapons thanks to training, he discovered a natural talent with the blade. His level of skill when wielding his short swords is on another level entirely, nearly transcendent in his skill.
On top of that, he is a living magical enchantment. Carved into his body are a variety of runes that grant him numerous innate abilities. He is inhumanly strong, around three to four times stronger than a man in a similar state of physical fitness would be. This also applies to his endurance, speed, reflexes, and other physical traits. He also has regenerative abilities exceeding human normal, able to heal from even broken bones in a matter of days rather than weeks.
In addition, he is immune to most poisons and resistant to the rest. The runes etched into his eyes ensure he can see the same no matter the level of light and reveal magical auras to him. Runes along his back make him impossible to scry on directly and provide him a measure of resistance to magical attack. This, combined with training, also makes him immune to magical mental influence. Finally, runes on his feet dampen any sound he might make taking his already considerable stealth abilities to another level entirely.
Speaking of his training also included all of the skills one would think an Assassin should have. He knows how to mix poisons, move without being seen or making noise, scale walls, lie or disguise himself, pick locks, pick pockets, just for starters. He is also quite skilled at clerical work and he has some diplomacy ability after thirty years leading the Sun Marshals.
Beyond all of this, Alden also possesses an incredible amount of willpower. If Alden decides that he will do something, there is very little that can stop him from doing it. In fact, at present, the only thing that could deter him from a course of action is Captain Naoki. The former Empress is the only person he has any loyalty to and he often values her judgement on matters above his own.
-------------------------------------------
Biography: Alden was born to a small farming family in an out-of-the-way village. His parents named him Toan and until he was five his destiny was most likely to live and die on the same farm he was born. However, that all changed when Pride arrived.
The leader of a criminal group known as The Set, Pride offered his parents a sum of money that would make any poor farmer's heart stop. Enough money to change their lives forever and all he wanted was Alden, one of nearly a dozen children. A child that wasn't even old enough to help with chores around the farm yet. And the man as so nice, he wanted a ward that he could train to be a retainer how bad of a life could that be?
The answer to that question was basically Hell. Pride was a potent alchemist, enchanter, and scholar and he had but one goal in mind. To create a superior warrior. Alden was subjected to hellish daily training along with six other children. Forced to learn to fight with every weapon, against any foe, in any condition. His limbs were broken deliberately and he was forced to continue to fight and train in constant agony. And this was among the mildest of the ways he was trained.
The culmination of the training came when he was twelve. When he and the six other children were locked in a room and told that the only one who got to leave... was the only one to survive. Of course, surviving was hardly a reward.
Once Pride had only the strongest of the children left he proceeded to the next step of his plan. Alden's memories and identity were seared away as Pride carved runes into his flesh and his very soul. Transforming the young man into a living magical artifact and keeping him on a drug that suppressed all of his emotions.
From there Alden became the new Wrath of the set, a weapon meant only to slay those he was told to. That may have been all he would be but Pride made a miscalculation, Alden's runes helped him to build an immunity to the dosage meant to keep his emotions in check, a weakness made worse by Pride having let him keep his anger thinking it would make him a better weapon. Eventually, events conspired and Alden snapped when the only member of The Set to be kind to him, Sloth, was killed for threatening to expose Pride.
Alden, driven into a deeper rage than ever before killed Envy, Lust, Gluttony, and even disembowelled Pride. Greed manage to escape and Alden slaughtered everything in his path trying to catch the man. Eventually succeeding in his goal. Bereft of a target for his rage and the chase having left him in the middle of nowhere Alden finally collapsed the trauma and coming off of the dosage causing him to bury most of his memories.
He wound up in Isra where his talents and skill soon earned him the eye of the then, criminal Madam Naoki. She recruited him as one of her enforcers a role he continued as her power expanded and grew until she finally became Empress. His reward for his loyalty? Appointment to the head of The Sun Marshals her special police force, effectively making him her right-hand man.
During this time he also uncovered his own past and learned that Pride had survived, the man had made preparations for such an eventuality and his death only saw his soul moving to a phylactery as he became a lich.
Pride created a new Set, this time making each member just as he made Alden. Eventually, this culminated in Pride attacking Isra and his eventual, final defeat.
Decades have passed since that time and Alden, whose power kept him at his prime for years continued to serve Isra until the new calamity took him to The Island of Mists, his empress reduced to a captain and he now serving as her first mate.
-------------------------------------------
Allegiances: Naoki and Port Argentum
Place of Residence: Port Argentum
Registered: Mar 21, 2021 13:21:25 GMT -5
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Post by Alden on Dec 27, 2021 14:08:09 GMT -5
Gray would not get much from looking at his adversary. The camouflaging cloth even wrapped around his face, the only thing visible was his eyes and even they were indistinct in the darkness. The question is met with a slight cock of the head and while Gray's look may have questioned the use of cheesy metaphors, ultimately, it wouldn't stop them.
"I see. A wolfhound without a master."
The two of them had matching voices it seemed but that was hardly surprising. Carefully conversational, yet utterly neutral meant to give nothing away. They were two peas in a pod in many ways, but Alden still had his master.
"You may call me Alden."
There was no real need to hide his identity in this. It wasn't as though Gray knowing it would make much of a difference most of the camp knew his reputation and role so if Gray was going to make a run on the leadership of Agentium then Alden was already a target.
"You know why I am here, you know you have to stop, I know there is no point in threatening you. So are we going to fight?"
It was as simple as that. Gray could not be allowed to continue infiltrating the training grounds at night. It was damaging to the morale of the troops and made the small settlement look weak if they could not keep out a loan intruder. So Alden needed Gray to either agree to stop or he needed the other assassin dead. Of course, Gray was at a bit of a disadvantage should they fight. After all, he couldn't sense his sword. It may have been two or three times heavier than a normal blade that size but the man across from him was around that much stronger than a man his size.
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Gray
Dedicated
Roleplay posts: 125
Registered: Jul 2, 2021 10:00:37 GMT -5
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Post by Gray on Dec 29, 2021 7:23:43 GMT -5
It was as if someone took a lit match and held it against his vision.
The edges of it grew darker, more frail. The darkness spread. Gradually, it all crumbled to nothingness. All, apart from his opponent.
A wolfhound without a master, Alden had called Gray. There had been no reaction. No reply. Surprisingly, no suggestion from Alden that he be that master, either.
Yet, for a moment, Gray felt understood.
Perhaps it was in the nature of his kind to be best understood by the people who would stick a knife into their backs. Perhaps it was just a lucky guess. Nina cared for him, he thought, distantly remembering the girl tracking him all over Port Argentium in hopes of making him swallow a spoonful of dragon-chicken giblets soup. She had stepped into his mind, and knew him too well now, a knowledge that under normal circumstances would have earned her a painless death. But thankfully for her sanity she didn't fully understand.
She had known enough to guess that claiming to own the land that the Tower had landed on would get Gray to consider that he still worked for someone, after all, and thus get him to step out of the sea which he had forgotten existed around him as the tide raged on and the sun moved across the sky and he simply stared at the horizon, statue-like.
Yet somehow it felt as if he'd never fully left the sea.
He pushed those thoughts to the back of his mind. A challenge had been issued.
“Is that a promise?” Gray asked, and the mist around Alden's feet seemed to glow more intensely for him. He shook his head as if there was water in his ears, and it seemed as off a gesture as any of his words. “I'm sorry, I don't...” Understand, he almost wanted to say, but it wouldn't have been true. There was a pause. He heard the words, and if asked he could translate them into five languages without even thinking. It's just, together, his mind couldn't make sense of them. It was as if sentences were paths his mind was too exhausted to follow, only stopping at familiar places along the way. Places he yearned for.
“A fight. Yes. I believe that would be an appropriate trade.”
Abruptly, he strode towards the other shadow, and just as suddenly stopped, at what would be a standard distance for a spar with weapons. And he thought that the air was a frustrating opponent to fight, after all.
He bowed.
And part of him, the part that was still smiling, couldn't stop wondering where in this mist the other hid his sword.
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Alden
Dedicated
Roleplay posts: 266
Age: 53(?)
Appearance: The reference image is a commissioned piece and is accurate.
Alden is 6 even, with shoulder-length messy black hair, and several days worth of beard stubble. He is handsome, with a powerful jaw, mid-set cheekbones, and a perpetual grin that makes him seem younger than he really is. His bright green eyes, constantly sparkle with barely contained mirth. He has the lithe well-muscled body of a swordsman, and he moves with considerable grace and dexterity.
If one were to do a more thorough examination of Alden's eyes they may notice a further detail. Around the outside edge of his iris, there's an intricate series of minuscule grey runes.
Underneath his shirt, Alden's skin is a mass of scar tissue. Starting from just below his neckline, there is very little space that does not sport some relic of a past injury. A particularly observant person may also note that among these scars, some are a bright scarlet. These scarlet scars form an intricate series of runes hiding amidst the rest of the scars.
-------------------------------------------
Equipment: Alden's general loadout when he goes fighting consists of the following:
A twin set of enchanted shortswords. The simple straight blades are unnatural dark, absorbing rather than reflecting light. Giving the enchanted steel an appearance closer to cold iron. The guard has the Isran sun emblem emblazoned in a medallion shape just above the guard, which is wrapped in simple leather. The enchantments increase their sharpness and durability, as well as being able to ignite the blood of anything that he has pierced with either blade.
Numerous braces and hidden throwing knives all over his body. At one point, these were also enchanted but when the calamity struck he didn't have time to grab his original set. So these are all well-made but ultimately mundane weapons. Still, with his strength and skill, they can be quite deadly.
Unfortunately, at present, he is also missing his armour. His preferred armour is leather dyed in mottled black and greys, with strike plates sewn between layers for added protection. His old set was also enchanted for increased protection from physical and magical attacks.
-------------------------------------------
Skills and Abilities: Alden is, for lack of a better term, a weapon master. He has been trained to use almost any weapon you can think to name. Relentless daily training with each, with extraordinarily demanding expectations on performance and harsh incentives for failure giving a level of skill with most of them that make him formidable.
However, his preferred style involves twin short swords. While he is skilled with all of his weapons thanks to training, he discovered a natural talent with the blade. His level of skill when wielding his short swords is on another level entirely, nearly transcendent in his skill.
On top of that, he is a living magical enchantment. Carved into his body are a variety of runes that grant him numerous innate abilities. He is inhumanly strong, around three to four times stronger than a man in a similar state of physical fitness would be. This also applies to his endurance, speed, reflexes, and other physical traits. He also has regenerative abilities exceeding human normal, able to heal from even broken bones in a matter of days rather than weeks.
In addition, he is immune to most poisons and resistant to the rest. The runes etched into his eyes ensure he can see the same no matter the level of light and reveal magical auras to him. Runes along his back make him impossible to scry on directly and provide him a measure of resistance to magical attack. This, combined with training, also makes him immune to magical mental influence. Finally, runes on his feet dampen any sound he might make taking his already considerable stealth abilities to another level entirely.
Speaking of his training also included all of the skills one would think an Assassin should have. He knows how to mix poisons, move without being seen or making noise, scale walls, lie or disguise himself, pick locks, pick pockets, just for starters. He is also quite skilled at clerical work and he has some diplomacy ability after thirty years leading the Sun Marshals.
Beyond all of this, Alden also possesses an incredible amount of willpower. If Alden decides that he will do something, there is very little that can stop him from doing it. In fact, at present, the only thing that could deter him from a course of action is Captain Naoki. The former Empress is the only person he has any loyalty to and he often values her judgement on matters above his own.
-------------------------------------------
Biography: Alden was born to a small farming family in an out-of-the-way village. His parents named him Toan and until he was five his destiny was most likely to live and die on the same farm he was born. However, that all changed when Pride arrived.
The leader of a criminal group known as The Set, Pride offered his parents a sum of money that would make any poor farmer's heart stop. Enough money to change their lives forever and all he wanted was Alden, one of nearly a dozen children. A child that wasn't even old enough to help with chores around the farm yet. And the man as so nice, he wanted a ward that he could train to be a retainer how bad of a life could that be?
The answer to that question was basically Hell. Pride was a potent alchemist, enchanter, and scholar and he had but one goal in mind. To create a superior warrior. Alden was subjected to hellish daily training along with six other children. Forced to learn to fight with every weapon, against any foe, in any condition. His limbs were broken deliberately and he was forced to continue to fight and train in constant agony. And this was among the mildest of the ways he was trained.
The culmination of the training came when he was twelve. When he and the six other children were locked in a room and told that the only one who got to leave... was the only one to survive. Of course, surviving was hardly a reward.
Once Pride had only the strongest of the children left he proceeded to the next step of his plan. Alden's memories and identity were seared away as Pride carved runes into his flesh and his very soul. Transforming the young man into a living magical artifact and keeping him on a drug that suppressed all of his emotions.
From there Alden became the new Wrath of the set, a weapon meant only to slay those he was told to. That may have been all he would be but Pride made a miscalculation, Alden's runes helped him to build an immunity to the dosage meant to keep his emotions in check, a weakness made worse by Pride having let him keep his anger thinking it would make him a better weapon. Eventually, events conspired and Alden snapped when the only member of The Set to be kind to him, Sloth, was killed for threatening to expose Pride.
Alden, driven into a deeper rage than ever before killed Envy, Lust, Gluttony, and even disembowelled Pride. Greed manage to escape and Alden slaughtered everything in his path trying to catch the man. Eventually succeeding in his goal. Bereft of a target for his rage and the chase having left him in the middle of nowhere Alden finally collapsed the trauma and coming off of the dosage causing him to bury most of his memories.
He wound up in Isra where his talents and skill soon earned him the eye of the then, criminal Madam Naoki. She recruited him as one of her enforcers a role he continued as her power expanded and grew until she finally became Empress. His reward for his loyalty? Appointment to the head of The Sun Marshals her special police force, effectively making him her right-hand man.
During this time he also uncovered his own past and learned that Pride had survived, the man had made preparations for such an eventuality and his death only saw his soul moving to a phylactery as he became a lich.
Pride created a new Set, this time making each member just as he made Alden. Eventually, this culminated in Pride attacking Isra and his eventual, final defeat.
Decades have passed since that time and Alden, whose power kept him at his prime for years continued to serve Isra until the new calamity took him to The Island of Mists, his empress reduced to a captain and he now serving as her first mate.
-------------------------------------------
Allegiances: Naoki and Port Argentum
Place of Residence: Port Argentum
Registered: Mar 21, 2021 13:21:25 GMT -5
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Post by Alden on Dec 29, 2021 23:30:56 GMT -5
Alden let out a long low sigh of disappointment as the other man chose to fight. He supposed he shouldn't have been surprised, it wasn't in a wolfhound's nature to go quietly. At least it would be a quick fight. There was no denying Gray's skill and obvious tenacity but Alden had observed the man's earlier exercises and they'd been at odds for hours now. He had a basic grasp of Gray's capabilities and Alden's assessment was that they were exceptional but ultimately human.
On a good day, where Grey was well-rested and in good health the two probably could have had a decent spare. Alden's physical abilities were enhanced by the runes on his skin so he would have held a definitive edge. However, that edge could have been overcome with experience. A veteran like Gray could easily have a trick or two that Alden hadn't seen that might let him get an edge. But Gray wasn't at his best.
No, it was clear that Gray was underfed, hurting, and at least a little muddled. Naturally, Alden was the sort to be paranoid enough to allow for the possibility that it was all an act to get him to let his guard down but it seemed very unlikely. Especially when the other man actually bowed like this was a proper sparring match and not a duel between two assassin's in the night.
"Very well."
The bow was not returned but it wasn't capitalized on either. Instead, Alden relaxed into a neutral ready stance his eyes on Gray waiting for the other man to make the first move. Alden had already proven he could outwait Gray and he had enough advantages that it seemed only fair to give the other man the first move. After all, Alden was still armed and Gray's sword was hidden off in a bush. Not particularly well but in the dark Gray would have to get quite lucky to find it in the middle of a fight.
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Gray
Dedicated
Roleplay posts: 125
Registered: Jul 2, 2021 10:00:37 GMT -5
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Post by Gray on Dec 31, 2021 13:53:03 GMT -5
'Never mind the sword,' Gray thought, striding towards Alden through the gently rolling mist. The space between his shoulders felt too light, his steps too free, as if in a dream. It's not as if he could have used it in combat, he thought. Even for someone used to its unusual axe-like balance, the heavy executioner blade was not something most wanted to – or could – keep swinging around. Not even him. It was not his favorite weapon; it was barely a weapon at all. It was his beautiful, well-crafted tool that could separate heads and limbs at the gentlest touch. 'Where is it?' It's not as if he could use his favored weapons, either – the thin, misericordia-like daggers tapering to needle-point, which cut through flesh like through butter and would shatter at any dedicated resistance.
Which is why, when the assassin had felt emotion overwhelm him, he had stolen weapons of rougher make to inscribe his sorrows onto trees with.
It was two of these weapons that he had juggled with earlier, and it was these two daggers that were hanging at his belt, in sheaths on opposite sides. It was one of them that he pulled out, one long moment after acknowledging, with a nod, that the other relinquished the first move to him, and which he directed in one swift motion towards Alden's neck.
Evidently, Gray had no qualms about attacking unarmed people. Indeed, if he did his job right, most people he paid his sharp attentions to would have no time or opportunity to grab weapons, and either no time or too much time to regret it. This was different.
Alden was to Gray what Gray was to most people: a mystery. A being of unknown, but remarkable competence. More importantly, he was the only thing right now that broke through the numbness that had hold of him.
And so Gray would do anything to see where their game would lead. So he struck. A feint to the neck, and then, if nothing urgent required it elsewhere, the dagger would slip into a thrust to Alden's armpit.
He felt, from a place so deep that he couldn't put it in words, not even to himself, that if he could just indulge in this game for a little longer, then things might just start making sense again.
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Alden
Dedicated
Roleplay posts: 266
Age: 53(?)
Appearance: The reference image is a commissioned piece and is accurate.
Alden is 6 even, with shoulder-length messy black hair, and several days worth of beard stubble. He is handsome, with a powerful jaw, mid-set cheekbones, and a perpetual grin that makes him seem younger than he really is. His bright green eyes, constantly sparkle with barely contained mirth. He has the lithe well-muscled body of a swordsman, and he moves with considerable grace and dexterity.
If one were to do a more thorough examination of Alden's eyes they may notice a further detail. Around the outside edge of his iris, there's an intricate series of minuscule grey runes.
Underneath his shirt, Alden's skin is a mass of scar tissue. Starting from just below his neckline, there is very little space that does not sport some relic of a past injury. A particularly observant person may also note that among these scars, some are a bright scarlet. These scarlet scars form an intricate series of runes hiding amidst the rest of the scars.
-------------------------------------------
Equipment: Alden's general loadout when he goes fighting consists of the following:
A twin set of enchanted shortswords. The simple straight blades are unnatural dark, absorbing rather than reflecting light. Giving the enchanted steel an appearance closer to cold iron. The guard has the Isran sun emblem emblazoned in a medallion shape just above the guard, which is wrapped in simple leather. The enchantments increase their sharpness and durability, as well as being able to ignite the blood of anything that he has pierced with either blade.
Numerous braces and hidden throwing knives all over his body. At one point, these were also enchanted but when the calamity struck he didn't have time to grab his original set. So these are all well-made but ultimately mundane weapons. Still, with his strength and skill, they can be quite deadly.
Unfortunately, at present, he is also missing his armour. His preferred armour is leather dyed in mottled black and greys, with strike plates sewn between layers for added protection. His old set was also enchanted for increased protection from physical and magical attacks.
-------------------------------------------
Skills and Abilities: Alden is, for lack of a better term, a weapon master. He has been trained to use almost any weapon you can think to name. Relentless daily training with each, with extraordinarily demanding expectations on performance and harsh incentives for failure giving a level of skill with most of them that make him formidable.
However, his preferred style involves twin short swords. While he is skilled with all of his weapons thanks to training, he discovered a natural talent with the blade. His level of skill when wielding his short swords is on another level entirely, nearly transcendent in his skill.
On top of that, he is a living magical enchantment. Carved into his body are a variety of runes that grant him numerous innate abilities. He is inhumanly strong, around three to four times stronger than a man in a similar state of physical fitness would be. This also applies to his endurance, speed, reflexes, and other physical traits. He also has regenerative abilities exceeding human normal, able to heal from even broken bones in a matter of days rather than weeks.
In addition, he is immune to most poisons and resistant to the rest. The runes etched into his eyes ensure he can see the same no matter the level of light and reveal magical auras to him. Runes along his back make him impossible to scry on directly and provide him a measure of resistance to magical attack. This, combined with training, also makes him immune to magical mental influence. Finally, runes on his feet dampen any sound he might make taking his already considerable stealth abilities to another level entirely.
Speaking of his training also included all of the skills one would think an Assassin should have. He knows how to mix poisons, move without being seen or making noise, scale walls, lie or disguise himself, pick locks, pick pockets, just for starters. He is also quite skilled at clerical work and he has some diplomacy ability after thirty years leading the Sun Marshals.
Beyond all of this, Alden also possesses an incredible amount of willpower. If Alden decides that he will do something, there is very little that can stop him from doing it. In fact, at present, the only thing that could deter him from a course of action is Captain Naoki. The former Empress is the only person he has any loyalty to and he often values her judgement on matters above his own.
-------------------------------------------
Biography: Alden was born to a small farming family in an out-of-the-way village. His parents named him Toan and until he was five his destiny was most likely to live and die on the same farm he was born. However, that all changed when Pride arrived.
The leader of a criminal group known as The Set, Pride offered his parents a sum of money that would make any poor farmer's heart stop. Enough money to change their lives forever and all he wanted was Alden, one of nearly a dozen children. A child that wasn't even old enough to help with chores around the farm yet. And the man as so nice, he wanted a ward that he could train to be a retainer how bad of a life could that be?
The answer to that question was basically Hell. Pride was a potent alchemist, enchanter, and scholar and he had but one goal in mind. To create a superior warrior. Alden was subjected to hellish daily training along with six other children. Forced to learn to fight with every weapon, against any foe, in any condition. His limbs were broken deliberately and he was forced to continue to fight and train in constant agony. And this was among the mildest of the ways he was trained.
The culmination of the training came when he was twelve. When he and the six other children were locked in a room and told that the only one who got to leave... was the only one to survive. Of course, surviving was hardly a reward.
Once Pride had only the strongest of the children left he proceeded to the next step of his plan. Alden's memories and identity were seared away as Pride carved runes into his flesh and his very soul. Transforming the young man into a living magical artifact and keeping him on a drug that suppressed all of his emotions.
From there Alden became the new Wrath of the set, a weapon meant only to slay those he was told to. That may have been all he would be but Pride made a miscalculation, Alden's runes helped him to build an immunity to the dosage meant to keep his emotions in check, a weakness made worse by Pride having let him keep his anger thinking it would make him a better weapon. Eventually, events conspired and Alden snapped when the only member of The Set to be kind to him, Sloth, was killed for threatening to expose Pride.
Alden, driven into a deeper rage than ever before killed Envy, Lust, Gluttony, and even disembowelled Pride. Greed manage to escape and Alden slaughtered everything in his path trying to catch the man. Eventually succeeding in his goal. Bereft of a target for his rage and the chase having left him in the middle of nowhere Alden finally collapsed the trauma and coming off of the dosage causing him to bury most of his memories.
He wound up in Isra where his talents and skill soon earned him the eye of the then, criminal Madam Naoki. She recruited him as one of her enforcers a role he continued as her power expanded and grew until she finally became Empress. His reward for his loyalty? Appointment to the head of The Sun Marshals her special police force, effectively making him her right-hand man.
During this time he also uncovered his own past and learned that Pride had survived, the man had made preparations for such an eventuality and his death only saw his soul moving to a phylactery as he became a lich.
Pride created a new Set, this time making each member just as he made Alden. Eventually, this culminated in Pride attacking Isra and his eventual, final defeat.
Decades have passed since that time and Alden, whose power kept him at his prime for years continued to serve Isra until the new calamity took him to The Island of Mists, his empress reduced to a captain and he now serving as her first mate.
-------------------------------------------
Allegiances: Naoki and Port Argentum
Place of Residence: Port Argentum
Registered: Mar 21, 2021 13:21:25 GMT -5
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Post by Alden on Jan 2, 2022 13:13:56 GMT -5
The first thing Alden noted as Gray attacked was that the man's form was perfect. Despite everything the other man had clearly gone through there was no wavering in his muscles as struck. However, the toll of hours spent immobile, after a night without sleep, and probably longer without food or drink were obvious. To a normal person the attacks would have still would have seemed to be swift and deadly but to someone with training? It was like Gray was trying to fight in water like the air was providing just enough resistance to slow him down fractionally.
Alden didn't even react to the feint, easy to spot when Alden had so much time to consider it. When the blow came in for his armpit Alden stepped to the side, caught Grey's wrist, tugged, and stuck out his leg. It was the sort of maneuver the man himself had probably performed hundreds of times. It was the sort of attack he should have been able to dodge easily. But it happened with a blur of speed that Gray's fogged mind would likely find hard to track.
Should Gray fall victim to the counter then he would find himself laying face-first on the ground. Aided along by a forceful shove from his opponent as he tripped over the man's leg. As Alden, wondered just what the hell was going on. His plan had been to kill Grey. He knew what men like Grey were capable of and had hoped that he could talk him down but the other man chose to fight. But Alden was starting to suspect that his opponent wasn't in a fit state to make that choice. Was this... was he doing the right thing? The other man had chosen this but... This was... it didn't feel right to kill someone like Gray, someone so clearly skilled when the other man wasn't able to properly defend himself. Alden's mind flashed back to the dragon on the beach. A proud, dangerous beast that he'd argued deserved to be let go because what right did they have to kill someone because they might be a threat? Why was Grey different? Because Alden didn't like looking in the mirror of what could be and what had been?
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Gray
Dedicated
Roleplay posts: 125
Registered: Jul 2, 2021 10:00:37 GMT -5
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Post by Gray on Jan 5, 2022 14:14:48 GMT -5
It was over in a breath.
Wet grass brushed against his chin. He struck the ground, which cushioned his fall because the man had barely bothered to do so himself. As if, sometime between him being disarmed and the landing, he had simply lost interest. A silvery mist fell over him like a shroud, making it feel as if he'd never stopped falling. For a moment Gray simply lay motionless, breathing in the nature-and-germ-scented haze. His dagger was stuck in the ground just out of reach; his other dagger's sheath dug oddly into the side of his thigh. It didn't matter. He suddenly rolled over on his back, not in a decisive counter but rather with the unthinking twitch of water droplets trying to find the most comfortable place along a slope. Because, like a player of go, once you got to a certain skill level you understood when it was over from the very first rounds.
'I didn't even see him,' he thought. And his heart clenched.
He raised his hand, and grasped the moon in his outstretched fingers between wisps of mist. So thin, he thought. His fingers were thinner than he remembered. He supposed that burning himself out in training while not taking much in was bound to result in mistakes.
Except nothing else made sense.
Gray's fingers fell down, and clenched against a nearby object. A clump of grass. He used it to pull himself up, and sat with his knees half-bent and shoulders bending slightly forward.
“I thought I would kill the soldiers.” Gray said. He didn't look at Alden as he spoke. “If I trained with them. I am not in my rightest mind.” His voice was monotone, only the brittle spaces between the words betraying what for another would have been distress and pain. “Looks like I needn't have worried.”
Those spaces had been visited many times. Exhaustion was evident in his frame, from his blue, near-colorless eyes, to the thin, near-white hair caught in a ponytail, a few strands of which had been left in the grass.
“As promised, I will keep up my end of the trade.” There was a smile on his face, or at least something that tried to copy it while never having seen a human. “I will return tonight's daggers. A certain ghost will be no more.”
He regarded his wrist with the attention one might offer to a gem reflecting the glimmer of a passing light in darkness. He tried to play over the last moments in his mind, try to uncover what he could have done differently, yet his mind felt like an overstretched string. 'I didn't even see him,' he repeated. His fist clenched. Was it his luck that when he finally met a challenging opponent, the Magician would be too weak to be more than a clown?
Just as well, for Gray had been used to making his own luck.
“In two weeks.” Gray said, with studied disinterest. He couldn't help himself from sneaking a glance at Alden, so instead he stared. “Any chance we could play another game in two weeks' time?”
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Alden
Dedicated
Roleplay posts: 266
Age: 53(?)
Appearance: The reference image is a commissioned piece and is accurate.
Alden is 6 even, with shoulder-length messy black hair, and several days worth of beard stubble. He is handsome, with a powerful jaw, mid-set cheekbones, and a perpetual grin that makes him seem younger than he really is. His bright green eyes, constantly sparkle with barely contained mirth. He has the lithe well-muscled body of a swordsman, and he moves with considerable grace and dexterity.
If one were to do a more thorough examination of Alden's eyes they may notice a further detail. Around the outside edge of his iris, there's an intricate series of minuscule grey runes.
Underneath his shirt, Alden's skin is a mass of scar tissue. Starting from just below his neckline, there is very little space that does not sport some relic of a past injury. A particularly observant person may also note that among these scars, some are a bright scarlet. These scarlet scars form an intricate series of runes hiding amidst the rest of the scars.
-------------------------------------------
Equipment: Alden's general loadout when he goes fighting consists of the following:
A twin set of enchanted shortswords. The simple straight blades are unnatural dark, absorbing rather than reflecting light. Giving the enchanted steel an appearance closer to cold iron. The guard has the Isran sun emblem emblazoned in a medallion shape just above the guard, which is wrapped in simple leather. The enchantments increase their sharpness and durability, as well as being able to ignite the blood of anything that he has pierced with either blade.
Numerous braces and hidden throwing knives all over his body. At one point, these were also enchanted but when the calamity struck he didn't have time to grab his original set. So these are all well-made but ultimately mundane weapons. Still, with his strength and skill, they can be quite deadly.
Unfortunately, at present, he is also missing his armour. His preferred armour is leather dyed in mottled black and greys, with strike plates sewn between layers for added protection. His old set was also enchanted for increased protection from physical and magical attacks.
-------------------------------------------
Skills and Abilities: Alden is, for lack of a better term, a weapon master. He has been trained to use almost any weapon you can think to name. Relentless daily training with each, with extraordinarily demanding expectations on performance and harsh incentives for failure giving a level of skill with most of them that make him formidable.
However, his preferred style involves twin short swords. While he is skilled with all of his weapons thanks to training, he discovered a natural talent with the blade. His level of skill when wielding his short swords is on another level entirely, nearly transcendent in his skill.
On top of that, he is a living magical enchantment. Carved into his body are a variety of runes that grant him numerous innate abilities. He is inhumanly strong, around three to four times stronger than a man in a similar state of physical fitness would be. This also applies to his endurance, speed, reflexes, and other physical traits. He also has regenerative abilities exceeding human normal, able to heal from even broken bones in a matter of days rather than weeks.
In addition, he is immune to most poisons and resistant to the rest. The runes etched into his eyes ensure he can see the same no matter the level of light and reveal magical auras to him. Runes along his back make him impossible to scry on directly and provide him a measure of resistance to magical attack. This, combined with training, also makes him immune to magical mental influence. Finally, runes on his feet dampen any sound he might make taking his already considerable stealth abilities to another level entirely.
Speaking of his training also included all of the skills one would think an Assassin should have. He knows how to mix poisons, move without being seen or making noise, scale walls, lie or disguise himself, pick locks, pick pockets, just for starters. He is also quite skilled at clerical work and he has some diplomacy ability after thirty years leading the Sun Marshals.
Beyond all of this, Alden also possesses an incredible amount of willpower. If Alden decides that he will do something, there is very little that can stop him from doing it. In fact, at present, the only thing that could deter him from a course of action is Captain Naoki. The former Empress is the only person he has any loyalty to and he often values her judgement on matters above his own.
-------------------------------------------
Biography: Alden was born to a small farming family in an out-of-the-way village. His parents named him Toan and until he was five his destiny was most likely to live and die on the same farm he was born. However, that all changed when Pride arrived.
The leader of a criminal group known as The Set, Pride offered his parents a sum of money that would make any poor farmer's heart stop. Enough money to change their lives forever and all he wanted was Alden, one of nearly a dozen children. A child that wasn't even old enough to help with chores around the farm yet. And the man as so nice, he wanted a ward that he could train to be a retainer how bad of a life could that be?
The answer to that question was basically Hell. Pride was a potent alchemist, enchanter, and scholar and he had but one goal in mind. To create a superior warrior. Alden was subjected to hellish daily training along with six other children. Forced to learn to fight with every weapon, against any foe, in any condition. His limbs were broken deliberately and he was forced to continue to fight and train in constant agony. And this was among the mildest of the ways he was trained.
The culmination of the training came when he was twelve. When he and the six other children were locked in a room and told that the only one who got to leave... was the only one to survive. Of course, surviving was hardly a reward.
Once Pride had only the strongest of the children left he proceeded to the next step of his plan. Alden's memories and identity were seared away as Pride carved runes into his flesh and his very soul. Transforming the young man into a living magical artifact and keeping him on a drug that suppressed all of his emotions.
From there Alden became the new Wrath of the set, a weapon meant only to slay those he was told to. That may have been all he would be but Pride made a miscalculation, Alden's runes helped him to build an immunity to the dosage meant to keep his emotions in check, a weakness made worse by Pride having let him keep his anger thinking it would make him a better weapon. Eventually, events conspired and Alden snapped when the only member of The Set to be kind to him, Sloth, was killed for threatening to expose Pride.
Alden, driven into a deeper rage than ever before killed Envy, Lust, Gluttony, and even disembowelled Pride. Greed manage to escape and Alden slaughtered everything in his path trying to catch the man. Eventually succeeding in his goal. Bereft of a target for his rage and the chase having left him in the middle of nowhere Alden finally collapsed the trauma and coming off of the dosage causing him to bury most of his memories.
He wound up in Isra where his talents and skill soon earned him the eye of the then, criminal Madam Naoki. She recruited him as one of her enforcers a role he continued as her power expanded and grew until she finally became Empress. His reward for his loyalty? Appointment to the head of The Sun Marshals her special police force, effectively making him her right-hand man.
During this time he also uncovered his own past and learned that Pride had survived, the man had made preparations for such an eventuality and his death only saw his soul moving to a phylactery as he became a lich.
Pride created a new Set, this time making each member just as he made Alden. Eventually, this culminated in Pride attacking Isra and his eventual, final defeat.
Decades have passed since that time and Alden, whose power kept him at his prime for years continued to serve Isra until the new calamity took him to The Island of Mists, his empress reduced to a captain and he now serving as her first mate.
-------------------------------------------
Allegiances: Naoki and Port Argentum
Place of Residence: Port Argentum
Registered: Mar 21, 2021 13:21:25 GMT -5
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Post by Alden on Jan 5, 2022 17:52:00 GMT -5
The other man started to shift and Alden had a split second decision to make. To either drive a blade from the center of his adversary's back or... Well what he decided to do simply by thinking about the choice. To not, to let the wolfhound Gray live another day. It was clear that Gray understood he was beat, the other man was lost in thought. Perhaps pondering some of the same things Alden had been in the last few days, perhaps not. It was hard to say as he listened to other man ramble.
From the sounds of it Alden had achieved his goal, the ghost would no longer haunt the training grounds. It also seemed that he'd not quite had enough since there was a request for another match in two weeks. Another game as Gray put it. That was an interesting way to put it and it said something that Alden was not sure he liked about the other man.
"No, you would not be recovered by then."
The man needed to put weight back on, to sleep in some place warm and dry for a few weeks, and he suspected that a bath wouldn't have been out of order though Alden did not plan to get in close enough to confirm. Gray also seemed to be older and that would factor into time to recover as well.
"This world doesn't need ghosts or wolfhounds. We lost everything. What we need now is people, people who will take what skills and knowledge they have that might help others survive and share it. People who will help keep what remains alive when it seems the world is set to snuff us out."
Something he was trying to do though it had been a struggle. The issue with being the public wolfhound of a master who was still alive. No one wished to impose upon him for fear of what he might do, even when he was offering to help.
"In turn, they will share what they can to keep you alive. Do with that information what you will. If you approach me again before you are fully recovered we will not play a game. I will put you down as an act of mercy."
The way he said these last words were, surprisingly, not with a tone of finality. Not menace, not bluster, not even a hint of threat. It might take Gray a moment to recognize the tone because it was not one that usually went with such a statement. Alden was saying it out of kindness, informing Gray that if the man could not find someway to survive in this world then Alden would at least give him the kindness of a quick death in combat. A strange mercy but Alden suspected that Gray new as well as he, that sometimes dead was better. Better to not be then to exist in suffering that has no clear end, perhaps no end except death.
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Gray
Dedicated
Roleplay posts: 125
Registered: Jul 2, 2021 10:00:37 GMT -5
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Post by Gray on Jan 13, 2022 16:08:07 GMT -5
Words reached him as if through rice paper, the cheap, see-through kind used for kibyōshi illustrated woodblock prints, with spidery letters going across his vision as onomatopoeias. 'Indistinct chatter'. 'Ominous, ominous.' Gray was exhausted, and mostly running on instinct now, but he'd spent enough time trying to figure out people, something he had no innate talent for, that by reflex he could sometimes read between the lines.
He didn't see the lines.
“So what you're truly saying is that you feel useless.” The white-haired man said.
Little turns of phrase. Little clues of context. Alden spoke of things that were unnecessary, but Gray knew for sure that he hadn't been the only one engaged in knife-edge hide-and-seek (he hoped. It would be utterly regrettable not remembering what drugs he took for such vivid hallucination). He hadn't been the only one who chose to play the waiting game. Then, there was the fact that Alden had not outright rejected his suggestion for a spar.
Perhaps he was, too, looking for a challenge.
'Two weeks. I can make it in two weeks. I just have to ask Nina to keep track how long two weeks are...' The idea lingered like a burn.
“Out of place.” He continued. Gray turned his head towards Alden, but got distracted halfway through and so only one of his eyes fixed one of Alden's eyes in a lopsided stare. At a closer look, the white-haired man did not appear to be genuinely old but there was a strange, ageless quality to his features that placed him anywhere from twenty to fifty to hundreds of years old. “My question is, do you truly believe what you're saying?” He paused. “Oh, not the part about killing.” He paused again. He felt there should have been a gesture there, a little twitch of a smile perhaps, but he didn't feel like it. “The part about not killing. About changing ways.”
From reflex, he would find his way into another one's mind, and cut it open.
“Is it something you genuinely want for yourself? Or a role that you're trying to fill, like water fills a new glass, because your master would find it more comfortable that way?” Ever so slowly, Gray tilted his head. “Are you even able to tell the difference?”
Perhaps they were the same questions that he had been asking himself.
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