[IC] Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

[Psyker Landshark]

Master Isolde bore the Kirins' assorted criticism with grace, simply bowing her head and accepting their scorn.

"Forgive me, but it has little to do with the presence of a healer. Tis merely that the intent behind the trial is already known by Neve, and it wouldn't be much of a test if one possesses the answer before it even begins. I can say no more on this subject. In the meantime, we will have accomodations prepared for you at the finest traveler's lodging available in the city. I will seek you out on the morrow."

A quick trip to the nearby upscale inn confirmed her words, and the Kirins were left to their own devices until the next day once more...

___

@The Otter @Click This

Some time throughout the day, both Esben and Eliane would find a letter each planted in their rooms, written in standard SEED cipher. When decoded, they would read:

We need to talk. I've a room prepared and sanitized at the merchant's inn three streets south of your lodgings. Meet one hour after sundown, second room from the stairs on the third floor.

-K

When Esben and Elly arrived at the proper time, they would find a room barely of anything but a bed and desk, with one Deputy Director Lambert waiting for them, arms folded.

"Close the door behind you." A snap of her fingers and the glow of materia warded the entrance once that was done, and she stayed still, looking at the two expectantly.

"The two of you weren't supposed to link up." She afforded herself the luxury of a frustrated sigh. "I've had to rearrange no few of our deployments to cover the gap in our network. Now, I want a full report since you left Osprey."

___

@VitaVitaAR @vietmyke @HereComesTheSnow

Goug had asked Galahad, Robin, and Rudolf to accompany him in acquiring supplies, given that they had been the only three remaining at the inn when he'd checked. He had promptly, and very confidently, gotten them supremely lost within the winding, gnarled streets of Brightlam.

One wrong turn into a dark corner had them set upon by a half dozen men in tattered cloaks and theater masks, brandishing thrusting swords of various types.

"Stand and deliver!" The highwayman in lead snarled. When no payment was forthcoming, they attacked. As the fight went on, one detail would be clear to all three: most of the men fought just like Robin did. The same rhythm, the same footwork, the same cut-and-thrust. Much like it had been with Izayoi and the Revenant in the desert, the fact was inescapable.

___

@Raineh Daze @Ithradine

Rumors heard out in the streets had led both of them to the same location.

"Did you hear? That healer, out in the wilds. The one going about saving people from Blight? Soriel, they called her. Someone saw her again, closest to Brightlam she's ever been. And she's got a new hanger-on. Some ginger Mystrel, seems to be a mage of some kind too."

"Eh? I don't know anything past that. You know who might, though? There's an information broker called the Gardener, just off the main market."

Further asking around would lead them to the same location, with the two coming across each other just as they were about to enter the ramshackle hut that had been deemed the Gardener's residence.

Eventually, the two would enter. With the instructions they had received through eavesdropping, bribery, or outright threats, they would make their way through several dilapidated, musty corridors until eventually reaching a trapdoor in a storage room. Upon descending, the world changed before them:

Marble and gold leaf coated the floors and walls, while a bronze sculpture took up the centerpiece of the office. Behind a desk of rich, aged mahogany, a corpulently obese man sat, smoking a pipe.

"Well, well. Two travelers have found little old me. You must have questions. I may have answers. For a reasonable price, of course." A cheshire grin.

[HereComesTheSnow]

Rudolf Sagramore

@VitaVitaAR@vietmyke

"Friends of yours, Fey?"

Blades crashed, painting the heavy shadows of the narrow alleyway in brief showers of orange as the trio of Kirins (nobody reasonably expecting Goug to fight) squared off with twice their number in soon-to-be unlucky highwaymen. Negotiations had quickly fallen through after it became clear that nobody intended to part with their gil so easily— Rudolf had barely the time to raise a smirk and an eyebrow at the thought of robbing people so heavily armed as they were before he was set upon by a pair of masked ne'er-do-wells.

Silver lining was that they'd prove a fair first outing for his new recruits.

The seconds that followed were a cacophony of steel striking steel, as the heavy, curved Crane's Wings at his hip were set to work on their first sortie, turning aside the straighter, thrusting attacks made by his sudden opponents. His eyes narrowed, taking their measure while he had these opening moments of uncertainty. They darted to and fro between the figures, his companions, the narrow space and sturdy walls they'd walked themselves into. Something itched at the back of his mind, feeling like familiarity.

From the jump, it seemed like they at least had a rudimentary idea of how to maximize their advantages within the space— cramped as this back alley was, he couldn't completely open the Wings up the way they demanded. His new recruits were well-suited to casting oneself almost into a dervish, swinging the body through powerful arcs as one blade played off the momentum of the other, each strike lending some of its torque to the next— fine as a lone fighter, but when minding his comrades in such tight environs, he'd suddenly found himself kind of wishing he had brought along Valon's spear instead—

That, at least, would allow him to more than contend with his opponents, who had far less concern for the likelihood of accidentally striking an ally. Theirs were the classical form of cut-and-thrust, in keeping with the highwayman look, all in-and-out movement punctuated by needling tempo. He was penned in by the space, and forced to make his reads on the defensive— they would already be out of the way by the time one of his cuts would pass through where they'd been. Trapped at the edge of their range and with no way in, he most out of the three present would be suspect to a death by a thousand cuts once they wore him down. In basic terms, this was what he intuited to be their gambit.

What they had failed to account for was something they never could have known, though. He figure out what about the feeling of each exhange was that had been bugging him.

He watched the nearby man step in deep. The rhythm, the form, the openings...

He had seen this before.

A few times with his eyes from afar, but more importantly, once over the span of a moonlit bout behind his swords. The other half of that ill-fated eve was barely two steps to his right. The space was very different, true, he didn't have a whole courtyard to open up and apply pressure through—

As the masked mystrel man tried to retract his spada, he found it off-course and caught between the Crane Wings as they crossed over its length, catching his edge on the "featherlike" quillons on the spines. Behind the thin strip of black cloth, his eyes would go wide for the moment the pressure was relieved after a slight tug forward.

"Either way, if they're holding us up I'm playing rough." a cold voice intoned from directly in front, as a blur swelled through the gloom. Still trying to catch himself, the next instant saw the world explode into a field of white pain as Rudolf's pommel smashed into the bridge of his nose. Blinded, he reared back only to find a boot planting itself into his stomach, sending him crashing into another.

—but with that revelation in hand, these guys were now an open book. Forget responding in time— by the end of sparring the better version, he was confident he knew how to break rhythm and regain initiative at a moment's notice. He could attack stance, wedge his cuts in between theirs, or leverage physicality in tight, just as he had here.

The time to sit and watch on the back foot was over. Now that he knew what he was dealing with, it was time to smash through their game the way he had the best of this archetype. Having bought himself a moment's space, the Sagramori Auxilia decided it was his turn to use the terrain to his advantage.

As though channeling the spirit of the mighty sabertooth whose fang he had pried out four years ago, the young man surged forward and pounced, using the nearby wall as a springboard to launch himself clear over the heads of the highwaymen—

"Heads up, nimrod."

—Only to descend upon their rearmost like a falling buzzsaw, twisting at the hips and trunk into a whirling set of hews as his boot planted upon the wall opposite and launched Wings and Warrior both towards the earth. Now behind their lines, suddenly it was the three Kirins bunching up and entrapping the would-be robbers.

He had no intention of letting up his assault.