benit149

Tales of Brilliance

Yes.

Vivi-Dream

"Damn! Hez, find a hiding spot!" Lin exclaimed as she transformed into her living sword mode. Lin took Alice's advice and approached a pair of madcaps, remaining on guard until they attacked first. As expected, the one wielding an oversized spoon lunged at her and swung its cutlery weapon sideways. She parried it and further strikes, floating up and around to compensate for having a weapon as her body. With one blow, she finally managed to knock the spoon out of its hands, and she twirled in the air a few times while aiming at its back. Lin plunged clean through the madcap's spine, killing it instantly.

Unfortunately, the second monster caught sight of Hez as the mute child merely sat down on a nearby boulder and watched the battle as a spectator, rather than finding somewhere to hide like she usually would.

"Hez, you idiot!!" Lin screamed, streamlining at the madcap as it raised its fork and aimed it at Hez like a trident.

Something long and thin suddenly protruded out of it's head, piercing its skull and brain like a precise needle. Lin was surprised when the corpse collapsed, revealing the blank-faced Hez as she extracted the reverse end of her white carnation wand. It had been sharpened to a point which allowed her to kill the madcap without even getting up. Hez flicked some blood off the wand, then it glowed and transformed back into her mantle, clean and white as usual.

"W-What was that...?" Lin stammered. Never before in any of their adventures had Hez shown any capacity for killing monsters. Her mental state was deteriorating so badly that her capacity for fear was starting to become dulled. As much as Lin wanted to worry for her partner, she had to return her attention to the battle at hand as several more madcaps found the duo and approached them.

Tales of Brilliance

The Sect is excellent with coverups, so if anyone were to try and capture the bandits on their own, some thaumaturges would appear and 'help' kill the thieves under the pretext of 'serving the country'. Even if no one tried to stop the bandits, the Sect would have done this anyway. The bandits, and any similar criminals, would be pawns for the Sect to dispose of later.

True, having Melvin as a wanted criminal wouldn't be enough in the grand scheme of things, but I want to handle this one step at a time. We're only at the beginning, so I want to go at a decent pace here. Ultimately, the Sect would want him dead not because he's a criminal, but because he's a living specimen of their Dragon Blood Project that needs to be silenced ASAP to protect their secrets.

Tales of Brilliance

The best scenario I can think of is that the Sect hired the bandits, who are situated in Talmen, to go south to Aoli and torch their own church there. Since the Sect is aware that someone is staging an uprising against them in Sord, the best way to flush Melvin out would be to pin more crimes on him, identify his face, and make him a wanted man. The destroyed church in Aoli would be nothing more than collateral damage to the Sect, and can be easily replaced.

After that craziness happens, the bandits can be pursued to Talmen. How does that work out?

Tales of The Radiant Brigade

Krita was about to cast a Stone Blast spell to try and shut the crowd up a bit, but that was when she looked down and found the men standing in front of the inn's doors. Were they partygoers who needed to get inside? The doors were locked to prevent any hooligans from disturbing the inn's patrons, yet she wasn't sure if they had been locked out. Krita opted to be a good Samaritan and head downstairs to let them in.

Upon opening the door though, one of the men widened his eyes with recognition. The others surrounded her, and one held a knife to her back.

"Found you. I promised that you would regret trying to stop me," he leered darkly.

"W-What? What's going on? Why are you-!?"

"You won't be so lucky this time. Stay quiet and we won't kill you."

"I... I don't understand..."

"Don't play dumb, woman. This is retribution for your interference this afternoon."

Krita had to pause for a moment. She didn't interfere with anyone today, did she? Not that she was aware of... That was when she remembered how Krile chased the blastia thief. If these guys were part of that thief's group, they were more sinister than she imagined, and they had also made a huge mistake - they thought the one they were looking for was Krita because she looked exactly like Krile, which meant they had no idea the sisters were twins. Even if Krita wanted to correct them, that would mean endangering Krile to save herself. She didn't want to put her sister in harm's way.

What was she supposed to do?

The man answered for her: "Shut up and come with us quietly."

"... Fine. But I want to know what you're going to do to me first."

"And if I don't tell you?"

"I just want to be sure you won't kill me."

"That shouldn't be your problem right now."

Damn, this guy was being stubborn. Krita scoffed and let the men guide her away from the inn, mingling with the crowd and heading into Zaphias' streets.

---

Unbeknownst to the small group of evil-looking thugs kidnapping Krita, Krile had woken up and discovered the window open. A lot of unpleasant noise and clamor reached her ears, and she wanted to shut it out immediately. She approached the window and was about to close it when she caught a glimpse of the scene and hid herself behind the curtain. She watched from above, horrified to discover that it was the same man from this afternoon. Even worse was that they held her at knife-point, hiding the weapon beneath some cloth and forcing Krita to walk with them. Thanks to the activity in the streets, no one paid much attention to what was going on.

This isn't good. If I don't chase them down, Krita might be killed because of what I did earlier. But judging from the thief's ability to escape, it might be too risky for me to challenge them alone...

Regardless, Krile had to go. She quickly threw off her nightgown and put on her regular travel clothes, equipping her sword and rushing downstairs to exit the inn and pursue the group from afar.

Tales of Brilliance

I added those locations, plus a few roads and some train tracks extending from Mecanizada to Jubil since they're the most developed cities in Sord thus far (forgot the cavern, so I'll add that later ><; ). I also added Aoli, another town that's a bit larger than Izumo and has a Sect monastery that Melvin and Co. will strike, although I may move it more north to avoid the swamp or add a route that he knows to prevent them from slowing down.

If you want to add a gang of bandits, what overall purpose will they serve? Will they just be standalone baddies that give the heroes a reason to meet each other, or are they part of a larger conspiracy by the Sect or Sord's government? Melvin's team will be going to Aoli to attack that temple, but I hope to have the Sect destroy that church themselves and cleverly lay the blame on Melvin, thus making them national criminals.

BTW Gareth, if I didn't look to see who your character was, I would have had no idea who you were RPing as in your latest post. You solely used the 'he' pronoun, which confused me.

Tales of Brilliance

That should be okay. The furthest that Sord's technology has gone is steam-powered trains.

So now Melvin will spend the day planning his next move, and I assume Deimos will be catching up on her sleep. This will help you guys move about during the daytime hours. When it reaches night, Melvin and his gang will be moving north to attack a larger Sect church in a new town named Aoli northwest of Izumo. More exciting plot stuff should happen there during this raid.

Tales of Brilliance

Melvin found it odd that Deimos didn’t hear his name during his lengthy explanation. She must have been more tired than he realized, and he had just run his mouth off for the entire night to explain everything about himself while forcing her to stay up and listen.

“That’s good to hear,” he said, accepting her hand and shaking it. “Would’ve been a waste of a night if you didn’t want to join me after hearing that. I think I mentioned my name a few times, but it’s Melvin.”

Although he felt invigorated from letting everything off his chest, the dark elf figured that his new comrade was exhausted. He stood up from the wine barrel he sat on and opened a door leading into his room. He probably wasn’t the brightest tool in the shed at times, but even he was enough of a gentleman to know when a lady needed her rest.

“You can borrow my room and get some shut eye. We usually operate in the evening anyway, plus we’ll be moving to the next hideout early this evening, so now’s the time to relax,” Melvin offered, showing her an old but decent bed with a worn mattress and blankets. “It’d be best not to come in and out of here too much lest we attract some unwanted attention. Like I said, I can’t wander about because of my appearance, so I’ll be around all day if you need me. My guys are in town scouting for news or buying food, so there’s no need to worry.”

He left Deimos alone after getting her acquainted with the room. As the wine cellar was rather cramped, Melvin needed to shift and shimmey around some stray barrels to reach a desk in the corner of the damp quarters. He used his magic to light a lantern hanging just above, allowing him to see the detailed map of Sord. The dark elf sat down and inspected it carefully, intent on spending the afternoon strategizing what to do next. Melvin also had journals from his conspirators detailing their findings after scouting the Sect of Maxwell’s various temples and facilities across the country. He relied on their accounts to figure out the details of his latest plans.

Tales of Brilliance

That's pretty much what I'm aiming for. I just don't want to lollygag around, as I'm hoping Melvin's next Sect target will bring more characters together and reveal a little of the Sect's dark nature.

Tales of Brilliance

I'll post tomorrow or so just to let folks catch up. And Asuna's right; it'll be morning with my next post.