Mike73

Spiritum

"Never again..." Lee grumbled early that morning when everyone first began to meet up for breakfast, "That damn vodka killed me and I'm dead. Damn that bottle and damn you Zimmy for bringing me out here and letting me get shit-faced." In one hand he held a water bottle, which anyone could see he'd already drank the original contents of and refilled with water again at least once judging by the wrinkling of the plastic. In his other hand he held his head, as he leaned forward in his seat and laid the point of his elbow against his leg in order to keep his arm vertical and head stable. He had one hell of a hangover, and he was regretting every moment of it.

"That's a lot more baggage than I expected."

Those had been his last words yesterday evening, in response to Colette giving him a legitimate answer last night. He now wondered if she had cursed him for it and intensified his hangover. It wouldn't be the first time he'd pissed a girl off that much.

"More eggs. More water." He practically begged as he slowly ate the plate of scrambled eggs that had been offered to him. He didn't remove his head from his hand as he ate and instead just put the bottle down, not daring to risk moving his head too much given his current state. Though that wasn't the only reason why, as he also was doing his best to use a bit of healing magic to try to cure his hangover. In all honesty, experiencing his first painful morning after a night of heavy drinking so many years back was the entire reason for him wanting to pick up healing magic in the first place. He did eventually learn the spell down to a science, and it was what lead him into delving deeper in the craft and start taking tutoring lessons in healing. Though he now wished he'd actually paid more attention back then, as high-tier healing sounded invaluable given the situation he now found himself in. If Galahad's bead barrier hadn't protected him yesterday, he knew he never would've been able to heal himself enough to continue escaping. He just wasn't as good as the true genius medics of WARDEN. Ha, it turned out his laziness throughout the years was already beginning to bite him in the ass...

Nonetheless, some time passed and his spell played out well enough. He could at the very least sit up straight without wanting to desire the sweet embrace of death anymore. It was around then that the rest of the group started showing up as well, all dressed in different attire than they'd been wearing last night. Which made sense, since their outfits had been trashed after the fight/flight with the killer robots. It had been particularly tragic for Lee when he realized his favorite blue jacket had been dirtied and damaged, and he made a personal request to Gideon to bring his jacket back in one piece when he took everyone's clothes to wash them. In the meantime, he was having to wear a spare change of clothes he'd brought with him: some dark jeans, a black V-cut shirt, and a thin gray undershirt. The color palette was a little more morose than what he usually wore, but it would have to do for now.

There was more important business at hand, however. With everyone showing up, it became time to try to come up with a plan of action, but of course everyone seemed to have differing ideas on what to do. Lee actually started to laugh a bit when things took a turn for the dramatic side, unable to help himself at all.

"Sorry, sorry," Lee apologized as he let out another chuckle, "Keep going, but I'm staying out of the planning phase. You know me, I'm not really the kind of guy to be a part of these kinds of talks." A small smile showed on his face, but he didn't look particularly happy. If anything, he looked rather melancholic. "I've gotta say though Daryll, even I felt the venom there. You sure you guys don't have a hate-love thing going on? It sure seems that way at times." Lee of course was actually oblivious to what Daryll's orientation was, and was just joking around for the sake of it. "I guess I shouldn't be one to talk though. Nice choice with the daddy card by the way, that's usually my plan of attack too when it comes to Gal."

He let the discussion continue, but Gideon managed to catch his attention.

"Ouch, yeah, I kind of forgot about politics," Lee grimaced, "Well in that case we're kind of screwed no matter what we do. If we do nothing, we become war criminals, ruin literally everything, and the war probably goes to the extreme and everybody dies. But if we bring Collie here to the capital, we still probably become war criminals and get blamed for what happened and everything still goes to shit. I mean it's not like anyone'll believe us if we tell them about the robot apocalypse, and we don't exactly have proof it even happened. Someone's gotta take the blame for what happened, might as well be us, right? And that's the best case scenario, worst case like Gid said is we get assassinated." He shook his head as he let out a sigh.

"Man we're screwed...but, it's not like we already weren't. Most of us were gonna die in a few weeks anyway, out on the battlefield." Third-Class WARDENS weren't exactly known for having a low mortality rate, after all. And it wasn't too much better for the Second-Class members either. No matter what, they were always going to run into an unhappy end. He really didn't see a way out of this, but the positive side of him was hoping that maybe everything could still turn out ok.

He turned expectantly to Colette after Gideon asked his question. He didn't really think she would just tell them confidential information like that, they were still technically enemies from two different sides of a war after all. But maybe she was desperate enough, or even vengeful enough, to let something like that slide for now.

"Setzer, before I forget," he started to say as an aside, in order to not interrupt Colette, "You look like shit. Also, you look pretty hurt from yesterday." He paused. "Don't worry, that was a joke and you still look pretty. Anyway, I'm not an expert, but I can patch you up and ease the pain a bit if you'd like."

Spiritum

Riding in the truck had probably been the most horrific moment in Lee's life. There was literally nothing he could do but sit and hope that they didn't get blown up by cannon fire, and every second seemed to stretch out to an eternity as he expected the next shot to finally hit them and kill them all. With how outnumbered and underpowered they were, it all seemed incredibly likely that they were going to die. And yet, they were alive. They made it. They survived.

It took Lee a few seconds to recognize the fact that he was still alive and that the truck had stopped. Everyone was disembarking, and so after some physical and mental effort, he managed to stumble his way out of of the truck and into the lot with everyone else. Daryll said something about getting rooms for everyone before leaving for a bit, and there was movement by the others to get some food, but Lee hardly paid attention. All he could do at the moment was to try to process what the actual fuck just happened.

The sound of someone chuckling could be heard, and he quickly realized that it was him. It didn't sound like he'd gone crazy, but more of a stressful laugh that one would let out just to release pent up feelings of anxiety or stress. Which was exactly what he was doing, seeing as he managed to build up a massive amount of both anxiety and stress in such a short amount of time.

"Ho-ly shit," Lee finally spoke, bringing his arm up to his eyes to wipe away a stray tear that had managed to creep out, "We're alive. We just fought a robot apocalypse and survived. They...don't really prepare you for that kind of thing back at the Citadel." He shoved his hands into his pockets as his laughter died down and his posture began to finally relax. Though whether he weas actually starting to relax or just trying to convince himself into relaxing was up for debate.

"Holy shit..."

Food began to get passed around, which made him realize that he was starving, though he made sure to give his own contribution and took his bottle of vodka out from his jacket, where he'd been storing it for safe-keeping. He had turned the glass bottle into what was basically jelly so it wouldn't get smashed, which was fortunate since he definitely would've broken it during the escape. With a quick counter-spell, the bottle was back to being good as new and was glass once more. He took a heavy swig out of it and passed it to whoever was next to him, though he caught the look of disdain Daryll was giving it once he returned. Another quick chuckle escaped his lips, but he said nothing of it.

"Alright." Lee spoke up again, his tone serious, "I think it's time somebody asked this question, and since no one else will I guess it's up to me." He pointed at the Princess, a focused look in his eyes.

"So are you single, or...?"

Well, that was one way to try to lighten the mood.

Spiritum

Lee's face paled when he saw the massive ship in the sky materialize from seemingly out of nowhere, and the color definitely didn't return when more robots began to descend from the sky and prepared to attack. He'd watched Daryll and Zimmy take on the single robot on their own, and though he was impressed with how quickly and efficiently they'd dispatched it, he knew none of them stood a chance against what looked like an entire army of battle androids. Especially not in such an unstable combat environment, as many of them relied on using the Mist for their tactics and fighting styles. They had no choice, they needed to get the hell out of there now!

"Alright, punch a hole, get the hell out, ride Gal's shitty truck to safety. Got it!" Lee replied to Setzer when he suggested his plan. Well, it wasn't really much of a plan, but "fight your way through" was about as complex of a plan as anyone could come up with at the moment, and he had to admit it was usually one of Setzer's better plans in most situations. He turned to the direction of where they'd left the truck but didn't immediately break into a run, not yet at least. Instead, he reached back with one hand for the roll of thread still connected to his belt. The string had begun vibrating the moment the robots landed, which was a rather pointless warning by now, but maybe it could still be useful. He brought the thread up to his mouth and cut it with his teeth, disconnecting it from the rest of the roll, and then held the now-loose end in his hand. With no need for the rest of the roll, he pocketed it with his free hand before then focusing on the Mist he'd applied to the string up to this point. Plenty of it had been unrolled during the trek, so perhaps, he'd have enough...

With a flick of the wrist, the string whipped up into the air. The Mist attached to it delivered the message down the line until all of it, even the beginning point just beyond the entrance of the crash site, received the command as well and leaped up into the air. And then, all it took was one good yank, and the entirety of it began to fly towards him, the manipulated Mist giving it a momentum it wouldn't normally have. It began to web and bunch up until it looked more like a makeshift net, and with the robots in the way, they became its targets. Lee just needed to add one final touch, and used his specialized magic style to turn the string into something much more of a hazard: its state became something akin to a hard industrial wire, thickened yet more compact. As it wrapped up a group of the robots that were in everyone's way, Lee took that as his cue to start running. The tense wire wasn't infallible, and would likely break within only a few seconds of struggle from the robots, but a few seconds of paralysis was more than enough time to give the WARDENs (plus the Princess) a head start in their escape.

As Lee ran through the trees with the others, he counted himself lucky that he hadn't set off any of the Mist pockets. He knew he'd only used a minute amount of Mist and that it shouldn't have been enough to be worried about, but it was still a gamble, and one that he could have lost at that. But maybe now was the time to take risks, seeing as they all seriously had very few options at the moment and were on the run from automative killers. Lee shook his head, still not understanding what those things were, or why they were there, or why the Princess' ship had been attacked, or why really anything that had happened was happening.

An explosion not too far ahead of him broke him out of his thoughts, and he quickly realized that the ship had begun firing at them.

"Shit shit shit!" Lee exclaimed, and knowing that Setzer had been leading the sprint through the woods, he was instantly worried that the worst had happened. "Setzer! Setzer, reply! Say something!" He was unaware of the ringing in Setzer's ears and assumed the worst. His throat tightened, and he doubled his sprinting efforts in an attempt to catch up to where the explosion had gone off to try to see if he could find Setzer and Colette. Though before he made it, he heard Setzer ask something, probably talking to Colette. At least he was fine-

Lee suddenly felt a massive force strike him in the back and send him barreling across the ground, and could hear something shattering upon the intial impact. Shock kept him still for a moment, but he quickly became conscious of the fact that he wasn't in any major pain and that he could still move. He grunted as he forced himself to stand, somehow not much worse for wear other than feeling a bit bruised. Looking back behind him, he could see one of the robots aiming at him with its arm cannon, steam emitting from it as it charged up another shot. Wait, it had blasted him? So how was he barely even injured?

...Galahad's bead. That's right, Grand Wizard Gal had enchanted them all with a single-use barrier. The shattering sound had likely been the barrier audibly breaking when he'd been shot.

"Imagine that, Gal's foresight saved the day again..." Lee muttered as he let out a chuckle, "Shit, didn't mean to admit that over the comm line."

Seeing as the robot was currently a very active threat, and that they no longer were in the unstable Mist apocalypse, Lee decided to cast a bigger spell this time around. He motioned towards a tree near the robot like as if he were trying to grab it, manipulating the Mist much more intensively than before as he established his "link" with the tree.

The way Lee experienced the Astral Mist was a little hard to explain. He couldn't see it or hear it like some of the others, but he didn't particularly feel it either. It was less of a physical feel and more of a mental feeling, yet not quite psychic either. It was like someone took the physical states of solids liquids and gasses and transformed them into mental feelings, though that probably didn't really explain it either. All he knew is that there was "mush" and "white noise", the Mist that everyone experienced; and then there were the "states", the feelings in the environment that Lee could transform and shape into his reality. These "states" required all of his focus in order to be manipulated however, and after years of practice he came to coin his process "linking". It was this strangely specific way of dealing with the Mist that probably allowed him to have such a strong connection to it, and it explained his preferred style of magic as well.

With his focus on the base of the tree trunk, he debilitated its structure with a spell that weakened its density. Barely a moment passed before the tree began to splinter, break, and fall over, as it was no longer able to hold itself up under its own weight. Its collision course was set to crash onto the robot, but it reacted quickly and fired its now-charged arm cannon at the tree, obliterating it completely before it could crush the droid. But when it turned back to face Lee, he was already long gone. He didn't care if the tree actually took down the robot or not, he just needed to distract it long enough for him to get away.

---

Lee was panting heavily by the time he made it to the truck. Sure, he was the kind of guy who you'd find more often out on the track field than in the weight room, but that didn't mean he actually liked running until he was dead exhausted and then forced to continue sprinting even further. And the alcohol still in his system didn't help any.

"Go go go!" Lee gasped between breaths once he clamored into the truck and threw himself onto a free chair haphazardly, "Get everyone the fuck in and let's go!"

Spiritum

I've also been busy, but I've got a whole week off starting today, so I'm going to be much more available to get some writing done.

Shadowed Apotheosis

I still very much want to be a part of this, I'm sorry I haven't said anything the past few days. I've been slowly chipping away at the CS but I haven't had much time at all this past week to work on it. My work schedule screwed me over this week but everything should go back to normal by Saturday, so I'll start having time again to work on this by then.

Spiritum

Lee's first thoughts upon seeing who the person in the pod actually was were neither helpful, nor practical, or really even appropriate to the situation.

'Oh my God she's hot.'

Thankfully he didn't blurt those potentially lethal words out loud as soon as he thought them since he at least had some self-constraint, and the split-second internal reaction over his opinion about her attractiveness was soon overcome as he began to fully digest the situation. The woman was from Vangar, and she was a princess at that, and apparently the only known survivor of the sky battle everyone had witnessed earlier. While he didn't blame her for her hostility, considering the situation, her abrasive nature came as a surprise to him. Gideon always went on and on about how royalty and the like always have to be proper, and that being a WARDEN was something that allowed him to act out against that since it was expected for military folk in general to act and speak brashly. Yet here was a princess swearing and threatening to blow them all up, somehow out-rebelling Gideon, a guy who had become infamous in the media as an icon of royal rebellion. Lee tried to think back to see if he could remember ever hearing about Vangar's princess or what she was like, but he soon remembered that he actually paid close to zero attention about anything involving politics and ended up drawing a blank.

During this train of thoughts of his, he eventually realized that Setzer Gideon and Galahad had taken the lead in the conversation with the princess (was her name Colette?), though really Gideon and Galahad lead the conversation while Setzer acted like Setzer and was already flirting with her. Though maybe it couldn't really be called flirting if the only response he was getting back was being struck in the ribs. But more importantly, the other two were talking about actually important things, like immediately getting the hell out of the crater and finding safety. The second Gideon had mentioned for the others to maybe set up a perimeter, Lee was ready to jump right on that, but the conversation soon made it turn out that just getting out of there as quickly as possible would be the more preferable outcome. And Lee wasn't about to argue that.

"Second ship?" Lee repeated when it was brought up, and looked up as well but didn't see anything. But then he noticed Trent. His friend had seemed distracted by something during the trek to the crater, but now he seemed to be focused as he stared skyward and made motions with his free hand. Lee's own look he was giving Trent began to become tense as he started to connect the dots.

"Can you hear something?" Lee asked, somewhat aware that Trent could 'hear' the Astral Mist though not exactly sure how it worked for him, "Is...is there something up there?" Lee looked upwards again and gulped. This was so bad. "Guys, I'm not saying we should run, but let's pick up the fucking pace." The thread still wasn't picking up any vibrations from the truck's direction which meant they hadn't been followed, but if there was a ship in the sky that they couldn't see, then being able to foresee a ground ambush didn't matter if enemies could be deployed from the sky.

🅸 🆁🅴🅼🅰🅸🅽 : ＷＩＮＴＥＲＴＩＤＥ (Horror/High Casual)

I'm interested and thinking of writing up a CS, I just need to finish up commitments I have to another RP first.

FateFallen - Dark Souls-Inspired Sci-Fi Medieval RP (FULL ATM)

I'm still interested but unfortunately this feels like it's pretty much dead. I'll still be checking into the thread to see what's going on though, and if you ever try a second attempt with this then I'd be up for it.

Spiritum

Closing in on the crash site was incredibly nerve-wracking, and traversing it even more so. The heat of the environment, the heaviness of the Mist in the air, and the overall paranoia that the attacking airship from before could return and open fire once more was all enough to make Lee actually attempt to be cautious. The moment the crash site wreckage came into view, he thought of an idea and pulled out a tool of his: a small roll of thread. He usually used it when setting up pranks back at the Citadel, but it was still a rather valuable tool even in the field, especially given his magic expertise. He unrolled it until a good few feet was hanging off the end and onto the ground, then hooked the roll to his belt and cast a minor charm to let it automatically unreel further behind him as he walked. The thread itself was extremely thin and hard to see even with good lighting, so it would stay hidden in the darkness and cluttered forest ground.

The purpose of it was simple: it would allow him to tell if they were being followed, though how it worked was slightly less simple. By applying a minute amount of Mist from the surrounding area onto the thread, he would be able to pick up on any movements near the rolled out thread. The Mist would multiply the strength of any vibrations that would occur on the ground and then send the signals down the line to Lee, like a makeshift telephone kids would play with by connecting two cups to each other with a string. It was a neat little trick he'd picked up during an ambush simulation the squad had been given awhile back, and now it was finally seeing practical use in a real field situation.

So far, as the group began to cautiously explore the crash site, the thread wasn't giving Lee any warnings, which was a relief in the midst of the chaos he found himself in. The wreckage combined with the bodies of the dead was a sight that could wear anybody down, but they were Wardens. They had to keep pushing and moving forward. And so, Lee did. Though corpse of the robot Setzer found almost made him want to turn back.

"What the hell even is this thing?" Lee muttered. It wasn't Rassvet or Vangar, that was for sure. Though the raised the question: who's was it? This was quickly turning into conspiracy and confidential information territory, and he didn't want any part of it, but still he continued on. They soon ran into the mutilated old man, and while the ghastly sight made Lee recoil at first while Setzer talked to the guy, Lee eventually recovered enough to approach and see if he could do something. He quickly realized however that the man's condition was far beyond his medical reach, hell even Theta likely wouldn't be able to patch this guy up. There was little anyone could do beyond ease the pain in his last moments, but the chances of anyone having or finding morphine were slim. Lee did know a spell that could numb out the pain, maybe he could use that...

His attention was quickly turned away from the dying man however when he realized there was a struggle going on at the pod with Setzer. Lee's eyes widened in shock when he saw Setzer take an arrow right to the shoulder, and he ended up abandoning the man to rush over.

"No shit we've got a live one," Lee retorted back at Setzer, and shook his head at how calm the big guy was being despite getting shot. His pain tolerance levels had to be off the charts. Before Lee could offer a quick patch up, Gideon took initiative and tried to force the attacker out of hiding by tossing a rock in the pod under the guise of a grenade. 'Good thinking Gid,' Lee thought to himself, and decided he would ready himself to follow up in case things went south. Though of course he preferred that this rescue mission actually stayed a rescue mission.

FateFallen - Dark Souls-Inspired Sci-Fi Medieval RP (FULL ATM)

Gallus wasn't sure what was happening, not at first. He couldn't comprehend his senses, at most he knew he was on the ground and writhing uncontrollably. What he thought was him breathing was actually violent dry-heaving motions, though nothing was coming out whatsoever. Eventually the unrequited movement stopped, and all that was left were shaky gasps for air. He sat there for awhile as he tried to control his breathing, though it took some time seeing as he hadn't breathed of his own accord for what had possibly been eons. After some time passed, his senses finally began to return to him and there was only one thing his mind could process.

'I am alive. I am awake, and I am alive.'

He tried to force himself to stand, but he stumbled back onto his knees before he could make it all the way up. Though as he fell back down, he noticed something laying on the floor next to him. It was a mask...? Had it fallen off when he fell out of the stasis pod? Wait, was it even his? He felt that he did own it, that it belonged to him, that he wore it many times before, but the memories of it just wouldn't return to him. But still, it was his, he was sure of that. So he picked it up and gingerly put it on, not wanting it to pinch his skin or get caught in his hair. It felt...right.

He stood up, successfully this time, and looked on over to the others who had also awoken. So, they shared the same fate as him then, eh? But, weren't there supposed to be more? They surely couldn't be the only ones with such a fate, there were so few who had woken up. Something must had gone wrong, though what, he had no idea. For now, he would just have to follow the words of the Fabled Maiden, and hope that she could guide him and the others to answers.

Though in actuality, she ended up guiding them to a monstrosity instead. Yes, she'd told them that a beast was loose in the place, but this was not what he'd had in mind. For Rynoll's sake, this thing was being called a Daemon! Even with a numbers advantage, could a ragtag group of forgotten husks who had only recently woke up from a seemingly infinite slumber, even stand a chance against the raging mechanical giant? It seemed that they were going to either sink or swim here, so to speak. Oh well, the odds never seemed to be in his favor anyway, but this wouldn't stop him if he could help it.

"Well then," Gallus ended up saying, a surprisingly cheery tone apparent despite the dire situation, "Let's test its reflexes first, shall we?" He stepped back a bit to put more space between him and the beast, and began to channel one of the Datacores that he felt within himself. The Dart Datacore began to manifest, and with a simple open-palmed gesture aimed at the Daemon, he fired the powerful magic-like projectile. If the beast was fast, it would see the attack coming from a mile away and easily dodge, which would let everyone know that a different strategy would be needed. But if it hit, then the Daemon's slow speed could be taken into account as everyone figured out their tactics. Overall, the opening shot was meant to be more tactical than damaging, but he wouldn't complain if he managed to hit it.