Scribe of Thoth

Fire Emblem: The Slumbering Goddess

Kinda want in, kinda don’t know shit about FE

Of Blood and Magic

---

Ugh, Fido had returned way too early. Whatever, at least he might provide some context so they didn't have to play guesswork with the clock. Though, with his face looking the way it did, Max couldn't tell if he was horrified at the thought of them breaking something of Varis' or if the clock specifically was important.

"I never promised not to damage the parts," Max chimed in after Maddie's attempt at an explanation. The larger pieces were likely undamaged, but he wouldn't be surprised if some of the more delicate components had been bent out of shape or broken entirely. Lilie seemed to be saying what they were all thinking - or at least what Max hoped they were all thinking. Still, Aaron was that annoying flavor of tattletale that would go report her seditious words to the nearest authority immediately, so he wasn't surprised no one else brought up the obvious that their safety was more pressing than the leeches'.

"If Cinnamon has a teleporting clock that I just busted, send him Eris' apologies. Otherwise, you might wanna explain what the fuck's going on here, because I'm still not entirely convinced this thing isn't going to explode." He didn't see any big runes or anything that suggested somebody embedded any harmful magic inside, but that didn't mean it wasn't present but undetectable. Maybe an ominous warning trying to get the mages to leave their charges to their fate? If he weren't already convinced the Red Hand was a Noila false flag operation, that talk of their potential presence at the Academy might've actually aroused suspicions that someone was playing mage revolutionary with them. Either way, he still didn't trust the situation - or Aaron, for that matter.

---

Of Blood and Magic

---

Max arched a brow at Salem as he made his proposal. Honestly? Not a bad deal. Sure, he'd have to deal with that hippie more regularly than he'd like to, and he'd probably have to deal with Count Tall, Dark, and Terrifying breathing down his neck at least a few times, but mutual information trade was far easier to navigate than getting Salem to share without anything to offer in return. That got into the territory of favors and Eris had taught him to hate those pretty quick.

"Deal. Master Astorio seems like the type to value blowing things up anyway, I doubt he'll ask many questions."

His semblance of a good mood faded as quickly as it came when some jackass decided to rend a fucking hole in the fabric of reality right in the middle of the living room. Max raised his arm defensively as he saw something emerging, only to huff when he remembered there was nothing there he could use anyway. People always ask why the fuck he walked around like he was expecting a war to break out at any minute, and yet here he was, caught up in potential danger again. Great security, Ryner. Real nice.

"Theres no magical writing on it, and I don't think its another illusion but at this point I wouldn't put it past it if it was. Maybe Max can pull it apart and destroy it, or we can wait for Aaron to come and hopefully explain what is going on here, but I am rather tired of having my mind messed with on these grounds."

Huh, since when was Flower Boy so completely on the same page as him? Max lazily swiped a finger through the air to tug the clock out of Lilie's grasp and leave it suspended where it had originally emerged. "I couldn't agree more." Whatever had happened was obviously magical in nature, and unless somebody here was a secret summoning prodigy, Max had no idea at whose behest the magic was performed. Getting the vampires was the most reasonable course of action, but on the off-chance this magic clock was somehow related to one of the skeletons in Cinnamon's closet, Max wasn't going to risk informing the count before he'd gotten a chance to inspect it. Waiting for Aaron was a gamble, given they were apparently on a timer, but he'd likely be the only other person that would know if this was planned theatrics on Varis' part or just some weird magical attack on the nobles.

Worst case scenario, Max would ruin the party trick. What a shame. Serves Eris right for dragging him here.

"It's real, whatever it is. Somebody mark the time left on it and back up, I'm gonna rip this thing apart," Max said decisively. He left little room for argument as he immediately clawed his hands together in front of him and then slowly began pulling them apart. His eyes flicked to the room where the vampires were being entertained as the clock wobbled under some unseen pressure. No, too noisy. Max instead made a twisting motion, causing the clock to somersault in various directions while he looked for screws and other connective pieces. After everything was unscrewed and the internal mechanisms of the clock had been separated from the outer casing, Max returned to his earlier plan of violently ripping the components apart, ever mindful to not let the bells collide with anything or make too much noise during his cathartic episode. When he was done, the metallic components formerly known as a clock were hovering above the table, where the remaining parts Max's magic couldn't interact with had fallen.

"Well, it looks pretty normal. Nothing exploded yet, anyway. Think that was some kind of warning?" And if so, what was the fucking point?

---

Of Blood and Magic

---

Well, killing Aaron would be a quick way to make the party more lively. That would certainly help take the edge off. Instead, Max decided to send an unamused glare at the stupid hunk of metal dangling from the light mage's earlobe as he fantasized about ripping it out and reinserting it into increasingly unpleasant orifices. It was cathartic.

"Don't think I won't start throwing cutlery around just because we're in your house, jackass," Max grumbled, though the Retriever seemed like he'd decided prodding Max was less interesting than the tail in the room he could chase. Normally Max wouldn't care, but he was definitely letting Varis know if they happened to slip off at some point during the night. As a substitute show for those soaps Eris had gotten him hooked on, of course.

Flower Boy was hardly any better. If one more person asked him about his major he'd probably snap, though this would hopefully end anymore questions about that since everyone he regularly interacted with was in the room. Weird choice too, given his affinity; organic transmutation sounded like an absolute pain in the ass that far outweighed the novelty of turning Aaron's eyeballs into molten lead or something.

"Whichever one lets me blast everyone that pesters me about my major into a fine red mist," The mage huffed as he returned his attention to his phone. It was a half answer that leaned toward Evocation, which was fine given that's where Max's thought process was still sitting at this point. Though, it was probably a good thing he knew a transmuter, he could pick up the basics from Salem and rely on published literature for the rest of... whatever he decided was useful from that school. "You'll have to let me know how the curriculum is, though; Transmutation was one of the options I was considering."

Now he really did need to find a movie. Everyone's gossip was as uninspired as he expected - even if they did know something juicy, any mage worth a damn wouldn't play that card so quickly, even if they were pretending to be in a simple meeting among friends. Unless cousins hating each other was big news to inbred prize mage circles, but then again Max was pretty sure nobody here would even know that besides Aaron and maybe Matilda or whatever her name was. He swore he heard them talking about tutors or something earlier.

---

Of Blood and Magic

---

Oh, huh, this girl wasn't a pyromancer after all. Explained why the fire was so... mundane. Spinning flaming swords was a nice talent and all, but it seemed pretty pointless to Max. He guessed it was a nice parlor trick to put vampires on edge, so if that was her intent, it was good enough for him. Though, that did beg the question of what her affinity actually was. Not that he'd lower himself to asking.

The mage rolled his eyes at Salem's explanation, then outright sighed at Aaron's. 'Seen and not heard' was a dumb principle; he'd been seen, he even put on a little show for those bloodsucking jackasses. Sticking around for the after party just seemed like a waste of time. Leeches don't want mages around anyway, having them be in the next room over twiddling their thumbs was pointless. And Max definitely didn't socialize or charm. If some overeager pet who wanted to play courtier thought he was abrasive, that's their fucking problem.

"Speak for yourself, I do nothing all the time," Max chimed in as he pulled out his phone, "In the comfort of my own dorm, not laced up in an uncomfortable suit surrounded by you boobs while Eric's insults for Benny over there get less and less subtle. I'm fucking bored, Aaron." Quite frankly, playing politics almost sounded preferrable to biding his time until the party ended. He wasn't given a mission tonight, so he didn't have to avoid stepping on anybody's toes. If the conversation sucked, he could just say so instead of putting on a fake smile and talking in riddles.

"But alright, I'll bite, is anybody gonna start the gossip mill or should I start streaming a movie?"

---

Sci Fi Mutants in Space

@LustForDecay Peep the OOC thread, it addresses most of the questions you have.

⚫ GBA - Space Hunt

Sandstorm

Mister Sandman Bring Me A Dream

Name

Adrian Vastano

Codename

Sandstorm

Age

20

Gender

Male

Species

Mutant

Ethnicity

Trappist

Home Planet

TRAPPIST-1g (An icy planet about 39 lightyears from Earth.)

---

Personality

Affable, easygoing, and way too casual in mixing murder and leisure in the same sentence, Adrian acts like a guy who's just trying to have a good time at work. This can be a bit unsettling to his fellow operatives when 'work' is a life or death shootout. In training exercises at the academy, he'd spend all but the tensest of moments bantering over the comm and advocating for showy maneuvers. Though despite this seemingly careless attitude, he does take his assignments seriously, and the safety of his comrades in the field even moreso. Still, he's a consummate risk-taker, sometimes to his own detriment. When pressed on this, Adrian asserts a 'get rich or die trying' philosophy with little thought to the consequence of his actions beyond the resultant paycheck.

Off the job, he maintains his rambunctious nature, trying his best to keep himself and the people around him entertained, even if the antics are unwelcome at times. He thrives on positive responses - laughter, praise, anything that says his presence is having an impact on the room. He calms down a bit in more intimate settings; no need to put on quite a show for only one person.

Height

5'11"

Weight

160 lbs.

Notable Features

Adrian is fairly pale and his eyes are an unnatural shade of red, though his hair retains a solid black color. He's otherwise indistinguishable from a normal human if his eyes are covered.

Appearance

Adrian is lean, though definitely in shape, not that one can tell under the multiple layers of clothing or bulky armor he favors. Only in completely sunless environments like the inner decks of a spaceship or a subterranean colony will he expose more skin than his hands and face, and he nearly always has a pair of tinted goggles wrapped around his head or neck, if not actively covering his eyes.

Biography

Born the bastard son of a native spaceport worker and a spacefaring father he'd never met, Adrian spent his early life in subpar living conditions. Despite the presence of one of the largest ports on the planet, his hometown was, like most Trappist settlements, built mostly underground for protection from the elements. Much of the native population developed a lack of adequate pigmentation over time because of this, and the constant skin shedding induced by Adrian's mutations only exacerbated this condition. Trips to the surface usually ended with Adrian cloaking himself in a cloud of dust rather than subject his photosensitive eyes to the light of the sun any longer, and such grandiose displays quickly earned the young mutant a reputation as, well, a mutant.

Mostly shunned by the native community at large and confined to the lower levels of the city where the sun wouldn't reach, he spent much of his time around foreigners in the midst of their illicit back-alley dealings. They fascinated him, even if they wanted little to do with a mutant child either. With all their money, they could go anywhere; these travellers weren't confined to a single hole in the ground on a frozen rock in the ass end of the galaxy - or at least that's what Adrian thought. He heard of entire planets built for pleasure, and assumed that was just where all these people lived. Money would solve all his problems, but even a prepubescent Adrian could see his prospects were limited on TRAPPIST-1g. Most of the colony's revenue came from mining, though the job was hardly lucrative for the workers. Crime looked to be the most promising avenue, so Adrian tried to linger around as many unsavory characters as he could in order to try and glean as much information about the greater galaxy as he could.

This worked out about as well as one would expect. No ruthless crime lords personally invited a ten year old to join the ranks of their syndicate, no smugglers enlisted him as a courier to sneak drugs to their buyers, they just passed him by like everyone else. Except one. When he was twelve, he ran into some sort of lawman hunting a man in the depths of his colony. Noting a mutant as a rare find and potentially useful asset, the man informed the curious boy about the GBA in passing, and Adrian immediately seized on the organization as his ticket offworld.

His mother was hesitant to let her son enter such a dangerous profession, but she could do without the extra mouth to feed and the stigma of raising a mutant child, and thus gave the boy her blessing if not her encouragement. Once he'd fully enrolled at the academy, Adrian quickly tried proving himself in as many teamwork exercises as he could. His ability was versatile, and where some would-be tacticians were frustrated by his lack of tact in many cases, it was often offset by the advantages that near-total control over the enemy's visibility brought. Despite his usefulness to a team, he was - and still is - criticized by some as being too childish and nonchalant with his approach to the profession. He acts like he sees bounty hunting as a game at times, where the prize is money and the penalty for failure is injury and/or death - and he's not nearly concerned enough about said price of failure.

---

Powers

Dust Bowl - The upper layers of Adrian's skin rapidly regenerate and can flake off into specs of pallid ash-like particles, which he can levitate and direct at will. The resulting cloud is dense enough to be employed as a smokescreen, unless Adrian wills it to diffuse enough that one can see through it, and he commonly uses it to mask his or his allies' movements on the battlefield. The particulate matter can also wreck havoc on delicate electronics, should it find a way inside, or simply induce a coughing fit in an opponent who forgets to cover his mouth. Adrian must be in physical contact with his cloud at all times to manipulate it, and can only control one cloud at a time, though it can be as amorphous as the space it inhabits allows.

Power Limits

• Adrian cannot maintain control over any of his dust that breaks off from the main cloud, though he can begin directing it again if his cloud restablishes contact. Otherwise, the dust will stagnate and eventually settle on the ground.
• As his dust is produced from the outer layers of his skin, shedding excessively in a short period can lead to rawness and even bleeding in extreme cases.
• He also starts peeling if he hasn't shed enough dust in a few days. Gross.
• The cloud is often as much of a visibility hinderance to Adrian and his allies as it is to his enemies, though he can alter the density of the cloud at will if he needs to take a quick peek through it. Otherwise, his policy is usually spray and pray.
• Adrian's mutant physiology leaves him with many defects commonly associated with albinism; his skin burns easily in sunlight and his vision ranges from poor to abysmal, especially in bright environs. He typically copes with this using heavy clothing and protective eyewear.
• As such, he's heavily dependent on keeping his helmet visor or goggles intact in combat if he wants to aim his weapon or operate outside during the day.
• He can’t control the dust produced by sunburnt skin, it flakes off uselessly instead until the wound heals - though it does so at a much faster rate than a mundane human would.

Fighting Style

Contrary to what his mutation might suggest, Adrian loves to make his presence known on the battlefield, if not his exact position. While he usually lurks unseen in a plume of dust, he rarely makes an effort to hide from his quarry the fact that someone is approaching, though he does reposition himself frequently to keep his targets from discerning where in the cloud he may be. Adrian favors volume over accuracy in his shooting, due to the difficulties of aiming from inside his dust storm. To compensate, he's privy to drowning an area in a continuous spray of bullets or energy bolts until his cloud can overrun their position and give him an opportunity to advance with more impunity. At times where he's operating without cloud cover, Adrian favors the bold maneuvers and frontline vigor his armor was built for, constantly trying to push forward and overwhelm his opponents as quickly and brutally as he can.

---

Daily Skills

• Equipment maintenance.
• Cleaning his own dust out of weird places. (He kinda has to be if he wants the air vents in his room to function.)

Combat Abilities

• Misdirection and distraction.
• Suppressive fire.
• Mediocre grappling skill.
• Area control.

Flaws

• Adrian is hardly a marksman, and being the epicenter of an obfuscating cloud of dust leaves few chances to shine as one anyway. He can usually hit center mass, but he's nowhere near a trickshot artist.
• His ability is less useful when he has to create dust from scratch, leaving him with little more capability than a normal human until he's generated a workable cloud.
• Not very mobile when toting his full arsenal; reliant on cloud cover to reposition safely.
• Tends to burn through ammo very quickly.

---

Equipment

• 'Desert Storm' Tactical Combat Harness - A modified suit of armor more befitting a shock trooper on some desertified frontier world than a mere bounty hunter, customized to include reservoirs of Adrian's dust strategically placed under the plating in multiple areas. The suit is capable of vacuum sealing itself for use in space, however this prevents any more dust from escaping and cuts off Adrian's control of external clouds.
  • Adaptive Visor - Features varying levels of tint to adjust to ambient light levels, as well as a night vision mode and integrated baseline HUD elements.

Weapons

• Heavy Plasma Repeater - A hefty piece of hardware, comparable to a light machine gun for kinetic weaponry purists, useful for laying down suppressive fire through a cloud of dust or just filling a target with so many holes he ends up more cauterized tissue than man. Adrian typically keeps this magnetically locked to a holster on his back in reserve unless the situation specifically warrants aimless gunfire.
• Standard Issue GBA Assault Rifle - Adrian's primary weapon in the field, a simple and reliable kinetic weapon with semi- and fully-automatic modes of fire.
• Standard Issue GBA Combat Knife - It's a simple kinetic knife, nothing fancy.
• Energy Pistol - For when everything else is out of ammo or he just can't find an excuse to be toting a rifle.

---

Likes

• Overkill.
• Praise.
• A well-executed ambush.
• Risk-taking that pays off.
• The ambience of a dimly lit ship drifting through space.
• People who don't take themselves too seriously.

Dislikes

• Bright lights.
• Suns in general, really.
• Hot weather.
• Being outmaneuvered.
• Pretension.
• Pointless hesitation.
• That ozone smell left in the air after an energy weapon shootout.

Fears

• Abandonment.
• Helplessness.
• Heights, surprisingly.

---

Theme Songs

Monster in the Fog

⚫ GBA - Space Hunt

Sandstorm

Mister Sandman Bring Me A Dream

Name

Adrian Vastano

Codename

Sandstorm

Age

20

Gender

Male

Species

Mutant

Ethnicity

Trappist

Home Planet

TRAPPIST-1g (An icy planet about 39 lightyears from Earth.)

---

Personality

Affable, easygoing, and way too casual in mixing murder and leisure in the same sentence, Adrian acts like a guy who's just trying to have a good time at work. This can be a bit unsettling to his fellow operatives when 'work' is a life or death shootout. In training exercises at the academy, he'd spend all but the tensest of moments bantering over the comm and advocating for showy maneuvers. Though despite this seemingly careless attitude, he does take his assignments seriously, and the safety of his comrades in the field even moreso. Still, he's a consummate risk-taker, sometimes to his own detriment. When pressed on this, Adrian asserts a 'get rich or die trying' philosophy with little thought to the consequence of his actions beyond the resultant paycheck.

Off the job, he maintains his rambunctious nature, trying his best to keep himself and the people around him entertained, even if the antics are unwelcome at times. He thrives on positive responses - laughter, praise, anything that says his presence is having an impact on the room. He calms down a bit in more intimate settings; no need to put on quite a show for only one person.

Height

5'11"

Weight

160 lbs.

Notable Features

Adrian is fairly pale and his eyes are an unnatural shade of red, though his hair retains a solid black color. He's otherwise indistinguishable from a normal human if his eyes are covered.

Appearance

Adrian is lean, though definitely in shape, not that one can tell under the multiple layers of clothing or bulky armor he favors. Only in completely sunless environments like the inner decks of a spaceship or a subterranean colony will he expose more skin than his hands and face, and he nearly always has a pair of tinted goggles wrapped around his head or neck, if not actively covering his eyes.

Biography

Born the bastard son of a native spaceport worker and a spacefaring father he'd never met, Adrian spent his early life in subpar living conditions. Despite the presence of one of the largest ports on the planet, his hometown was, like most Trappist settlements, built mostly underground for protection from the elements. Much of the native population developed a lack of adequate pigmentation over time because of this, and the constant skin shedding induced by Adrian's mutations only exacerbated this condition. Trips to the surface usually ended with Adrian cloaking himself in a cloud of dust rather than subject his photosensitive eyes to the light of the sun any longer, and such grandiose displays quickly earned the young mutant a reputation as, well, a mutant.

Mostly shunned by the native community at large and confined to the lower levels of the city where the sun wouldn't reach, he spent much of his time around foreigners in the midst of their illicit back-alley dealings. They fascinated him, even if they wanted little to do with a mutant child either. With all their money, they could go anywhere; these travellers weren't confined to a single hole in the ground on a frozen rock in the ass end of the galaxy - or at least that's what Adrian thought. He heard of entire planets built for pleasure, and assumed that was just where all these people lived. Money would solve all his problems, but even a prepubescent Adrian could see his prospects were limited on TRAPPIST-1g. Most of the colony's revenue came from mining, though the job was hardly lucrative for the workers. Crime looked to be the most promising avenue, so Adrian tried to linger around as many unsavory characters as he could in order to try and glean as much information about the greater galaxy as he could.

This worked out about as well as one would expect. No ruthless crime lords personally invited a ten year old to join the ranks of their syndicate, no smugglers enlisted him as a courier to sneak drugs to their buyers, they just passed him by like everyone else. Except one. When he was twelve, he ran into some sort of lawman hunting a man in the depths of his colony. Noting a mutant as a rare find and potentially useful asset, the man informed the curious boy about the GBA in passing, and Adrian immediately seized on the organization as his ticket offworld.

His mother was hesitant to let her son enter such a dangerous profession, but she could do without the extra mouth to feed and the stigma of raising a mutant child, and thus gave the boy her blessing if not her encouragement. Once he'd fully enrolled at the academy, Adrian quickly tried proving himself in as many teamwork exercises as he could. His ability was versatile, and where some would-be tacticians were frustrated by his lack of tact in many cases, it was often offset by the advantages that near-total control over the enemy's visibility brought. Despite his usefulness to a team, he was - and still is - criticized by some as being too childish and nonchalant with his approach to the profession. He acts like he sees bounty hunting as a game at times, where the prize is money and the penalty for failure is injury and/or death - and he's not nearly concerned enough about said price of failure.

---

Powers

Dust Bowl - The upper layers of Adrian's skin rapidly regenerate and can flake off into specs of pallid ash-like particles, which he can levitate and direct at will. The resulting cloud is dense enough to be employed as a smokescreen, unless Adrian wills it to diffuse enough that one can see through it, and he commonly uses it to mask his or his allies' movements on the battlefield. The particulate matter can also wreck havoc on delicate electronics, should it find a way inside, or simply induce a coughing fit in an opponent who forgets to cover his mouth. Adrian must be in physical contact with his cloud at all times to manipulate it, and can only control one cloud at a time, though it can be as amorphous as the space it inhabits allows.

Power Limits

• Adrian cannot maintain control over any of his dust that breaks off from the main cloud, though he can begin directing it again if his cloud restablishes contact. Otherwise, the dust will stagnate and eventually settle on the ground.
• As his dust is produced from the outer layers of his skin, shedding excessively in a short period can lead to rawness and even bleeding in extreme cases.
• He also starts peeling if he hasn't shed enough dust in a few days. Gross.
• The cloud is often as much of a visibility hinderance to Adrian and his allies as it is to his enemies, though he can alter the density of the cloud at will if he needs to take a quick peek through it. Otherwise, his policy is usually spray and pray.
• Adrian's mutant physiology leaves him with many defects commonly associated with albinism; his skin burns easily in sunlight and his vision ranges from poor to abysmal, especially in bright environs. He typically copes with this using heavy clothing and protective eyewear.
• As such, he's heavily dependent on keeping his helmet visor or goggles intact in combat if he wants to aim his weapon or operate outside during the day.
• He can’t control the dust produced by sunburnt skin, it flakes off uselessly instead until the wound heals - though it does so at a much faster rate than a mundane human would.

Fighting Style

Contrary to what his mutation might suggest, Adrian loves to make his presence known on the battlefield, if not his exact position. While he usually lurks unseen in a plume of dust, he rarely makes an effort to hide from his quarry the fact that someone is approaching, though he does reposition himself frequently to keep his targets from discerning where in the cloud he may be. Adrian favors volume over accuracy in his shooting, due to the difficulties of aiming from inside his dust storm. To compensate, he's privy to drowning an area in a continuous spray of bullets or energy bolts until his cloud can overrun their position and give him an opportunity to advance with more impunity. At times where he's operating without cloud cover, Adrian favors the bold maneuvers and frontline vigor his armor was built for, constantly trying to push forward and overwhelm his opponents as quickly and brutally as he can.

---

Daily Skills

• Equipment maintenance.
• Cleaning his own dust out of weird places. (He kinda has to be if he wants the air vents in his room to function.)

Combat Abilities

• Misdirection and distraction.
• Suppressive fire.
• Mediocre grappling skill.
• Area control.

Flaws

• Adrian is hardly a marksman, and being the epicenter of an obfuscating cloud of dust leaves few chances to shine as one anyway. He can usually hit center mass, but he's nowhere near a trickshot artist.
• His ability is less useful when he has to create dust from scratch, leaving him with little more capability than a normal human until he's generated a workable cloud.
• Not very mobile when toting his full arsenal; reliant on cloud cover to reposition safely.
• Tends to burn through ammo very quickly.

---

Equipment

• 'Desert Storm' Tactical Combat Harness - A modified suit of armor more befitting a shock trooper on some desertified frontier world than a mere bounty hunter, customized to include reservoirs of Adrian's dust strategically placed under the plating in multiple areas. The suit is capable of vacuum sealing itself for use in space, however this prevents any more dust from escaping and cuts off Adrian's control of external clouds.
  • Adaptive Visor - Features varying levels of tint to adjust to ambient light levels, as well as a night vision mode and integrated baseline HUD elements.

Weapons

• Heavy Plasma Repeater - A hefty piece of hardware, comparable to a light machine gun for kinetic weaponry purists, useful for laying down suppressive fire through a cloud of dust or just filling a target with so many holes he ends up more cauterized tissue than man. Adrian typically keeps this magnetically locked to a holster on his back in reserve unless the situation specifically warrants aimless gunfire.
• Standard Issue GBA Assault Rifle - Adrian's primary weapon in the field, a simple and reliable kinetic weapon with semi- and fully-automatic modes of fire.
• Standard Issue GBA Combat Knife - It's a simple kinetic knife, nothing fancy.
• Energy Pistol - For when everything else is out of ammo or he just can't find an excuse to be toting a rifle.

---

Likes

• Overkill.
• Praise.
• A well-executed ambush.
• Risk-taking that pays off.
• The ambience of a dimly lit ship drifting through space.
• People who don't take themselves too seriously.

Dislikes

• Bright lights.
• Suns in general, really.
• Hot weather.
• Being outmaneuvered.
• Pretension.
• Pointless hesitation.
• That ozone smell left in the air after an energy weapon shootout.

Fears

• Abandonment.
• Helplessness.
• Heights, surprisingly.

---

Theme Songs

Monster in the Fog

Scion: Children of Light

I’m still here too.

Of Blood and Magic

---

Max blinked in exaggerated slowness at Lilie's question, then let out a monotone, bitter laugh a moment later after flatly staring at her failed to sufficiently convey his displeasure. Was she serious? Either she thought he was some 'starving artist' loser or she was mocking him; he didn’t know which was the greater insult.

"Funny," he muttered in a particularly sour tone. If she wanted to talk about art, she should've gone to the fucking hippie. On the contrary, Aaron, the hard part started right now - he didn't give a fuck if the vampires liked Eris' stupid tree, but like hell was he going to sit here and have a pretentious discussion about the pile of crap he flung together like some jackass at an art gallery.

"What the fuck do mages do at these parties? I'm apparently not allowed to fall asleep," Actually, Eris only said 'try not to', so maybe he'd get away with it, "but I don't really see why that matters if we're stuck just sitting on the couch." Honestly, he wasn't even surprised that some mages were eager to play waiter during these events, menial servitude was at least engaging. Idle gossip was a chore because everyone in the conversation was a potential enemy, and the insistence that mages be seen made it hard to go do something more entertaining whle the vampires played at high society. Shadowing Eris was an easy way of keeping other mages too intimidated to interact with him, but with the groups separated his only protection was his attitude. Unfortunately, familiarity breeds contempt and Max doubted any of the nobles' pets would fuck off no matter how long he glared at them. Even then, he'd just be staring at the wall in silence without an objective.

Damn it, Eris was somehow a secret genius turning him into a workaholic and that stupid fuck probably didn't even realize it.

---

@Hero