#argentbowman

having a tea party with @argentbowman, @braveryinblue, and @verseandrhyme

With all the cups still dirty from breakfast, Claude pours everyone at the dining table a bowl of weak-looking yellowish tea. "Gentlemen, and Mitama, may I present to you the best that the Sealed Forest has to offer: Mage's Cap." He lifts the lid off the teapot to show a bundle of skinny mushrooms stewing in the water, all with tall, dark, triangle-shaped caps. "The story goes that when the man who discovered this mushroom drank a tea made from it, he peered into another world and was given the knowledge necessary to invent a dozen spells never seen in this world or since. The man had no training in the magical arts–as though he traded his botanist's cap for a mage's."

Claude lets that sizzle in their brains before he claps his hands to bring them to attention again. "Thus! This experiment. Thus! All of you, here, to help me figure out how real this story is. Thought that this would be a good-enough sample size for now." Claude looks at Klein as he says, "The son of a mage," to Hector, "someone who is a little less than magical," and finally to Mitama with a grin, "and an actual mage. I'd like to see what sort of spells you guys come up with, across the spectrum of magical know-how and mage-ical-ness."

This was a poor excuse for a party, if Mitama was pressed to be perfectly honest. Or simply asked. She would have likely given the same response regardless of how intensely she was questioned on the subject.

She is not sure exactly where the alcohol had been found in the very edge of the forest as they are, but she is not one to complain. She has her own modest cup, having given far few protests than their stubborn and scowling...guide? Caretaker? Hindrance.

Still, they’ve managed to create a small gathering of students. Whether they are here for their goal of prodding the knight for more information or simply pulled in by the allure of alcohol, Mitama has no way of knowing, but she is not one to judge either. At least, not in this matter.

“You know.” Mitama begins casually after managing a small sip of her own drink. “From my understanding, the Goddess plans everything, does she not? You would think if she sent students here to explore the forest, she would pick ones who are capable of handling what may lie within its forbidden grounds, wouldn’t she?”

Her hypothetical receives no response from the man, but that is about what Mitama expected. She lets out a silent sigh before glancing over at her companions. “At the very least this is time spent in good company. Or would be, if some would deign to share with us the decency of simple cordial company.”

     For all he has experienced in the twenty years since his birth, he must admit that waking to a pounding headache and a sensation like cotton in his mouth... is something of a first. Was it a sickness of some kind? He’d thought his health in fairly good condition, but illness has a habit of often catching victims by surprise. Glazed over with the lingering dregs of sleep, blue gaze stares listlessly into the wooden rafters supporting the ceiling for a time until it occurs to him—he doesn’t remember coming back to the watch station at all. In fact, his recollection of the previous evening’s events is considerably blurry in a number of places, which strikes him as very troubling.

     The effort it takes to sit upright in his bedroll is substantially more than it would ordinarily be, gingerly pressing fingertips to his temple to soothe the throb of pain intent on reminding him of its presence as he peers into the semi-darkness to find his classmates and one professor still largely asleep. Best to not disturb them, Alfonse thinks, fishing inside his travel pack for a water canteen to relieve his throat before clumsily pushing himself to his feet. A moment’s pause sees him bend down to retrieve Fólkvangr, carefully stepping past slumbering companions to reach the station’s entrance and let himself out.

     While not especially bright due to the trees forming a dense canopy that is effective in blocking most sunlight, it is still brighter compared to the watch station’s interior. Squinting against the change occurs on reflex, a hand raised to shade his eyes for what little good it does after closing the door behind him, and Alfonse notes that Milo is thankfully nowhere to be seen—most likely off patrolling elsewhere or something similar. He isn’t feeling much capacity for stilted, polite conversation anyway, least of all with the knight serving as an obstacle to their assignment.

     Unconsciously or perhaps consciously, the prince finds his way to a certain gathering spot—though now morning, the blackened remains of a once-crackling fire and at least one empty bottle of liquor suffice to jog his memory, and—

     “Never have I ever... been called Prince Alfonse.”

     The slab of rock he takes a seat on is cold, but Alfonse pays it little mind as he buries his face in his hands and sighs. “Gods grant me strength...” So they aren’t enemies for the time being, but Veronica had to go and throw that particular knife where their peers could hear. He’d managed a flimsy excuse despite his state of inebriation—playing along and drinking as much as he did in the first place was a spectacular mistake of its own—and rather bluntly hopes they'll remember little of the moment, but the fates are seldom so kind in that regard.

     Did you know, Sharena, that your brother is a fool and absolutely not the capable role model you look up to?

     Head lifts at the sound of approaching footsteps, cautious so as to avoid further aggravating the dull hammering against his skull. “Good morning,” the prince greets mildly, polite smile summoned on command to mask the mounting sense of dread he feels. “Did you sleep well?”

T’was an optimistic note, at the least. Matthew hummed as he folded the letter neatly back, tucking it away in his pocket. He replayed the words in his head, brow furrowed in thought, the point of his quill tapping against his cheek. This could be any number of people. Certainly someone learned, but that disqualified very few people at an institution like Garreg Mach.

That it was someone who’d braved the tempestuous missions the last month had put a great many of them through... Well, that nixed a few more but again, not super helpful. Work together, huh... The spy scribbled another couple notes in his journal.

He didn’t have much beyond a gut feeling, but he’d acted on less before. Instinct had kept him alive this long - he could but hope it’d not fail him now.

“Heya, Klein, right?” He offered the boy a warm smile in greeting. “Please correct me if I have the wrong guy. This yours?”

Held betwixt index and middle fingers, Matthew held the note out. If it wasn’t the young nobleman’s, no biggie. But if it was... Then Pent would surely be pleased to know his son had a good head on his shoulders. “Either way, nice to meet you - I’m a-” He didn’t pause as he considered, but he considered nonetheless “-friend of your father’s.”

“do not worry. i seek only friendship— not your life.”

(not accepting!)

unassuming as she is, eir is a soldier— she is trained as such, and is ready to yield her life as such. and, though she is no longer indebted to her mother for a sacrifice of that kind, hel’s teachings are as permanent marks upon her skin; every move she makes upon the battlefield sharp, precise— as though she were seasoned beyond her years ( and of that, she is very certain to be true ). still, even experienced fighters find themselves at a number of disadvantages, no matter how small or seldom, and eir is no exception to that fact.

in situations the princess of hel would oft find herself cornered by that of the dead, are the living— and behind her, a man who was far more than capable of protecting the both of them alone. even so, eir intends to pull her weight— for despite every soundless movement and unfeeling touch, she was very much there as were everybody else. and, for better or for worse, their foes had very much noticed her.

The initial hit would have to be taken with reflex. Any mercenary who’s been at it long enough eventually develops a bubble around themselves where they can sense something intruding, and it’s up to them to retaliate to them. Soren, for example, can force a wind-assisted dodge subconsciously, or even with his limited strength, can deflect arrows with the dagger at his thigh.

Ike is no exception-- due to experience with Shinon, that specific sound of whistling air has his first reaction to deflect and second to dodge. The follow-up is also instinctual, so he’ll draw his hunting knife and snap-throw it at the direction it came from if it was a projectile. 

Throwing the projectile is something that won’t connect-- the real objective here is to seek cover with the bought time, likely rolling into it. If there isn’t any cover, he’ll take evasive action, keeping his movement unpredictable and crouching to face the shot with his armored side, cape held to obscure his profile a bit more.  Then, presumably, he sees the archer. 

One of the weaknesses that Ike quite rather notably has is that he can only advance at the pace of an infantry unit. He’s chosen not to carry a heavy shield which would be extremely useful here, so there’s no way around it-- he has to suck it up and approach manually, deflecting with Ragnell held in guard position and dodging as he goes.  As for how he does so, however-- that’s his choice, and also dependent on how good the archer is. If the archer’s like Shinon, then there’s absolutely no point adding a third dimension: He’s better off staying low to the ground, getting cover, and running in a random pattern as you approach. If he can, bring the cover with you, but make sure that it’s possible to peek out from it.  Specifically: if the archer is Shinon, there is no point in bringing logs of any kind. Shinon’s strength is longbow-grade, and he can easily just punch through both the log itself and the person behind with a well-placed arrow. Only stone slabs themselves will do, or pure metal. Ike might also pick up an armored corpse from the battlefield and charge with it, or someone’s shield. Alternatively, Urvan works as well. 

The good thing about Shinon, however, is that he probably... prides himself on his arrow accuracy too much? Which to say, he’s not going to be using modified arrows with bombs.  Fire arrows and poison-bomb arrows are a different beast. If there’s only a single archer, Ike doesn’t really have to care too much about them-- he can dodge them with ease since there’s no saturation, and the bomb or modifier will slow down the arrow speed and accuracy to the point where it’s going to be a terribly poor shot. If there’s enough of a boom attached to the arrow, then he’ll make an attempt to roll with the force of the explosion, or leap with it.  On approach, he’s likely to start skipping rocks at the archer, hoping to nail or flinch his aim. This is a cover for any potential tomahawk or extra daggers he’s carrying as well: after getting used to the pace of Thrown Rock, they probably don’t expect a dagger thrown alongside it or the next time they pop up to take another shot. 

If he has Ragnell, he has another option outright, and will retaliate by striking back with the shockwave that Ragnell can produce.

Once close enough, Ike will attempt to scale to the archer. He’s an adept wall-climber, and can leap very, very high if he wants to-- he’ll be chaining both to try and reach. He prefers to do this from below, and if possible from obscured sight of the archer. 

Then is the perch the archer is on: If it’s solid, there’s nothing he can do about it-- clamber over and chase them down. If it isn’t, however, he can attempt to crumble the perch by clinging to it and focusing on Ragnell to force an explosion with its condensed shockwave (Eruption), and rushing through the path made there. Alternatively, he can also just use shockwaves to cut swathes through the platform, ‘grounding’ his slashes so they conduct through solid earth instead to wrap around a ledge. Finally, he can directly smash through the cover with Aether itself, first by throwing Ragnell through and brute-forcing his entry leap after. If the archer is of subpar quality, Ike will put his entire effort into simply sidestepping and deflecting the arrows with the sword. He might throw one back for fun? Hey-- It’s good practice...

Character Development Questions | accepting

5. On an average day, what can be found in your character’s pockets? (also asked by @ordeliacutie)

Not much... Salem has never had very many material possessions. With the followers of Loptous being such outcasts to Jugdral society at large, there’s very little money even for the most esteemed bishops within the church. Salem grew up in a communal environment, where everyone shared everything with each other simply to survive. If you managed to get money, food, whatever, it would be divided up among the rest of the group, so Salem has never really carried much with him.