“Tell them what you just told me.”
The bespectacled Lieutenant sputters. “Captain Havoc, I really don’t see the -”
“Spill it.” Havoc snaps at the young officer, causing Breda to sigh at the ceiling. Falman continues his paperwork, unruffled.
Fuery huffs, adjusting his glasses. “I was only mentioning that the Fuhrer ordered some renovations to Captain Hawkeye’s new office.”
That gives Falman pause, his pencil hovering momentarily over the document in his lap. This is news to him, apparently. And he’s been tasked with keeping a diligent record of their expenses, like always.
Breda frowns. “What kind of renovations?”
“A bookshelf.” Fuery replies with a shrug. “Her office is right next to mine. I’ve been listening to the carpenters working all week.” He hesitates warily, glancing sidelong at a steaming Havoc, but continues. "It’s custom-made, according to the invoice that arrived this morning.”
“You’re mad about a bookshelf?” Falman says plainly, finally looking up from his files, brows raised. “Captain Havoc, you don’t read.”
“That’s not the point!” Havoc sputters around the cigarette dangling from his lips. He spreads his arms wide, scowling. “I don’t see the rest of us getting fancy office upgrades!”
Breda leans back against the plush leather of his desk chair, arms crossed. “You know how Mustang is about Hawkeye. They met when they were basically kids. They’ve been through a lot together.” He shrugs, unbothered, and twirls a pen around his fingers. “It’s probably just a ‘thank you’ for all she’s done to get him to this point.”
“I got stabbed!”
-The Bookshelf (WIP, soon to be Part 5 of The Counteroffer Series)
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The climax of the Katsura Enrichment Month has arrived, that is Katsura's birthday. I wanted to talk about him anyway, since I'm more than halfway through a rewatch of Gintama and despite all the great characters and writing, I feel like Zura stands out to me the most. I would say he is a freak among freaks.
When I watched the first episode some time ago, I thought he was gonna be the serious fancypants character who always shows up to berate the mc for their behaviour.
Never would I have expected this guy to be possibly the most unhinged from them all. Guy sleeps with his eyes open, uses glasses with mustage to hide his identity, brings a kotatsu to a queue for a videogame console release, but the console he wants came out years ago, goes fishing in a public pool, shits on graves, gets hit by a car and gains the car's guardian spirit, goes on an interview as an anon but keeps revealing his name, has a baby gorilla with the police's chief, has a written exam for his terrorist group, feels left out out of said terrorist group despite being the leader because he isn't caught up to the latest shows so he goes to obtain a driver's license because he can't rent dvd without an id, fails and uses his wanted poster as an id, recruits the singular guy the terrorist group wants to overthrow, the leader of the country itself into the group and other members like the guy more than him and he can't prove in any way that he is indeed better than the guy.
One could really go on and on with him, this really just scraped the surface, whenever I hear his theme I grin immediately.
Happy birthday Zura!!
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So, I thought I'd already explored this whole place, pretty much, on Hector's run, and was just having Rakha go through all the motions in a different order, but @rhysintherain has informed me that there's a whole area down on the lower level that I didn't know you could reach at all, down by the feet of the giant Shar statue in the center of the temple!
Rakha wasn't really expecting to find the library with the Spear down here, and she's correct; in truth what led her down here, rather to her shame, is the lingering smell of the blood that stains the floor. There are long streaks of it, deep sticky puddles, and - most curiously - a small circle painted into the dirt by Shar's feet.
Rakha's heart clenches in her chest. She remembers another such circle painted in the dirt beneath Alfira's dead body. This one is smaller, though; considerably less elaborate, and surrounded by dark and unlit candles. The Shadowfell magic swirls around it in uneasy ripples.
A book lies on the floor at the circle's edge. One Becomes Many reads the title, almost obscured by dust, on the front page.
Rakha squints at these words in abject bewilderment. Only one word sticks out to her, dramatic and familiar - Raphael. She cannot tell if it it is a signature, an invocation, a warning...
The rest is subtler. The words are rhythmic, poetic, cryptic - but there is a spell at the center of them. Itori mustag.
She does not know what it means, but she can visualize the way those words would resonate through the Weave. She can imagine the spell even if she has never seen it. A splitting, a rending apart...
"This speaks of magic that can divide someone into many... but many what?"
A flicker of suspicion touches the back of her mind.
She crouches to examine the brazier nearby, which is filled with dried gore and the bones of some indeterminate animal.
As she reaches out and places a hand carefully on the brazier's edge, there's a shimmer of magic next to her and yet another rat appears out of the darkness, almost into the circle's center.
Narrator: The rat stares at you. It almost seems like it wants your attention.
The creature is much smaller than Scratch and Buddy - but nevertheless Rakha can see similarities in the rat's expression (such as it is) to the moments when Scratch wishes to beg for something - a piece of sausage from Rakha's dinner, or a scratch under his jaw, or a run through the woods.
She turns and squints more closely at the little animal, trying to parse the details of its behavior.
[ANIMAL HANDLING] Study the rat. Try to figure out what it wants.
Narrator: It wants you to leave it and its fellow rats in peace.
(A/N: I know there's more content here if you speak with animals; however as mentioned, I'm saving that for my stream playthrough. We have the option of backing up and leaving the rat in peace, at which point it just runs off. However, what follows if you attack it is FAR more interesting, and also has the added benefit of tying into the Dark Urge and making Rakha feel miserable yet again. So we'll go with that. ^_^ )
Pain spasms through Rakha's head. The beast's mocking laugh in the back of her mind - Peace? Hah. Kill it. The crunch of innocent bones under a boot; you know the song, how sweet it sounds. Her vision whites out.
"Rakha!" she hears Wyll shout. He knows the signs by now, and he has sworn to help her fight the urge... but she's too quick. Her boot stomps down on the creature's head and there's a light spray of blood in all directions.
Suddenly the cavern echoes with a cacophany of angry squeals, and around them the shadows come alive. From every corner surges a tide, a wave, of angry rats bearing down with teeth and claws.
------
This fight is WILD.
We get a series of increasingly large waves of rats coming in from all directions. They start out normal, but start to incorporate more "Necrotic Rats" (which have more health and do extra damage) and "Soporific Rats" (which explode on death and put the attacker to sleep).
You might also notice that there are several cats and dogs in the combatant list in this screenshot; that's because Rakha had to use Tides of Chaos to pass the animal handling check, and thus this happened when she cast her first fireball on the rat horde:
She transformed herself into a dog, Wyll into a cat, and several of the rats also into cats and dogs - which gave them more health and enhanced their combat options while severely limiting her own. Never let it be said wild magic doesn't keep things interesting, but to say Rakha was miserable during this whole process would be putting it VERY mildly.
She knows perfectly well what she did and why and she hates it, and now her magic has turned her into a dog to add insult to injury. It's not as bad as the sheep, at least.
The whole team was never really in danger of dying per se, at least not on easy mode, but nevertheless it definitely got a little hairy in the latter rounds when about fifteen rats were spawning onto the field at once.
Eventually, though, the waves slow, and then stop as they manage to finish off the last of the rats. And as the last one falls... its dead body begins to shiver and shake and tremble... and transform.
A form in Justiciar armor, similar to the empty armors they fought in front of Balthazar's lab. This one, though, is fleshed; there's a man inside it, and he is trembling violently as he staggers to his feet.
"These hands... too big..." he mumbles frantically. "Where are the others? Where's the rest of me?!"
His head lifts and his eyes fix on Rakha from behind the blank stare of his mask.
"You!" he howls. "Why did you have to keep prying? WHY COULDN'T YOU JUST LEAVE?"
She was right. That spell - itori mustag - a spell of splitting, of rending. It turned this man into all the rats that she has seen scurrying around the temple. Has he been here since Ketheric's Sharran forces were driven out? Has he been here, housed in all the rats, for a century?
"Hold on," she says. "Who are you?"
"Lyrthindor. Last Dark Justiciar," the man hisses. His voice has a skittering, hectic quality to it, very akin to the chittering beasts he inhabited. "I kept watch over Lady Shar's temple. Kept the faith alive, after all the others were killed."
He fumbles unsteadily for the sword at his belt. "But you ruined it!" he yelps. "Trespassed! Spoiled our-- my-- secret. Now you'll rot in the dark!"
(A/N: There are a few dialogue options here, but none of them are Rakha-ish - one apology, one assertion that there's no need for violence, and one claim that all Sharrans are better off dead. The other option is to attack, and all of the dialogue leads to violence at this point anyway, so...)
Attack.
Rakha sees him move, sees the blade halfway out of its sheathe-- and she moves first, swinging her quarterstaff around to clock him at the hinge of his skull. His head snaps sideways with a loud crack and he falls into a still pile at her feet without a sound.
-----
(Annoyingly, we don't have the option to talk to Shadowheart about this at all; this seems like something she should have a reaction to. But that's FINE, I'll do it myself. XD )
As soon as the Justiciar is dead, Rakha's arms fall to her sides and she scowls, turning away sharply. "Damn," she mutters, and stalks away to begin clambering back up the slope that led them here. "Damn. Damn. Damn. Damn. Damn. Damn. Damn..."
Wyll has no love in particular for the Dark Justiciars, but he does nevertheless look at Shadowheart with an apologetic expression. "Sorry," he says.
"It's not your fault," she answers. She is looking at the corpse with great intensity. "We all saw what happened. Rakha--"
"Let her be," Lae'zel says abruptly, tone rough. "We saw indeed. And we know that was not her."
She glances at Wyll, who nods. "I should have been watching for it," he mutters. "I told her I would..."
Silence. Shadowheart sighs heavily. "He said he was the last Justiciar. All the more reason I must be strong. I must find the Spear and complete the trials and be a new hand for the Dark Lady." But in spite of the confidence of the words, she doesn't move for a long time, just stares down at the dead man's body with a troubled expression playing around her lips.
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nikolai: zoya, i ve been thinking about something. I just realized that everytime we have events you always make sure Nina and Alina never get to meet each other
zoya: you´d be correct
nikolai: but why? are you afraid they like each other better than you
zoya: please as if, no its about Nina´s friends being on the same room as mal and alina
nikolai: why?
zoya: what do you mean by why? don't you know them? can't you see what would happen?
Zoya´s imagination:
Mal and Alina skipping: we are dumb, we are dumb
Kaz (with horns and a tail) : hello , gullible kids! i am Mr Badhair!
nikolai: kids? zoya, mal and alina are older than brekker
zoya: sigh, alright
Kaz now with a fake mustage: hello, gullible kids! i am Mr Badhair and i invite you to do something very dangerous, illegal and that probably will cause zoya a headache!
Mal and Alina: we don't know what illegal means so , yay, we are in!
nina: No! we shall be loyal to the magnificent zoya,the most important person in my life!
inej: free hugs!
nina: free hugs! i´ll go with you! zoya is a bitch that doesn't hug and i hate her! I will go with Badhair, Inej, and....those other boys whos name i never bother to remember
The crows and malina skipping towards a building on fire: trouble! trouble! trouble!
Nikolai: Zoya...those were like five issues at once...but anyway, thats a very narrow minded way of seeing people, its a really shallow concept!
Zoya: Oh, and how do you think their meeting would go?
Nikolai´s imagination:
Mal and Alina skipping: Nikolai,Nikolai,Nikolai...
Kaz: hello not-nikolais! do you want to talk about how awesome Nikolai is?
Mal and Alina: Nikola-yes!
Everyone skipping towards a giant Nikolai statue: Nikolai! Nikolai! Nikolai...
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