Welcome to Ryslig's test drive meme! If you're considering apping here, this is where you can try your characters out in the game's setting. A few things to note:
You can only app ONE character per round so choose wisely.
We now have a Quick Game Facts that simplifies the basic information about the game. Good if you want to see what the game is at a glance!
Lots of people have asked good questions on the FAQ, so do take a look.
The reserve date has been announced (it was changed to the 30th to allow a maximum number of people compared to a Friday).
Test drive meme threads can be used for your roleplay sample!
NEW! Players with characters already in the game can earn up to a maximum of 3 coins by replying to potential character threads! You will need to have your normal 20 comment AC in the game. You cannot use this to go over the bonus 10 coins per month total, but you can use it if you are missing some threads to reach that coin total. Same rules as normal bonuses apply.
Sample scenarios:
SCENARIO ONE: So you've just arrived, fresh out of the hospital, and already the natives are trying to get on your good side. Offers of food, shelter and other luxuries in return for hoping you don't eat them. They even have some helpful pamphlets to share with you. "How To Deal With Changes", "Alternatives to Human Flesh", "What to Expect When You're Expecting (to turn into a monster)" are all great pamphlets. There's even some detailing certain monsters, and the changes they go through.
Among these however, are some... not so helpful ones. "Bunnyipyips And You", "Axe Thief Axehounds," and "So you're becoming a Fur Bearing Trout" among others.
SCENARIO TWO: You've become hopelessly lost in Lager Woods. Paths don't seem to lead where you remember them leading, and you feel as if you're going around in circles. Childlike giggling can be heard from no direction in particular. Suddenly, you stumble upon another character, who seems to be just as lost as you! Perhaps you can find a way out together. Or maybe they want you for lunch...
SCENARIO THREE: You've heard about the fog, but you've never seen it before. Now, the mist surrounds you. Barely able to see before you, you need to get home - and fast. It's far too dangerous in this situation.
SCENARIO FOUR: The time has come and you've found yourself becoming a monster. Is the change instant, or gradual? Are you familiar enough with monsters to know what's happening, or is it a complete shock? NOTE: Feel free to pick any monster type for this prompt, but note that you may not get the same one in game.
The creepy-shadow-monster-thing appeared to draw back into itself, like a spider going into a defensive posture. Rosch blinked in confusion. It... wasn't going to attack him?
That deadpan voice though...
No...
It couldn't be...
Blue eyes widened in slow recognition as the cogs started turning in Rosch's brain, desperately trying to make sense of the crazy situation. The figure was clad in red from head to toe and covered in an assortment of belts and pouches. Only one man Rosch knew possessed such a... striking sense of fashion.
"You... You're..." Clearly, his mouth was malfunctioning as badly as his Gauntlet if he couldn't even spit out a single name. The fear that had stiffened his posture was beginning to ebb. He looked less like a cornered animal and more like a bewildered man. "Stock...? Is that... Is that really you under there?"
He continued to stare, dumbfounded. Eyes that were once cornflower blue now glimmered with a preternatural light. But even so, they didn't look so... threatening now. In fact, they almost looked concerned. Rosch shook his head, shifted his weight so that he was sitting in a more upright position. The Gauntlet whirred softly. It wasn't sparking anymore, so that was something, at least. But he still couldn't get his fingers to uncurl and his elbow was locked in position, but he could still use it to lever himself up.
"I dunno... Those crazy doctors must have loosened a wire or something when they were poking around..." His voice was practically a growl. "I bet not a one of 'em has any training in thaumatech repair. This is a sophisticated piece of equipment, dammit! You gotta treat it with respect!"
Hopefully, Stocke won't mention the hypocrisy of that statement. Rosch himself could be pretty rough with the Gauntlet, and he wasn't above using the blades to shave in the morning. Sophisticated indeed...
Reaching for the creepy-shadow-monster-thing's his friend's hand, Rosch only paused for the briefest of moments before taking hold. His grip was firm, friendly, even. How often had Stocke offered that same steady hand each time he managed to best Rosch in a sparring match?
Once Rosch was on his feet, he gave Stocke a cursory glance. "Honestly, I think the more important question is: what happened to you? I thought you were..."
He bit down on the words, refusing to utter them, lest it confirm his worst fears. Stocke wasn't... dead. Not really. But he wasn't alive anymore, either. This wasn't a result of his sacrifice... was it?
Something in Stocke's expression went softer as he was named; inadvertently, his tendrils relaxed, unfurling. They didn't look threatening, somehow - the pattern they wove through the air behind the shade's back was equally gentle.
"About time." It should've been said expressionlessly, but even Stocke couldn't quite muster that right now; there was a bit of relief, but mostly an unobtrusive, subdued happiness.
The shade's eyebrows raised at Rosch, of all people, grumbling about being careful with the Gauntlet; who here'd bashed the thing about countless times before? Still, he let the grousing pass uncommented as he pulled the other up. It was hardly important to tease Rosch right now, and the man wasn't wrong - no one on this peninsula had the slightest clue about how to work with thaumachinery, Stocke included.
Instead, he finished Rosch's sentence for him, quietly. "...gone." Not exactly dead, but just as out of reach of the world, and Stocke hadn't expected there to be anything left of him. He... he had some explaining to do, didn't he?
And... maybe apologies to make, later. If the same choice was put in front of him now - sacrifice himself, or let Vainqueur perish - he'd make the same exact decision. But he'd regret just as much what he put his friends through.
A short pause, Stocke's eyes dimming to a far less bright white. "Heiss. At the last moment, Heiss intervened and sacrificed himself in my place."
And Stocke... it'd been more than half a year, since then - (for once, he's sure of the time, now that he's been locked in a linear timeline like a normal non-time-traveling person) - and Stocke still didn't know how he felt about it. His... uncle (a title begrudgingly granted, in acknowledgement of the man's sacrifice, if nothing else) had saved the world in the end, had found enough empathy to become a candidate for Sacrifice. But he'd still intended to destroy it at first, caused needless suffering on the path there, and it wasn't Stocke he'd harmed the most. He'd destroyed Ernst, wiped away Eruca's real brother (in the shade's thoughts, anyway), slaughtered Marco and Raynie's old partners, been behind the war between Granorg and Alistel. It wasn't up to Stocke to forgive. Just remember.
He refused to let himself dwell for more than a few seconds, continuing with, "I meant to return, after - but as I was leaving Historia, I found myself here." With no White Chronicle in tow - he'd sorely missed its presence more than once since then.
The bit about monster transformations he left out, for the moment - Rosch would have enough to absorb, probably questions to ask. (And maybe he was delaying for another reason - explaining about the transformations would mean explaining about feeding on humans, and what sort of excuse could he ever offer for eating souls? It'd seemed pragmatic, surrounded by other monsters - better then losing control and slaughtering larger numbers - but faced with someone from home...)
It was strange, really. Nothing about Stocke's appearance had actually changed but for some reason... he looked less monstrous and more well, like Stocke, as Rosch continued to stare at him. Even the weird wispy shadowy tendril things looked... peaceful. Like seagrass dancing in the tide.
"Never said I was the sharpest tool in the shed, you know?" He grinned sheepishly. "Thought a smart guy like you woulda figured that out by now."
Yeah. Same old Stocke, pointing out his dumb mistakes with alacrity. It felt just like hundreds of other conversations they'd had before, and that familiarity was a reassurance. Truth be told, Rosch was beginning to wonder why he'd been so afraid in the first place. He mentally kicked himself for acting like such a stupid idiot, to his best friend, of all people.
His brows furrowed, lips quirking into a slight frown when Stocke finished his sentence. He shook his head. "Gone, but not really gone... right? You said so yourself. You said you'd live on everywhere in the land, watching over us..."
Rosch swallowed hard. There were no words (or, more likely, he simply lacked the eloquence) to describe the agony of waiting for someone who meant so much to him. It felt like losing his left arm all over again.
No, it was worse than that. He'd have given up half his soul without a second thought if it meant Stocke would come back.
"Heiss? Heiss?" His voice was edging dangerously close to maximum volume. "You mean that bastard...? He...?" Rosch barked laughter. "I don't believe it! He really..."
From the first moment he laid eyes on the man, Rosch knew there was something a bit sinister in Heiss' demeanor. And there was a part of him that always resented the fact that Heiss had "lured" Stocke away to join the shadier side of Alistel's military.
For several moments, Rosch was uncharacteristically silent, gaze fixed to the pavement. His jaw worked as he struggled to come to terms with Heiss' actions. "I guess... I should be grateful. But don't expect me to forgive him. Not after everything he's done." He met Stocke's glowing eyes--now somewhat dimmed--and his expression softened. "Not after everything he's put you though..."
It was a lot to take in. Stocke was alive, here, right in front of his eyes. Sure, he was sporting a few new additions, but Rosch wasn't one to judge, especially since Stocke never once looked at him askance for bearing a massive piece of thaumatech instead of a left arm. He'd be the worst sort of hypocrite if he quibbled over something as inconsequential as little snaky tendrils of pure darkness...
"I waited for you," Rosch said suddenly. "All this time." His voice softened to a low rumble. "I never stopped believing that you'd come back to us. And all this time you've been stuck here... like this?"
The huge soldier sniffed. His eyes burned with half a year's worth of unshed tears, and like hell he was gonna cry in front of his best friend, not after they'd just been reunited, dammit!
Stocke shook his head. "Not forgiven. But he's not here now, and the rest of us are." A very metaphorical here, sweeping both Ryslig and Vainqueur, but they were alive, and what remained of what Heiss had done even the White Chronicle couldn't change, with his own nodes. Odd as it might be for Stocke to say it, maybe it was better not to dwell in the past. Not to forgive, but to move on.
More dryly - "Besides, most of what happened to me was my own fault." And he was sticking to his guns on that one. Any bad timelines he'd gone down - those were due to his own choices. Anything else - Heiss had put others through it just the same as him.
The shade paused as Rosch's eyes started to glimmer, stepped forward and reached up (and up, and up, with Rosch's height) to put a clawed hand on his friend's shoulder. He opened his mouth, about to say something - but there weren't words to say what he wanted to, either. Or rather, by themselves they were lacking.
Usually, Rosch was the one to initiate a bear hug, or toss an arm over Stocke's shoulder; Stocke was too restrained, the need to hold back strong emotion drilled deeply into him at SpecInt. But useful as that had been sometimes, he didn't want to let Heiss's shadow hang over the rest of his life. He wouldn't let it. (And maybe his time as a member of the Devil's Nest here had helped him unwind, a little bit.)
Stocke hesitated a long moment, two, wavering. Then he reached both arms out to wrap around Rosch, holding tight, head only just above Rosch's shoulder and even that only because the shade was now floating. "I'm sorry." Soft and sincere, the shade's eyes closed. "I've been trying to find a way home..." he trailed off, replaced it with a, "I've missed you."
'Missed all of you at home,' he didn't add. Rosch would know, and Rosch was the one here now.
When the shade finally leaned back (potentially after having to disentangle himself, if Rosch decided to give him a rib-crushing hug back) his expression was far more solemn. But now Rosch was trapped here with him, and that wasn't a fate Stocke would have wished even upon Hugo. The shade's gaze fell on Rosch's Gauntlet again as he asked, "...what did the medics here tell you, when they pulled you out of the water?"
(Maybe a bit unsettling, that he already knew what'd happened without Rosch telling him. Or maybe not; he'd been here for a while, after all.)
[1/2] you know what? i didn't need that heart anyway...
His eyes widened at that gentle touch. It wasn't that he was surprised exactly at the contact, but usually it was Rosch throwing a companionable arm (or Gauntlet) about the smaller man's shoulders, as Stocke generally didn't initiate physical contact.
He wanted to say something—anything—just to fill the void of all the things that had been left unsaid lying between them now like a chasm. But before he could even begin articulating his scattered thoughts, those slender arms wrapped around his shoulders, and he felt Stocke's face buried against his neck.
Rosch drew a shuddering breath. This was a dream. It had to be. He was back home, lying in bed beside Sonja, and at any moment now, he was going to wake up, and Stocke would be gone, and Rosch would stare at the ceiling feeling bereft and forlorn, and angry at himself for daring to hope...
To hell with it! If this was a dream, then he'd better enjoy it while it lasts!
Instinctively, he bent lower, not realizing that Stocke was having an unusually easy time negotiating their differences in height, and threw his arms despite the Gauntlet being held in a slightly awkward position around his friend's body with such force that it was a wonder Stocke's ribs weren't creaking beneath the strain.
Rosch closed his eyes and felt the tears he'd been desperately trying to hold back finally slip loose and roll down his cheeks. He didn't care. All he cared about was holding on to his dearest friend for as long as this dream would allow. He'd commit every detail to memory: the soft hair against his stubble roughened cheek, the warm breath against his neck, the press of those arms against his shoulders...
But most of all, he'd remember those words, and the emotion behind them. He'd remember it all and, maybe, it would sustain him for a little longer...
When Rosch opened his eyes, he truly thought that he would be waking up in his own bed.
Except he wasn't. He was holding fast to Stocke as though he thought the smaller man might disappear if he dared to loosen his grip. Luckily, Stocke had the wherewithal to struggle free, and Rosch awkwardly relinquished his hold. Grunting, he quickly averted his face and scrubbed at one eye with the heel of his hand.
Ah... Well. This definitely wasn't a dream then. Um...
After a moment or two, Rosch has composed himself as best he could. Now he could answer Stocke's question without his voice cracking with emotion. "Hell if I know. I got out of there as fast as I could, after those loony doctors started messing with the Gauntlet. They kept trying to get me to go back, but they've caused enough damage already!"
It was with an almost surprising amount of reluctance that Stocke had finally pulled himself free. Or maybe not that surprising; but there were still things he had to explain. He waited patiently for Rosch to rub at his eyes, averting his own, the corner of his mouth quirking up fondly for a moment before the expression faded.
He kept near. Maybe it was just to stay in the shelter of Rosch's shadow, but... probably not.
Stocke'd have said something deadpan about learning to listen to doctors from Sonja, messing with the Gauntlet or not, but this wasn't really the time. Nothing about Ryslig was especially funny. Instead, he gave a short nod, started in somberly.
"We're trapped here. You aren't the first to wash up on this peninsula," obviously, since Stocke was here, but it was worse than that, "- it's been happening for nearly a year, regularly. None of us can leave; attempting to sail or swim beyond a distance where the peninsula is still visible turns you back towards it. And we've no access to our own mana, I'm sure you've noticed - it's sealed." Sealed, not gone, Stocke still believed - otherwise they'd be nothing more than sand by now. But it was inaccessible either way.
"All this is supposedly due to a group of beings calling themselves gods." Here Stocke paused, for a second - this was already more talking than was usual for him, though it wasn't that odd, for reporting or brainstorming battle plans. "One of them... set a curse on those of us that aren't native to here."
It wasn't hard to guess what kind of curse. But he was still stalling, and he knew it, so Stocke looked up to meet Rosch's eyes. There wasn't any one particular thing that left the impression, but the shade suddenly appeared tired. "We're transformed into man-eaters."
Trapped... And no means of escape. Normally he'd argue, insist that no, you're just not trying hard enough, of course there had to be a way to leave—
Except this was Stocke they were talking about. He would have exhausted every possibility before... resigning himself like this. "Trapped like rats..." A low growl of frustration rumbled in his chest. "And rendered powerless..." His gaze settled once more on the Gauntlet. He was beginning to wonder if those doctors had purposefully sabotaged it, now. He wouldn't put it past them. His mana, on the other hand...
"Uh..." He glanced away, looking shamefaced, scratching his cheek in distraction. "I hadn't noticed, actually..." Compared to the others, especially spell-slingers, like Raynie and Stocke, he didn't really have the sort of sensitivities they must have possessed. And he hadn't actually tried drawing on those reserves of power within himself, but considering that thaumatech relied on mana for power... "Wait! Maybe that's part of the reason the Gauntlet is so screwed up! You think it's because my mana is sealed or whatever?"
Well, that might have answered one question. But there were plenty more knocking around inside Rosch's head. The problem was deciding which one to ask first.
"Gods...?" He tilted his head in confusion, and a stray lock of hair settled across his nose. "So they're just going around, snatching people up, stripping away their powers, and just dumping them here?"
He listened to the rest of Stocke's explanation, his expression clearly telegraphing the the slow realization of impending horror.
Rosch's throat went suddenly dry. "We're..." He paused, swallowing hard. "They're gonna turn us into... monsters...?" Lips skinned back from teeth in an anguished growl. "But why?! What's the point?! Just what are these bastards trying to accomplish, huh?!"
In fury, Rosch swung the Gauntlet to one side (luckily avoiding Stocke in the process) and slammed it into the nearest object (which, unfortunately, happened to be someone's nicely plastered facade), burying his fist up to the knuckles. Cracks radiated outward, and a few chunks of plaster fell loose and toppled to the pavement. Rosch's teeth were bared canines oddly sharpened, for a human... and roared his frustration over the sound of the servos in the Gauntlet screeching in protest at the abuse.
Rosch might very well have been right about his Gauntlet and the lack of mana - but that didn't excuse him from suddenly playing the hypocrite about delicate machinery again, bashing his metallic fist into the wall. Stocke gave him a Look, reaching out to gently push the man's arm back down.
"Trying to break us." That was his first guess, even now. "They need us for something, and they want us cowed enough to go along with it. So we don't give them the satisfaction."
There was resignment, and there was resignment. Stocke hadn't yet gone quite as far as the latter. Trapped as they might be, bereft of mana and Flux and any easy solution, he wasn't giving up. If it took killing the gods here to free them from their curse and find the way home - well, he supposed slaying dieties was only one more step from slaying a time-imbued Hugo.
And his tone was more than forceful enough to advertise that. There was... a different reason for his veneer of exhaustion, and it had something to do with the 'man-eater' part of that curse. Too late for him.
Not too late for Rosch, though. Not yet.
Which meant it was time to get moving. (Nevermind that Stocke had thought this same thing fifty times over since arriving on the peninsula, 'not too late,' having to slide the subject of that time over to something new...)
One step at a time - getting Rosch back up to par, then figuring out how to commit deicide. The shade tapped the Gauntlet's chassis lightly with his claws. "The first thing we need to do is get this fixed. They use something instead of mana here - harnessed lightning - so whatever the problem is..." They should be able to solve it.
The Gauntlet may lack fine tactile sensation, but it could still sense pressure, and even through the red haze of fury threatening to overwhelm him, Rosch could sense that gentle touch against his arm. It was enough. Snorting angrily through his nose, he allowed Stocke to gently push the Gauntlet back down. Something clicked and whirred, and Rosch felt something in his elbow loosen a fraction of an inch.
"Like hell I'm gonna give them the satisfaction..." he growled softly. "If you think I'm gonna just take this lying down, then you're a damn fool."
He had to get back home. Back to his wife and his unborn child. He had... responsibilities, now. And, no matter what, he would find a way to bring Stocke back with him. Even if they couldn't break the curse on him, the others would understand. They were always understanding, where Stocke was concerned.
Rosch felt another growl of frustration building in his throat, and tried to reign it in. As Stocke tapped on the chassis, he could swear he felt the Gauntlet's fingers twitch ever so slightly. "I'm not going back to those quacks," he said, lips thining into a look of childish petulance, followed by the unspoken, and you can't make me! Once Rosch had made up his mind about something, trying to change it was next to impossible. One would have better luck trying to move a mountain with their bare hands. "We can fix this ourselves, if we just have the right tools..."
If Sonja were here—No! Just shut that train of thought right down, mister! ...Okay. If they had Sonja's toolbox here, that'd make things a helluva lot easier. But Rosch had watched her work on the Gauntlet often enough, and he remembered the names of most of the tools. There had to be a shop around here, or something! Or maybe a blacksmith? How hard could it be to track down a soldering gun, really?
"They won't know how to fix it anyway. Doctors and technicians don't overlap here." Which seemed ridiculous, on first thought - but then, thaumatech prosthetics were rare enough in Alistel, Sonja's particular overlap of skills a slightly unusual exception, when both disciplines took so much study. (Stocke deeply suspected it'd been thanks to Rosch that she'd become interested in the first place.)
The prosthetics here, meanwhile... Stocke could hardly grant that name to. And hey - how bad could it be, trying to repair it themselves? He'd seen Sonja fiddling with the core parts in the broken Gauntlet (of which's origin he was decidedly not thinking of), hadn't he?
(This was going to go so well.)
"I know someone in charge of a lab. They might have the right tools - but they're in the next city over." Vandare wasn't especially technologically-inclined.
The shade glanced at the sky, seeing evening starting to tint into night - perfect timing for him, honestly, whether they ended up traveling through the dark or risking one of those native vehicles that ran between Vandare and Bavan. He'd need to give Greed a heads up if he was going to skip out of town tonight, though...
...and it might be worth asking those in the Devil's Nest, in case any of them had any experience with thaumachinery. Maybe Rosch wouldn't let them touch it, but they'd at least be able to pass on some hints. Stocke jerked his head in the direction of the grubby-looking street he'd come from. "There's someone I have to warn first - then we'll head out."
"Figured as much." He could swear he heard confused chatter while he floated on the edges of unconsciousness about this strange contraption and where's the power source? but that was about it.
"You do?" Rosch asked, eyes widening. Well, Stocke was sort of the expert on information gathering, not much surprise there. "Ah... figures. Nothing ever seems to go easy for me, huh?" (He's having a few war flashbacks to gathering those core parts, what a huge pain in his arse that was. But it made Sonja happy a little too happy, so... he couldn't really complain that much.)
Rosch followed his friend's gaze, noticing for the first time how quickly the twilight was setting in. "Huh. Didn't realize it was getting dark so soon..." Lowering his gaze, he noticed that Stocke didn't look so... uncomfortable now. Maybe he was one of those nocturnal type creatures or something?
But when Stocke nodded toward the dubious looking street over there, Rosch couldn't say that he didn't have doubts. "This guy's a... friend of yours? Right?"
Well, whatever. The sooner they got this over with, the better. Normally losing functionality in the Gauntlet was only a temporary annoyance. Now? It was tempting fate, with all these monsters around. And the last thing Rosch wanted was to be a burden to his friend.
What could he call Greed? Fighting back-to-back more than once had the side-effect of leaving 'boss' woefully insufficient, for all that it remained one of the 'Nest crew's favorite nicknames. Especially so when the deal they'd made all those months ago wasn't the real reason Stocke stuck around anymore. Simpler, then, to go with both - "A good friend," Stocke decided, over-familiarity be damned - in another timeline, Rosch had been his superior officer. Friendship didn't have to be exclusive to command. "And my employer." That a bit more wry - he'd normally not need to warn a friend of an absence.
Interestingly enough, as they drifted across the city - streets getting narrower and darker, natives staring out through chinks in curtains (or, deeper in, through boards nailed across the windows) - it became evident that Stocke was acting just as wary of the natives they crossed paths with as they were of him. His tells weren't as obvious, SpecInt had made sure of that, but Rosch hadn't been his friend this long for nothing - he'd probably be able to pick them out. Physical changes might not have been the only one his rather shady friend had undergone...
It only got more pronounced with the few natives that greeted Stocke, silently, nervously, as if both they and the monster were walking on eggshells. It wasn't hostile, the shade did respond with a quiet nod here, a soft flick of a tendril there - but it somehow felt tense even with the short exchanges bordering on friendliness. There'd been some sort of balance here, some coexistence - and then something had destroyed it.
Some buildings ringed their doorways and windows with candles and small white crystals - on second inspection, salt. (One of the inhabitants, shabby-clothed, was already starting to light them for the night; seeing the monster and potentially-also-monster, definitely-big-enough-to-be-a-troll-or-something set them darting back inside their door.) Old, stained spatters of wax underneath, several layers thick, shed evidence that this wasn't anything new. What was new were the clawmarks, scarred deep into the street just on the edge of where the rings ended.
It looked like marking borders.
Stocke circled around the metaphorical lines drawn, but otherwise ignored them, as if this were just a normal fact of life.
Rosch quirked a brow, and felt a little pang of jealousy gnawing at his heart. Mentally, he knew there was no way Stocke could've survived for this long without allies, and this "friend" was probably a decent person if he'd earned Stocke's regard. But the employer bit also had him a little worried, too. It reminded him too much of Heiss, and he hoped that Stocke hadn't gotten himself mixed up with any shady business yet again...
A low rumble was the only indication of his misgivings, and he tried his best to push those feelings aside. He still had "best friend" rights unto eternity, which meant it was up to him to determine whether these so-called "friends" were worthy of that title or not.
Right! He had a mission now! Rosch always felt his best when working toward some sort of goal. It gave him an excuse not to ponder unpleasant thoughts too much...
The city, as Rosch soon discovered, reminded him of Alistel in many ways, save for the absence of exposed steampipes and a blanket of fog hovering over the rooftops. And he could tell that they were definitely entering the seedier part town. Occasionally, he would glance up and catch a curtain flutter as someone retreated from the window. The streets became narrower, and it felt like the buildings were trying to hem them in. Rosch was never fond of narrow spaces, given his bulk, but at least they weren't trying to navigate any alleyways not yet, at least.
At least Stocke didn't seem too perturbed by their surroundings. The deepening shadows sometimes made it hard to discern the shade's outline, despite the fact that Rosch was walking right behind him. It was almost like Stocke was melting into the shadows... Rosch blinked, caught the brief glance Stocke gave him over one shoulder, eyes glowing even brighter as the darkness deepened. It was a little eerie, but... this was Stocke, after all.
"Don't worry about me," Rosch said. "I can see well enough."
Enough to notice the slight pause as some random passerby tried to slink past, the way that Stocke seemed to unconsciously compact himself, as though wanting to take up a little space as possible in order to avoid coming too close to anyone. Rosch felt a bit of annoyance (and confusion, especially) when he accidentally made eye contact with a young woman, and her first reaction was to cover her face with one hand and quicken her pace, not slowing down until she had turned a corner and was gone from sight.
Okay, so Rosch was well aware that he suffered from "resting bitch face" syndrome, and that made him appear rather grumpy, even when he wasn't, but come on! That's no excuse for people to practically jump to the other side of the street just to avoid him!
"What the hell is wrong with these people?" Rosch asked. "It's like they're afraid of us or something..."
He could kinda understand why people seemed to be avoiding Stocke, at any rate, but himself? His gaze traveled down the length of the Gauntlet. He was used to people giving him strange looks because of it: nervousness, or pity, even. But outright fear? He could understand that sort of reaction, if the Gauntlet hadn't been mangled to the point of non-threatening... but now? Did he really look so scary to these people?
But as they traveled further along, Rosch was beginning to suspect that there was another reason the locals seemed a bit wary of him. Even the people that didn't immediately flinch away from them still appeared tense, unsure. And Stocke greeted them in that same quiet, somewhat nervous manner. What exactly had happened here? In someways, the reactions reminded him of the way people used to treat the Beastkind, before the peace treaty had been established.
He noticed the older gentleman leaning out to light some candles, and Rosch offered him a smile, revealing unnaturally sharp canines. The other man gaped, letting the match he'd been holding drop from slack fingers, then quickly darted inside. Rosch glowered as the door slammed shut, and growled in annoyance. Rude! He was just trying to be friendly...
"What's with all the candles and salt?" Rosch asked, hoping that the question would serve to settle the feelings of anger and dread stewing in the back of his mind. "Are they holding some kind of vigil or what?"
And then, he noticed the clawmarks. Something niggled at Rosch's memory, and he took a moment to stoop down for a closer look. His fingers brushed over the grooves, and he discovered, to his horror, that they fit easily within the marks carved into the street. And... they looked just like the ones gouged into the vambrace of his Gauntlet. Were they made by the same creature? Rosch couldn't remember being attacked by anything before he woke up in the hospital... and part of him was actually grateful for that. He didn't wanna think about what sort of monster could inflict that kind of damage.
Realizing that Stocke had continued without him, Rosch quickly pulled himself into a standing position. He called, "H-hey, Stocke! Wait up!" and jogged to catch up, his armored boots clanking against the cobblestones.
Sorry, Rosch. Stocke had gotten himself mixed up in shady business all over again. It was almost a knack.
(That said, it wasn't Heiss's world-destroying brand of shady business, so that was an improvement, right?)
The shade didn't say much, just a silent nod of acknowledgement over his shoulder when Rosch reassured him he'd be able to see, tendrils flickering up and down - in the dark, more suggestions of unnatural movement at his back than dinstinct limbs. It wasn't until Rosch said 'It's like they're afraid of us or something...' that Stocke hesitated. He didn't quite have enough time to answer, choosing words, before the man was asking about the native's protective borders, falling behind to stare at them - and the monsters' responses, more recently. Since Rota...
"'Man-eaters' was no exaggeration," the shade said, quiet, when Rosch caught up once more. And - "They're warding us off." But if Rosch was going to say anything about that, it'd have to wait, since apparently they'd gotten to wherever they were headed - 'Devil's Nest,' words emblazoned above the door exclaimed, soft red light spilling it through the windows and cutting through the evening's gloom. Noisy, too - business was starting to pick up with the night's coming, chatter and a pulse of music and maybe the ocassional yell spilling out into the street.
Stocke slipped through the door, holding it open behind him for Rosch to grab, then scanned the bar floor, the counter. Whoever he was looking for didn't seem to be around - his eyes fell on the twisting spiral staircase past the bartender, jagged, narrow iron.
(Some of the patrons inside turned their heads to look at the door as the two entered, greeting Rosch with a full array of spider-eyes, glimmering scales, mussed feathers. One flicked a wolf-like ear in his direction, then turned dark, canine eyes on the Gauntlet and finally on Rosch's face. The monster nudged another seated next to him - one wrapped around the stool rather than on it, with nothing but a giant snake tail for a lower body.)
(All seemed careful, suspicious - at least until spotting Stocke. There they relaxed - evidently, the shade was a familiar face around these parts, and trusted enough to bring in someone who didn't have any obvious monster traits at first glance.)
Stocke cut across the floor to the bartender, catching their attention. Tonight: young, almost - until you saw the flash of red eyes, the glint of sharp teeth when she spoke, fangs far longer than a human being's. "Is Greed here?" Stocke asked her, arms crossed over the wooden counter; she answered in the negative, and the shade's tendrils gave a small, resigned wave.
"Pass on a message?" The bartender nodded, and they swapped a few more words - a matter of seconds - before the shade trailed back over to Rosch and motioned towards the door.
Man-eaters. Right. Stocke had mentioned that before. If that was the case, you'd think the townsfolk would be using more than simple candles to protect themselves. It seemed silly and useless in Rosch's mind, but he wasn't going to question it, not now, anyway.
As they approached the entrance, Rosch craned his neck to read the crude sign painted in gaudy colors. Devil's Nest, huh? He shot Stocke a questioning look that clearly said, Are you serious? before catching the door and ducking inside. (Incidentally, he didn't have to duck that low, it was almost as if this establishment was used to receiving patrons of his general height and girth...)
Of course, the moment he stepped inside, he was immediately greeted by several monstrous visages, and it was with surprising restraint that he managed to bite down on the yelp of surprise that threatened to escape. He could feel sweat beading on his brow, his hair prickling against his scalp. A guy with the face of a wolf made eye contact, and Rosch struggled to think of an appropriate response. If he held eye contact, was that considered a challenge? Dammit, he didn't speak wolf!
Before he could do anything, the wolf-guy looked away, nudging his buddy, and Rosch felt his lips peel back in a nervous grin. There was a part of him that wanted to reach over and throttle Stocke. The least he could have done was warn him that this so-called "Devil's Nest" was filled with honest-to-goodness monsters!
But Stocke had already crossed over to the bar, and all Rosch could do was stand there, frozen to the spot, and hoping that his friend hadn't suddenly gone turncoat and was planning to throw him to the wolves. Literally.
Fair warning, Stocke: There are Going to Be Words, and a lot of them, probably shouted at maximum volume once this is all over.
It took a moment for Rosch to register that Stocke wanted him to follow. He made his way toward the door, doing his best imitate Stocke earlier and somehow compact his bulky frame as much as possible. Noah help him if he accidentally bumped into one of these monsters, or stepped on someone's tail by mistake...
"What the hell are you trying to pull, Stocke?" he growled beneath his breath. "You trying to serve me up on a silver platter or what?"
Stocke tosses his friend a startled stare over his shoulder, then a dry look - of the very 'what were you expecting, not a place full of transformed people?' variety - but waited until they were free of the monsters' den with the door shut behind them before answering.
"You think I'd let anyone but me eat you?" With a dead serious tone. Not unusual - Stocke certainly had a tendency of hiding teasing behind a straight face, leaving people guessing whether he was serious or not - but what was odd was the moment of vertigo Stocke experienced when he realized even he wasn't... completely, one hundred percent certain he wasn't being serious right now. He didn't want Rosch eaten, period, obviously. But as icing on the cake, something was rubbing Stocke wrong about the thought of specifically other monsters considering it...
Right. Rather than worry about that right now, he added, "Nobody in there would have touched you. Not unless they wanted to answer to me, and then to Greed and the rest of us." And especially not when Stocke was right there - there was, Rosch might note, a sword strapped to his red-clad friend's side, even if the sheath looked shorter, was shaped differently than it would have been for the longsword Stocke had favoured back on their home continent.
To Rosch's potential relief, the way the shade was leading now quickly spilled out into larger streets, rapidly emptying of people - or at least, people travelling alone - now that night was truly falling. Absently, the shade dodged around patches of light cast by streetlamps - not with any particular urgency, but as if out of habit.
Stocke kept himself slow, made sure to fall back to walk at Rosch's side instead of leading him. Now that it was getting darker - and now that they were out of a part of the city where Stocke could guarantee good behavior, and would be setting out across uninhabited parts of the peninsula as soon as they cut through Vandare - he wanted to stay extra close.
Rosch's brain stutters along at a snail's pace. While there's a tiny part of him that's secretly pleased at the prospect of Stocke acting so possessive, the bigger, more rational part of his brain (which sounded suspiciously like Sonja...) was beating him over the head with a wrench and screaming at him: Don't you dare entertain such thoughts, mister!
The pause lasted only a few seconds before nervous laughter bubbled up, and Rosch slapped his thigh with one hand. "Ah, you almost had me there for a minute!" he said, wagging a finger in Stocke's direction. The laughter became a little more genuine, but he still couldn't say that he was a hundred percent certain that Stocke wasn't entertaining the idea...
The laughter died down. Stocke's demeanor had returned to its default stoicism once again. Not that Rosch minded, really. "So, you're kinda like the second-in-command or something?" He nodded his approval at the short sword hanging from his friend's hip. "Good call. I'm not too keen on traveling without a weapon in my hand, but it's not like we've got any money, and I haven't seen a single armory in this whole damn town."
Though, now that he thought about it, he hadn't seen any soldiers in this town, either. And, aside from Stocke, no one else was walking around carrying weapons. Were they prohibited in the city? Or was this country operating under some sort of non-aggression treaty? Whatever the reason, the whole thing felt odd to him.
Thankfully, they were making their way out of the claustrophobic back alleys and onto the main streets once again. Night had fallen, but the streets were well-lit with several gaslamps, which served as a comforting reminder of home. Rosch followed along, taking note of the way Stocke seemed to swerve around each pool of light cast by the streetlamps, almost unconsciously. Did he really... not like the light? What the heck did he do when the sun came up? Hole up in some dark, musty corner somewhere, like a rat? He didn't... really want to think that that was the case.
"How long's it gonna take for us to get to... where ever it is we're going?" Rosch asked. He was used to hard travel, no complaints there, but it'd be nice to have a rough idea of how long they were gonna be on the road. Especially since there was a woeful lack of provisions on their part...
'Second-in-command' gave Stocke pause; it'd never been stated, not aloud, but sometimes it did seem he and Greed were falling into that kind of dynamic. He didn't answer one way or another, though - instead, as Rosch mentioned money, the shade reached toward his side. Claws struggled with a tight knot at his belt for a few seconds; finally, Stocke let his claws simply slit through it, catching the small leather pouch that fell free. He tossed it in Rosch's direction, towards the un-Gauntleted hand - it'd jingle on impact, heavy. Not an extravagant amount, but no meager sum either.
(He'd just have to pickpocket a few more rich natives to make it up later. They'd hardly miss it.)
"You won't find an armoury," the shade confirmed. "Not unless you're looking for firearms like Eruca's - and even then, they don't use mana as she does. Knives, perhaps..."
Speaking of which - the shade let one knife slip free from where it was strapped to the inside of his boot, this time unknotting it with telekinesis, and kicked it up into his hand. (It flew a bit too straight, too true for such a casual toss with the side of one foot - as if guided.) This he offered to Rosch hilt first instead of throwing. Hardly a substitute for Rosch's usual long reach, but better than nothing. "We'll sharpen your Gauntlet while we're repairing it."
At the rate he was lending out daggers, Stocke added to himself absently, he'd need to start carrying around far more of them. Not that it was a bad idea - never hurt to have an extra knife...
"A few hours. This peninsula's not even a fraction the size of Alistel." Faster if he could carry Rosch, levitating; Stocke gave his friend an oddly eerie look, white eyes glowing speculatively.
Rosch caught the pouch easily, surprised at its weight. He gave a low whistle. "Well, I guess that solves one of our problems, at least!" He manages to loop the severed ties around his belt with some difficulty (basically being rendered one-handed makes it difficult, but he manages well enough).
"Firearms? That don't use mana? Huh." Rosch rubbed at his chin in thought. "Guess they're a lot more common here if they're just selling them in armories. Normally you'd have to have something like that custom made..."
Not that Rosch was keen on acquiring one. Too fiddly and unreliable for his tastes. Put a lance in his hand, and he could face down any foe!
But for now, he'd settle with a knife. There's a bit of a wry grin and a quiet, "Show off," as Stocke pulled the knife free and offered it to Rosch. (The movements had been too quick for Rosch to realize that Stocke was pulling some kinda trick with the telekinesis, but he was used to his friend's sleight-of-hand techniques that he didn't think to question it.) It looked ridiculously small in his grip, but a small weapon was better than no weapon at all. And even with only the use of one arm, his prodigious strength was certain to make any attack guaranteed lethal. He shoved the knife into the top of his boot, and the cold steel pressing against his calf is a welcome reassurance.
"Good. That means we won't have to bunk down for the night or anything. And I can wait until we get there to find something to eat..." he trailed off, noticing the eerie look Stocke was giving him. The taller soldier's hair prickled at that pointed look. "B-But if you're getting hungry we can... we should probably take care of that sooner rather than later, right!?"
"Haven't been here this many months for nothing," Stocke lobbed back, tendrils swishing once, amused. (Teeth flashed as he spoke, corner of his mouth slightly up - pointed to match Rosch's, though in Stocke's case those were far newer.) Sober as the implications of that were - months of not returning to Alistel, months of being a monster - surely Rosch didn't expect him to have sat around without some way of covering the basics?
The shade bumped his shoulder lightly against Rosch's arm at the accusation, a 'look who's talking' - and that was another odd bit of contact, a reverse of how it usually went. Had there been someone, maybe multiple someones, wearing away at Stocke's hesitation here? Or was it just thanks to being away from Heiss's influence for long enough?
(Either way, it helped that he'd always been comfortable around Rosch. The man'd been a friendly constant in all of Stocke's life, from when the young amnesiac had shown up in Alistel's military - the memory loss at first attributed to a disease that attacked mana and the mind - up until the very end, when he'd been standing there, giving his farewells, ready to act as Sacrifice. The few timelines where he'd lost Rosch's friendship - or worse, the man's life - had been agonizing.)
It was keeping the shade from growing grim at the mentions of his hunger now. Stocke gave a little shake of his head. "I won't need to..." Trailed off. "Not for another week or two." Nevermind that he was getting slightly concerned about how the time period was shrinking - it'd been a month, now it was getting closer to three weeks before he felt his hunger tugging at the limit. (And also nevermind that he'd nearly forgotten that Rosch would need to eat something besides bits of human. The things you got used to...)
Instead Stocke took one short step back, one to the side to end up behind Rosch, hopped lightly into the air, and looped claws under Rosch's shoulders. And prepared to be shouted at for doing it without warning.
Conclusions: he could levitate with Rosch, but it was incredibly wobbly, far more than carrying someone closer to Stocke's size. Twinges at Stocke's shoulders suggested it'd be far more tiring, too, even with the gravity-cancelling effects of being almost-a-ghost.
i see your headcanon, and raise you more headcanon
Admittedly, the breaking down of that stoic facade was a little strange, though definitely not unwelcome. Usually, it was under very specific conditions when Stocke would allow himself to almost act like a normal human being around the rest of the brigade; and that usually involved a not insignificant amount of alcohol and plenty of cajoling from his fellow soldiers. Even then, it still felt like he was holding something in check...
Rosch couldn't help but smile at the gesture. He could definitely get used to seeing this side of Stocke more often. He always felt proud of being one of the privileged few who got to experience that quiet warmth, and it probably would never have happened had he not received the Gauntlet in the first place. They'd befriended one another in the hospital, the sick amnesiac and the crippled soldier undergoing intensive physical therapy, and Rosch couldn't say that they would have opened up to one another had they not been struggling to come to terms with their own wounded selves.
"Th-that's good! Just... lemme know if it starts getting bad, okay?" Rosch really didn't want to think about his friend having to rely on eating people just to survive, and now he had at least another week or so before he'd be forced to confront that fact. He shoved the thought aside to avoid indefinitely address later. Right now, they had more important things to worry about. Like, how were they going to travel safely through the dark wilderness to reach this other town...
The last thing he expected was Stocke sidling up behind him and hooking his claws beneath his arms. "H-hey! What're you—!"
The rest of his words were choked off in a keening little whine of indignation and utter disbelief. His feet were slowly rising from the ground, and it was with restrained effort that Rosch didn't immediately start flailing to free himself, though the urge was there and screaming at him very loudly. Stocke might not be aware of it, but his claws were dangerously close to the one unprotected area of the Gauntlet. Any place requiring a full range of motion couldn't be adequately armored, and the spot beneath the arm was one of those places. One wrong move, and those claws would slice right through the synaptic wiring and myomer cables, and then Rosch's arm would be well and truly crippled.
And so huge soldier was forced to do his best impression of a helpless kitten and let his body go limp in Stocke's grasp. How utterly undignified! "Put me down, right now! Are you insane? This is ridiculous!"
Stocke knew well enough which parts of the Gauntlet were dangerously vulnerable - hard to watch someone's back without being aware, though with the exception of one particular time, Rosch had done well enough in defending the prosthetic himself. A less generous estimation would've said that the shade knew what he was doing and was taking advantage of Rosch's forced reaction; truthfully, though, Stocke had just decided he had more control of his claws than that.
Now the shade carefully lowered the man back to the street, twisting one-eighty degrees and floating around Rosch in a single motion to end up in front - as fluid as if he were swimming. He stayed there, at the man's eye level, drifting backwards. (You'd think he'd float into something, but somehow he avoided it - often by short margins, just when those tendrils started to pass through whatever it was.)
"We'd get there faster if I could carry you," he explained, though that seemed to be off the table for now - unless Rosch suddenly shrank. Or he carried the man bridal style? Stocke considered this for a moment, head tilted, then decided - no, no that wasn't going to work. It just wasn't.
A small huddle of natives passing nearby gave the two odd looks, then quickly hurried around a corner and into the spreading grounds of an apartment building. Stocke cast a glance over his shoulder, then swerved to the right - buildings were starting to grow sparse, once again dingier at the edges of town. The road that they'd curved down simply kept going, off into the Ryslig wilds - to Rosch's left, grasslands eventually faded into forest, deep and foreboding. Behind them, but in the same direction and some distance from the town, a lighthouse cast flashes of illumination over the sea.
It's a good thing Stocke decided to set Rosch down when he did, because the prospect of flying over rooftops threatened to throw the huge soldier's brain on a repeating loop of displeased cat noises.
The moment his toes touched solid ground, Rosch slumped forward, hand and Gauntlet awkwardly pressed to his knees, and drew a shuddering breath. Oh, praise Noah! He really dodged a bullet there!
Raising his head just in time to catch Stocke floating gracefully in front of him, Rosch glowered. "You gotta warn me when you're gonna pull crap like that, okay!?" He straightened, regaining some of his composure. "I've seen you pull some pretty weird stunts in the past, but this is totally different!"
Turning invisible? Fine. Floating around like some specter? Not fine. There were limits to even what Rosch could accept in the span of a day. He heaved a sigh. At this rate, he was going to start going grey prematurely... "You know, I think I'd rather keep both feet firmly planted on the ground at all times, even if it does mean we'll be traveling a lot slower than you'd like."
He spared the natives a slightly annoyed look before trailing after Stocke. It was a little weird, truth be told, seeing his friend floating through the air as though he had been born for it, but he put the thought from his mind. The more alien Stocke's behavior, the more Rosch was determined not to let it bother him. This was his friend, his best friend, after all, and Rosch was willing to put up with whatever amount of weirdness Stocke decided to throw his way.
They traveled in silence for the most part, Rosch having always been comfortable in Stocke's quiet presence. They'd been friends for so long that he could enjoy the companionable silence, even if his mind was still filled with questions.
But as they approached a rather creepy looking forest, Rosch asked, "So, where exactly are we going, anyway? I don't think you actually said other than it's the next town over."
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graveyardsmash2015-05-23 05:28 pm
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That deadpan voice though...
No...
It couldn't be...
Blue eyes widened in slow recognition as the cogs started turning in Rosch's brain, desperately trying to make sense of the crazy situation. The figure was clad in red from head to toe and covered in an assortment of belts and pouches. Only one man Rosch knew possessed such a... striking sense of fashion.
"You... You're..." Clearly, his mouth was malfunctioning as badly as his Gauntlet if he couldn't even spit out a single name. The fear that had stiffened his posture was beginning to ebb. He looked less like a cornered animal and more like a bewildered man. "Stock...? Is that... Is that really you under there?"
He continued to stare, dumbfounded. Eyes that were once cornflower blue now glimmered with a preternatural light. But even so, they didn't look so... threatening now. In fact, they almost looked concerned. Rosch shook his head, shifted his weight so that he was sitting in a more upright position. The Gauntlet whirred softly. It wasn't sparking anymore, so that was something, at least. But he still couldn't get his fingers to uncurl and his elbow was locked in position, but he could still use it to lever himself up.
"I dunno... Those crazy doctors must have loosened a wire or something when they were poking around..." His voice was practically a growl. "I bet not a one of 'em has any training in thaumatech repair. This is a sophisticated piece of equipment, dammit! You gotta treat it with respect!"
Hopefully, Stocke won't mention the hypocrisy of that statement. Rosch himself could be pretty rough with the Gauntlet, and he wasn't above using the blades to shave in the morning. Sophisticated indeed...
Reaching for
the creepy-shadow-monster-thing'shis friend's hand, Rosch only paused for the briefest of moments before taking hold. His grip was firm, friendly, even. How often had Stocke offered that same steady hand each time he managed to best Rosch in a sparring match?Once Rosch was on his feet, he gave Stocke a cursory glance. "Honestly, I think the more important question is: what happened to you? I thought you were..."
He bit down on the words, refusing to utter them, lest it confirm his worst fears. Stocke wasn't... dead. Not really. But he wasn't alive anymore, either. This wasn't a result of his sacrifice... was it?
so much dang introspection, i'm so sorry
Something in Stocke's expression went softer as he was named; inadvertently, his tendrils relaxed, unfurling. They didn't look threatening, somehow - the pattern they wove through the air behind the shade's back was equally gentle.
"About time." It should've been said expressionlessly, but even Stocke couldn't quite muster that right now; there was a bit of relief, but mostly an unobtrusive, subdued happiness.
The shade's eyebrows raised at Rosch, of all people, grumbling about being careful with the Gauntlet; who here'd bashed the thing about countless times before? Still, he let the grousing pass uncommented as he pulled the other up. It was hardly important to tease Rosch right now, and the man wasn't wrong - no one on this peninsula had the slightest clue about how to work with thaumachinery, Stocke included.
Instead, he finished Rosch's sentence for him, quietly. "...gone." Not exactly dead, but just as out of reach of the world, and Stocke hadn't expected there to be anything left of him. He... he had some explaining to do, didn't he?
And... maybe apologies to make, later. If the same choice was put in front of him now - sacrifice himself, or let Vainqueur perish - he'd make the same exact decision. But he'd regret just as much what he put his friends through.
A short pause, Stocke's eyes dimming to a far less bright white. "Heiss. At the last moment, Heiss intervened and sacrificed himself in my place."
And Stocke... it'd been more than half a year, since then - (for once, he's sure of the time, now that he's been locked in a linear timeline like a normal non-time-traveling person) - and Stocke still didn't know how he felt about it. His... uncle (a title begrudgingly granted, in acknowledgement of the man's sacrifice, if nothing else) had saved the world in the end, had found enough empathy to become a candidate for Sacrifice. But he'd still intended to destroy it at first, caused needless suffering on the path there, and it wasn't Stocke he'd harmed the most. He'd destroyed Ernst, wiped away Eruca's real brother (in the shade's thoughts, anyway), slaughtered Marco and Raynie's old partners, been behind the war between Granorg and Alistel. It wasn't up to Stocke to forgive. Just remember.
He refused to let himself dwell for more than a few seconds, continuing with, "I meant to return, after - but as I was leaving Historia, I found myself here." With no White Chronicle in tow - he'd sorely missed its presence more than once since then.
The bit about monster transformations he left out, for the moment - Rosch would have enough to absorb, probably questions to ask. (And maybe he was delaying for another reason - explaining about the transformations would mean explaining about feeding on humans, and what sort of excuse could he ever offer for eating souls? It'd seemed pragmatic, surrounded by other monsters - better then losing control and slaughtering larger numbers - but faced with someone from home...)
ugh, this art is so cute, i am unworthy /)_(\
"Never said I was the sharpest tool in the shed, you know?" He grinned sheepishly. "Thought a smart guy like you woulda figured that out by now."
Yeah. Same old Stocke, pointing out his dumb mistakes with alacrity. It felt just like hundreds of other conversations they'd had before, and that familiarity was a reassurance. Truth be told, Rosch was beginning to wonder why he'd been so afraid in the first place. He mentally kicked himself for acting like such a stupid idiot, to his best friend, of all people.
His brows furrowed, lips quirking into a slight frown when Stocke finished his sentence. He shook his head. "Gone, but not really gone... right? You said so yourself. You said you'd live on everywhere in the land, watching over us..."
Rosch swallowed hard. There were no words (or, more likely, he simply lacked the eloquence) to describe the agony of waiting for someone who meant so much to him. It felt like losing his left arm all over again.
No, it was worse than that. He'd have given up half his soul without a second thought if it meant Stocke would come back.
"Heiss? Heiss?" His voice was edging dangerously close to maximum volume. "You mean that bastard...? He...?" Rosch barked laughter. "I don't believe it! He really..."
From the first moment he laid eyes on the man, Rosch knew there was something a bit sinister in Heiss' demeanor. And there was a part of him that always resented the fact that Heiss had "lured" Stocke away to join the shadier side of Alistel's military.
For several moments, Rosch was uncharacteristically silent, gaze fixed to the pavement. His jaw worked as he struggled to come to terms with Heiss' actions. "I guess... I should be grateful. But don't expect me to forgive him. Not after everything he's done." He met Stocke's glowing eyes--now somewhat dimmed--and his expression softened. "Not after everything he's put you though..."
It was a lot to take in. Stocke was alive, here, right in front of his eyes. Sure, he was sporting a few new additions, but Rosch wasn't one to judge, especially since Stocke never once looked at him askance for bearing a massive piece of thaumatech instead of a left arm. He'd be the worst sort of hypocrite if he quibbled over something as inconsequential as little snaky tendrils of pure darkness...
"I waited for you," Rosch said suddenly. "All this time." His voice softened to a low rumble. "I never stopped believing that you'd come back to us. And all this time you've been stuck here... like this?"
The huge soldier sniffed. His eyes burned with half a year's worth of unshed tears, and like hell he was gonna cry in front of his best friend, not after they'd just been reunited, dammit!
[1/2]
More dryly - "Besides, most of what happened to me was my own fault." And he was sticking to his guns on that one. Any bad timelines he'd gone down - those were due to his own choices. Anything else - Heiss had put others through it just the same as him.
The shade paused as Rosch's eyes started to glimmer, stepped forward and reached up (and up, and up, with Rosch's height) to put a clawed hand on his friend's shoulder. He opened his mouth, about to say something - but there weren't words to say what he wanted to, either. Or rather, by themselves they were lacking.
Usually, Rosch was the one to initiate a bear hug, or toss an arm over Stocke's shoulder; Stocke was too restrained, the need to hold back strong emotion drilled deeply into him at SpecInt. But useful as that had been sometimes, he didn't want to let Heiss's shadow hang over the rest of his life. He wouldn't let it. (And maybe his time as a member of the Devil's Nest here had helped him unwind, a little bit.)
Stocke hesitated a long moment, two, wavering. Then he reached both arms out to wrap around Rosch, holding tight, head only just above Rosch's shoulder
and even that only because the shade was now floating. "I'm sorry." Soft and sincere, the shade's eyes closed. "I've been trying to find a way home..." he trailed off, replaced it with a, "I've missed you."'Missed all of you at home,' he didn't add. Rosch would know, and Rosch was the one here now.
[2/2]
(Maybe a bit unsettling, that he already knew what'd happened without Rosch telling him. Or maybe not; he'd been here for a while, after all.)
[1/2] you know what? i didn't need that heart anyway...
He wanted to say something—anything—just to fill the void of all the things that had been left unsaid lying between them now like a chasm. But before he could even begin articulating his scattered thoughts, those slender arms wrapped around his shoulders, and he felt Stocke's face buried against his neck.
Rosch drew a shuddering breath. This was a dream. It had to be. He was back home, lying in bed beside Sonja, and at any moment now, he was going to wake up, and Stocke would be gone, and Rosch would stare at the ceiling feeling bereft and forlorn, and angry at himself for daring to hope...
To hell with it! If this was a dream, then he'd better enjoy it while it lasts!
Instinctively, he bent lower, not realizing that Stocke was having an unusually easy time negotiating their differences in height, and threw his arms
despite the Gauntlet being held in a slightly awkward positionaround his friend's body with such force that it was a wonder Stocke's ribs weren't creaking beneath the strain.Rosch closed his eyes and felt the tears he'd been desperately trying to hold back finally slip loose and roll down his cheeks. He didn't care. All he cared about was holding on to his dearest friend for as long as this dream would allow. He'd commit every detail to memory: the soft hair against his stubble roughened cheek, the warm breath against his neck, the press of those arms against his shoulders...
But most of all, he'd remember those words, and the emotion behind them. He'd remember it all and, maybe, it would sustain him for a little longer...
[2/2]
Except he wasn't. He was holding fast to Stocke as though he thought the smaller man might disappear if he dared to loosen his grip. Luckily, Stocke had the wherewithal to struggle free, and Rosch awkwardly relinquished his hold. Grunting, he quickly averted his face and scrubbed at one eye with the heel of his hand.
Ah... Well. This definitely wasn't a dream then. Um...
After a moment or two, Rosch has composed himself as best he could. Now he could answer Stocke's question without his voice cracking with emotion. "Hell if I know. I got out of there as fast as I could, after those loony doctors started messing with the Gauntlet. They kept trying to get me to go back, but they've caused enough damage already!"
continues cackling unabashedly
He kept near. Maybe it was just to stay in the shelter of Rosch's shadow, but... probably not.
Stocke'd have said something deadpan about learning to listen to doctors from Sonja, messing with the Gauntlet or not, but this wasn't really the time. Nothing about Ryslig was especially funny. Instead, he gave a short nod, started in somberly.
"We're trapped here. You aren't the first to wash up on this peninsula," obviously, since Stocke was here, but it was worse than that, "- it's been happening for nearly a year, regularly. None of us can leave; attempting to sail or swim beyond a distance where the peninsula is still visible turns you back towards it. And we've no access to our own mana, I'm sure you've noticed - it's sealed." Sealed, not gone, Stocke still believed - otherwise they'd be nothing more than sand by now. But it was inaccessible either way.
"All this is supposedly due to a group of beings calling themselves gods." Here Stocke paused, for a second - this was already more talking than was usual for him, though it wasn't that odd, for reporting or brainstorming battle plans. "One of them... set a curse on those of us that aren't native to here."
It wasn't hard to guess what kind of curse. But he was still stalling, and he knew it, so Stocke looked up to meet Rosch's eyes. There wasn't any one particular thing that left the impression, but the shade suddenly appeared tired. "We're transformed into man-eaters."
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Except this was Stocke they were talking about. He would have exhausted every possibility before... resigning himself like this. "Trapped like rats..." A low growl of frustration rumbled in his chest. "And rendered powerless..." His gaze settled once more on the Gauntlet. He was beginning to wonder if those doctors had purposefully sabotaged it, now. He wouldn't put it past them. His mana, on the other hand...
"Uh..." He glanced away, looking shamefaced, scratching his cheek in distraction. "I hadn't noticed, actually..." Compared to the others, especially spell-slingers, like Raynie and Stocke, he didn't really have the sort of sensitivities they must have possessed. And he hadn't actually tried drawing on those reserves of power within himself, but considering that thaumatech relied on mana for power... "Wait! Maybe that's part of the reason the Gauntlet is so screwed up! You think it's because my mana is sealed or whatever?"
Well, that might have answered one question. But there were plenty more knocking around inside Rosch's head. The problem was deciding which one to ask first.
"Gods...?" He tilted his head in confusion, and a stray lock of hair settled across his nose. "So they're just going around, snatching people up, stripping away their powers, and just dumping them here?"
He listened to the rest of Stocke's explanation, his expression clearly telegraphing the the slow realization of impending horror.
Rosch's throat went suddenly dry. "We're..." He paused, swallowing hard. "They're gonna turn us into... monsters...?" Lips skinned back from teeth in an anguished growl. "But why?! What's the point?! Just what are these bastards trying to accomplish, huh?!"
In fury, Rosch swung the Gauntlet to one side (luckily avoiding Stocke in the process) and slammed it into the nearest object (which, unfortunately, happened to be someone's nicely plastered facade), burying his fist up to the knuckles. Cracks radiated outward, and a few chunks of plaster fell loose and toppled to the pavement. Rosch's teeth were bared
canines oddly sharpened, for a human...and roared his frustration over the sound of the servos in the Gauntlet screeching in protest at the abuse.no subject
"Trying to break us." That was his first guess, even now. "They need us for something, and they want us cowed enough to go along with it. So we don't give them the satisfaction."
There was resignment, and there was resignment. Stocke hadn't yet gone quite as far as the latter. Trapped as they might be, bereft of mana and Flux and any easy solution, he wasn't giving up. If it took killing the gods here to free them from their curse and find the way home - well, he supposed slaying dieties was only one more step from slaying a time-imbued Hugo.
And his tone was more than forceful enough to advertise that. There was... a different reason for his veneer of exhaustion, and it had something to do with the 'man-eater' part of that curse. Too late for him.
Not too late for Rosch, though. Not yet.
Which meant it was time to get moving. (Nevermind that Stocke had thought this same thing fifty times over since arriving on the peninsula, 'not too late,' having to slide the subject of that time over to something new...)
One step at a time - getting Rosch back up to par, then figuring out how to commit deicide. The shade tapped the Gauntlet's chassis lightly with his claws. "The first thing we need to do is get this fixed. They use something instead of mana here - harnessed lightning - so whatever the problem is..." They should be able to solve it.
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"Like hell I'm gonna give them the satisfaction..." he growled softly. "If you think I'm gonna just take this lying down, then you're a damn fool."
He had to get back home. Back to his wife and his unborn child. He had... responsibilities, now. And, no matter what, he would find a way to bring Stocke back with him. Even if they couldn't break the curse on him, the others would understand. They were always understanding, where Stocke was concerned.
Rosch felt another growl of frustration building in his throat, and tried to reign it in. As Stocke tapped on the chassis, he could swear he felt the Gauntlet's fingers twitch ever so slightly. "I'm not going back to those quacks," he said, lips thining into a look of childish petulance, followed by the unspoken, and you can't make me! Once Rosch had made up his mind about something, trying to change it was next to impossible. One would have better luck trying to move a mountain with their bare hands. "We can fix this ourselves, if we just have the right tools..."
If Sonja were here—No! Just shut that train of thought right down, mister! ...Okay. If they had Sonja's toolbox here, that'd make things a helluva lot easier. But Rosch had watched her work on the Gauntlet often enough, and he remembered the names of most of the tools. There had to be a shop around here, or something! Or maybe a blacksmith? How hard could it be to track down a soldering gun, really?
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The prosthetics here, meanwhile... Stocke could hardly grant that name to. And hey - how bad could it be, trying to repair it themselves? He'd seen Sonja fiddling with the core parts in the broken Gauntlet (of which's origin he was decidedly not thinking of), hadn't he?
(This was going to go so well.)
"I know someone in charge of a lab. They might have the right tools - but they're in the next city over." Vandare wasn't especially technologically-inclined.
The shade glanced at the sky, seeing evening starting to tint into night - perfect timing for him, honestly, whether they ended up traveling through the dark or risking one of those native vehicles that ran between Vandare and Bavan. He'd need to give Greed a heads up if he was going to skip out of town tonight, though...
...and it might be worth asking those in the Devil's Nest, in case any of them had any experience with thaumachinery. Maybe Rosch wouldn't let them touch it, but they'd at least be able to pass on some hints. Stocke jerked his head in the direction of the grubby-looking street he'd come from. "There's someone I have to warn first - then we'll head out."
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"You do?" Rosch asked, eyes widening. Well, Stocke was sort of the expert on information gathering, not much surprise there. "Ah... figures. Nothing ever seems to go easy for me, huh?" (He's having a few war flashbacks to gathering those core parts, what a huge pain in his arse that was. But it made Sonja happy
a little too happy, so... he couldn't really complain that much.)Rosch followed his friend's gaze, noticing for the first time how quickly the twilight was setting in. "Huh. Didn't realize it was getting dark so soon..." Lowering his gaze, he noticed that Stocke didn't look so... uncomfortable now. Maybe he was one of those nocturnal type creatures or something?
But when Stocke nodded toward the dubious looking street over there, Rosch couldn't say that he didn't have doubts. "This guy's a... friend of yours? Right?"
Well, whatever. The sooner they got this over with, the better. Normally losing functionality in the Gauntlet was only a temporary annoyance. Now? It was tempting fate, with all these monsters around. And the last thing Rosch wanted was to be a burden to his friend.
Heaving a sigh, Rosch said, "Well, lead the way."
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Interestingly enough, as they drifted across the city - streets getting narrower and darker, natives staring out through chinks in curtains (or, deeper in, through boards nailed across the windows) - it became evident that Stocke was acting just as wary of the natives they crossed paths with as they were of him. His tells weren't as obvious, SpecInt had made sure of that, but Rosch hadn't been his friend this long for nothing - he'd probably be able to pick them out. Physical changes might not have been the only one his rather shady friend had undergone...
It only got more pronounced with the few natives that greeted Stocke, silently, nervously, as if both they and the monster were walking on eggshells. It wasn't hostile, the shade did respond with a quiet nod here, a soft flick of a tendril there - but it somehow felt tense even with the short exchanges bordering on friendliness. There'd been some sort of balance here, some coexistence - and then something had destroyed it.
Some buildings ringed their doorways and windows with candles and small white crystals - on second inspection, salt. (One of the inhabitants, shabby-clothed, was already starting to light them for the night; seeing the monster and potentially-also-monster, definitely-big-enough-to-be-a-troll-or-something set them darting back inside their door.) Old, stained spatters of wax underneath, several layers thick, shed evidence that this wasn't anything new. What was new were the clawmarks, scarred deep into the street just on the edge of where the rings ended.
It looked like marking borders.
Stocke circled around the metaphorical lines drawn, but otherwise ignored them, as if this were just a normal fact of life.
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A low rumble was the only indication of his misgivings, and he tried his best to push those feelings aside. He still had "best friend" rights unto eternity, which meant it was up to him to determine whether these so-called "friends" were worthy of that title or not.
Right! He had a mission now! Rosch always felt his best when working toward some sort of goal. It gave him an excuse not to ponder unpleasant thoughts too much...
The city, as Rosch soon discovered, reminded him of Alistel in many ways, save for the absence of exposed steampipes and a blanket of fog hovering over the rooftops. And he could tell that they were definitely entering the seedier part town. Occasionally, he would glance up and catch a curtain flutter as someone retreated from the window. The streets became narrower, and it felt like the buildings were trying to hem them in. Rosch was never fond of narrow spaces, given his bulk, but at least they weren't trying to navigate any alleyways
not yet, at least.At least Stocke didn't seem too perturbed by their surroundings. The deepening shadows sometimes made it hard to discern the shade's outline, despite the fact that Rosch was walking right behind him. It was almost like Stocke was melting into the shadows... Rosch blinked, caught the brief glance Stocke gave him over one shoulder, eyes glowing even brighter as the darkness deepened. It was a little eerie, but... this was Stocke, after all.
"Don't worry about me," Rosch said. "I can see well enough."
Enough to notice the slight pause as some random passerby tried to slink past, the way that Stocke seemed to unconsciously compact himself, as though wanting to take up a little space as possible in order to avoid coming too close to anyone. Rosch felt a bit of annoyance (and confusion, especially) when he accidentally made eye contact with a young woman, and her first reaction was to cover her face with one hand and quicken her pace, not slowing down until she had turned a corner and was gone from sight.
Okay, so Rosch was well aware that he suffered from "resting bitch face" syndrome, and that made him appear rather grumpy, even when he wasn't, but come on! That's no excuse for people to practically jump to the other side of the street just to avoid him!
"What the hell is wrong with these people?" Rosch asked. "It's like they're afraid of us or something..."
He could kinda understand why people seemed to be avoiding Stocke, at any rate, but himself? His gaze traveled down the length of the Gauntlet. He was used to people giving him strange looks because of it: nervousness, or pity, even. But outright fear? He could understand that sort of reaction, if the Gauntlet hadn't been mangled to the point of non-threatening... but now? Did he really look so scary to these people?
But as they traveled further along, Rosch was beginning to suspect that there was another reason the locals seemed a bit wary of him. Even the people that didn't immediately flinch away from them still appeared tense, unsure. And Stocke greeted them in that same quiet, somewhat nervous manner. What exactly had happened here? In someways, the reactions reminded him of the way people used to treat the Beastkind, before the peace treaty had been established.
He noticed the older gentleman leaning out to light some candles, and Rosch offered him a smile, revealing unnaturally sharp canines. The other man gaped, letting the match he'd been holding drop from slack fingers, then quickly darted inside. Rosch glowered as the door slammed shut, and growled in annoyance. Rude! He was just trying to be friendly...
"What's with all the candles and salt?" Rosch asked, hoping that the question would serve to settle the feelings of anger and dread stewing in the back of his mind. "Are they holding some kind of vigil or what?"
And then, he noticed the clawmarks. Something niggled at Rosch's memory, and he took a moment to stoop down for a closer look. His fingers brushed over the grooves, and he discovered, to his horror, that they fit easily within the marks carved into the street. And... they looked just like the ones gouged into the vambrace of his Gauntlet. Were they made by the same creature? Rosch couldn't remember being attacked by anything before he woke up in the hospital... and part of him was actually grateful for that. He didn't wanna think about what sort of monster could inflict that kind of damage.
Realizing that Stocke had continued without him, Rosch quickly pulled himself into a standing position. He called, "H-hey, Stocke! Wait up!" and jogged to catch up, his armored boots clanking against the cobblestones.
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(That said, it wasn't Heiss's world-destroying brand of shady business, so that was an improvement, right?)
The shade didn't say much, just a silent nod of acknowledgement over his shoulder when Rosch reassured him he'd be able to see, tendrils flickering up and down - in the dark, more suggestions of unnatural movement at his back than dinstinct limbs. It wasn't until Rosch said 'It's like they're afraid of us or something...' that Stocke hesitated. He didn't quite have enough time to answer, choosing words, before the man was asking about the native's protective borders, falling behind to stare at them - and the monsters' responses, more recently. Since Rota...
"'Man-eaters' was no exaggeration," the shade said, quiet, when Rosch caught up once more. And - "They're warding us off." But if Rosch was going to say anything about that, it'd have to wait, since apparently they'd gotten to wherever they were headed - 'Devil's Nest,' words emblazoned above the door exclaimed, soft red light spilling it through the windows and cutting through the evening's gloom. Noisy, too - business was starting to pick up with the night's coming, chatter and a pulse of music and maybe the ocassional yell spilling out into the street.
Stocke slipped through the door, holding it open behind him for Rosch to grab, then scanned the bar floor, the counter. Whoever he was looking for didn't seem to be around - his eyes fell on the twisting spiral staircase past the bartender, jagged, narrow iron.
(Some of the patrons inside turned their heads to look at the door as the two entered, greeting Rosch with a full array of spider-eyes, glimmering scales, mussed feathers. One flicked a wolf-like ear in his direction, then turned dark, canine eyes on the Gauntlet and finally on Rosch's face. The monster nudged another seated next to him - one wrapped around the stool rather than on it, with nothing but a giant snake tail for a lower body.)
(All seemed careful, suspicious - at least until spotting Stocke. There they relaxed - evidently, the shade was a familiar face around these parts, and trusted enough to bring in someone who didn't have any obvious monster traits at first glance.)
Stocke cut across the floor to the bartender, catching their attention. Tonight: young, almost - until you saw the flash of red eyes, the glint of sharp teeth when she spoke, fangs far longer than a human being's. "Is Greed here?" Stocke asked her, arms crossed over the wooden counter; she answered in the negative, and the shade's tendrils gave a small, resigned wave.
"Pass on a message?" The bartender nodded, and they swapped a few more words - a matter of seconds - before the shade trailed back over to Rosch and motioned towards the door.
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As they approached the entrance, Rosch craned his neck to read the crude sign painted in gaudy colors. Devil's Nest, huh? He shot Stocke a questioning look that clearly said, Are you serious? before catching the door and ducking inside. (Incidentally, he didn't have to duck that low, it was almost as if this establishment was used to receiving patrons of his general height and girth...)
Of course, the moment he stepped inside, he was immediately greeted by several monstrous visages, and it was with surprising restraint that he managed to bite down on the yelp of surprise that threatened to escape. He could feel sweat beading on his brow, his hair prickling against his scalp. A guy with the face of a wolf made eye contact, and Rosch struggled to think of an appropriate response. If he held eye contact, was that considered a challenge? Dammit, he didn't speak wolf!
Before he could do anything, the wolf-guy looked away, nudging his buddy, and Rosch felt his lips peel back in a nervous grin. There was a part of him that wanted to reach over and throttle Stocke. The least he could have done was warn him that this so-called "Devil's Nest" was filled with honest-to-goodness monsters!
But Stocke had already crossed over to the bar, and all Rosch could do was stand there, frozen to the spot, and hoping that his friend hadn't suddenly gone turncoat and was planning to throw him to the wolves. Literally.
Fair warning, Stocke: There are Going to Be Words, and a lot of them, probably shouted at maximum volume once this is all over.
It took a moment for Rosch to register that Stocke wanted him to follow. He made his way toward the door, doing his best imitate Stocke earlier and somehow compact his bulky frame as much as possible. Noah help him if he accidentally bumped into one of these monsters, or stepped on someone's tail by mistake...
"What the hell are you trying to pull, Stocke?" he growled beneath his breath. "You trying to serve me up on a silver platter or what?"
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"You think I'd let anyone but me eat you?" With a dead serious tone. Not unusual - Stocke certainly had a tendency of hiding teasing behind a straight face, leaving people guessing whether he was serious or not - but what was odd was the moment of vertigo Stocke experienced when he realized even he wasn't... completely, one hundred percent certain he wasn't being serious right now. He didn't want Rosch eaten, period, obviously. But as icing on the cake, something was rubbing Stocke wrong about the thought of specifically other monsters considering it...
Right. Rather than worry about that right now, he added, "Nobody in there would have touched you. Not unless they wanted to answer to me, and then to Greed and the rest of us." And especially not when Stocke was right there - there was, Rosch might note, a sword strapped to his red-clad friend's side, even if the sheath looked shorter, was shaped differently than it would have been for the longsword Stocke had favoured back on their home continent.
To Rosch's potential relief, the way the shade was leading now quickly spilled out into larger streets, rapidly emptying of people - or at least, people travelling alone - now that night was truly falling. Absently, the shade dodged around patches of light cast by streetlamps - not with any particular urgency, but as if out of habit.
Stocke kept himself slow, made sure to fall back to walk at Rosch's side instead of leading him. Now that it was getting darker - and now that they were out of a part of the city where Stocke could guarantee good behavior, and would be setting out across uninhabited parts of the peninsula as soon as they cut through Vandare - he wanted to stay extra close.
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Rosch's brain stutters along at a snail's pace. While there's a tiny part of him that's secretly pleased at the prospect of Stocke acting so possessive, the bigger, more rational part of his brain (which sounded suspiciously like Sonja...) was beating him over the head with a wrench and screaming at him: Don't you dare entertain such thoughts, mister!
The pause lasted only a few seconds before nervous laughter bubbled up, and Rosch slapped his thigh with one hand. "Ah, you almost had me there for a minute!" he said, wagging a finger in Stocke's direction. The laughter became a little more genuine, but he still couldn't say that he was a hundred percent certain that Stocke wasn't entertaining the idea...
The laughter died down. Stocke's demeanor had returned to its default stoicism once again. Not that Rosch minded, really. "So, you're kinda like the second-in-command or something?" He nodded his approval at the short sword hanging from his friend's hip. "Good call. I'm not too keen on traveling without a weapon in my hand, but it's not like we've got any money, and I haven't seen a single armory in this whole damn town."
Though, now that he thought about it, he hadn't seen any soldiers in this town, either. And, aside from Stocke, no one else was walking around carrying weapons. Were they prohibited in the city? Or was this country operating under some sort of non-aggression treaty? Whatever the reason, the whole thing felt odd to him.
Thankfully, they were making their way out of the claustrophobic back alleys and onto the main streets once again. Night had fallen, but the streets were well-lit with several gaslamps, which served as a comforting reminder of home. Rosch followed along, taking note of the way Stocke seemed to swerve around each pool of light cast by the streetlamps, almost unconsciously. Did he really... not like the light? What the heck did he do when the sun came up? Hole up in some dark, musty corner somewhere, like a rat? He didn't... really want to think that that was the case.
"How long's it gonna take for us to get to... where ever it is we're going?" Rosch asked. He was used to hard travel, no complaints there, but it'd be nice to have a rough idea of how long they were gonna be on the road. Especially since there was a woeful lack of provisions on their part...
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(He'd just have to pickpocket a few more rich natives to make it up later. They'd hardly miss it.)
"You won't find an armoury," the shade confirmed. "Not unless you're looking for firearms like Eruca's - and even then, they don't use mana as she does. Knives, perhaps..."
Speaking of which - the shade let one knife slip free from where it was strapped to the inside of his boot, this time unknotting it with telekinesis, and kicked it up into his hand. (It flew a bit too straight, too true for such a casual toss with the side of one foot - as if guided.) This he offered to Rosch hilt first instead of throwing. Hardly a substitute for Rosch's usual long reach, but better than nothing. "We'll sharpen your Gauntlet while we're repairing it."
At the rate he was lending out daggers, Stocke added to himself absently, he'd need to start carrying around far more of them. Not that it was a bad idea - never hurt to have an extra knife...
"A few hours. This peninsula's not even a fraction the size of Alistel." Faster if he could carry Rosch, levitating; Stocke gave his friend an oddly eerie look, white eyes glowing speculatively.
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"Firearms? That don't use mana? Huh." Rosch rubbed at his chin in thought. "Guess they're a lot more common here if they're just selling them in armories. Normally you'd have to have something like that custom made..."
Not that Rosch was keen on acquiring one. Too fiddly and unreliable for his tastes. Put a lance in his hand, and he could face down any foe!
But for now, he'd settle with a knife. There's a bit of a wry grin and a quiet, "Show off," as Stocke pulled the knife free and offered it to Rosch. (The movements had been too quick for Rosch to realize that Stocke was pulling some kinda trick with the telekinesis, but he was used to his friend's sleight-of-hand techniques that he didn't think to question it.) It looked ridiculously small in his grip, but a small weapon was better than no weapon at all. And even with only the use of one arm, his prodigious strength was certain to make any attack guaranteed lethal. He shoved the knife into the top of his boot, and the cold steel pressing against his calf is a welcome reassurance.
"Good. That means we won't have to bunk down for the night or anything. And I can wait until we get there to find something to eat..." he trailed off, noticing the eerie look Stocke was giving him. The taller soldier's hair prickled at that pointed look. "B-But if you're getting hungry we can... we should probably take care of that sooner rather than later, right!?"
...tosses in some headcanon, tosses self out
The shade bumped his shoulder lightly against Rosch's arm at the accusation, a 'look who's talking' - and that was another odd bit of contact, a reverse of how it usually went. Had there been someone, maybe multiple someones, wearing away at Stocke's hesitation here? Or was it just thanks to being away from Heiss's influence for long enough?
(Either way, it helped that he'd always been comfortable around Rosch. The man'd been a friendly constant in all of Stocke's life, from when the young amnesiac had shown up in Alistel's military - the memory loss at first attributed to a disease that attacked mana and the mind - up until the very end, when he'd been standing there, giving his farewells, ready to act as Sacrifice. The few timelines where he'd lost Rosch's friendship - or worse, the man's life - had been agonizing.)
It was keeping the shade from growing grim at the mentions of his hunger now. Stocke gave a little shake of his head. "I won't need to..." Trailed off. "Not for another week or two." Nevermind that he was getting slightly concerned about how the time period was shrinking - it'd been a month, now it was getting closer to three weeks before he felt his hunger tugging at the limit. (And also nevermind that he'd nearly forgotten that Rosch would need to eat something besides bits of human. The things you got used to...)
Instead Stocke took one short step back, one to the side to end up behind Rosch, hopped lightly into the air, and looped claws under Rosch's shoulders.
And prepared to be shouted at for doing it without warning.Conclusions: he could levitate with Rosch, but it was incredibly wobbly, far more than carrying someone closer to Stocke's size. Twinges at Stocke's shoulders suggested it'd be far more tiring, too, even with the gravity-cancelling effects of being almost-a-ghost.
i see your headcanon, and raise you more headcanon
Rosch couldn't help but smile at the gesture. He could definitely get used to seeing this side of Stocke more often. He always felt proud of being one of the privileged few who got to experience that quiet warmth, and it probably would never have happened had he not received the Gauntlet in the first place. They'd befriended one another in the hospital, the sick amnesiac and the crippled soldier undergoing intensive physical therapy, and Rosch couldn't say that they would have opened up to one another had they not been struggling to come to terms with their own wounded selves.
"Th-that's good! Just... lemme know if it starts getting bad, okay?" Rosch really didn't want to think about his friend having to rely on eating people just to survive, and now he had at least another week or so before he'd be forced to confront that fact. He shoved the thought aside to
avoid indefinitelyaddress later. Right now, they had more important things to worry about. Like, how were they going to travel safely through the dark wilderness to reach this other town...The last thing he expected was Stocke sidling up behind him and hooking his claws beneath his arms. "H-hey! What're you—!"
The rest of his words were choked off in a keening little whine of indignation and utter disbelief. His feet were slowly rising from the ground, and it was with restrained effort that Rosch didn't immediately start flailing to free himself, though the urge was there and screaming at him very loudly. Stocke might not be aware of it, but his claws were dangerously close to the one unprotected area of the Gauntlet. Any place requiring a full range of motion couldn't be adequately armored, and the spot beneath the arm was one of those places. One wrong move, and those claws would slice right through the synaptic wiring and myomer cables, and then Rosch's arm would be well and truly crippled.
And so huge soldier was forced to do his best impression of a helpless kitten and let his body go limp in Stocke's grasp. How utterly undignified! "Put me down, right now! Are you insane? This is ridiculous!"
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Now the shade carefully lowered the man back to the street, twisting one-eighty degrees and floating around Rosch in a single motion to end up in front - as fluid as if he were swimming. He stayed there, at the man's eye level, drifting backwards. (You'd think he'd float into something, but somehow he avoided it - often by short margins, just when those tendrils started to pass through whatever it was.)
"We'd get there faster if I could carry you," he explained, though that seemed to be off the table for now - unless Rosch suddenly shrank. Or he carried the man bridal style? Stocke considered this for a moment, head tilted, then decided - no, no that wasn't going to work. It just wasn't.
A small huddle of natives passing nearby gave the two odd looks, then quickly hurried around a corner and into the spreading grounds of an apartment building. Stocke cast a glance over his shoulder, then swerved to the right - buildings were starting to grow sparse, once again dingier at the edges of town. The road that they'd curved down simply kept going, off into the Ryslig wilds - to Rosch's left, grasslands eventually faded into forest, deep and foreboding. Behind them, but in the same direction and some distance from the town, a lighthouse cast flashes of illumination over the sea.
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The moment his toes touched solid ground, Rosch slumped forward, hand and Gauntlet awkwardly pressed to his knees, and drew a shuddering breath. Oh, praise Noah! He really dodged a bullet there!
Raising his head just in time to catch Stocke floating gracefully in front of him, Rosch glowered. "You gotta warn me when you're gonna pull crap like that, okay!?" He straightened, regaining some of his composure. "I've seen you pull some pretty weird stunts in the past, but this is totally different!"
Turning invisible? Fine. Floating around like some specter? Not fine. There were limits to even what Rosch could accept in the span of a day. He heaved a sigh. At this rate, he was going to start going grey prematurely... "You know, I think I'd rather keep both feet firmly planted on the ground at all times, even if it does mean we'll be traveling a lot slower than you'd like."
He spared the natives a slightly annoyed look before trailing after Stocke. It was a little weird, truth be told, seeing his friend floating through the air as though he had been born for it, but he put the thought from his mind. The more alien Stocke's behavior, the more Rosch was determined not to let it bother him. This was his friend, his best friend, after all, and Rosch was willing to put up with whatever amount of weirdness Stocke decided to throw his way.
They traveled in silence for the most part, Rosch having always been comfortable in Stocke's quiet presence. They'd been friends for so long that he could enjoy the companionable silence, even if his mind was still filled with questions.
But as they approached a rather creepy looking forest, Rosch asked, "So, where exactly are we going, anyway? I don't think you actually said other than it's the next town over."
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/resurrects this thread from the grave