You have gained a rank A soul trait:
Weaver
There are rules which even the highest beings must follow. A design, a sense, a path. An expectation. Characterization. A story. Reality. Those things have eluded you.
Everything twists and bends.
This skill has determined your evolution:
Harbinger Of The Hunt
A heavy knocking interrupted L’s extended nap. He opened an eye, saw the door shake, and then closed it. Just a few more hours, he quietly thought. The door shook again, and continued to do so for the better half of the next few minutes. L, cursing, begrudgingly, dragged his still sleeping limbs over to the door. “Oh, who is it?” he called out.
The knocking stopped, heard what L said, and then began to knock even harder. L shook his head. “Argh! No sense of humor what’s so ever!” he said, shaking his own head. He lifted the bar half-way through as he realized that it could be-
“You’re not Hound,” L said, frowning.
“No, I am not,” a young man with blood and dirt all over his cloth armor, who was also frowning, said. “What have you been-”
L shut the door, set the bar back into its place, and stepped over the bodies and returned to his original sleeping position. The knocking resumed, now more animated and more bothersome. “Open the fuck up!” the man yelled from the other said.
L opened the door again, his brows pressed together. “What do you want?”
“What do you mean what do I want? What have you been-”
“You said that last time,” L said, beginning to close the door.
“You didn’t let me finish the first time, either,” he said, sticking a foot in. “Eh, why is it so wet in-”
“See you, Sheep,” L said, shoving him aside as he walked past him.
“It’s Lambert!” he called out. “And you still haven’t-”
L glanced around, this time the blood of battle remaining in the air and mixing with the mud. A couple of purple limbs were fallen across the field, left to be picked up by the less fortunate. He saw a familiar faces hauling carts full of corpses, one filled with humans and the other filled with a large variety of goblinoids, the predominant ones being Vathiás. All there ears were missing, probably tied up in a bundle somewhere and awaiting their reward. Leading the ox from the cart was Shergoath, The Crooked Hammer, a wide and giant man who received his title after bending his Warhammer on someone, and had found the effort of solving that issue too much a bother. He spent the rest of the war swinging around a horribly unbalanced weapon, and somehow lived to brag about it. Besides him was Lidel, The Crooked Shield, a long-limbed and tall brute who came in a bundle with Shergoath.
“Ay, speaking of the devil. It’s Jack-In-A-Box. In the flesh!” Shergoath said, pulling on the ox. “What tricks did you pull out of your arse this time for…” he paused, and then spread his arms out towards the village, “, all of this?”
In an act of respect, L opened his eyes slightly more than usual. “What do you possibly refer to, Shergoath, The Crooked Man? Do you possibly refer to the mere coincidence of me, as I hunted game in the forest for this very village, observed it being taken over, and in an act of bravery I informed a band of...mercenaries to liberate the village?” he said, his eyes wide open and one hand raised gently to his chest.
Shergoath chuckled. “One day I’ll get you to call me by my true title. But not today, for how foolish I could be! Take a look, Lidel, take a look at all the people I’ve liberated! They’re in the cart, embracing each other as they slumber,” he said, elbowing his friend. Lidel, as usual, responded in a grunt followed by a shrug, rather than the typical shrug denoted by a grunt.
“You got any titles or skills?” L asked.
“Ah, a bunch. The one you’ll be interested in is the Liberator of Boliam. It greatly improves our relationships with the surrounding villages, and just as much so with the Jundor royalty. Good time, too, they’re probably preparing for war, and losing this position would have been a thorn to them. It’s been barely a day but word got around real quick. It’s a good omen, they say, that we also happened to be in the area,” he said, smirking.
“Fate was on our side, it seemed.” L said, bowing and then getting on his way. “Luck to your tales, Shergoath, Lidel,”
“Luck to your schemes, Jack,” Shergoath said, wiping the ox slightly harder than required.
On his way, L glimpsed a sight more notable figures. Lilieth, The High Enchantress, a name given to her after achieving remarkable progress into the enchanter profession, but also in due part as a mean reminder to her aptitude at attracting all men but the one she desired. She was endearingly speaking with Garlot The Dim. From the way hey spoke to Lilieth, it seemed no one spoiled the joke and told him why his name was replaced from the previously honorable Famed Tinker Of Oz. Interestingly, Lilieth was a Blue Moon Child, an exotic race rarely found, and one L had attempted at gaining access to. She wore a thin robe green and gray robe reaching from the bottom of her knees to the top of her shoulders, flaunting luminous light blue skin with moving dots of a darker shade of blue. She was tall, reaching at least six feet, and with white lips and an angular face. Her eyes were equally interesting, consisting of two emeralds, their neon light reflecting glimmering higher or lower with the tempo of her emotions.
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Garlot, on the other hand, was just a typical dwarf. L never understood the attraction to those square things, both from the woman and the men. No world had ever dared to alter any part of those brutish things. Garlot noticed him and gave L a nod while Lilieth, though she followed Garlot’s eyes, barely acknowledged what she was looking at.
L left them to their devices and kept on walking, catching sight of Bladkin, The Mother Of Blades, chatting fiercely with Kullburd, who now, in her presence, was barely the master blacksmith he thought he was.
Off in a different corner drawing a map was Mulchy The Pixel, beside him his wife, Tora The Pixy, energetically talking and bickering from one topic to another in no reprehensible order. Not even L dared to proclaim he could match their short and at most incomprehensible change of subject, action, word, or language.
Already beginning to repair, break down, and construct various different of buildings were the Brothers of Newbary, a set of 9 nameless men made with a specialty in construction. They were mindless humans used mostly for grunt tasks, but they were of high quality, with high strength, endurance, and physical health. They were also more responsive than other mindless humans, able to complete complex and intricate instructions. Ordering them about was Bola The Mighty, a four-foot girl with a noticeably high voice and unapologetic personality that set most Tool Guilds Masters to shame. She was a dwarf, too, which was expected from the master architect
In addition to the old crew were a couple new Divers, some L knew from previous interactions, and other entirely foreign to him.
But Hound was nowhere to be found. She was probably livid that she was not informed of all of...this. Moving the entire guild from one world to another was no minor act, as in most cases, an early head start for the first colonizers determined the course of that world’s history in regards to the Divers, more so with Null, a world that is beyond the Nations legislations. Any of them, as far as they knew. It was an independent world, truly controlled by an AI not even it’s creators could alter. It was a dangerous thing, to set free upon the Divers.
L couldn’t even begin to guess at the consequences that would come out of officially opposing the council and entering a banned world. Cyanide might be pumped into their blood any moment now, or nothing might happen at all. But even then, how would any nation control it’s divers now? In this world, the capsules have no power. The kings and queens which ruled every world through taxing other divers might not rule this one either, or if they do, they would not be able to do it by the old I know everything you’re doing, have done, and will do, so you better not oppose me and instead might actually have to act like true kings and queens.
Because of this, very few people knew of this before the initiation even began. Hound, though was a high officer, was even used to spread false rumors regarding Jack’s own disappearance and the guild’s being, allowing them to operate freely and without suspicion for enough time to establish themselves.
L entered the village hall, the largest and center of operations for the village. As he strolled halls and tiny rooms, something nudged him from the back. A feeling, or a change of air, maybe. L turned around, finding nothing. He then turned to the left side but still found nothing. “I’m not going to play with you agai-” L said, but midway through the sentence he crouched and twisted his head back. He didn’t find anything but spied the air moving above him. L turned his head back to the front and jumped a good three meters back.
Still, there was no one. L sighed and threw his hands up in defeat, allowing two hands to reach at him behind him.
“Hey, Raja,” L said through gritted teeth.
“Hey, Jack. It’s been a year!” a woman said from behind, panting heavily as she embraced L from the back, rubbing her cheeks over his.
L turned his head away. “sixteen hundred three for me, thirty hundred ten for you.”
“Nah-ah!” she said, stepping back and folding her arms. “It’s sixteen hundred two for you, thirty hundred eleven for me!”
“It’s been a decade, Raja, let it go already,” L said, turning around to face Raja the Silent, a spy more notable for her skill in farting in stealth than her spy skills. There was an interesting and consequential story behind that. In the corner, where L had entered, stood Ikiera The Wicked, watching Jack with narrowed down eyes. Nrail The Unseen, was, as her title went, unseen. Both women were slim Darkins with tight leather armor. They had the typical Darkin attributes: two yellow slits for eyes, deathly pale skin, and pitch dark hair. Their hair, however, neared more towards a physical manifestation of mana tightly woven together rather than strands, different than L’s normal if slightly darker than average hair. It was the difference of the gender, probably.
“I could say the same for you, bastard. Blowing yourself and me up does is not a winning condition.”
L shrugged. “Like I said, I did catch you-”
“And like I said!” she said, louder, “that you didn’t catch me. The metal shards did!”
“Big difference,” L said, shrugging again much to Raja’s annoyance.
“It is! One hurts and applied a death debuff, and the other doesn’t! And-Fine, shut it Ikiera, I’ll be right there,” she said, turning her head around towards the silent Ikiera with her tongue out. She turned back towards L. “Whatever. You got us a big game this time, so I’ll leave it that. For now. We already got a couple of our assignments. Luck to your schemes, Jack!” she said, waving her hand away. “Come, child, don’t you flaunt and frown that I’ve stopped showering you with attention,” she said to Ikiera, who until now had not said nor shown any sign of emotion. Or life. She glared at L a couple more seconds before following Raja’s heel.
"Luck to your deaths, Three Daggers," L said, and as he waved his hands, Nrail walked past him. He tried not to react, to act as if he knew she was there all along, but he had failed at that, too. His body involuntary shook, nearly jumping to the side, and then sighed as she chuckled and waved her hips. They were a fearsome trio, but not lovers as the bizarre rumors went. He watched them go, feeling at odds with himself. It’s been quite some time since he found himself being attracted to other women, and the thought of going out with the Three Daggers was somewhat humorous. Each one was distinct enough to par with L’s three minds.
A frown fell on top his grin. He turned around and began walking deeper, attempting to chase away the horrible sensation creaking on the wooden planks below him. It's four, not three. Four, for he was one himself. Four, L kept telling himself, four. He pushed aside the uncomfortable thought, but upon doing so, began to wonder which was more unpleasant; questioning his existence, or going through that door?
He turned the knob and opened the door into Luke’s office, the same room he had been a few hours go, hurling papers and books around.
The floor was spotless, with not even a speck of dust falling through. The room proved to be much wider than L had previously perceived, with each rogue book neatly stacked away in a bookshelf and each stay paper either disposed of or organized in a meaningful sense. The large rectangular desk no longer housed spilled ink and ripped papers, and was now showing the color of its brown and yellow wood. Behind it, two violet eyes peered at L, unmoving and unblinking. Her sharp chin was neither raised nor lowered, and her slightly blue lips neither frowned nor smiled. Black hair fell over her shoulders to the wooden floor in black cascades, in a length nearly as long as her black gown of bird feathers, covering her deathly pale white skin from the sun's warm embrace. Her hands were laid on the table in front of her, stacked on one another.
“Hello, Jack The Deceiver,“ she said, in a low and measured voice.
“Hello, Mother Of Ravens,” he said, smiling from one ear to the other.
“Hi guys!” Nealon yelled from the corner, a big smile plastered on his face.