Name: Robin (Tisha Marigold)

Artifact: Anak Orb

Armament: Red Thread

Titles: Originator

Attributes:

Strength

G+

Toughness

G

Dexterity

G+

Agility

G+

Varos

G+

Varos level

G

Perception

G+(+)

Abilities:

Anak Orb: [Neuter Sensation] [Suspension]

Red Thread: [Claw Morph]

Skills:

[Varos Manipulation - Novice] [Swordsmanship – Very Skilled] [Aurum Arts - Prodigy]

Looking at her Soul Map she noticed a few things. Firstly, her Perception had now gained a bracketed plus. This had not been announced to her as a rank up supporting Olga’s explanation earlier. She was not too sure what had caused the increase however but had the guess that it had been when the Knight had attempted to take her by surprise, she has pushed her senses to the limit so as not to be overwhelmed by its teleportation.

Next, her Basic Varos Manipulation was completely gone and replaced with Varos Manipulation and a Novice rating. It was similar to the Aurum Arts Skill.

Finally, her new ability Suspension.

[Suspension – Suspend a target a small distance into the air, they are completely unable to move for the duration]

This was an ability that completely arrested the movement of a target giving an easy opportunity of attack. She liked it but could not help but wonder about her Artifact as a weapon. It had felt like everyone else got something that worked for them offensively, however as a martial artist she could not help but be confused about what she got.

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It was a weird disconnect from her actual combat style which was more aggressive.

“Hey Olga, can I test something on you?”

“Sure thing girly.” Olga answered curiously.

Suspension

Olga was lifted half a meter into the air instantly. A translucent red barrier surrounded her large form as two gold rings surrounded its middle, one larger than the other. There were four gold spike on cardinal positions of the outer ring completing the image of the skill. Olga’s eyes looked around frantically before stopping all of a sudden.

This all lasted for one second before the barrier broke and Olga fell to the ground. Was that it? The duration seemed ridiculously shor-

She noticed Olga looking, no staring at her except her yellow eyes were glazed over. She slowly stood up.

“Olga?” The woman was walking towards her slowly her right hand was raised in front of her. Tisha took a small step back in fear before stopping.

“Olga! Snap out of it!” The impression she was getting from the large woman did not seem good for the party if this continued. Tisha prepared to fight if need be. The others were still occupied with the final Knight. Truth be told she was not confident that even all four them together could fight Olga.

She might have to use the Claw Morph which had just come off cool down. She wanted to save it for specifically hard fights knowing now that its cool down went well past the half hour but it seemed she would have to spend it early.

Her mood spilt out into her aura as she got ready.

A shock seemed run through Olga as she stopped moving. Her eyes seemed to regain its light as she dropped her hand looking around in slight confusion. Before settling on the still wary Tisha. Her face darkened in embarrassment.

“Ah, sorry bout that.” She stuttered uncharacteristically. “Your ability reminded me of something, caused me to struggle against it.”

That explained it, the large woman apparently had some personal demons of her own. Maybe related to who she had to find?

Also, she had fought against the ability causing it to cancel early. Honestly it was surprising that it could even hold the beast of a woman in the first place.

“Th-Thanks for snapping me out of it.” She muttered embarrassingly.

“Not a problem…though it did not seem to work, so I am unsure how you woke up.” Tisha replied.

“Your aura, I felt it.” The large woman said.

At first Tisha was confused, how could Varos have helped. But then she thought about how it was that feeling someone’s aura could give an impression of their emotion. Would it be possible to communicate simply using the aura given off?

Speaking of which she could feel those of the small group fighting the Knight. She knew it was tough, but it should not take this long with the three of them. Turning to the group she surveyed the battle and could almost immediately see the problem.

Simply put, they had no teamwork.

Mel’s selfish personality was apparent as she attacked with barely any regard of who was in the way and she did not try to cover for anyone. This was doubly in display due to her inexperience in combat leading her to making very obvious mistakes.

Such as shooting at moments where the Knight was focused on her making the attack far less effective than it should be and not anticipating its movements based on the attacks her teammates were making.

Then, there was Damon. While he clearly had combat experience and the ability to lead as he attempted to give orders. Him being on the frontline meant that he could not see everything. On top of that the esoteric abilities of both the enemy and his teammates threw off his calls and even lead to him almost taking allied attacks from behind.

Finally, Finch. Yet again he had no combat experience, but the biggest issue was his lack of communication and aggression. There were several times in the fight where he could land critical hits but his conservative nature and hesitation led him to miss out on them.

However, Finch and Damon had improved somewhat over the course of the exploration though there was still much to desire now that they would be fighting tougher enemies. Mel… not so much. She was too concerned over herself and barely put any thought into helping an ally.

Studying the Knight in question, Finch’s mist slowed it movements down. But that was, specifically its positional mobility. It could still teleport and its actual attacks, abilities and sword swipes were still just as fast. Damon shields, that is both his actual shield and the Armament shield kept them safe impressively enough and they managed to slowly whittle it down with him using Varos to boost his shield’s toughness to take its most powerful attacks

It was still relatively quick as the entire thing took a minute at most. But Tisha knew that they would have to fight several Knights on this floor.

Luckily, they would be fighting them all together from now on which meant the help of Olga.

“Next hall people, keep up will ya?” Olga yelled after they were done.