Faraway Nostalgia (Aven, Rina Job)

Growing in power felt odd to Aven; it wasn't the kind of experience he'd expected, not in the slightest. He'd always imagined it to be a memorable event, a sudden flood of power, or waking up and sensing a substantial change in magic quality or quantity. Instead, it was subtle, extremely so, to the point that he'd been shocked when he heard he was considered a C-rank Wizard. To some extent, it didn't feel as though he deserved it, like he'd cheated somewhere. He supposed it was possible that he'd just been that strong from the beginning, not too unlikely a scenario, given how much time he spent studying magic before actually practicing it... or, perhaps, it was something else.

Regardless, it was obvious that he'd need to step up his game if he wanted to keep up with Rina on their current job. It was a wilderness expedition, to deal with a large Mountain Cat that had been plaguing the nearby settlements. He glanced at the sun's position, squinting. The time that he and Rina'd agreed upon was drawing near, though some part of him expected her to be slightly tardy. It wasn't an issue of disrespect, just normality. Some people were just late by nature, it was nothing against her. Aven, himself, always made sure he was early, sometimes waiting around half to a full hour for the start of something. He could entertain himself well enough with his thoughts, as well as run through his magic exercises in the meantime.

Aven twirled his cane absently. Were he in a city, he might be seen as a street performer, a thought that made him chuckle. On the topic of performance, he'd been testing a few new magics, some of which he hoped to try out in the upcoming job. He'd practiced them extensively, but unfortunately, not enough for him to feel perfectly comfortable using them in a life or death situation. For Aven's magic, a single misplaced glyph in a Circle's syntax could be disastrous, from it simply not working, to explosive results. Especially when using those circles on allies, it wasn't a risk he'd normally take, only in the most dire of circumstances.

[367/7500.]

Rina was beginning to dose off as she was standing, waiting for Aven. She had been up all night doing paperwork and was now literally falling asleep standing up. She had never felt so tired before, but she just hoped the light could keep her up. As she began to eat the light from the sun, she started feeling a bit less tired but her cap on using the sun reached too soon. She was still tired but she knew that the job she was going to do soon would be able to keep her up. After all she was going to be with Aven, while fighting a viscous mountain lion. She looked down at the ground and wondered when Aven was going to get to the train station. After all, she had to begin to save the people here soon. She began to close her eyes as she started to dream a picture with very bright lights.

The light felt like it was blinding, but after a few moments, she began to see clearer. She was back in the Heavenly Gardens where she saw the goddess standing there. Rina tilted her head questioningly as she asked the goddess, "Uhhh...why did you summon me here?" With a comforting voice,  the goddess spoke to Rina, "Soon...something bad is going to happen. My brother, though he may be weaker than me, is going to try and take over the garden in a matter of a few months. If he grows strong enough, he can defeat me and take away the garden as long as the powers that come with it. One day you will have to defend the garden when I can't. I know you will be able to do it, but you have to grow stronger before you can truly defeat him. Don't let this land go into chaos because of my brother. I beg of you to please do this when the time comes. I will try and bring you back here multiple times so you can be trained to defeat him." The goddess looked at her with a serious face as she snapped her fingers. As this happened, the brightness of the garden began to clear. Rina yelled back to try and stop her from being unsummoned, but it was too late.

As Rina opened her eyes, she saw Aven standing over her. She looked at her body to see that, although it was faded, she had been previously glowing from the dream. She thought she would've had to be growing extremely bright in order for her to still be glowing like this. She stood back up and began to wipe her clothes off, just in case there was still dirt or something on it. As she looked back towards Aven, the train arrived. So, Rina said to him, "Welp, let's get going before the train leaves us." She smiled gently towards Aven as she tried to erase the request from the goddess from her mind, so she wouldn't be distracted on the job. She also hoped he wouldn't bring up her glowing state as well as her sleeping while standing up. With that, she walked onto the train and tried to find a seat for her and Aven.

wc:541
tc:541/3250

Time was precious to Aven, one of the few things he viewed as indispensable. After all, barring forbidden magics, one could never procure more time. He glanced once more at the sun, a sigh here and there, before glancing at the mountain. Come to think of it, how were the two of them planning to get up there in the first place? The Lion was said to stay near the top, only descending for it's various attacks on the surrounding area. The hills were quite steep, they'd need to scale it back and forth to really get anywhere safely... or, they could skip all that jazz and magic their way up. It wasn't a bad idea, given the circumstances, though he didn't know if Rina has any way to get airborne easily. Aven had his Inertia Circle to boost him up, his alternate form, and that new Circle he'd been testing if worse came to worse. He bounded up off a stationary cart onto the rooftop of the closest building, beginning to run, bounding his way toward the train station. He couldn't be late for the train, after all.

As he leapt along, an odd memory popped into his head, unbidden. He faced a large beast of seemingly demonic origin, surrounded by the darkness of a cave. He could feel its bloodlust, it reminded him of the Grim Heresy member that had tortured him. The beast wasted no time, its claw outstretched as it pounced on him. Shadows snaked from the ground around Aven, intercepting the blow at a hair's width from his face, and threw the monster against the cave wall. like a ragdoll. Within moments, the shadows of the cave formed into spikes, and speared his adversary countless times, utterly destroying it.

The memory faded slowly, and as it did, he nearly missed the next rooftop. What... what that? Aven had never done any such thing, and certainly didn't have any semblance of shadow magic. Where had that memory come from, and why did it appear? It'd been so random, with not even a single occurrence Aven could think of that could spark such a vivid and imaginative thought. Not wanting to dwell to hard on it, he descended from the rooftop, only half a block away from the Station, only to be greeted with the sight of a magical light radiating from the entrance. He could sense it even from where he was standing, it was Rina's light! He broke into a sprint, she could be in danger! They hadn't even started the mission yet, now was no time to meet unwanted enemies!

His worry was unfounded, however. As he entered the terminal, the only disturbance was the somewhat comical sight of Rina, fast asleep on the ground, emitting a heavenly glow as she softly snoozed. He stifled a laugh, as the other soon to be passengers were eyeing Rina with a mix of curiosity and annoyance. Aven strode over, and luckily, she woke up, at the same time the train over the tracks, and grinded to a halt. Best of all, she tried to play it off like nothing had happened, standing and ushering them both onto the train. No reason to argue, he supposed. "Right, after you, Miss Rina." He gestured her ahead of him with his usual smile, albeit a bit wider with mirth, to which she proceeded onward.

As the boarded the train, and found a comfy boxcar to occupy, Aven set his cane down, crossing his legs. "So, then, it looks like someone has been overworking themselves, hm?" It was a light tease, but that's how he'd prefer to keep the entire mission. He'd had enough darkness and depression to last him years, and if anyone could keep something lighthearted, it would be a Light magic user.

[Post: 637. Total: 1003/3250.]

As Rina walked onto the train, she saw a little area that was perfect for Rina and Aven to sit. So, she began to make herself comfortable as Aven made a little jab at Rina with a joke. She closed her mouth, as she tried to hide her laughter from Aven. After all, it was nice to get a joke after the task that was being unloaded onto her by the goddess of the gardens. As Rina replied back to the tease, she said, "Yea, I've been working myself a bit too hard lately. When I became Ace, I never expected all the paperwork I got. Then again, I should've guessed since our guild hall is a literal office building. Well, either way...I'm awake now. Plus, this job will probably get me to be more hyped up since I'm aching for something to do." With a gentle smile, Rina felt her eyes begin to doze off once more, and without a tiny moan, she said aloud, "Dangit!" With that, her head hit the table with a thud as she went into a newer and more dark dream. This time, she was in a place with dark skies as an evil laugh reached her ears.

As she turned to her left, she saw a man with a little ivy crown on his head. He was laughing as he glared at Rina with eyes of what seemed like despise. It was like he found something too funny to believe that it was true. As she realized what he was laughing at, the man said to her, "I can't believe my sister believes that you, YOU a human against me, a GOD! She truly believes that you can stop me? Well I guess she's even more crazy than last time. What makes you think that you have a chance on the Heavenly Gardens, that makes you think you can beat me?" Rina looked at him with a serious face as she spat into it. With that, she yelled, "I have defeated creatures way stronger than you'll ever be. Plus, I know that whatever you throw at me, I will handle. I have defeated a demon made of sand that could've destroyed you with a little flick. So if you think that I'm going to back down, then you must be insane." With a scoff, he said back to Rina, as though he was teasing her, and said," Weak? Look at yourself and maybe you'll see who the weak one really is." Rina wondered what that meant, but as she felt herself begin to wake up, she felt pain on her face as she opened up her eyes completely. For some reason, it looked like her body and face were just smashed into the window.

As she looked over to Aven, she wondered if he knew what happened. With a moment of realization, she began to realize what the goddesses brother meant by look at herself. He probably somehow smashed her into the window in order to prove that he had power over her. She felt anger rise into her face, but then, that anger turned to what felt like determination. She said to herself, "You're going to be sorry that you ever messed with me." She decided then, that she would begin her training with the goddess in order to get her read to defeat the goddesses brother. As she crunched up her fist, she felt as the train abruptly stopped. As Rina unclenched her fist, she looked over to Aven and said to him, "I guess this is our stop!" With that, Rina got up from the spot she was sitting as she began to walk out through the door.

wc: 618
tc: 1159/3250

Aven sat lightly, crossing his legs as he relaxed back into the seat. It was a very nice booth, the leather seats supporting his back quite well. He nodded as she spoke, he was sure the job of a guild ace was more than taxing. "Well, I'm glad I can provide a momentary escape, Miss Rina." Before he could even finish the last word, her exhaustion showed once again, and she conked out on the table between them. He chuckled softly, resolving to let her sleep. She'd need all the energy she could get for the job ahead, though he didn't expect it to be too challenging. Aven had dealt with plenty of wild animals, and since they generally weren't that wary of magic, the challenge lied in dealing with them stealthily, rather than showing one's presence.

After a few hours, as he pondered the strategies they could employ, something strange began to happen. He felt the presence of another force, a malicious air to the room. Suddenly, Rina was picked up bodily, and hurtled toward the window. At that velocity, she'll smash straight through! Aven didn't know what was attacking her, but he had to stop it! In a panic, Aven placed an inertia circle on the window where she'd be making contact, and as she slammed into the window, no sound was made, as her velocity was abruptly halted. Aven started to relax, a mistake, as the force drew her back slightly once more, and managed to knock her against the wall hard enough to cause a bang. He winced, cursing his lapse in judgement, as Rina slowly roused from the odd trance-like sleep, her face reddening with anger. Aven gave her a curt bow in apology as they exited the train. "I'm sorry, I couldn't stop it completely... What attacked you?"

The station dropped them next to a small village, at the base of a large mountain. This was definitely it, their target hidden away at the top. He scanned the sides of the landscape, trees scaling all the way near the top. They could probably follow the trees to get safely up the normal way, though it's quite possible they'd run into local wildlife along the way. Ah, well... how deadly could they be, right?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Health: 300.
Magic Power: 280.

Inertia Circle: 1 post cooldown remaining.

Word Count: 380.
Total Word Count: 1383/3250.

Rina awoke to Aven apologizing for something. She then realized that he must've seen the whole Rina hitting the wall thing. So, she said to him, "It's fine, don't worry about it. Sorry I troubled you, but I can't talk about what happened to me right now. It's my problem and I can't let anybody else in on it, even if I need to." With a determined smile, she grasped onto the side of her that hit the wall and felt the pain course through her body. She knew that the hit couldn't have been too strong, so she decided to hold off on using any of her healing spells. As she grasped her side, she felt the stopping of the train as her and her fellow guild member arrived at their stop. With a little bit of pain in her voice, Rina said to Aven, "Welp, let's go. We can't let those animals continue destroying that city. I won't let them hurt those innocent citizens." As she walked forward, she looked heroic in her ways as she just kept walking.


The trail seemed innocent enough with a dirt trail with trees all around it, creating some sort of forest like area. It honestly was beautiful for what was happening to it. Rina expected with all the wild animals, that there would be some trail of them. She didn't seem to find anything, but along the way, she saw what looked like tiny scratch marks. The farther down she walked, the more frequent they became. As Rina began to notice these marks while walking down the trail, she heard tiny snickers coming from the forest around them. They didn't seem to be laughs coming from humans, no. They were coming from animals, the same animals that were probably attacking the village. As Rina looked through the woods, she heard the snickering become louder and louder as the rustling of the trees from above became more apparent. She began to back away slowly, putting a hand in front of Aven in a tiny guarding manner. As she looked above, she saw around 8 tiny critters jumping through the trees. Rina looked carefully at them and saw what they truly were, they were raccoons. They were definitely ready to fight, and maybe even steal a few things. Rina then readied her heavenly thorn as she became fast enough to dash up on the tree. As she moved up it, she yelled down to Aven and said, "Aven, I want you to try and pick off the raccoons. I will get as much as I can, but I need you to help me from below." She hoped she could trust Aven as she ran up the tree, but she couldn't question him now.

So, she began picking off the raccoons. One by one, she was able to take 3. However, the 4th one she chased was quite fast, even with her heavenly thorn. She tried to dash for it, but it was easily able to dodge her. That was when she realized what she had to do. As she touched her heart, she began a ball of light as she dashed quickly in front of the raccoon. With a quick smash with the flat part of the thorn, the raccoon was knocked out on the branch. Rina congratulated herself for clearing 4 of the raccoons. She saw a 3 others she expected Aven defeated, but she realized that there was one missing. All of a sudden, she heard a loud yell from behind her as she surprisingly saw a raccoon in mid air, jumping towards her.

wc:603
tc:1762/3250

It was strange that Rina couldn't tell him what was happening. Was it pertinent to the job? He could only imagine the kind of disaster that would occur if she passed out randomly in a fight with their target, it was supposedly a very large mountain lion. Given the chance, it could rip them apart, and even with his newfound strength, Aven didn't know if he could protect an unconscious Rina and kill the beast at once. He curbed his tongue anyway, though: if she wasn't sharing, there must have a been a good reason for it, perhaps it was a situation where knowing was dangerous. As the saying went, what you don't know can't hurt you.

Her declaration of intent was admirable, at least, to which Aven nodded. "Indeed, these attacks can't be allowed to continue." Oddly, Aven couldn't find the same fiery resolve as Rina. It was the nature of the job, he assumed; even if people were in danger, to be fair to the mountain wildlife, humans were just other animals to them, and rightfully so. He'd always had difficulty blaming animals for their instincts, wanting to survive, and this situation was quite grey in that area. The more humans developed in these wild areas, the further wildlife would be pushed away, forced to move. Sure, Aven had an abundance of empathy for other humans, but it simply couldn't be ignored what their progress does to nature, and how most humans tended to hold themselves above such things.

Aven strolled alongside Rina as he pondered, a snickering echoing from the woods around them. It didn't worry Aven much, glancing around and catching sight of a group of raccoons. Rina had ascended into the branches, dispatching the tiny capers, and it seemed she left some of them to him. He didn't stop his steady strut, the next tap of his cane on the ground creating a Seeker Circle, which sent out four bolts of arcane energy, one tracking each of the mini bandits. It should have been just enough of a blow from a single bolt to knock them unconscious without doing incredible harm, something Aven wished to avoid. After all, he thought raccoons were adorable. The first three found their mark quite easily, while the fourth raccoon did a quick dodge, leaping toward a shiny button on Rina's clothes. The white missile hit it midair, and it tumbled to the ground at an alarming rate. A flick of his cane spawned a grey circle under it's point of impact, pointed laterally, which rocketed it sideways to land safely on a nearby bush. With a relieved sigh, Aven continued on, calling up toward Rina. "Let's keep moving, it'd be best to finish this before dark. I'm not keen on fighting a mountain predator at night."

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Health: 300.
Magic Power: 250.

Inertia Circle: No cooldown remaining.
Seeker Circle: 1 post cooldown remaining.

Word Count: 468.
Word Count Total: 1851/3250.

As the raccoon jumped straight towards her, she yelped. Luckily, Aven had shot a missle from his magic circle that went straight for the raccoon, sending it flying off in the distance. Rina brushed off her sweat as she hopped down from the trees to where Aven was. Without too much of a breather, Aven had moved Rina and himself along. His reasonings for doing so were reasonable to Rina, but she wanted to lay down for a bit or something. She had literally just ran up a tree while it was still up. She thought that deserved some sort of rest, but it was no matter, because like Aven, she did not need to be fighting a lion in the dark. So, she just kept walking. Her legs ached every second she walked, but she dare not whine about it, especially in the eyes of one of her guild mates. She kept the pain hidden, but she knew she would have to take a break at some point. She would not be able to fight a lion while her legs were pretty much dead. So, she sat down on a rock and looked over towards Aven. She said to him, "Hey, I'm just going to take a breather right here. You can just walk ahead without me. I'll meet up with you once I feel like I can walk again." After that, she made a little joke and said with a giggle, "Running up a tree does not seem as easy as I made it out to be."

As she sat down, she fiddled with her hands to try to fight the boredom. Sitting on a rock wasn't the most fun thing she could ever do, but it had to be done. After a few moments, she decided that she should probably prepare herself for the fight with the lion. So, she got ready her Heavenly Seeds as she crushed all of them in her hand. She felt herself begin to absorb with its magical properties as she heard a noise. It was as though it was right on queue. It may have only been like 10-15 minutes, but she was sure that that was coming from the direction Aven went. It sounded like the roar of the lion, which meant Rina couldn't rest any longer. So, she stood up and rushed towards the direction of the sound.

wc:399
tc:2161/3250