Lillene

Enjoy!

“Are you Rolan of Eternus?” Death thought the name was pretentious, but it wasn’t as bad as Becca said it was. It was aspirational, or something like that.

Or maybe Death was missing something again. That was normal. She still wasn’t certain why everyone had accepted her so easily; the other new people didn’t seem to be accepted easily, even when they came in with a group, but she’d had more than one person tell someone else to listen to her or back off from her, so it seemed like they were protecting her. She didn’t need it, but it was kind of nice.

The man at the table turned towards Death. He was still guarded from her senses, making it impossible to tell what was likely to kill him. It was disconcerting, but that only made him more interesting. “Yes, I’m Rolan.”

Death nodded and wondered why he was making it so difficult. Everyone else had asked if she was there to fill their request for a new party member; wasn’t that how the conversation was supposed to go? “Becca says you’re looking for one more person. Would you be interested in two? She says there are only three of you, so two should fit in most of the nearby dungeons.”

“Two?” Rolan sounded puzzled. “I thought you always worked alone?”

Death shook her head. “I don’t know who told you that. I always work in groups, no one should delve alone.”

Rolan shook his head. “No, I knew that. I mean, you don’t have a regular party, you just fill in by yourself.”

“Oh, that makes sense.” Death still wasn’t certain how that meant she worked alone when she was always with people but she supposed it was one of those odd inverted things humans did. “I don’t have a regular party, but neither does Kaasi so I figured I’d ask if you’d take both of us. Five people is better than four in a lot of dungeons. Becca said you’re looking for a tank, but another damage dealer is generally welcome, right?”

“Well, uh, yes-”

“Great!” Death grinned and clapped her hands together as she interrupted the strange man. “Then where do you want to go? Your request said you wanted to try a new dungeon?”

“Yes, but…” Rolan paused for a moment before he continued. “We weren’t planning to add two people right now, and we do want to practice before we go. Why don’t you meet us at the practice field? Both of you, if you want. If both of you want to work with us, you’ll both need to practice with us.”

Death nodded eagerly. “I’ll grab Kaasi. Ah, if you’re ready now?” 

She’d jumped on the situation the first time she saw him sitting there after she talked to Becca. The other two members of his team weren’t there, which meant they might not be ready yet. She’d noticed that people often arrived separately.

It wasn’t a problem for Death, since she lived at the Guild building; she was only gone if she was doing something. Kaasi seemed happy to spend a lot of time in and around the building as well; they’d been working on things for the past couple of days while she waited for the group to show up again. 

It was the woman she was the most interested in, since she was the one Serenity wanted dead, but the man was interesting in his own way. It was probably a good thing that the man was the “party leader;” that way, Death didn’t have to worry about Serenity’s dislike spilling over into her reactions.

Rolan shook his head. “It’ll probably be another half hour before Morgan gets here; she’s usually not very fast in the morning. Arthur should be here soon, though.”

Death didn’t really remember Arthur. He just hadn’t made much of an impression on her compared to a man who hid his cause of death and a woman who would probably die at Serenity’s hand. Now she just had to remember their names; people didn’t like being called by their probable deaths.

“I’ll … no, we’ll meet you around back at the far practice field once you’re all here, then. I … you do have a healer, don’t you?” The listing they’d left with Becca said that a healer wasn’t needed, just a tank, but they hadn’t left any specifics about what their team was or what type of tank they wanted. That was probably why they wanted a quick practice round before they delved together. Death preferred the groups that ran a really easy dungeon level to work the kinks out of their teamwork and make sure they fit, but most wanted to use the practice area instead.

At Rolan’s nod, Death turned away and headed to find Kaasi. She could be anywhere in or around the building; she liked exploring, even in areas she wasn’t really supposed to be in, so it might take Death a little while to find her. 

It was closer to an hour than half an hour later when Rolan, Morgan, and Arthur sauntered up to the practice field where Death and Kaasi were doing some sparring. Kaasi was well trained and seemed surprised at Death’s skill. She didn’t know it wasn’t actually Death’s own skill; since Serenity was her Incarnate, she could borrow his skill at almost anything, including weapons.

What she couldn’t do was adjust for the differences between their physical forms without practice. Serenity was bigger and heavier with a different center of gravity and lower flexibility; they were all things that Death could recognize, but it was taking her time to adapt her style to the body she’d made. When Kaasi managed to tag Death, it was because Death made a mistake.

Naturally, that meant Kaasi was winning.

Death didn’t mind; this was what practice was for, after all. She was learning a lot about fighting, but more importantly she was learning a lot about Kaasi and her Skills. She wasn’t sure what it was about the other woman that made her like her, but Death liked Kaasi on a level she hadn’t liked any mortal before. Serenity didn’t count, since he was no longer mortal.

It wasn’t just that Kaasi loved watching movies with her and laughed at her jokes; instead, it was the jokes Kaasi made, the way she wrinkled her nose when she didn’t get one of Death’s jokes or Death didn’t get one of hers, and the way Kaasi reacted to surprises: with a hand on a throwing ax and a grin - or a grimace - on her face. It wasn’t the same as the way Death reacted, but it was a reaction she could understand.

It was also the way Kaasi became a different person on the battlefield, even if it was just a practice arena. She treated it seriously, not like a place to clown around. Death hated it when people used a place where you were supposed to practice killing and not dying as a joke.

They just clicked, somehow. Death was pretty sure this was what it was like to have a friend.

This time, Death managed to not flub her response to Kaasi’s attack by attempting to stop it; instead, she flowed around the attack, avoiding it the way Serenity would avoid a shieldbreaking weapon. Kaasi’s attack attempted to direct Death into a counter that she could stop, but a short step at the beginning of the avoid turned Death far enough that she was able to slide behind Kaasi and hook her foot while her weight was still on it. A simple tug was all that was needed then and Death rotated around her sparring partner to land the blunt wooden weapon squarely on Kaasi’s spine.

“I yield,” Kaasi called out.

Death let her up, only to smile as Kaasi shook her head. “I thought I had you there, Amaia. You really fooled me; how did you get behind me?”

Death shook her head. She was happy about the compliment, but explaining the counter would take time they didn’t have right now. “We can go over it after the delve; for now, let’s greet Eternus.”

Kaasi turned to look at the three who were waiting just outside the practice field. It was obvious she’d known they were there and was simply ignoring them. “Right. Probably a good idea.”

Death didn’t want to stop the practice session either, but she could spar with Kaasi later, when Eternus wasn’t around. She wanted to find out more about two of them. She trotted over to the group. “Good to see you!”

“I’m sorry it took so long,” the woman Serenity would probably kill started. Death thought her name was Morgan. “Everything went wrong this morning. You’d think I’d be better at this but no matter how much I try to prepare, something always goes wrong.”

Had Luck cursed the woman as well? Death couldn’t tell, not without breaking the limitations she’d put on herself to practice being human. She might not be able to tell even if she did break them. 

“It happens, it’s okay,” Death answered. She knew that was the right answer; she’d heard it a number of times and it was really the only one that didn’t end up with people yelling at each other eventually. Death didn’t really like yelling. 

“No, it’s not,” Morgan stated flatly, then sighed. “Not that that changes anything. Anyway, I’m Morgan; my specialty is ice. I really only do damage; I’ve tried to extend the Affinity into slowing-type spells and creating bad terrain, but I haven’t been very successful.”

Death nodded at that. “I’m a debuff tank, I stop monsters without range from getting to anyone and monsters with range from getting their attacks off. If I do it right, we shouldn’t need much healing, but I don’t do much damage at all. Someone else has to kill the monsters.”

As if they were trading off, the quiet man at the back of the group spoke up. “Nice to finally meet you, Miss Black. I’m Arthur; my element’s Light. Unlike Morgan, I do have a wide range of things I can do with it. I can’t seem to get a laser to work, so I can’t really hurt things much, but I can blind them, give them sunburns, give us some minor buffs, and do some pretty terrible healing. It’s enough to save someone’s life for long enough to get to a real healer, that’s all.”

“They aren’t minor buffs,” Rolan objected. “I haven’t met anyone else who can make someone else’s afterimages still hit and hurt.”

Arthur shook his head. “They’re still minor.”

“Buffs are useful,” Kaasi interrupted. “My main attack is sort of like that. I’m Wind-Affinity, but I’m not really a mage even if I do have some spell-like Skills. Instead, I use these,” Kaasi tapped a pair of throwing axes. “Coat them in wind as I throw them and they’ll go just where I want them to no matter what. Before you ask, no, it’s not air affinity, it’s wind; the wind has to move. I can’t just hold it in place or empty it out of an area. How would that even work?” Kaasi shook her head.

“No air bandages, then,” Rolan grinned at Kaasi. “I guess that makes it my turn. I’m not a straight single-element Affinity like three of you are; I’m more like Miss Black. My Affinities are all terrible but I have Skills that work well anyway. For combat, they’re all about changing mass temporarily to hit with more momentum or move around with less, even avoiding traps that way. My goal is to figure out a gravity affinity; it seems like that is sort of what I’m already doing, but I haven’t figured out how to get there yet.”

Lillene

Wind is a good main Affinity for a spy. It’s not even close to the best Affinity, but it’s still a good one.