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Chapter Text

Aria stared aimlessly at the walls of her wooden cage. They were tall, two stories high, with wooden supports supporting the structure. A set of wooden bars accompanied her right, while many mean looking people talked amongst themselves, oblivious to her plight.

In truth, this cage of hers was self-imposed. The wooden desk in front of her was not herding her in but keeping the rude people out, the ‘wooden bars’ nothing more than a banister.

You see, Aria is a clerk.

She registers adventurers, processes quests, and does more tedious paperwork. However, oftentimes she would be left like this, gazing listlessly at nothing. 

Sometimes her gaze would wander longingly to the backs of parties, discussing and debating their next quests and rewards. Truthfully, she would rather be paid to sit here, but she would fantasize about the journeys they must have, the dangers they face. The strength in unparalleled adversity. 

Many adventurers are doomed to never come back, and that she knew well. Relatives would barge in, demanding of her where their friend, their comrade, their son was. But she was always powerless. She could only reply, as per guild procedure, that they could post a search quest. 

That was the part of the job she liked the least. 

The best parts were when the Adamantite adventurers came in. In a world full of low rank coppers and silvers, Adamantite adventurers would come once in a blue moon, a rarity even among high ranking members. All the heads in the room would turn and stare in awe and envy at what most people could never achieve. They seemed to surpass the limits of the world, transcending the realm of humanity.

She wondered what her peak would have been. Would she have been gold? Platinum? No, the people like her with no Talents or skills were usually consigned to silver. Maybe if she worked long enough she could afford a piece of gear that, when used effectively, would propel her to gold.

Suddenly, the door opened in an odd, mechanical way, as if a sudden and constant force was put on it and immediately stopped when the door became perpendicular to the wall.

What came in was likely one of the weirdest things she had ever seen.

It was covered, head to toe, in strange looking clothes- a full body suit even, made with muted blues and grays.

Patches and symbols she didn’t recognize decorated its upper arms.

Its face was covered with some sort of strange mask, with several large straps securing it. It had two large reflective circles where its eyes should have been, no nose, and a cylinder where its mouth should have been. Another cylinder jutted out grotesquely from the side of it, lined with blue.

The only skin she could see on it was its fingers. The skin it did show was quickly cut off at the knuckle by a set of intricately designed brown gloves. 

One of these hands held a knife as dark as night, clearly worn out from intensive use. Its other hand was also held out, as if it was constantly ready to engage an enemy.

As it moved its head to take in the environment, its arms seemed to follow. It looked around in weird, unnatural movements, as if its body was so perfectly coordinated that motion would simply continue. Or as if it had no parts at all, merely dragged by an unseen force.

It’s back looked just as odd, but it became clearer that it was wearing a vest on top of its clothing. More weird contraptions jutted out of it, nothing that she could make sense of.

It turned towards her as if finally noticing her, and she shrank under the seeming gaze of those two orbs.

Aria began to sweat a little. She had dealt with a whole manner of people, but to describe this thing as a person didn’t feel right. Its movements lacked soul. Everything felt too… crisp, too uniform, in the way it moved. Its feet seemed to glide over the floorboards the more that she watched, as if it was merely a poorly done illusion.

It stopped in front of her booth, mere inches from the counter, its blade neatly pressed up into her personal space.

She smiled like she had done so many times before and noted it didn’t have an adventurer plate. Of course it didn’t, she would have heard about it otherwise.

“Hello! Are you interested in becoming an adventurer?” Her facade nearly cracked as she stared into its eyes, or at the least what were supposed to be eyes. Two large, round, reflective spheres gazed back at her, a complex mask merely reflecting herself in its image.

It nodded with its entire body as if it was a child, shaking its arm knife viciously along with it up and down several times in quick succession.

She pulled out a piece of paper from under the desk. “Well then, please sign here to register.”

It stared at her as she placed it down, moving side to side with seemingly effortless velocity control as if excited or impatient.

As soon as her hand was off the paper it teleported in front of the thing and then back to the table, signature neatly imprinted on the line.

She blinked once. Twice.

She pulled the paper back, reading it over. The signature was made with what looked like painstakingly descriptive writing, but the words failed to mean anything to her. 

None of this made any sense, but it wasn’t her place to question things. That was something best left up to the people in charge.

She blindly smiled and nodded at it. “It’ll take a second to process your request. Please wait.”

It stayed stock still.

After waiting an inappropriate amount of time for a response, she got up and started to turn arou-

“Affirmative.” A rough voice emanated from the… man?

She whipped her head around to find it still staring her down. The response only unnerved her further, and she nodded politely before darting to the back room.

Not wanting to anger the man, she whipped around until emerging with the desired copper plate. She placed it down on the table only for it to disappear and reappear around its neck.

“Best of luck!”

She sat back down and prayed it would leave her alone. She was just a clerk, a desk woman. Not someone prepared to handle living abominations.

She was finally able to relax somewhat as it turned to the quest board. Unfortunately for her, there was one right next to the front desk.

She couldn’t keep her eyes off of it as it looked over all the quests, its gaze scanning the littered board. It jerked its body up and down, left and right as it looked over everything.

After staying stock still for some time, it seemingly made a quest disappear and then reappear on her desk like it had done earlier with the necklace.

She took the quest and read over it, only to find…?

“Sir, you can’t take this quest. It’s for Gold ranked adventurers or higher.” She pushed the quest back to him and pointed it out.

“Affirmative.” It blared back at her, the same monotone voice emanating from its mask.

It took the quest, deposited it back onto the board. It just as quickly pulled another one, seemingly at random, and dropped it onto the desk.

A stray thought entered her mind:

Could he not read?

She stifled a chuckle at his expense as she pushed the quest back, repeating her earlier denial.

As weird as the man was, he was starting to grow on her. It was as if he was a lost child exploring the world. He would get bored of trying to find a quest and often stare off into the distance, or do a full body crouch to inspect some small detail in some seemingly mundane object. Everywhere he went, he would run to it at high speeds, crossing the distance to quickly take a look at whatever caught his attention.

He eventually continued looking for a suitable quest until he wound up finding one that matched his beginner ranking, seemingly by luck. For someone as seemingly dumb as this man, a monster subjugation quest was probably right up his alley.

Aria repeated the quest out loud, just in case he in fact was unable to read as she accepted it. Ten goblins, south of the city walls.

He nodded viciously at its contents, emitting a loud “Nice!” before running out of the establishment, his body moving to the door before he even fully turned around.

What a strange man.

Chapter Text

Dyne was a man of simple things. Being a druid by trade, he would often simply be taking in the sights and the world at hand.

It was for those reasons that he generally detested cities such as E-Rantel, though he was bound to it by necessity. The Adventurer’s Guild was his team’s lifeblood. 

He patted his stomach gently. While he wasn’t exactly overweight, he knew he would be much, much slimmer without his crew.

Peter sat across from Dyne, staring intently at the closed doorway. He was a kindhearted, honest man, and the leader of the team. The mottled browns of his jacket matched the colors of his shield nicely, as well as the hilt of his blade. While Dyne preferred his mace, he could appreciate a good old sword and shield combo when he saw it.

Lukrut was lounging around, looking around at nothing. He was a restless fellow, though Dyne always suspected there was something underneath the shallow persona he seemed to always approach women with. The flashy reds and browns complemented an equally flashy personality. His hands would tick in strange ways, as if drawing back an illusionary arrow.

Ninya was reading some sort of book she had on hand. The young magic caster always held lofty goals, and her Talent to accelerate her learning only made that process faster. The muted blacks and browns juxtaposed her brilliant blue eyes.

Though she tried her best to appear male, it was only a matter of time before the resident party healer knew the truth. Dyne supposed the other party members knew as well, but decided to refrain from commenting. Being a woman adventurer could oftentimes be a dangerous thing, especially for newbies. She could reveal herself whenever she felt comfortable doing so. Dyne was a patient man, and had plenty of time.

Speaking of time, it was right about time for that man to arrive.

The Swords of Darkness were in the business of recruiting another member. After a harrowingly close mission, they figured splitting rewards five ways in exchange for a solidified party would help. A backliner, preferably.

This was why when they heard the news of a newbie adventurer quickly climbing the ranks, they pursued. A silver rank within his first month, the adventurer supposedly rarely spoke and only interacted with one particular clerk. He would enter a little past dinnertime to claim his prior quest, then start a new one.

The source of intrigue that followed the man was another reason for their desire to meet with him. None of the Swords had ever stayed in the Guild this late, but they wanted to see this ‘thing’, as some called him. Dyne was quite sure the man looked just fine, and was being harped on by those who disliked seeing someone climb the ranks so quickly. Appearances be damned, his silver tag put him on par with his seasoned crew. While his climb was certainly somewhat suspicious, as far as Dyne was concerned a capable member was a capable member.

The door opened and Peter’s eyes narrowed slightly at the man walking through. “He’s here.”

Dyne turned to see something leap with a seeming weightlessness in his movements. Several times it would seem to touch the ground only to bounce back up with the same ferocity of its first leap. It had complete control of itself in the air, circling objects and people with an ease that only a master of wind magic could even fathom attempting.

The blue and black blur then stopped completely in a fraction of a second at the front desk.

Dyne could not tell if he felt a respect for the grace exhibited by the being or a sense of wrongness in the way that it moved. Maybe a mix of both. It was unlike anything he had ever seen before, something in its own class. He wanted, no, he needed to know more.

Peter signaled, and the team shifted off of their chairs and beelined towards the man across the room. Peter led with Lukrut at his right, and Ninya and Dyne trailed behind.

One of the reasons no one talked to it was because of that speed it possessed. It did not loiter or lobby, it would simply come and go. The timing required to speak to it was incredibly precise.

This was the timing they would use to their advantage. The thing man would not escape so easily.

They surrounded its backside, pressing in close enough where it would feel forced to engage but not enough to make them seem hostile. At least, that was the plan. 

With the way the man dressed, Dyne couldn’t help but wonder at what customs could have possibly forced this man into such odd articles of clothing. As he neared it he realized the clothing was nothing even remotely natural. It was more akin to pieces of tarp than cloth, reflecting the lights of the building in a harsh manner akin to metal. It also seemed to wear a mask, though he couldn’t get a good look at it from this angle.

No matter, Dyne decided. While he was vaguely uncomfortable with the clothing of the man, that was no reason to discount him.

The man walked backwards before completely turning around, bumping into Dyne as he did. While Dyne stumbled a step backwards, he felt odd. The impact he expected wasn’t there. In fact, he felt nothing at all. It was as if the man was completely weightless, simply an illusion.

The man whipped around.

Dyne flinched and plastered his face with a smile as he felt the gaze of those two orbs on him.

The mask covered his face entirely. There was no semblance of emotion detectable in him, only what little body motion left in it giving away any hints.

Dyne took another half step back, feeling entirely too close to the edge of the worn knife in its hand.

Peter took this as his sign to speak up. “Hey there rookie. I was wondering if we could talk with you.” He slowly swiveled to their leader. ”Assuming you’re not busy, of course.” Peter hastily added.

The man seemed to genuinely pause and consider the offer.

…

Seconds felt like minutes to Dyne. Something about the man threw him off despite his normally easygoing and casual behavior.

Regardless, the man shook his entire upper body up and down, dragging most notably its head and knife along with it.

Peter smiled in response. “Great! Let’s head over to a table and discuss.”

As the Swords started to walk towards their destination someone called out to them.

“Delta.”

Dyne turned back towards the source, one of the clerks. “What was that?”

“Delta.” She replied. “His name is Delta.”

He smiled in response. “Thank you for that.”

“Let me introduce us.” Peter started. “I am the leader of Swords of Darkness, Peter Mauk.” His silver plate caught the light.

He gestured to the resident archer. “And that is the team’s eyes and ears, the ranger Lukrut Volve.” He gave a brief wave.

A part of Dyne was glad that Delta didn’t seem to be a woman given Lukrut’s disposition. Now that he gave it more thought, he had no clue what Delta’s gender really was, though it was said he had quite the rough voice.

The next introduction drew Dyne out of his thoughts. “This guy deals with healing magic and the manipulation of nature, the druid Dyne Woodwonder.”

Dyne nodded sagely, giving a brief smile. “Nice to meet you.”

“And lastly, this is our magic caster and the brains of our team, Ninya the Spell Caster.”

She lowered her head with a slight blush on her face. “Nice to meet you.”

…

Peter continued with what should have been the obvious continuity in conversation. “Would you like to introduce yourself?”

He shook his body.

“Ah, okay. That’s fine then, since we already know your name, Delta.”

He nodded a hint less viciously.

Peter took it as a sign to continue. “We know you are a man of few words, Delta, so we would like to get straight to the point: We would like to recruit you to join our team.” Delta seemed to physically flinch at that. “We have a subjugation quest to complete, and if you were to perform well in it we would see to it that you would become a member of our party, the Swords of Darkness. Of course, you don’t need to decide right now, but…”

At this point Dyne was sure Delta was nodding his head as fast as humanly(?) possible, opting not to even look in Peter’s direction but instead alternating between staring at the floor and the ceiling. “Yes.” His rough, tired voice responded in complete contrast to his body language.

The party chuckled a little at Delta’s antics. “Would you be good to meet tomorrow morning? Maybe a little before midday?”

Delta had stopped moving in favor of staring at Peter, and the ensuing silence felt uncomfortable to Dyne.

Peter opened his mouth to retract his statement, but Delta beat him to the punch.

“The best of the best!” Delta responded happily.

Dyne let go of the breath he had been holding, as did the rest of his party. He didn’t really know what Delta meant, but the tone sounded cheerful enough to be an affirmation.

Peter chuckled. “Maybe not the best of the best, but we’re glad to have you on board, Delta.” He went to stick out his hand for a handshake before retracting it on remembering Delta’s odd hand gestures and positions. Maybe he wouldn’t want a handshake?

“We’ll see you tomorrow then.” Peter reaffirmed, sliding out of the booth.

Delta beat him to the punch, having less so sat down during the conversation and more so crouched on top of the chair seat. He hopped away in that weird but entrancing movement he seemed to be so fond of and was out the door before everyone could properly end the conversation.

“What an odd man.” Ninya muttered to herself.

“The control he has over his body is incredible.” Dyne spoke in awe.

“Yeah, I’ve never seen anything like that.” Anxiety tinged Lukrut’s voice, causing Dyne to turn to him. “It unnerves me to see someone move like that and be barely able to talk, less so a grown man.”

“We don’t know what Delta has gone through, Lukrut.” Peter came to his aid. “For all we know, Delta’s hiding a traumatic past under his gear.” Dyne resisted the urge to glance at Ninya.

“Indeed.” Dyne supported. “Besides, I had detected no malicious aura from the man.” He briefly frowned. Dyne hadn’t casted anything deeper than a simple detection on the man, but given his full body coverings it may be worthwhile to try something a little more detailed. People like him do not show up without their fair share of history, but to be a party member meant absolute trust. Absolute trust meant absolute truth. Lies and half-truths led to mortal wounds on the battlefield.

Ninya yawned. “It’s been a night. How about we call it quits for the day?”

“I agree.” Peter glanced at the rest of the party. “Let’s head back.”

Chapter Text

Lukrut is a man of many talents, or so he tells himself.

His hands were raised behind his head in a carefree, relaxed gesture. Hunting monsters was a common occurrence, and his skills as a ranger would allow him to detect danger and prepare himself well before battle. The mostly open fields lended themselves well to his sharp eyes.

In other circumstances, Lukrut’s ears would be employed in the business of scouting as well, but this quest was something different. The trial member of the Swords of Darkness had some unfortunately loud footsteps, and Lukrut was not in the business of making enemies.

Delta’s movement patterns had become exponentially weirder outside of the city walls. The small, deep curves he would hop in the Adventurer’s Guild with only grew exponentially larger with speed. He would do them forward, backwards, sideways… while the base pattern stayed the same, there were intricacies woven into the movements. Sometimes the curving patterns would arc dozens of feet in a smooth curve, only to alternate directly after the next jump into a series of incredibly shallow zig-zags. Lukrut knew that no normal archer could hit that shot, himself included.

After a certain point it seemed more like he was flinging himself across the open ground than he was controlling his movements. He would even hit trees at high velocities and just… stop. Similarly, Delta would occasionally bash into sloped hills or curved surfaces only to glide smoothly across them, or get his horizontal momentum transferred into air time. Lukrut only grew more curious and concerned at his new teammate’s interactions with the world as time went on, and it reminded him of Delta’s initial interaction with Dyne in the guildhouse.

Regardless, he rubbed Lukrut the wrong way. His instincts would scream every time Delta would collide with a tree, only for him to let out a breath subconsciously when Delta did not become red paste.

His arms were also doing some weird motion akin to a slight teleport in their posing, almost always pulling out some sort of contraption or his knife. Whenever he had held out a weapon for more than a few seconds, he would switch the item he was holding multiple times until he seemed to grow bored of it. Lukrut suspected some clever use of illusion magic, though why Delta would use it all the time on the hunt was somewhat confusing. He would also seem to inspect his weapons’ conditions many times, ensuring they were clean and ready to use.

And through it all the hopping madman didn’t even seem slightly winded. Now that was truly a feat in and of itself.

Thankfully Delta had stopped being such a force of nature and had opted to simply walk along with the team at the request of Peter. It was interfering with their party’s ability to detect enemies as well as pushing everyone’s attention towards the man jumping literal circles around the party. 

This had the odd side effect of turning Delta from a being of chaos into a mimic of a poorly trained animal, often stopping and staring at objects only to realize he was being left behind. Full body crouches staring at dandelions and blades of grass, running into trees to get a closer look, and hopping off of the nearest outcropping to get some extra height.

Lukrut envied that movement. Even a fraction of that movement would have probably boosted his scouting skills to platinum.

The handle of Lukrut’s shortsword bumped into his hands, returning him to the present moment. He lowered his hands and continued walking, unsure if he had heard some movement in the forest to his right.

His hand twitched in anticipation.

He spared a glance to his right, seemingly casual to any outsiders but enough to clue his teammates in about his premonition.

His hunch proved right. “Goblins and trolls. Several trolls, a few dozen goblins.” He reported to the group quietly.

Beasts were still just beasts, but keeping a seemingly oblivious profile would help deal with the initial wave. They would get cocky, approach the team as they were led into an open field, and mowed down like the meat they were when they reached Lukrut’s sights. Delta’s too.

The team moved according to protocol towards the nearest open field, away from the forest where the monsters resided. Each of them looked as casual as they were before, but they had all tensed up in their own way. Peter held his sword just a little tighter. Ninya grasped his staff with two hands instead of one. Dyne’s hands were ready to quickly whip out his mace.

And Delta… well, he looked pretty unfazed, though Lukrut hadn’t had much time to figure out what his tells were.

He would call the signal pretty soon. Lukrut knew he just had to bide his time. Just enough for him to get them in range…

“Now!”

Lukrut pulled out his bow and performed a quick turnabout on the now exposed horde. It was a little bigger than he had estimated, but that was just fine. He shot an arrow, purposefully shooting before they got into range to let his opponents underestimate them further.

Peter took to the frontlines while Ninya casted support spells on him. Dyne was readying a mobility hindering spell, Twine Plant, as per protocol. There were still a few dozen feet between them and the horde, and he needed to wait until a troll was in striking range to synergize with Peter.

Delta had also prepared, transferring his momentum to hop out of range of the party and to the side of the coming battle. He had pulled out his weapon of choice, a large contraption of metal that required two hands to hold. It looked li-

A loud series of noises like thunder continuously cracking sounded off from Delta’s position as something started to rip small bits and pieces of the goblins like paper. Lukrut clutched his ears and narrowed his eyes, setting his bow as quickly as he could onto the ground. The sound continued, deafening the world around him and sending trails of light through the enemies.

The light trails quickly stabilized into a single nearly continuous beam, ripping through any goblins unfortunate enough to have been caught in its wake. The trolls fared better, their regenerative abilities forcing them on all fours as they howled in agony.

Lukrut forced his eyes to stay open. He needed to see this, this carnage that their new member would rake.

The beam still managed to continue, now guided towards the heads of the trolls. Once locked on, the unfortunate head would cave in at the point of entry, blood and all sorts of matter spraying out onto the grass.

The beam had managed to slay one more troll before sputtering out, the last few strikes being accompanied by a high pitched metallic sound not unlike a hammer on an anvil.

Lukrut’s head hurt.

He pulled himself up from the cowardly position he found himself in as he slowly readjusted to the world at large. A survey of his team members for damage found nothing asides for a strong dose of shock and fear.

The trolls that remained were attempting to flee, cowering at the sight of their utterly brutalized comrades. Unfortunately for them, the man -no, he was something else- of the hour was already advancing upon their position. He hopped towards them in the same way he would spring towards a flower or a tree, seemingly without a care in the world. The blood and gore didn’t track on his shoes.

Delta whipped a piece of metal out from his weapon onto the dirt and replaced it with a similar piece of metal. Ammunition was the likely answer, Lukrut surmised, but he had never seen something like that. Something so easily disposable, yet left so much waste behind.

The trolls' lives were already forfeit to the being who had so innocently tagged along. For something that seemed to barely even be able to scratch the environment on a good day, the damage it could cause was nothing short of monstrous.

The weapon sounded in Delta’s hands once more, this time far enough away to where Lukrut could hear himself think.

As the trolls were finished off, Lukrut wondered if this was the beginning of the end. At best, he was simply outclassed. At worst, Delta’s weapons would revolutionize battle as he knew it. How such a powerful weapon and being escaped the public consciousness was beyond him.

One thing was sure though- Delta did not belong with the Swords of Darkness. He belonged with the upper echelons of warriors, the people who Lukrut knew that he would never reach. Hell, Delta might even give the whole of Blue Rose a run for their money.

The Swords looked at each other, each waiting for another to break the silence. Shock, fear, and awe were present to some degree on all of their faces.

Lukrut, however, was mainly feeling the fear.

“Light Healing.” As the light green glow enveloped Lukrut his headache started to clear and his ears stopped ringing so harshly, the aftershock of the freak of nature letting go. He bathed in the warm feeling of the magic washing through his body, choosing to not focus on the destruction in front of them. He noticed he wasn’t shaking as badly as he was before.

…

“He can’t stay.” Peter broke the silence.

The others nodded.

“Well then.” Lukrut pretended to stretch out the tenseness in his arms, pretending to return to normalcy. “Let’s finish this up, eh?.” He smiled but it didn’t reach his eyes.

As they approached the scene of the massacre they found most of the ears already cut clean off by Delta. It was short work to finish the job, though the corpses were a bit more gruesome than they normally were when defeated by standard weapons.

The carnage didn’t stop at the monsters though. Holes a bit smaller than a coin riddled the trees and foliage, as if whatever Delta’s weapon emanated passed through the mobs and into the trees. The markings were likely permanent things in the rough bark.

Just another reminder of the carnage that was born here.

“Did we get all the ears?” Peter asked, more out of formality than a real question.

“Yeah, I think so.” Ninya called from across the bodies.

“Let’s head out then.” Peter waved them back to E-Rantel, his voice lacking his usual vigor.

Lukrut turned back to his thoughts for company on the quiet journey home.

It was no secret that many people would be ‘capped’ at a certain rank. Those who could get past that were seen as heroes or true warriors.

Delta didn’t seem to fit in either category.

Maybe Lukrut was just fearing the unknown, and once he understood how Delta or his weapon ticked he would be able to understand and admire such combat. The masterful aim of an archer could take many years to perfect, and the same goes for a warrior or a mage. Yet all he saw here was indiscriminate carnage. The only thing masterful about Delta’s abilities was the impressive mana pool he must have drawn from, as well as his weapon.

Delta’s weapon must be some sort of magic-based rapid fire casting. That’s the only idea Lukrut could come up with for such a powerful weapon. He would ask Delta, but the man seemed to only speak in simple terms, and he doubted he could get anything of a real explanation out of him. And that was before he even considered the intimidation factor.

The reflective material that covered Delta's eyes was seeming more and more like some all-seeing being, the perfect circles in the mask waiting for a slip up. The cylinder jutting out of his mask looked more and more grotesque the closer he looked. The flags on his arms commanded respect and authority.

Delta was beyond his paygrade, Lukrut decided. In another life they could have been good friends, maybe even rivals in battle. But in this one, Delta symbolized the overwhelming distance between the haves and the have-nots, having come to E-Rantel with a gift and the power to use it.

As Delta would continue to climb the ranks, Lukrut would be hard stuck at silver. Maybe he would reach gold one day, but by that point Delta would be leagues beyond. Lukrut didn’t envy the journey and burdens Delta would face.

They claimed their reward in short order, with this quest having been one of their fastest subjugations on record. Five coppers each was a hefty sum given the party size, enough to drink their problems away and rest up the next day.

For now though, they had to break the bad news.

“Hey Delta.” Peter had seemingly calmed down enough to put up a cheerful facade.

Lukrut flinched as the masked man turned.

“I wanted to let you know that you did a really good job out there. However, we cannot accept you as a member.” Peter glanced at his teammates to reaffirm their decision. “Truthfully, we think we would hold you back. You… could find better teammates than us.” He grimaced.

Delta stared at Peter before slowly dropping his gaze to his feet, hunching over in the process. “Roger that.”

And with that, Delta shuffled away, the vigor normally found in his skips replaced by a walk as he disappeared into the streets of E-Rantel.

Chapter Text

Blue Rose just happened to be at the right place at the right time when some newbie -correction, gold plate- ran in rather frantically.

Or was it?

Evileye couldn’t tell, being more mesmerized at its general appearance. While they shared some vague sense of kinship of both wearing conservative clothing and full-face masks, he looked… wonky. His feet looked like separate pieces of apparatus that were semi-consciously controlled by wherever it wanted to go, sliding and slipping yet always surely moving.

He had run (slid?) up to a clerk and practically demanded her attention, saying things in the strangest tones and voices. One moment, he’d be yelling “I need help!” with a strong sense of urgency, only to follow up with a “I’m taking point.” as if he was actually in combat right there and then. His near-complete lack of coherent speech was simultaneously funny and worrying. Seriously, what happened to the quality standards of adventurers nowadays?

He jumped up and down in strange, inexplicable circles, seemingly controlling his momentum perfectly in the air as he would land in the same place he started despite his horizontal movement.

Okay, maybe he had some skill, Evileye corrected. Not enough to warrant being a gold plate, but that was something.

Gagaran always had a weak spot for others, and her actions here were no different. She put a hand on the man’s shoulder and he froze up on the spot, completely halting all movement. Curiously enough, he went back to flinging himself around the moment her hand let go. He whipped around and jumped in front of her like a dog trying to greet its owner, turning his barrage of weird one liners towards the Adamantite.

The way he was saying them made Evileye feel like she was on the verge of remembering something. It was as if he was-

“Hey there kid, slow down.” Gagaran laughed loudly at his antics, clearly perceiving his problem to be, well, not a problem. “You’re not making any sense.”

The man stopped everything and seemed to reconsider his approach for several seconds.

…

“We’re knee deep in trouble here, boys.” He finally clarified in a grave tone.

“Trouble? What kind of trouble?” Gagaran asked, finally seeming to take whatever issue he was facing with some level of seriousness.

“U-um, Miss Gagaran?” The clerk drew their gaze before he could respond. “I’m not sure why, but D-Delta only seems to speak in commonly known phrases. He’s never been like this before, though he’s only been here for around a month.”

Gagaran turned back towards the gold plate with a more analytical gaze this time. For good reason, Evileye thought- that would average out to something like a quest a day. Very few people could manage something like that day in and day out.

Pieces were just not connecting here. Conservative, strange gear, phrase-level speech patterns, fast completion rates…

The most damning piece of evidence was the lack of blood.

Evileye was a vampire through and through, hence the mask and concealing clothing. Like most vampires, she could reasonably detect if blood existed in something.

There was no blood in that thing.

The possibility that it was another species skyrocketed with that conclusion.

That, unfortunately, just opened way to a whole host of new questions, the most pressing one being why it would even care to cooperate with the guild. Money? Fame? Information?

Evileye was an exception to the rule; As far as she was concerned, she was one of the only exceptions. For something like it to just up and appear in the middle of the world without garnering more attention was slightly concerning.

She ultimately decided it would be best to keep tabs on Delta, and what better way to do that than to follow through on his request? Worst comes to worst, they could probably handle it.

Evileye stepped up beside her teammate. “So you’ve got a problem and you want someone to follow you so they can help?” She surmised.

“Shorty?” Gagaran muttered curiously.

He nodded with his entire upper body as if his neck was partially paralyzed, sparing no regard for his knife’s proximity to his possible saviors.

“Lead the way then.” She pointedly ignored the looks her comrades were giving her. “I’ll explain later.” was codeword for ‘there are people around who can’t hear this’.

As they followed at an awkward walk/run through the dimly lit alleys and streets, Evileye filled them in on her discovery regarding Delta.

“I wish you wouldn’t make decisions like this so lightly, but it was a fair point.” Lakyus conceded, sighing.

“I know we may be getting in way over our heads here, but I don’t think we could’ve let anyone else go in our stead. If we can’t defeat it, I doubt anyone else could.” Evileye pointed out.

No one argued the obvious, but Evileye felt it was worth stating to make sure her points were received. The diverse background that made up Blue Rose meant that what may seem obvious to her would be much less so to some of the others, and vice versa. They were still able to function as a great team regardless due to their experience and protocols, but the diversity could poke holes in their collective common sense.

Speaking of the obvious, it was blindingly obvious how often Delta seemed to bump and crash straight into things and continue completely unscathed. He would even just run into the corners of buildings sometimes, as if he was trying too hard to be efficient about his movement.

The journey thankfully did not take long, the destination being a set of large iron-wrought gates. Cemeteries were not places Evileye particularly enjoyed, but the addition of undead sprinkled all around both sides of the gates had her wondering what the hell was going on. Undead didn’t just spawn outside of gates, especially in these numbers. The guards who were there had already been overrun, the remaining few having taken defensive positions farther from the gates. It was clear they were losing, but even dwindling the existing numbers would prevent a few more wasteful deaths.

Still, you’d think a dozen guards would be qualified to handle a few undead. Another place where Re-Estize fails, she supposed. Still better than Slane.

Tia and Tina made quick work of most of the fleeing skeletons while Gagaran and Lakyus took care of the ones front-and center. Evileye went to clean up the skelet-

A crank-like windup came from Delta’s position followed up by the sound of thunder. Evileye whipped towards the source to find a… gun? It had been so long since she had seen one, but the telltale sounds and sights just seemed to further her suspicions.

And hurt her hearing, but that was another matter entirely.

After getting over the initial shock that was a gun the majority of the remaining skeletons were already piles of bones, a few shots taking care of multiple skeletons at a time. She grimaced at his accuracy. Probably had some experience, though where and how still managed to elude her.

“Can you make your weapon any quieter?” Lakyus asked as politely as possible, knuckles white against her sword. Clearly the noise had rattled everyone, even her leader.

He nodded and expelled something from it before switching to a larger, heftier weapon. The switch happened instantaneously- Evileye couldn’t tell when he holstered the other weapon in favor of this larger one, but something about the way he prepared his equipment screamed experience.

Evileye tried to push her thoughts on Delta to the side for now. It was clear the more pressing issue was dealing with the graveyard. She refrained from handling the current undead until she knew the situation at hand, leaving them to the rest of her party.

Given the incompetence of the guards they decided to rush up to the towers on each side of the large, wooden gates to find thousands of dead waddling towards them. Child’s play to beat, but none of this made any sense. Necromancy on this scale was unprecedented in this age, but it was the only thing that made any sense. Natural spawn rates would only generate a dozen a day, at most. Based on the retreating guards and lack of backup, these likely all spawned within the last few hours.

Evileye glanced back down at the pile of undead climbing the walls only to spot Delta flinging himself down it like a slide, zooming off to god knows where.

She imagined several hypotheticals, all of which ended in his untimely death.

Evileye instead transferred that anger into several casts, decimating the undead attempting to climb the walls.

Gagaran let out a genuine laugh, jumping down and crushing her own set of undead as Blue Rose started the long walk forward.

More shots, this time with more treble and increasingly rapid, came from a couple hundred feet ahead of them. This one rang out for much longer (though thankfully was quieter) and wiped out all undead surrounding Delta, though he had to stop prematurely to avoid pelting his comrades. Not that they would’ve done much harm to high tier adventurers like themselves, though Tia and Tina may have sustained some damage with their agility-oriented attack styles.

They continued forward like this for a while, with Delta leading the way while Blue Rose played a rather frustrating game of catch up whenever he decided to gain some momentum.

Delta was frustratingly efficient at destroying everything in eyesight with that thing, and Evileye found it likely that he chose his weapon for this specific case. This, unfortunately, implied that he owned at least a few other weapons of similar quality that were more specialized for killing single opponents. The previous weapon he used was probably one of them, though it was quite small. Maybe a backup weapon?

It also implied that while Delta was powerful, he figured that something else existed that at the least could put up a good fight against him. As much as Evileye loathed to admit it, Delta had to be Mythril at the least. The fact that he looked for reinforcements instead of just mowing down these undead himself implied a shortcoming on his end or an unexpected increase in enemy strength. If he had also come to the conclusion that there was a high-tier caster or enemy in the vicinity, he had good instinct.

Regardless, they made good progress in quick time. Unfortunately, they had also come in loud and clear to their potential opponents, Delta’s gun giving any sentient enemies a decent indicator of where the party was at all times.

The mausoleum they found themselves quickly approaching was massive, made to look even larger when compared with the open fields they had been traversing up until this point. A ring of cultists were waiting for them, garbed in long, dark cloaks. All of them held wooden quarterstaffs.

Magic casters, then. Evileye doubted they were on her level individually, but they still managed quite the impressive feat here.

The leader, garbed in red, held a pulsing purple ball, one that seemed to radiate extreme levels of negative energy. His bald head seemed to reflect the moonlight, and his pale, wizened features were muttering something. The outfit was completed with a long gold necklace adorned with three small skulls.

Their approach caused the casters pause, and the leader came a few steps forward to converse.

“The esteemed Blue Rose,” he sneered, “and… whoever you are.” not so much as glancing in Delta’s direction.

“Big talk for an egghead like yourself.” Gagaran stepped forward. “I’d tell you to turn yourself in, but by this point I don’t think that’s an option.”

“Like I’d even-”

BANG.

And then his head had a hole in it.

“Well, that’s certainly one way to deal with things.” Evileye deadpanned, rubbing her ringing ears. To be fair, the dude was obviously nuts and the ringleader of the whole thing. Not like he deserved any honor in a proper fight anyways.

Delta pointed the barrel at Blue Rose and lowered it down to the ground, as if his body language would serve as an apology for startling them again. The smoke still trailed in wisps off of the front of his gun, a reminder of its power.

The cultists stared at their fallen leader and then immediately started acting like headless chickens, some scattering and some flinging spells in their general direction. None of them hit anything, and all were swiftly taken down without issue. Some of them even offed themselves with intricate daggers, curiously enough. Evileye wondered what sort of fates they were imagining to even consider doing so.

Once the relatively anticlimactic battle was taken care of, they started into the mausoleum. Delta had gone back to flinging himself about, vaguely leading the party towards it. While the now broken crystal looked like a key part of their plans, it couldn’t hurt to check out what was likely the enemy hideout.

As they walked up the rather massive staircase, Evileye mentally bumped up the ‘backup weapon’ a couple notches. Undead were a piece of cake. Killing a real human being, as squishy as magic casters tended to be, was something relatively substantial. Especially given how clean the projectile had passed through the cultist.

It was also mildly concerning that a gun worked as a direct counter to any mage. Evileye felt vaguely threatened at the notion but ultimately dismissed it. If Delta wanted her dead, he would’ve tried already, and he was the only living person she had talked to who even owned one in the past several decades.

The mausoleum looked quite empty, shadows covering most of the environment. Occam’s Razor dictates that people stupid enough to show themselves to the enemy and die wouldn’t be launching an ambush, but Evileye stayed more than wary of the way the darkness seemed to close around the entrance.

As soon as Delta flew into the imposing structure Evileye’s sixth sense started blaring. “Delta, come back here.” Evileye started, as if scolding a child. “We should enter it together in case of an ambush” really just meant ‘I don’t trust you to not do anything stupid when you’re out of our sight’.

“Delta?” Lakyus called out into the mausoleum.

Delta launched himself to the entrance and perfectly stopped directly in front of it. He quickly turned from them to the mausoleum and back, as if he wanted them to hurry up.

Unfortunately, Evileye’s warning was not enough to save Delta from several stilettos now prodding his neck.

The team froze as the assassin’s blond hair came into view, along with armor seemingly made out of… adventurer’s plates.

Fuck.

“Looks like I’ve got you real good.” She taunted, an unnatural grin spreading across her face. “You did poor Khajit in real well, and so I just couldn’t resist!” She pushed a stiletto into Delta’s chin, forcing his vision up. “While Mister Delta here is a bit of a rude boy, I would rather we have some civilized discussion, hmm? Introduce yourselves, Blue Rose.”

“Tch.” Evileye glared. It’d be a damn shame if he died here before she could interrogate him. Excluding his rather odd nature, he was still a gold plate. That was worth something. “Evileye.”

While the others followed, she thought about some way, any way to get him out of this mess without both of them dying. Evileye couldn’t even imagine what the assassin could want in the first place. She was clearly experienced, given her plate armor, and seemed to have masochistic tendencies. She acted differently from the rest of the cultists though, had a sort of strength about her that the others didn’t seem to share.

The assassin’s voice snapped her back to attention. “I’m Clementine! Nice to meetcha.” She leaned over Delta’s shoulder. “How did you find this place?”

“I dunno, maybe the couple thousand undead ticked us off.” Evileye deadpanned. 

“What do you want?” Lakyus followed up, ever the diplomat.

“Oh, who said I wanted anything~” Clementine adjusted her grip on her stilettos, relaxing them back down to Delta’s neck.

Delta’s head moved down slowly to look at the rest of his party. It was always a little hard to tell where he was looking, but she felt as if his gaze was boring into her.

Evileye matched it with her own, searching for something, anything.

He nodded, almost imperceptibly.

She felt what little color she still had in her undead face drain away.

There was no way he was telling her to deal collateral damage, right? He wouldn’t be so dumb as to throw his life away this easily. No. He surely realized the risk she presents, but…

“Come now. Let’s stick to the mission.” Came Delta’s response to her unasked question.

“Oh so you do speak~” Clementine moved a stiletto up to his cheek, tapping his mask lightly. “You know, I always wondered what was under that mask with you people. Always trying to hide yourselves to seem a teensy bit more mysterious. Well, I admit, you got me curious!”

She poked and prodded around the mask’s edges, attempting to lift it.

As Clementine was distracted by the seemingly impervious mask, Blue Rose readied their weapons almost imperceptibly. Evileye started preparing to cast under her breath, the twins’ hands started inching towards their shurikens. He must have some sort of counter, something to dodge this. He’s legitimately asking for it.

Clementine changed tactics and started to cut the straps only for Delta to flinch. His entire upper body rocked forward at the cut as blood somehow splattered onto the stone floor. Evileye paled at what was very much real blood, her vampiric senses going off. Even Clementine looked a little surprised and amused at Delta’s rather visceral reaction to having his mask strap get cut.

Evileye capitalized on the collective shock with a well timed Crystal Lance in their direction.

Delta tried to jump out of the way but the jump was prematurely ended by the stiletto still held to his neck, the lance piercing through him. He fell limp in Clementine’s grip.

It continued as if he wasn’t there straight into Clementine’s torso.

Shock registered on her face as the lack of armor came to bite her in the ass, stumbling backwards. Her front was covered in blood.

Delta’s blood.

Tia and Tina threw projectiles of their own but Clementine still had enough sense to dodge them. Clearly weakened, Blue Rose seized on the moment to obliterate her. A combination of Tia and Tina’s deft movement and Evileye’s magic boxed her in while Gagaran and Lakyus dealt the real damage. Invulnerable Fortress only lasted for so long, and Greater Ability Boost was a bit harder to sustain with her organs scrambled around.

A few Resist Weakenings combined with some well timed bashes and slices had her bleeding out on the floor.

No respite for the mass murderer.

Lakyus led them over to Delta’s body. He had collapsed into himself, his legs and arms folding under his torso. Oddly enough, the lance didn’t seem to leave any notable marks on his body.

Lakyus’ Raise Dead was Blue Rose’s ace in the hole. The fifth tier spell had been used to raise friends, both in and out of the team. It would drop the vitality of the user, but given his status and power he would be fine, Evileye thought. Delta could handle it.

They began to gently prepare him for resurrection when his body straight up disappeared.

Chapter Text

His primary weapon clattered to the floor.

Blue Rose assumed defensive positions, yet saw no one. Nothing could have even come close to the body, yet he had seemingly been teleported to god-knows-where.

Who would defile a corpse right under the Blue Rose’s noses?

“What the fuck is going on?” Gagaran snarled.

“Evileye.” Lakyus called out.

“Detect Life!” She paused, looking around. “Nothing.”

“Tia. Tina.” Lakyus commanded.

They spread out, checking for anyone Evileye may have missed in her initial scan. An undead assassin or worker wasn’t completely out of the question.

Lakyus’ head was spinning. How could they have been so careless? He was just a gold rank. Now he was dead and his body was god knows where-

“Lakyus.” Evileye spoke, coming to her side. “While Tia and Tina are doing everything they can outside, let’s try to search the inside.”

She sighed, steadying herself. “Right.”

The remaining trio stuck together while searching for anything of note within the building. Gagaran’s Bell of Detect Secret Doors was quite handy in situations like these, conveniently avoiding the hours of scouring they would normally have to go through to find a secret entrance.

They each tensed up as the familiar blue glow washed over a decorative head stuck to a slab of stone. A green glow then followed as another bell disabled potential traps.

Pushing the head slid the slab away to reveal a dark staircase, and a Light cast sent down them revealed they were much more extensive than the darkness allowed them to see.

The trio continued down carefully, exploring the seemingly deserted base. The winding staircase led to a wide, open cavern. Green crystals gave the room an otherworldly gleam, and ruined columns suggested this base had been here for a while. Some of the columns had crystals embedded into them, though most of them were set around a rather large ritual circle.

As much as Lakyus tried to avoid looking at the elephant in the room, it was clear that Nfirea Bareare was in fact standing still in the middle of the ritual circle. He was nearly as naked as the day he was born, save for a completely transparent cloak and some strange looking headpiece.

The blood running down his face made it clear he wasn’t here of his own accord.

Lakyus heard Evileye stifle a gasp as they got closer. “No…” She whispered.

“Evileye?”

“If I’m not wrong…” She approached the boy, appraising the item. “It’s the Crown of Wisdom.” She said, a note of finality and resignation creeping into her voice.

“What’s it do? It can’t be that bad, right?” Gagaran asked, trying to make light of the situation.

“...The wearer is cursed to madness if it’s removed.” Evileye cut down that line of thinking. “It allows the wearer to cast seventh tier magic at the cost of their mind.”

Gagaran’s eyes widened. “Gimme a break. How did people like those get their hands on this thing?”

Lakyus was already putting together the dots. “Is this how they raised all those dead, then?”

“Probably.” Evileye confirmed. “That Clementine was quite powerful. I’d be surprised if she wasn’t from another country.”

Probably a bit too deranged to be a terrorist though, Lakyus concluded.

They stood around his body, drawing blanks as to how he could be saved.

Lakyus wasn’t aware of anyone who could counter something that powerful, nor anyone in the area who could even cure status effects in the first place. Raise Dead might do the trick, but who knows if madness actually dissipates on resurrection? Furthermore, he looked frail at best. Not strong enough to survive the resurrection.

For the second time that night, Lakyus felt powerless.

“Is there nothing we can do?” She breathed out, clenching her fists.

“We’re dealing with threats beyond even us.” Evileye responded pragmatically. “It seems like nothing short of a miracle that most of us made it out unscathed.”

Lakyus grimaced. “Is there nothing we can do then?”

“The most we can do is give him a painless death.”

“Well let’s just wait on that a little bit.” Lakyus blurted out. “For all we know, someone at the Guild could specialize in something to help him. Besides, it’s not like he’s hurting anything by standing there.”

They all knew she was merely delaying the inevitable, but none of them could bring themselves to say it.

Several tunnels connected the tomb to other places. If Lakyus had to guess, they served as both connections to additional cultist hideouts as well as escape routes out of the city. She wasn’t interested in trying their luck though.

They emerged from the secret passage a little while later to find Tia and Tina empty handed at the front of the tomb.

“Evil boss.” Tia greeted them. “He’s gone.”

“We searched the entire graveyard for him.” Tina completed.

“...I see.” Lakyus hesitantly replied. “Thank you for trying.”

They headed out without much fanfare, letting the guards know everything was under control as they passed by.

Unfortunately for them, there was still more work to be done. Tia and Tina were once again dispatched to clean up the undead stragglers who had managed to make their way into the city while Lakyus, Evileye, and Gargaran headed to the Adventurer’s Guild to gather a cleanup crew. They managed to bring along Clementine and Khajit’s bodies, but left the rest of the cultists and Nfirea there. Doing crowd control and making sure the aftermath was taken care of properly was partially their responsibility. Lakyus just hoped there was someone with a high enough ranking to take that pressure off of them.

They opened the doors to find a fair bit of activity already taking place there, but what instantly drew Lakyus’ eyes was someone who by all accounts should not be standing.

The oddly dressed man turned towards them as each party stared the other down, the room quieting down as everyone looked at the standstill.

…

“You’ve got five seconds to show me you’re not an imposter before I Crystal Lance your soul to hell and back.” Evileye finally broke the silence.

Delta immediately started doing Delta things, hopping and weaving around the guild, switching weapons quickly. Lakyus noted the change in loadout save for his knife as he leapt from banister to banister, even using people’s heads as his stepping stones to… not getting obliterated.

Lakyus let out an involuntary sigh at the sight of their comrade up and kicking.

“You really gave us a good scare there, kid.” Gagaran said, a smile breaking out on her face.

Evileye just shook her head at the guy who seemed to be breaking every paradigm she had come to know. “I swear, we’ve got some questions for you once all of this is over.” She grumbled. Lakyus couldn’t help but imagine a smile hidden behind her mask regardless.

“There’s no stopping us!” Delta declared loudly, stopping in front of the rest of Blue Rose once again.

“Well, seeing as you’re in top notch shape after doing… whatever it is you did, why don’t you go help out with clearing out the remaining skeletons?” Lakyus spoke, trying to bring the group back to the present.

“I’ll let Tia and Tina know you’re alive so they don’t try to kill you.” Evileye supported.

“That’s a copy.” Delta confirmed before jumping out into the night.

Lakyus turned back to the situation at hand, leading them to the clerk. 

The night was long, and only the immediate problems were solved by the time dawn broke. Nfirea was no closer to a cure, though the bodies and secret base were dealt with accordingly. Tia said she talked to Delta and he said he had to go, though Lakyus wondered how she was even able to get more than a yes and no out of the man. Maybe it was some sort of silent communication?

Lakyus wondered if Evileye had considered Messaging Delta to get more information out of him. 

She also wondered about the weapons Delta possessed. Evileye had called them ‘guns’ when describing him to Guildmaster Ainzach. If her observations were correct he had at least three of them, though given his rather unclear history it was more than likely he had more. He also hadn’t even tried to recover his previous weapon, only taking it once it was offered to him during the cleanup. Whether that implied excess or something else was unclear.

Among all of the questions, they had at least received one answer from Delta. When asked about his apparent resurrection, he had written the following on a piece of paper:

sv_cheats 1;

mp_respawn_on_death_ct 1;

Chapter Text

Lakyus exited the tavern mentally exhausted. Blue Rose had just spent several hours playing the most serious game of twenty questions this world had ever seen, and while it got them answers it was downright frustrating to not receive something more straightforward. Delta only seemed willing or able to write things in that strange code when prompted, and Evileye’s attempt to Message Delta returned some indecipherable gibberish.

Evileye attempted to decipher the code from before as giving Delta the real life equivalent of cheating. She also deduced that ‘ct’ in the second command represented Delta to some extent, though the idea that a resurrection switch could simply be flipped for any given being was quite concerning. It was as if he had his own brand of magic that could alter the world as he desired.

As far as his existence went, it was clear he wasn’t human. Evileye had confirmed it before, yet Delta seemed to deny it. It was entirely possible he didn’t know the answer himself, though he wasn’t exactly in a position where he could prove his case either.

The scariest thing that had come out of all of this was that Delta could resurrect a seemingly infinite number of times with zero repercussions. He would seemingly live forever, consigned to the fate of the gods. This led to Delta waving off his death as no big deal.

Delta was also able to amass a veritable treasure trove of weapons; When asked for one, it simply appeared in front of him, clattering onto the table. The repercussions of something that not only had infinite lives but could produce infinite objects of war was terrifying, and the more Lakyus thought about it the less she wanted to do with him.

Still, Blue Rose was in what was possibly a world-changing position here. If they didn’t try to rope him in, it would only be a matter of time before he was employed in less… tasteful lines of work. Eight Fingers or Slane at worst, another adventurer’s party at best. Even then, he would likely transcend the ranks given his immortality. At least here he would have Evileye to keep him company. Lakyus was human, but she would certainly fear the solace that such a life would bring to him.

With that in mind, they had extended an invitation to the man. Delta happily obliged, spinning around in his seat until he was a blur.

Something that also concerned Lakyus was Delta’s ascension through the ranks. While it was true that Delta’s rank from the beginning would have easily been on par with a Mythril or even Orichalum, Lakyus worried that Delta would grow tired of questing. It wasn’t hard to imagine Delta’s weapons falling into the wrong hands and dealing their signature brand of devastation on the other side of the battle. For someone who quite literally transcended mortal issues of life and death, Lakyus was terrified that his seeming lack of attachments could lead to a switch quite easily.

She resolved to fix that by showing Delta the wonders and great things the morally right had to offer. At the least, Delta questing with Blue Rose would make him slowly grow attached to them, and initiating him into the group served to strengthen those bonds.

The conversation had wound up turning into a debriefing about Eight Fingers and their general existence within Re-Estize, though more importantly within E-Rantel. Blue Rose had been running around the Re-Estize kingdom for a while now attempting to drive them out to no avail. 

With the help of the third princess they had even managed to locate a few more hideouts and black dust farms, which was where they intended on testing Delta’s mettle in an undercover operation. He said he was good with stealth and proved it with completely silent footsteps.

It had taken them most of the night to clear everything up, so Blue Rose was headed to the inn they were staying at to get some well deserved rest. Delta refrained; Lakyus assumed he had some stuff to grab from his current residence. They agreed to meet up next evening to plan out their first raid with the expanded team.

Lance had a bit of a problem.

Cocoa Doll had been getting greedier with his branch of Eight Fingers, asking for more and more slaves regardless of circumstance. The issue became less of finding someone who wouldn’t be missed and more of finding someone Lance could actually win an engagement against. The numbers were high, sure, but Lance innately knew one day he’d pick a fight with someone he would miserably underestimate.

For now though, Lance was on the prowl to keep his family happy and healthy. Nighttime was the best to find and catch the weary and unsuspecting, trudging home from work to families and loved ones.

It was here in the darkened alleyways that he would lie in wait. If he acted in just the right way, looking like just another man with purpose in his stride, he could easily take down or at least surprise most without a fuss.

Found one.

An average sized man was running in quite the hurry down Lance’s alley of choice. The shadows covered his body, the silhouette only betraying a sliver of information to the experienced trafficker. The size, gait, speed… if this catch went well he’d likely be eating good for the next few weeks.

He started walking in the opposite direction of the man, fake purpose infecting his walk. Lance played this game so many times the actions came as easy as breathing.

As soon as Lance had entered the man’s blind spot he put an arm around their throat and murmured sweet threats into their ears, as was protocol. Lance found it odd how easily the man gave up, but wound up attributing it to a simple case of shock. Even if Lance couldn’t place the clothing the man wore, it was likely some noble fashion trend that cost exorbitant amounts of money. He probably had never even worn anything worth less than a gold in his entire life.

Lance snorted. He’d learn quickly. They all do.

Usually the rich tended to beg or threaten their way into Lance’s bad side, but this man was different. He didn’t even try to let out a peep or a whimper, simply breathing as if that was all he could do. His chest rose and fell in a natural, slow rhythm, as if he was still out on his nightly run.

Lance didn’t like that.

He got an eyeful of his catch under the dim lights of the hideout after clearing with the guards. While his fingers registered the man’s cloth as something different and unique, it was clear he underestimated just how unique. Mirrors for eyes shaped in ways he had never seen, cloth and other unknown textures dotting the man’s clothing in mesmerizing fashion. Only a patch of his worn hands were visible under all of that attire.

Lance stripped the man of his knife and other valuables he had on him, including a variety of metal items that looked pretty pricey. A good catch all in all, Lance figured. The best he’s had in a while.

The man received a slave collar for his troubles and was thrown in the cage with the rest of the newly captured and awaiting transfer. The hideout they were located in at present was just a single entry point in the vast underground network dominating Re-Estize. It would likely be a long time until that man saw the light of day again.

Unlike his feelings towards the majority of commoners he had captured, he felt no remorse for the man. Why should he? Nobles are the people who made the rules. If they wanted their family back, they’d have to pay for it like the rest of them.

Not that he really cared about any of them at the end of the day. He would probably never see these faces again in his entire life. Re-Estize was big, but the trafficking market spanned the world. They could end up in some demihuman kingdom for all he cared.

Lance closed the door with a loud bang, disturbing whatever meager amounts of sleep the slaves had been attempting to get before their departure tomorrow morning. Better for them to be sleep-deprived and without reason during the transfer after all. Nothing personally against them, but cooperative slaves were a much nicer lot to handle.

He headed back out into the night to try to see who else he could catch. There was still enough night left to grab a few more.

Finn was sleepy.

He traced the markings in the stone floor with a pout. The man who brought them here was very nice and said they could go on an adventure if they followed him! But now they had to wait, he said. Other people wanted to go on adventures too, so he had to get everyone before they could go.

Finn hoped his friends would come too. He had never been on adventure before and wanted his friends to have fun with him.

He scrambled to the metal bars as the door squeaked open to see who was coming in. The man said the bars were there so he could organize everyone better. He liked touching the cold bars and warming them up with his hands.

The adventurer man came back and brought in a big guy!

The big guy got put in the same room as him. He looked scary, but if he was in the same room as them he couldn’t be bad.

Big Guy looked around everywhere. Finn could tell he was excited too. He had big eyes and moved his hands like a zombie! Finn tried to copy him, spinning around with his hands out.

Mom pulled him close. Finn wanted to talk to Big Guy but she said no. Finn would have argued with her but the room was quiet. He shouldn’t speak in quiet rooms because that meant he was supposed to be quiet.

Finn didn’t know why Mom was sad. They were going on an adventure soon! They had never been outside of the city so it was going to be a lot of fun!

She stroked his hair and he giggled. He liked getting pets like a dog. He wanted a dog but Mom said no to that too. She was no fun.

Big Guy was looking at the door a lot. Finn wondered what made Big Guy so interested in the door. It was a cool door, sure, but it wasn’t that cool. The coolest doors were the ones that had all the cool art on them, like the ones at the church. He swelled in pride as he remembered the cool door.

Suddenly Big Guy pulled out something from thin air! It was a long stick of metal. It looked heavy, but Big Guy made it look like a feather. Was Big Guy a magician?!

Big Guy glanced at Finn, pointing the stick at him as if showing off. Finn pouted. He wanted a magic stick too.

To Finn’s amazement, Big Guy pulled out another stick! This one wasn’t as cool though. It was smaller than the other one.

Big Guy looked back at the door for a long time while Finn stayed with Mom. Maybe if Finn was a good boy he’d get a magic stick too!

As Finn was going to snuggle in to get some sleep Big Guy’s stick made a loud sound! It hurt his ears a little bit. Finn glared at the man. Only rude people would be loud without warning.

Big Guy opened the door out of the metal bars too! That was dis-res-pect-ful! The adventurer man had planned everything and Big Guy was gonna ruin it!

Finn would’ve shown Big Guy a piece of his mind but he didn’t want to leave the room too. He was responsible, after all. He’d show them!

Mom pulled Finn in tighter. Finn didn’t know why. Maybe she wanted him to sleep. He wanted to watch Big Guy though! Big Guy was gonna be in soo much trouble when the adventurer guy finds out!

Finn decided he should sleep after all. Sleep makes time go fast, and then he could go on the adventure that much quicker!

Mom said Finn was a heavy sleeper. He didn’t really know what that meant, but it probably meant he was really good at sleeping. Finn thought he should do sleeping competitions. Oh! And the prize pool could be a dog!

Lakyus would’ve gagged at the mess in front of her if not for her years of adventuring. She had seen some pretty gruesome stuff, but this easily cleared her top five worst.

Delta was absolutely covered in human. Bits and pieces of people clung to him, coagulating and sticking. Dried blood hugged his frame like a second skin.

“Delta.” Lakyus vainly tried rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. “What did you do in the eight hours we haven’t seen you?”

“Bad guy down.” was his response.

…

Breathe in.

Hold.

Breath out.

“Alright, who’s turn is it to babysit Delta?” Lakyus gave up and turned to the rest of Blue Rose.

“Lakyus-”

“-Because I swear to god-”

“Lakyus…”

“-we need to actually schedule this-”

“Lakyus!” Gagaran shook Laykus out of her mumbling rant.

“What!” She shouted back.

Gagaran pointed at the empty spot where Delta had been standing. “He’s already gone.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake.” Lakyus responded, completely giving up on retaining any dignity while dealing with the bastard.

Chapter Text

Renner watched with sharp eyes as Blue Rose assembled in her chambers.

Lakyus walked in with an air of aristocracy as befitting the station she was born with, contrasting her sharp eyes which scanned the room with a gaze of the soldier she wanted to be. An air of tiredness seeped through the cracks in her posture.

Evileye glided in, her red coat fluttering in dramatically. Renner wondered if that was a clever bit of magic, but never heard of wordless magic and shelved the idea. Underneath all of the movement was a back that was a little more hunched than before; a gaze that refused to maintain its' normal alertness.

Tia and Tina flanked Lakyus, expressions as unreadable as ever. They swept the room as the de facto team scouts. Renner wondered if the bags under their eyes were always that noticeable.

Gagaran walked in at the rear, boasting a shit-eating grin that could light up the cloudiest of rooms. It seemed that whatever issue that was eating at the rest of Blue Rose certainly left her in a better one. A bet might have been a pretty easy conclusion, but Renner would guess otherwise.

Renner's gaze sharpened as it finally landed on Blue Rose's newest member. Even among her own sources, the man seemed inhuman. Tales of how he casually tagged along to one of the best adventurer groups in Re-Estize without a word spread like fire since his emergence. A strange man who never showed his face to the public, who ripped apart monsters as if their skin and bones was merely paper and quills, a man who by all accounts should be beyond the trivialities of kingdoms, of empires. Rumors were always exaggerated something fierce, Renner knew, yet all rumors had a grain of truth.

Renner was determined to have him under her hand.

She started her assault with her signature opening smile and greeting as the members of Blue Rose sat down, absentmindedly responding to Laykus' attempts at small talk. Tia and Tina never joined her, but Renner held out hope that one day Blue Rose would feel comfortable enough to sit down in their entirety and pledge themselves to her. Or just spill all their secrets.

Delta hopped, skipped, and jumped his way toward his seat with an incredible measure of ignorance in the setting and mood. A power play, Renner realized, hidden behind the childlike facade of ignorance. He seemed to read the room layout with incredible accuracy before he even entered, must have taken note of the lack of obstacles in his path before executing such finely controlled air movement.

Renner tuned back into Lakyus' opening drivel. "...Let me introduce our newest member of the team, Delta."

Renner's gaze was finally allowed to rest on the man (thing?), imprinting his characteristics into her brain. His outfit was a story in and of itself. The pockets that lined his chest spoke magnitudes of his preparedness. One could only assume what scars lined the man sitting underneath it, someone who clearly lived beyond countless mistakes and lived to see the tale.

A flag or insignia of some sort sat on his right shoulder, yet its origins mystified Renner. A royal member was expected to know all they can about future allies and enemies, yet not once did that flag appear in her studies.

His grotesque mask completed the set, forcing her responding smile to become a little more strained than she would have hoped.

It was only natural to fear the unknown, and clearly Delta had that in spades.

"Hello Delta," Renner said warmly, "my name is Princess Renner, third princess of Re-Estize. Though there's no need for such formalities with me." She waved him off nonchalantly.

"Alright alright!" Delta replied enthusiastically, to which every member of Blue Rose looked disappointed. Renner’s eye twitched as she mentally listed reasons why ruining him would be unhelpful for her plans.

"Seriously, Delta?" Lakyus sighed and passed a strained smile to the princess. "Delta only knows how to speak relatively simple phrases. We're only still understanding him now."

This was his entire plan then, Renner realized. He gave away his cards so he could choose to not play the game. She would show him then. He would crack eventually, and when that day came he would be putty in her hands.

Renner giggled as she put a hand to her mouth. "Ah, I'm sure he'll find his bearings soon. He's only been here for a few months at most, is that right?"

"Yes, as far as we know." Lakyus returned.

Evileye elaborated at Renner's curious gaze. "It's unfortunately a bit hard to wean information out of someone who can only say what boils down to 'yes' and 'no'."

"Agreed." Delta chimed in.

Renner giggled again, but quickly schooled her countenance to something more appropriate as if she couldn't mold it at the turn of a dime. "As fun as this conversation is, we need to circle back to the main points of the meeting. Time is of the essence, or so I've heard when it comes to your raids."

"Right." Evileye led. "We hadn't intended on attacking Eight Fingers so directly until we gathered more information-" -at this Lakyus shot her a warning look- "-until Delta wound up being the target of one of their kidnappings. He then proceeded to brutally murder all of the goons there."

"And that's why people saw him all bloodied that morning, then." Renner pieced together. While this story didn’t seem to paint a complete picture of the man’s abilities, Renner thought it nice to get confirmation on his combat prowess. At Evileye's nod, she continued. "So then are you suggesting a more direct approach?”

Gagaran laughed heartily. “That’s our princess for ya!”

Laykus sighed. “Yes. When Eight Fingers figures out that the kidnapping happened on one of our members they’ll shoot up the security. With one of their bases down all of their guards will be investigating the area instead of guarding bases, which will be our time to strike.”

“And when will that be?” Renner pried innocently.

“As soon as possible, though we’ll strike in a week from now.” Lakyus replied. “We actually came to you for help; We found the locations of their main bases through some intel we picked up during one of our raids which led us to them.” At Renner’s frown Lakyus continued, passing over a few papers. “We’ve cross-referenced them to previous intel, and it matches. Feel free to take a look at it.” Lakyus assured her.

Renner scanned the map carefully. While it was true that her own intel lined up with the map, it was odd to consider just how Eight Fingers, a notorious crime syndicate, was sloppy enough to let all of this information loose against such a brazen and well known adventurer group as Blue Rose. It reeked of the word ‘trap’, yet her intel...

Maybe she had to re-frame her thinking. What sort of places would contain this sort of information? Standard raids from this group usually just contained a couple knockouts and drug field burnings. This must have been from a base that contained members who knew other base locations...

She glanced briefly at Delta as she worked everything together. Yes, the kidnapping base must have been it. But even then, the thugs’ literacy rate is likely atrocious. They must have interrogated one of the men, that’s it. She suppressed a smirk. My move, then. 

“Well, it’s a shame potion prices have increased or I would provide you more of them for this,” Renner paused and sighed dramatically, to which all of Blue Rose looked somewhat sheepish about. Nfirea’s comatose state became quite well known after his grandmother spiked her prices in response to it, and adventurer’s pouches were a few silvers lesser after that. The price spike even incited rumors that Blue Rose purposefully did it in order to keep low rank adventurers down, rumors which were crushed with extreme prejudice by their own members.

“Well at least those bastards who hurt him are dead too.” Evileye muttered.

“-but I can still bring along some of the royal guard.” Renner continued as if nothing was said. “A week should be enough time for them to gather.”

“Princess Renner!” Climb spoke her name almost reverentially, a tone that Renner herself adored.

“What is it, Climb?” Renner tilted her head inquisitively at her knight.

“I wish to join the mission!” He spoke loudly, banging his right arm into his chest.

“You too kid?” Gagaran leaned back. “You sure?”

“Sure.” Renner smiled at him. She was so proud the love of her life would risk death for her, so proud of the man she was molding him into. Then he could die and she would save him and care for him while he was weak! Truly, there was no better way for her knight to lose than in a low-risk environment like this one where his body could be easily found. She could even stick him onto a higher risk team without any of thes-

“...Renner?” She snapped back into focus at Lakyus’ call.

“I’m sorry, I seem to have lost myself for a moment there.” Renner stiffly replied, irked that she was taken out of her fantasies. “What was it?”

“Ah, well I was just wondering about the team divisions. We had originally intended on-”

“My apologies, but where might Delta have gone?” Renner said as she scanned the room.

Lakyus shifted uneasily as Climb tensed and gaped at the previously occupied seat. “Delta tends to-”

“He always just disappears when we start planning. He’s only in it for the battle.” Evileye interrupted. “What? It’s true.” She glared back at Lakyus.

Renner did not like her odds at securing Delta’s favor. If Delta was just another battle-crazed soldier, his allegiance would be easy to call into question, though she doubted anyone would listen to her as the third princess. It seemed like he had a propensity for attacking ‘the bad guys’, given that he didn’t kill the others who were kidnapped or random civilians. Was it just a matter of being known as ‘good’ and framing her enemies as ‘bad’ before others beat her to it...?

Yet it was fun to play his game. She would find his tells, his vices, his interests. It was all a matter of time. And when she did, she would make him run circles to keep them safe. Just like the rest of them.

“By disappear...” Renner trailed off.

“He happens to… blink out of existence, for lack of a better term.” Lakyus supplied after a moment.

“Oh.” Renner paused. The team’s silence was telling to Renner that they still didn’t have a clue about Delta’s capabilities. [Teleport] and its successor are known skills, but require a sufficiently powerful mage as well as spoken words. They also generate a glowing circle, though the lesser known [Dimension Move] did not generate a spell circle.

Delta broke all the rules of convention at every given opportunity, and Renner loved it.

“...What were you saying about the team divisions?” Renner asked, trying to steer the conversation back on track. She still had her nightly routine to complete with Climb after all, and a princess needs her beauty sleep.

Chapter Text

A week had passed since Blue Rose (minus Delta) stayed up at the drawing board with Princess Renner. Blue Rose opted to take simpler quests and make themselves scarce to stay inconspicuous while waiting for raid night.

However, Evileye’s main task as the firepower of the team was to keep Delta in line. Thankfully, after a stern talking to about how letting himself get kidnapped was a Bad Thing To Do and how he can’t kill any bad guys until they say so, Delta seemed to have gotten the message.

It unfortunately also had the effect of sending all that murderous energy into weirder and more estranged quests. Every sunset without fail Delta would pester Evileye by jumping up and down around her like an overexcited child and then hop to the Guild to find his next death wish.

Evileye was forced to fly at top speeds just to make sure Delta didn’t wander off into a killing spree after drilling holes into a horde of giant spiders or that he actually did find that one item at the top of that mountain, thank you very much. By the time Delta disappeared every night Evileye was left with several increasingly ridiculous stories that would leave Gagaran howling and Lakyus a few shades paler.

It was a little (okay, maybe a lot) amusing to see him encounter enemies that simply wouldn’t die via his preferred choice of weapon. Bullets are only so powerful against the tough hide of a Yeti or a Griffin. After seeing Delta lose his second body during a fight against a Yeti she initially freaked out after realizing they never located where he resurrected, if his resurrection location was even consistent. Delta’s third body flinging back into the exact same creature a minute later left her relieved and the Yeti skittish and confused.

He would also seem offended when enemies used anything that happened to lower his mobility. Spiders and caves were fine, but the moment he got stuck in a web he pulled out a near infinite (?) number of drenched socks stuffed in wine bottles, ignited them, and threw them around the cave with reckless abandon. As someone who liked keeping all of her clothes intact (she spent a lot of time keeping her cloak fashionably frayed), Evileye had to withdraw from the cave until all that was left was dead spiders and Delta.

Delta’s single-minded approach to any quest he took combined with an absolute lack of fear resulted in one of Blue Rose’s largest payrolls in a long while. Delta himself didn’t wind up purchasing anything even after doing a frustrating amount of knife shopping, which left Blue Rose with enough funds to be comfortably settled for a few months.

It also gave Blue Rose a better idea of when exactly Delta would be here. It seemed that whenever Delta would disappear, no one would be able to find him until he chose to come back. Evileye found that Delta would often appear at sunset and disappear a few hours later, though on certain days he would drag her around in the mornings until mid-afternoon as well. It seemed to Evileye as if Delta simply had nothing better to do.

As the night of the raid finally neared Evileye informed Delta that they needed him tomorrow at his usual time, to which he nodded vigorously before dragging her off to fight a Lich and his cronies. Evileye made a note to never monologue pre-fight as she watched the lich explode via a small bomb Delta landed at its feet with a light tink.

The night of the raid had once again teamed up Evileye with Delta, to her exasperation. While it was true that she had learned his combat style (of which he had nearly none) the main reason they were paired up was for their exceptional mobility. They had the task of entering one of the major bases from a side entrance. They were told to deal with the situation ‘with extreme prejudice’ (Delta was ecstatic when he heard that) and to meet up with the rest of their team when they inevitably finished first.

The pair crept up to the door in the dead of night, Delta’s lack of footsteps denoting just how serious this operation was. The lack of lights in the run down alley concealed their presence from the unassuming base. Delta led first, the barrel of one of his longer guns pressing against the wooden door. Evileye hoped it wasn’t as loud as some of the worst offenders.

“Four in the next room; One close left, one far right, two more seated to the right.” Evileye whispered to her companion.

Evileye’s blood ran cold when he tried the fucking door. Who tries to just waltz into a-

BANG.

And now her ears were ringing, but at least the door was unlocked.

Several more shots were fired in quick succession, and as the muzzle flashes lit up the alleyway the room was quickly rid of any living occupants. When Evileye walked back into the room she noticed the lack of entrances as well as Delta scanning the walls. She sighed as she realized they might be here for a little while longer. Secret entrances were always a pain to find, and she wondered how long it would take for her to regret not insisting on Gagaran coming with them.

After a few moments of consideration Delta had also seemed to come to the same conclusion as he ushered her out and threw several bombs into the room, drawing even more attention to themselves than any raid ever should and nearly blowing out the walls.

Evileye merely settled for glaring at the man when the explosions wound up showing them a blown up trap door with a broken crossbow lying in a heap next to them. Secrecy would have been nice, but she guessed that already ended on the first trigger pull. Might as well go full tilt.

They ended up in a room full of boxes which Delta seemed to want to linger in, but they pushed past it to the next area. Delta dropped another bomb in there before closing the door for good measure.

Evileye mainly watched from the prior doorway as Delta would casually stroll into a room, light it up, and leave like nothing ever happened. The one time a group of ranged weapon users happened to be quick on the draw left Evileye to clean up after him until he got back from respawning.

It was a wonder why she was even needed here in the first place asides for transport to the next base. Maybe she was the most compatible with Delta based on their time together, but even a few members of Six Arms together would be hard pressed to fight her and come out on top. This part of the mission felt quite below her skill level, and she itched for something important to do.

It was from the doorway where she heard muted gasps through the still closed door. After noting only two people inside, she smoothly stepped through and shot a quick [Acid Arrow] at the nearest target, a suspicious looking armed man. The next spell stayed at the tip of her tongue as she tried to place the last occupant’s face. She had sworn she had heard a similar description to the man somewhere…

But really, she supposed, did it matter? Even if he was of a higher rank in the underworld, being sent to prison in such a corrupt country would get him inevitably freed in weeks, if not days. And if the jury rules execution, the posting could just happen a few days early.

She took the shot.

The masked duo ended their assigned base quickly and lethally to find the rest of their team deep within their own fight against Six Arms. Four of the Arms participated while the rest sat and watched with arrogant, smug expressions. The nobles and leaders in this shoddy underground society watched along gleefully from their balcony seating as they witnessed one of the most impressive battles they’d ever get the chance to watch; Evileye thanked the Gods that she arrived before her teammates were overwhelmed, though their disheveled appearances were telling.

Evileye had been casting [Fly] on both herself and Delta to keep them above the action, able to drop in at any time. This was the perfect opportunity for both of them to get the drop on their enemies while hidden, though she couldn’t hold the spell for much longer. She whispered as much to Delta who looked back up at her with his usual unreadable expression, and then back down to the fighting.

He pulled out his smaller firearm which Evileye desperately hoped was shaped that way for accuracy and fired several times, the sound ringing out over the field. The Blue Rose members on the ground grinned as they took advantage of the momentary stun, but were quickly confused after not seeing or hearing any sort of damage dealt.

As eyes quickly turned up to the sky Evileye landed them under the cover of a [Fireball] directly behind her teammates with a furious expression. Delta didn’t miss shots; He couldn’t afford to start doing so when the stakes were this high.

Six Arms, however, just laughed at the two newcomers who wasted their opening. The one with the red hair and the rapier started to monologue and insult them as Evileye realized just what he was playing at. If Delta intentionally missed to make a statement by killing someone who was monologuing, that was one thing. But it was still rather frustrating to see an opportuni-

BANG.

Delta stepped side to side quickly as he readied his next shot, the unarmored rapier user’s body already falling to the floor.

The rest were done in with short work with the exception of an armored rapier user and a tattooed muscle man. She wondered if he held off because he wanted the rest of Blue Rose to pick up some of the slack or if his weapons had issues penetrating their defense.

Evileye nearly facepalmed as the tattooed man started verbally activating the buffs his tattoos afforded him, knowing whatever damage Delta or her team would deliver would happen far quicker than he could prepare for.

She turned back to the armored man whose fight-or-flight reactions were having an intense battle and swiftly ended him with a quick [Fireball] between the cracks in his armor before the last shot rang out. The last body of Six Arms hitting the floor signified the end of the battle for them, though they would still help with securing the rest of the bases as well as any important people left behind in the raids.

As her teammates turned around to greet her, relief clear on their faces, she wondered if she was always this ruthless, this calculating in how she took lives. Maybe Delta brought it out of her with his own brand of cruelty. Whatever it was, she suspected it wasn’t terribly important. Her team was still alive, she was still alive, and her targets were dead. 

“Easy peasy lemon squeezy!” Delta’s cry broke her out of her reverie with a slight smile behind her mask. They’d have time to reminisce and share a drink later; They still had work to do.