As the man bowed, Hildegarde wore a rare, genuine smile. "Of course he chose to bring it to me! I'm Hildegarde Von Musel." This man could certainly have his uses, she decided. Walking briskly to where he was standing, she grinned and outstretched her hand. "You have good taste, my friend. I'm sure we can come up with some kind of trade for that magic rock. What is it you need from me?" Almost as if it was an afterthought, she added "Oh! And I'll need your name."

Eckhart was really confused now, and it was beginning to show on his face. "Wait, why were you talking to an ancient deity in the first place? What tower?" Eckhart instinctively began to raise his hand to his mouth, but stopped himself before he could start biting his nails. "Come on man, don't embarrass yourself in front of Kino." Collecting himself, he asked one more question. "What is it that your doing with your life? Like, do you have a job or something?"

"Don't worry Rei, you can just call me-" Eckhart began to say, but stopped when Althris spoke. "Wait, she has direct contact with the gods? What the hell is going on?" Eckhart dropped the pot of berries into the fire out of shock. Struggling to take it out, he began cursing cursing under his breath. Finally he got it out, nearly burning his left hand off in the process. Wincing, Eckhart looked at the berries and let out a sigh of relief when he saw they weren't ruined. Pouring them into a bowl, he handed them to Kino along with a spoon. "Normally I'd put sugar in this, but I'm afraid I didn't bring any with me. It won't taste amazing, but it will help with the pain."

With his sense of accomplishment lessened by his newfound feelings of unease, Eckhart sat down next to Althris. Arms crossed, he studied her with a worried look on his face. "So, uh... Yeah. Tell us more about your life before you, um..." Eckhart struggled to find the words. "...before you got... before you wound up here."

Hildegarde's smile remained stagnant while she pondered this. "If this man has any brains, then it's likely that the keystone is real. Nobody with any sense would approach me empty handed." After a moment, Hildegarde walked slowly towards the masked man. Her smile softened ever so slightly. "Well my friend, this organization is based on trust. I trust my people to not let me down, and they trust me to pay them. You, however, are an outsider. This will sound rude, but how do I know I can trust you?"

"Huh"

Eckhart had never heard that story before. "It must be really old" he thought. "I wonder where she learned it. Is there a school that teaches ancient mythology? It seems so... niche." Suddenly, Eckhart remembered a legend he had learned in Hyoite when he was a kid. Smiling, Eckhart looked around the campfire. "Alright, it's my turn to tell a story."

"Alright, so, once upon a time there was this costal city up north named Atalantia. There were a ton of mages and wizards up there, because their talents were needed to keep the city safe from the treacherous environment. Icy hurricanes, stuff like that. So anyway there was this young wizard named Natel who hated his job. Nothing ever seemed to go his way, and the other wizards all mocked him for it.

Natel began to crave power. He figured that since his life sucked so much, he was entitled to a better position at the very least. After years of grumbling about it, a young woman named Arya appeared at his front door. She said to him "I can give you what you want. If you obay me, you will stand above all of Atalantia." Desperate for a change, Natel agreed to this proposition."

Eckhart paused dramatically before continuing. "Natel never seemed to notice the storms were growing worse every year. He failed to notice that Arya never looked any older than when he had first met her. In his thirst for power, he had never even asked what the backbreaking tasks and strange rituals Arya had him doing were meant to accomplish. Finally, after fifty years and fifty days of toiling, Arya had him leave the city limits. He escaped just in time to witness the largest storm he had ever seen hit the city at full blast. He finally realized what Arya was making him do- those rituals had sapped the energy of the other wizards so they could not protect the city any longer. Natel watched in horror as, with a deafening crack, Atalantia broke off the mainland and fell into the sea. Crying tears of rage, he found Arya at the edge of the newly formed seaside cliff and demanded answers. She looked different now, where there were once feet was now cloven hooves, and two large horns were growing out of her head. Natel realized now that she was not human at all, but a demon. Arya looked at him, smiled sweetly, and fulfilled her end of the bargain. Natel turned to stone, and to this very day he stands above the city of Atalantia."

Eckhart looked around the campfire happily. "Like it? The moral of the story is 'Don't trust demons, they'll just to screw you six ways from Sunday."

"Myths, huh?" Eckhart had to admit, it was never a topic he had enjoyed. Quite the opposite actually, it had always made him feel alone. Eckhart stared into the fire blankly before continuing.

"I grew up hearing stories of Ansgar. From what my grandparents told me I guess he's the only god who really matters in the end. Thing is, me and my family aren't likely to be in his favor. The Von Musels got run out off Connloath because we broke the anti-magic laws for some really stupid reasons. When I discovered my powers and began using to save people, I had to resign myself to the fact that I'll probably be going to hell when I die. That really scares me, but what am I supposed to do? Just not use what I've been given?" 

Suddenly getting flustered, Eckhart gave Althris a nervous, almost frightened looking smile. "I'm really sorry about telling you that, I'm sure you don't care. I forget my place sometimes." Eckhart quickly returned to stirring the elderberries. "Idiot" he thought angrily to himself. "Nobody cares how you feel. You should know that".

"I..."

Eckhart was totally taken aback by this. "I-I can see that." Trying his hardest to not look confused, he continued. "What is the book about?"

The berries were about halfway done, and needed to be stirred.. When Eckhart reached for his spoon, he noticed Althris had her face pressed into a book. Eckhart found this rather curious, and asked her "What are you reading?"

"Oh?" Hildegarde's smile became even more quizzical. "And what exactly do you have to offer?"

Hildegarde beamed at the man Griselda had brought before her. "Yep! It's so good to know I'm becoming popular around here."  Behind her facade of friendliness Hildegarde studied the man with disdain. Who was he to interrupt her at such a important time? "That's a really neat costume you're wearing. You supposed to be a medicine guy?"

__________________QUICK STATS
Name: "Griselda" (real name unknown/unpronounceable)
Age: Twenty-something? She couldn't tell you if she wanted to.
Gender: Female
Species: Human
Ethnicity: Yoreiqi
Height: The tallest person in the room. Always. Without exception.
Weight: Surprisingly light, seeing as she's able to stay airborne.
Occupation: Second in command of The Friends
Residence: Zantaric, but often travels
Favorite Food: Jerky
Alignment: Neutral Evil


__________________IN-DEPTH STUFF

Physical Description:
Griselda is an extremely large woman, even by Yoreiqi standards. Her dark skin is calloused and covered in scar tissue, and her body has been toned from years of getting into fights with strangers. Her large wings are a dull, lifeless shade of brown  Her clothes are tattered- not because she can't afford new ones, but rather because she seems to like how it looks. Griselda wears a button that says "Hello! My name is: Griselda!"

Griselda is mute. She hasn't been able to produce any noise for as long as she can remember, and she never bothered learning sign language or any basic writing skills- the orphanage she grew up in couldn't afford a tutor, and she was too impatient to try to learn on her own.

Personality:
Griselda's personality is really, really hard to pin down. The woman rarely wears her true emotions on her sleeve. She will show exaggerated emotions in order to communicate (smile means yes, frown means no, etc.) but these don't normally reflect how she feels. She'll occasionally show a genuine smile when something is funny to her, but this is rare and nobody really understands her sense of humor anyway. It's incredibly hard to gain her trust, and most people are too freaked out by the giant woman with wings to try.

Griselda has a large collection of wanted posters- she'll actually judge a person's worth by the number of zeros on their bounty. She loves animals, and will go out of her way to feed any strays she comes across. 

Relationships:
Griselda is second in command of the Friends, and has a strong bond with all of them. She's very close to Hildegarde, who was actually the one who named her "Griselda"- the woman couldn't exactly tell her what her name really was (and if she could, she wouldn't know how to pronounce it). Hildegarde tends to confess all her insecurities to her- after all, Griselda can keep a secret better than anybody.

Griselda is extremely protective of both Tiffany Starbrite (who she may or may not have a thing for) and Joan O'Reilly (her best friend). She'd really like them to work out their differences- whatever argument they're having has gone on for way too long.

Magic/Abilities:
Griselda punches things really hard. She has a pair of brass knuckles that she wears 24/7- she never knows when she may end up in a brawl. She's also unable to convey that the one on her left hand has been stuck there for 3 years.

Griselda can use her wings to glide, but she's too heavy to remain airborne for more than 10 minutes on her own. When she does attempt to fly it's very slow and clumsy.

Griselda has a near perfect photographic memory. The usefulness of this is severely limited by her inability to convey what she has seen in the past.

History:
Griselda's parents were Yoreiqi tourists who didn't realize how dangerous coming to Zantaric would be. They were killed by muggers, and in the scuffle the infant Griselda's vocal cords got damaged. It took two hours for somebody to find her, because her crying now only made an odd grunting sound. She grew up in the town orphanage, and powered through the bullying that came from the other children through violent means. The owners of the orphanage couldn't pronounce the name that had been in her parents passport, so they simply called her "muffin", something Griselda hated.

As she grew older, Griselda became more violent, often getting into fights for little to no reason. She never really saw this as a problem, and considered it to be normal. Upon leaving the orphanage she took to mugging people in back alleys and acting as hired muscle for a living. Needless to say people feared her, and she gained a reputation as being an unstoppable monster. This reputation caused an upstart gang leader, Hildegarde Von Musel, to seek her out.  Griselda was used to gang leaders attempting to recruit her, but something about this girl was different. Hildegarde acted like she understood Griselda, and to top it off she never once had to guess what Griselda was trying to convey with wild hand gestures and crude dirt pictures. Once Hildegarde called her "Griselda" because "It sounds pretty and tough- just like you!", Griselda was sold. She is currently Hildegarde's top lieutenant, and would happily give her life if it meant Hildegarde would be happy.

__________________THREAD TRACKER

Complete Threads:

Current Threads:

Arriving back at the campsite, Eckhart placed the berries in his mortar and began to crush them into a fine pulp.  After about five minutes, he bunched the berries in his hands and squeezed out the remaining liquid. Tossing the elderberry juice left his mortar into the forest, he began to rummage through his bag for the small pot he carried with him. After filling it with water from his flask, he put the crushed elderberries inside and covered the pot with it's lid. Walking over to the fire, he sat down and held the pot over the fire.

Eckhart loved to cook. It was one of the only things he was confident in his ability to do well, and seeing people enjoying the food he made was one of the only things guaranteed to boost Eckhart's fragile self-esteem. Unfortunately, Eckhart knew from experience that the medicine he was making tasted awful, so Kino's first impression of his cooking would likely be tainted. "No worries" Eckhart thought with a small smile, "I'll just have make shepherds pie after this, people fucking love my shepherds pie."

"Give me about an hour Kino, this needs to stew before it can be ingested." Smiling at her, he said "Wouldn't it suck if I accidentally killed you with the medicine I made?"

Eckhart picked through the remains of the forest looking for something, anything, that could be used as a painkiller. While doing so, he mused over what was wrong with Althris.  "It's like she uprooted every tree withing two miles" he said to himself. "Why? Because Kino fell on her? Why is everybody being nice to her?" His grumbling was interrupted by a welcome sight. "Elderberries! Awwwwww yeah, now we're cooking."  Eckhart meant this literally, he would have to stew these if he wanted to remove the toxicity from the berries to make them into medicine for Kino. Excited to get started, he hurried back to the campsite.

Hildegarde was sitting in a alley near the mansion. There was than an hour before the raid was to begin, and she was beginning to get impatient. She looked down at the magic-powered timepiece she wore on her wrist and sighed. There was still 46 minutes before the mage was guaranteed to be out of the house. The time-telling device had been gift from her brother, and every time she looked at it she was reminded of him. Hildegarde loathed being reliant on a gift from someone so pathetic, but the device was too useful to get rid of.

The voice of one of her followers snapped her out of her memories. "My lady, there is a masked man requesting an audience with you. Says he has something you need."  Hildegarde's normal smile shifted into a quizzical one. "Oh? And where might this man be?"

Her henchman smiled back at her. "Griselda has him in a chokehold."

Hildegarde Von Musel sat in the corner of a seedy bar in Zantaric. Her frilly pink dress made her stick out like a sore thumb, but she didn't care. This was her territory, and everybody in the bar knew it. Her eyes brightened as her two lieutenants stepped into the establishment and sat next to her.

"Griselda! Forrest! It's so good to see you!" Hildegarde said with a smile. Griselda's face remained expressionless, but Forrest blushed as he mumbled something to the tune of "It's good to see you too." Good, blushing meant admiration. Hildegarde decided to cut right to the chase. "You know that mage with the big hat? He's been annoying me lately. He's so disrespectful, you wouldn't even believe what he said to me the other day."

The mage with the big hat hadn't actually said anything to her at all. He was an elf, and he had been in Zantaric since before it was overrun with criminals. He had given Hildegarde a disapproving look when he passed her in the street the other day, and Hildegarde felt that she should stop him there before he decided to voice any opinions he might have of her. She would not tolerate any dissent, no matter how small.

"Anyway, I think we should teach him a lesson in respect. He lives in that big mansion in the older part of town, we're going to break in tonight and rearrange some things. Griselda, I need you to mobilize our most intimidating men and have them be in position in 5 hours."  Griselda left without a word, and Hildegarde turned to Forrest. "Forrest, I need you to make sure our friend isn't in the house when we get there. He's a very powerful mage, and he may make things more difficult for us then they need to be.  This is so important, and you're the only one I can trust to pull it off."

This was a lie, Hildegarde was sure that Griselda would have been able to do this job with no trouble. She didn't want to pass up the chance to instill even more loyalty into Forrest however, so she continued. "Can I count on you?"  Forrest's eyes lit up and nodded hurriedly. "Yes- yes of course Miss Hildegarde!" He proceeded to rush out of the bar, accidentally knocking a table over in the process. Hildegarde laughed and signaled to the bartender to let it slide. This was going to be such a good day.

Anyway, I edited the tread's title so members have to PM me if they want to join. That should stop it from getting too crowded.

Upon hearing Kino's request, Eckhart began rummaging through Kino's things. He felt like a creep for doing so, but it was necessary if Kino wanted to feel anything but pain for the time being. "Shit, looks like she doesn't have any painkillers either" he thought. Eckhart realized he would have to scavenge for herbs if he wanted to alleviate Kino's pain. Grumbling under his breath, he set off into the wind-torn forest.

My bad; as far as roleplaying archetypes go she fits the bill.  Rei isn't exactly a traditional ranger either, but I still lumped him in with Egon since nothing else really fit.

As far as thread direction goes, Kino is the only character with concrete goals, so we may want to start with those.

Eckhart and Kino travel south

Welp, I didn't expect to get a party of 5 people in my thread. I normally just write by the seat of my pants without plotting anything, but with this many people I figured we needed one of these threads so we coordinate with each other. "I wont be able to post until 8PM today" and "Do you mind if my character one-shots this monster", stuff of that nature. I'd like everybody's characters to get a chance to shine!

Anyway, we got a really good party; a healer, an alchemist, a mage, and two rangers is pretty balanced. We're all roughly the same power level with the exception of Morgan's character, who if I'm not mistaken is unable to use her powers consciously so it wont be a real issue. This should work out awesomely!

One last thing. should I close the thread to new people since we now have a party of five, or should I leave it open?

Eckhart took a while to process that last question. "Well... I..."
"Come on man, just tell her no. You're not obligated to be nice to her."
"...I..."
"Don't do this now Eckhart, just say no. It's just one word."
"...Uhhhhhhh..."
"You'd better not screw this up, you'll have to learn how to turn people down eventually."
"I-I'll ask Kino when she wakes up!"
"..."

"This is going to be really long journey, isn't it?"