A Walk in the Dark (Fend)

    Fend was in a surprisingly good mood today. The exhausting days caused by Kowlin and Kamae had passed, and despite her enemies' best efforts, Fend kept her head held high and moved on with her life. Her recent encounters had been much more pleasant. Between reuniting with Pracross, meeting and playing games with Gray, and gaining another friend at Korin Tower in the form of Jackie, the Shinjin was happy to be meeting so many more great people... Alas, currently none could top her two students.

    While she was uncertain about teaching Terryn and Shoga at first, the masked mentor had started teaching them, all three of them had finally began to grow into their roles. They had a long way to go, but seeing the two Earthlings actually improve under her tutelage filled Fend with equal parts happiness and pride. Somehow, even a fraud like her had some good tips to teach.

    Many days of training had took a toll on Fend's fridge, though, so she'd made a supply run out to the local Baomart to restock on drinks and snacks for post-training refreshments. She'd invited Shoga over to hang out- both he and Terryn deserved a day off after all their hard work, but surely he wouldn't mind waiting a little bit longer for her to restock their snack supply.

    "Yo, I'm bac--" Fend spoke as she landed back on the tiles of Korin Tower, only to see no sign of the human. Was he running late too? Fend furrowed her brows, scanning the area with her senses... She could sense Shoga's presence high above her. "...Oooh." Right, she hadn't told him about the Lookout yet, did she?

     Soon enough, the wind would stir as Fend rushed up to meet Shoga. "Howdy," She greeted, landing on the cracked tiles of the sacred structure. "Can't say I expected 'ya to be able to jump all the way up here already... Or did you learn how to fly already, or somethin?" She hummed in thought.

    She set down her grocery bags and dusted herself off. "If you're wondering what this place is..." She raised a finger and straightened her posture, as if preparing to give a detailed lecture. "...I have no idea either." All she got from this place was a vague, yet powerful feeling of importance, and that it had weird gravity and magic in every nook and cranny.

    "Today's your day off, though, we can do whatever the hell 'ya want to do." She shrugged. She had been expecting their day of rest to consist of games or banter back down at Korin Tower, not... whatever this was. She wasn't gonna judge, though, the Timeless Lookout had been taunting her with its secrets too.

Ki Masquerade is in use! This hides Fend's Ki from feeling like that of a Shinjin.

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Word Count: 456

    It seemed like Shoga was a fellow fan of exploring, much to Fend's surprise. The human also could sense that ancient, yet mystical and present sense of importance the Lookout had, too. "Yeah, this place is definitely hiding something. What that is or if it should even be unearthed, 'iunno." She shrugged. While she'd been growing more comfortable around the lookout, the worry that this place was hiding its secrets for a very good reason kept her from venturing too deep.

    "I've been in 'n out a handful of times, yeah. A friend of mine- his name's Tysco, he's real cool- has helped me explore and map out some parts of this old place. Apparently it's called The Lookout, or something." She clarified before reaching into her cloak and pulling out a small notebook for Shoga to see that Tysco had gifted to her. Inside were notes galore about what little the duo had discerned from the Lookout, along with rough maps of the few areas they'd explored.

    The moment Fend stepped inside to follow Shoga, though, a light metallic clinking echoed from beside the masked Shinjin. "Ohp, here we go again." She reached to the sheath at her waist. The pale blade inside seemed to jostle on its own ever so slightly. Fend unsheathed Palibur, letting the glowing, cracked rapier light their path. "I got no idea why this thing gets noisy in this place in particular, but we got a light so that's good."

    Had she ever told Shoga about Palibur? She didn't have a reason to bring up anything about the ancient blade of light yet as far as she could recall. "Oh right. Before you ask, Palibur- that's my cool sword- has some magic shenanigans going on with it. 's why I came up here before, to try and find some answers as to what the hell is goin' on in it." She left out the details on how exactly she found the sword. That was... a long story.

    Deeper down the crumbling hallways, Fend would stop their walk at a crossroads. There were multiple halls branching off from here. "To the right's a big ol' library, if I recall." Fend glanced back down to the maps on her notebook. "I haven't mapped much of the other paths from here yet. Could be somethin, could be nothin' down those paths, i'unno." She shrugged, deciding to let Shoga pick where to go from here.

Ki Masquerade is still in use.

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Word Count: 863 (+407)

    The ruined library of the Lookout was just as decrepit and eerie as the rest of its innards. Gravity was all sorts of whack in the room the two had walked into. Numerous tables, bookshelves, scrolls and tomes were suspended in midair, as if frozen in time. How long had it been since anyone had touched any of them? The floors and walls were still intact, at least, and were detailed with faded ornate patterns and text in some indiscernible language.

    Fend shrugged at the mention of what sorts of things she'd read up on so far. "Well, the few books I've managed to decode so far have got a lot of magicy stuff. There was one about Nimbuses, another about some Z-Sword stuff... There's this one with an epic picture of a dragon, too." She pulled one scroll out of a shelf that was floating upside-down. The torn parchment had a picture of a long, winding dragon with what seemed to be trees for horns. Whatever text used to be on it seemed to have faded away centuries ago, though. "A lot of them are too worn or are written in languages I dunno, though, so who knows what else the Lookout has to say." She slid the scroll back into the shelf, turning and looking across the library.

    "...Y'know, like, that one trope in movies and stuff where someone pulls on a specific book and it opens up a hidden passage? I wonder if there's one of those here somewhere." She idly mused to Shoga. Secret passages felt like something the Lookout would have. "Eh, Just thinkin."

    Shoga did have a point- this place had been just sitting here for ages, and yet it seemed like Fend and her friends were the first to touch its tiles in a long, long time. "Surprisingly, there's not much to that story. Me and a friend of mine were exploring the forest, and we eventually came across the tower. I was too curious and climbed it a few days later, did the whole Korin thing, and the rest is history." She summarized, glancing astray as she continued to play into her lie about being Korin's student. It was best to gloss over that for now and move along. "And to think all that happened on my first few days on Earth! This place is great."

    Fend flipped through her notebook for a few moments, before a sly glint flashed in her eyes. "...Hey, check this shit out." She walked over to a wall and planted a foot upon it... And then another foot, and suddenly the Shinjin was walking right up the vertical wall. "Do you know what gravity is? I don't." She shrugged. "Gravity's all sorts of whack in here especially! Even you could waltz up this wall here despite the whole not being able to fly yet thing." She liked showing off her finds and exploring. Despite the fact that she and Shoga hadn't known each other for too long, Fend had already grown incredibly accustomed to the human's presence...

    "While we're chattin', also, what's 'yer life like when you're not trainin' with yours truly here? Got any hobbies or other cool stuff 'ya do?" She hummed in thought as she fished through a few books that were floating nearby. While they were here, they might as well take some time to get to know each other better too.

Ki Masquerade is still in use.

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Word Count: 1,433 (+570)