Welcome to Death

It certainly was a good thing that Roderick was able to figure it out, cause while he was making on his thought and slowly coming to the correct answer, Zephyr wasn't exactly having the same luck. Things like Anagram were not his specialty at all, nor were riddles or anything along those lines really. Maybe he should've read a book on how to solve these oppose to all those legends and heroes and such he read as a kid.

"If that's what you think it is, then let's go for it." Having been brought out of his thinking process by his partners conclusion, he agreed to his suggestion. It was certainly better than the nothing that he had come up with.

 

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Roderick froze at the sight, feeling sick. Gosh, there was blood everywhere!

...He ought to have expected it, he'd known they were after a murderer, he'd known he would see blood and death sometime. He was training to be a soldier for Lord Death, after all, he would have to get use to sights like this...

But oh, all this dark, glossy red!

He turned away, taking a few deep breaths and closing his eyes, feeling a bit sick.

After a few moments, he turned back, ignoring the mess on the ground and trying to focus on the words. "Oh," he said, blinking at it. "Another riddle. That's- that's fine, I like riddles..."

Now if only he were able to think straight...

 

Chaol nodded, showing his agreement with the suggestion that had been presented. "That's a fantastic idea Hannah. I'm all for meeting up tomorrow, it gives me more time to work on my aim" the assassin stated, before glancing towards Matthew and Mikio. "You'd better watch out, I'm going to become a crack shot in just under a day, just you wait and see" he declared, allowing half a smirk to show. He wasn't entirely comfortable with shooting at his future allies, but maybe it could work. At the very least they'd be able to plan a few tactics based on each others' weaknesses. Yeah, it could really work. Starting to walk away, he paused for a brief moment, as if he were going to say something else, before shrugging his shoulders and continuing on. He had some skills to sharpen.


As the doors opened once more, Dana wandered over to one of the souls and poked it. It felt a little weird, but then again what had she expected it to feel like? "Ah well, bottom's up" she murmured, before grabbing it and placing it in her mouth. She chewed on it for a moment, before swallowing it. The girl simply stood there for about thirty seconds to let the flavour sink in, before she hurried over to another one of them and threw that one into her mouth. "Oh my gosh Zoey these taste amazing" she said, her words distorted slightly from speaking with her mouth full. Once she'd finished with that one, she proceeded to eat the rest of the souls that had been laying around, and then fell backwards with a quiet burp and a pat of her tummy.

"Whew, can't wait to see what the other path's going to taste like. Alright Meister, lead the way, your fat little weapon is going to have to be carried again!" the young woman announced, before that familiar pale blue glow enveloped her and she transformed into her quarterstaff form. Her first soul devouring as a weapon was something interesting to say the least, and damn was she looking forward to having more. It almost saddened her to think one day she'd become a death scythe and not have to devour kishin souls anymore....although she figured lord death would have to have some wicked candy. At least, he'd better, because there was no way anyone was going to be her partner and not feed her.​

 

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Zoey marched down the hallway with Dana in hand, and didn't even stop when she got to the more familiar part. "Left, let's just go left and try that out," she said. Her shoulder had been forgotten, and she was task oriented. They were going to get this mission done one way or another, even if she was going to keep making mistakes over and over again with Dana. That was the whole point of these things; not die, get the job done, and get to know each other in the mean time and figure out how to work with each other. Then again, they weren't doing so bad as a pair.

 

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Matthew was excited as he and Mikio walked towards where they were going to meet up with Hannah and Chaol, and get their mission assignment. They had spent all of the previous day training together, and Matthew was feeling pretty good about this first mission. He still wasn't sure how safe it was going to be, but they wouldn't have allowed students to take missions so early if they couldn't handle it, and besides, two other teams at least were out on missions, and Matthew didn't want to be left behind.

So now they were all reporting in so they could get their mission briefing, for the group Bonnie and Clyde mission!

 

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The punnet smell of blood hit Zephyr just as hard as the sight did and it was almost enough to make him gag. Fortunately he managed to hold back the urge to do so and instead took in a deep breath. Their target was a serial killer, so he needed to prepare himself for other sights such as this until they found and dealt with him. Shortly after having done so, he looked towards the riddle that Roderick has mentioned.

The fact that it was a riddle that he was looking at caused him to mentally sigh. After reading it thought, he was relieved to see that this particular one wasn't as bad as he thought it was going to be. "You can take a breather if you need to, I'll see what I can come up with." Zephyr told Roderick. Taking into account their differing ages he couldn't expect him to handle something the same way that he did.

 

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Matthew picked up the piece of paper, looking at the address for the warehouse in Texas. He felt a little nervous; the debriefing hadn't said much more than the mission posting had done; the Death Scythe obviously had other matters on his mind. This Maka of his seemed like a great Meister. Hopefully Matthew would be as good as her one day. He turned to the group with a smile. "So!" He said. "I guess we're on our way to Texas. Um, how should we get there? We could go by plane, that would be the fastest way to get there. I can call and reserve the tickets if you'd like. How long of a trip do you think it'll be? We'll have to pack, and I'll have to book some hotel rooms too... Unless, do you think it'll just be a one day trip? Even so, perhaps an overnight bag would be appropriate. I'll call and book a flight, and we'll figure out when we'll all meet at the airport." He pulled his phone out of his pocket before pausing and looking at the group. "I mean, if that's alright," he said, smiling sheepishly.

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"...Yeah, yeah," Roderick said, blinking and shaking his head a little. "Sorry, I uh... I've just never seen anything like this. I'm good." He looked up at the riddle, blinking at it and reading it aloud. "What runs but never walks, often murmurs, never talks, has a bed but never sleeps, has a mouth but never speaks? Catch me if you can kiddies." He thought this over. "Runs but never walks..." He said. "Often murmurs, never talks. Let's see, let's see..."

 

Bonnie, Clyde, Buck, Blanche, and William Jones. If they're just simple thieves like they sound, I shouldn't have to take their lives. I hope they're simple thieves, that'd be tough to try to explain to Hannah if I had to outright try to assassinate, Chaol thought to himself, the look of focus as intense as it ever was before a mission. While he didn't always come off as the most casual, carefree person, the difference between how he was while not on a mission and how he was on a mission was astounding. Though he hadn't been part of the Dancing Blades' intense training routine for very long, with how tough and harsh they were on the people that messed up...you really learned to keep your emotions in check very quickly.

He was brought out of his own thoughts by Matthew finishing speaking. He'd heard most of it, it just hadn't really registered until that point. "Hmm? Yeah, yeah...plane sounds good. Gets us there quickly, go for the call. Shouldn't be there more than one day" the boy agreed, half murmuring the first few words. This was it, this was his and Hannah's first mission together, and more than that it was with another weapon and meister combination. Were they ready? Was he ready for this? He figured he was about to find out, whether he liked it or not.

@Marushi
@Midnight Star



"Why can't they ever just make tombs and stuff straightforward? Have a pharaoh buried at the end of a really, really long, straight hallway. Maybe lined with gold or something, but enough with the twisties and turnies. It's enough to drive a girl off the deep end" Dana whined as they neared the part where the paths diverged. She was really happy she was being carried, but mazes and riddles were two things she did not like one bit. They always required so much thinking to get done, and thinking was not her strong suit.

She sighed, followed by a quick "Well I guess right is the best way to go"

@Maka Albarn ​

 

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Hannah listened to Spirit tell them their mission with a smile on her face, taking a mental note of all the key details. This was actually happening, their first ever mission. She was really nervous, who wouldn't be for their first mission? She also had some reasonably big concerns, like they still hadn't succeeded in making a soulwavelengh arrow. That said it wasn't like the last couple of days had been wasted, Chaol had improved a lot, he had some talent. That said talent can only go so far, he was still an absolute beginner who had only been doing this for 2 days. They had a long way to go.

As the conversation turned to transport, Hannah went thought about it before joining in, "Umm do we have to pay for our own transport and accommodation? That could get really expensive. How do students normally get to where their missions are. The missions seemed be spread all over the world." She looked at Spirit playing basketball as she spoke, wondering if it would be okay to interrupt his game to ask him. She didn't really want to annoy him or get yelled at though.

 

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"Oh, I can pay for the plane tickets," Matthew said, waving his hand dismissively. "I mean, of course I can't get like, first class seats or anything, but I can get us to Texas, no problem. As for how students get around normally... I don't know. I've heard that Lord Death can open portals, but that he doesn't do it for everyone. Maybe if we were going somewhere out of the country, he'd have opened one for us, but Texas is only a short flight away from here, I think. It shouldn't cost too much money. Hey! I just thought of something! Maybe the school gives students a travel allowance! It's worth looking into when we get back, but for now, I'll call and book us a flight, we can be there in a few hours."

 

OOC: sorry, I'll try to format later.

"Because that will be too easy," Zoey said with a slight smile. "Wish I could be more help with this soul sight of mine, but I haven't been able to make maps in my head yet." She paused when they were faced with three options and tilted her head to listen to Dana's voice echoing off the walls. "Hearing isn't gonna help either. We're just gonna have to go through this blindly." Zoey chuckled at her own joke and then moved to the right hallway. "I don't know if I'm going to laugh or cry if we get this wrong." She rolled her sore shoulder and rubbed at it as they walked. She wasn't going to make the same mistake last time if they were wrong on this one.

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Mikio let the three talk, although it was mostly Hannah and Matthew. He put his hands in his pockets, nodding to what Matthew said. At least they got to train a little bit together, but Mikio still wasn't completely comfortable around everyone all at once yet. That was going to take some getting used to.

 

Well Zephyr wasn't used to seeing something like this either, but this was probably where the age gap played a part in this as well as experience. The latter more so in Zephyr's case. Moving on from that, if Roderick said that he was fine then he would believe him. Looking back at the riddle, Zephyr read it to himself one more time before trying to come up with an answer. What runs but never walks, often murmurs, never talks, has a bed but never sleeps, has a mouth but never speaks. Despite sucking at riddles, this one actually sounded familiar to him and after thinking about it for a bit, he came up with something that sounded like it would fit. To him anyway. "Maybe it's a river."
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"Oh," Roderick said, blinking. "Yeah, I think you're right! That makes a lot of sense, because rivers 'run' downstream, people say they 'murmur,' like, a babbling brook, the bottom of the river is called the river bed, and there's the 'mouth' of the river!" He offered a small smile, though it still felt a bit nauseating to be standing here in this bloody alley. "So, then, we're looking for a river, probably the Thames? I'm not sure where specifically, though, maybe we should go to the river and just start looking for something suspicious."

 

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It had been a relief to hear that his guess had actually been the right answer for it also meant that they could leave this bloody alleyway now. "Sounds like a plan, but where exactly is it?" It wasn't much of a surprise that Zephyr had no idea where Thames was, this was the first time he's ever been to England after all. So hopefully Roderick would be the one who knew where it was.

 

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"Um, the Thames... Well, it's a really big river, so the exact location isn't narrowed down much," Roderick said thoughtfully. "It cuts right through London. I'm not sure how to get to it from here... But I know that the London Eye, that giant Ferris Wheel, is right next to it. We'll call a taxi and have them take us to the London Eye, and then we'll just look around from there. Actually, if we ride it, we'll be able to look over the city. Maybe we'll notice something nearby."

He hailed a taxi, climbing into it. "Take us to the London Eye, please," he said to the driver.

 

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The girl sighed out in relief when they rounded the corner and did not run into any more monsters. Well, it gave her a chance to have a bit of a breather. She wondered how in the world they would get out of here though. They should have made a string to run down the hallway or something, but what if someone had cut it?

Zoey stopped at the fork and crouched to the ground, feeling around. She found a stray stone and her fingers caressed it to feel the texture of it. "I'm going to start marking the walls," she announced to Dana. "Just in case we get lost on our way back." She went over to a wall, and dragged the rock as hard as she could on the surface to make a squiggle. She then turned to Dana. "Did it make something?" she asked, smiling sheepishly. "I can't tell."

With her free hand, Zoey snapped her fingers, listening to the nose vibrate off the surface. A fuzzy image came into her mind of the choices they had to go to next. She sighed a bit. "Man, this pharaoh doesn't wanna be found. How about left, Dana? Should we try that?"

 

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The taxi had taken them to the London Eye to which the duo had gotten on. If not for the fact that they were looking for a serial killer he would've taken the time to actually enjoy that fact that he was on a giant Ferris wheel right now. Alas they had a job to do, speaking of which he should be keeping an eye out for anything that looked like a clue while they were up here.

Zephyr assumed that the giant body of water was Thames and it was certainly larger than what he had thought it was. That and there was one more thing that had caught his attention, a bunch of red lights grouped together. "Hey Roderick, know what exactly that is?" He had this hand motioning towards the bright lights outside. Man this was an odd combination of 'being a tourist' and 'being on a manhunt'.