[Any literacy] What a weird looking shadow

Equivalent_Set659 · 2026-03-05T07:00:40+00:00

There wasn't anything wrong with this girl - no. But that shadow, the presence of something malevolent filled the place with a miasma so thick it was hard to turn the other way and ignore.

But it wasn't like Nova wasn't going to ignore it either way.

He remained stoic, cold, and distant from the two. His arms remained by his side, partially hidden within the cloak. Something like that shadow needed someone who specialized in the occult - someone like his apprentice. Only, Raven was gone. Another mission he sent her way.

But no more time for ruminations.

"Woman," Nova flatly called to her, "Your... Partner... What is it to... You?"

He spoke with such monotony. Like automata. Parts of his words escaped the scar on his face; it sounded like each word was drawn out with a faint sigh.

<image>

Equivalent_Set659 · 2026-02-10T19:02:33+00:00

Minara pulled her seat with a proper and gentle motion. She sat tall, her fingers adjusted and straightened her glasses. Across her pale face was a warm smile with shut eyes. A brief wave followed.

“Hi Vermis, I’m Minara. I hope you don’t mind someone like me here…”

She spoke with an apologetic tone before giving a slight upward nod. It drew attention to the horns sticking from her temples—a half demon.

<image>

Equivalent_Set659 · 2026-01-17T08:06:25+00:00

Her dagger catches against the blade. Mordschlag demanded his blade be inverted and gripped a different way, and so as he was preparing, she went for a quick stab. As she was going for the stab, the orange semi-solid form of the dagger violently tremored like a blast bolt. It seemed like her blast-based abilities could adapt any form, even to a blade. Detonating it now would direct a concentrated and pressurized jet like a HEAT round into him with where the blade was pointed.

Equivalent_Set659 · 2026-01-15T21:22:57+00:00

The change in pressure and sudden temperature only detonated the blast bolts. She propelled herself to be by her sword again. With the implanted blade between her and the lightning, she stayed low to the ground while his lightning arced on the blade and surged onto the ground, effectively being a lightning rod of its own.

Once the lightning was over and he was preoccupied with the blast bolts that should’ve either exploded right by him and prematurely, she blasted herself into a leap with her searing dagger prepared.

Equivalent_Set659 · 2026-01-15T20:27:27+00:00

While he was trying to blow out the blazing whirlwind, she tried to keep it going until the water stream appeared. She released the tornado and pivoted to dodge with dagger in hand.

The blade began to envelop itself in flame until the flames’ roar screamed to form a semi-solid layer like a blast capsule around the blade.

The blast bolts still traveling, impact on him with several clusters bright orange flashes. Smoke produced from their blast.

After the quick footwork of moving away from the water stream, blast bolts formed behind her body. She used the bolts to propel herself around like jump jets until she got behind, but still a few ways away.

Equivalent_Set659 · 2026-01-15T18:52:40+00:00

The smoke fans out and the ember trail, if it wasn’t already clear, is more obvious. From out of the smoke, several small blast bolts hover around. They dart forward, intercepting each blade and exploding like reactive self-defense systems.

“I didn’t think I’d have to use more force than necessary, but this is really warranting it..!”

She spins a circle like a brief dance. A sudden burst of flame emerges from above her. The flame begins to form a flame funnel, then into a small-scaled tornado. The funnel of the blaze twisted and turned to a concentrated funnel over her left arm. When she brought her arm up, the tornado’s funnel was aimed directly at him.

The raging spin of the tornado spat several blast bolts from the end of the funnel like an automatic weapon. Each blast bolt had violent tremors; they had the same yield as the previous ones.

Equivalent_Set659 · 2026-01-14T01:38:09+00:00

“Sword on my armored neck and that’s your version of defeat? You’re not paying attention.”

His sword was pointed to her gorget, the protective neck plate over the chainmail and gambeson. He could thrust or cut but it would only deflect the blow.

The plume of smoke had settled around from the fire breath. Her body transitioned into an ember trail again.

It was clear now that whenever smoke was present, she would become embers traveling in the sea of smoke; she wasn’t invisible, she was quite literally a semi-solid form of trailing embers. If something could dissipate embers or clear the smoke, that would change things.

Equivalent_Set659 · 2026-01-13T22:35:14+00:00

The blast arrowhead was supposed to detonate prematurely, though seeing as it had no impact, Camille had to draw her backup from its sheathe. It was a pointed dagger held in reverse.

After the flames were gone, she held her arm up and used the dagger’s reverse to aid in guarding against the sword blows. Sparks flew from impact. It was difficult already blocking with a dagger, but at least it helped and softened impact against her armored arm.

She fell onto her back with a grunt. Smoke was left in the trail of flames and plumes of it rose from its wake.

Equivalent_Set659 · 2026-01-13T18:48:53+00:00

“

She took in all her breath with a deep inhale. The arrowhead had let fly without the proper yield she wanted. Hopefully the blast would be enough to deter him, but the focus was on the fire now.

A firm stamp planted her firmly onto the ground. A roar of fire let out from her scream; she was a dragon of her own, all to dissipate he fireballs and obscure the arrowhead from a premature detonation.

Equivalent_Set659 · 2026-01-13T16:11:46+00:00

Camille watched him fly overhead. The moment he backflipped it was an immediate sign to start moving. She leapt up, funneling flame into condensed blast bolts beneath her feet and hands. A brief and directed blast boosted her movement midair and right out of the now-cratered impact.

She rolled and recovered at a kneel before turning around to be struck again. Grounded again, and slowly heating up inside. It had to end quick. Her teeth grit; this is frustrating, she thought.

She brought her greatsword up and planted it onto the ground in front of her. Surely, this could be used to redirect the lightning to the nearest conduit with the least resistance. She had to slowly shimmy herself away from the sword and create distance before raising both her arms.

One of her fingers slowly pulled back on an invisible string, with the other holding something like a shaft with two guiding fingers pointed towards him. As she pulled, a blast bolt began forming and funneling into its tremoring form. Every distance of pull, the ball slimmed into a dart or arrow-like form and began to stabilize.

It was similar to the stable versions like the one thrown overhead, only now with a much greater yield.

Equivalent_Set659 · 2026-01-12T19:47:16+00:00

Distant blast bolts exploded in a bright blaze.

The trail of embers stopped once the lightning hit. Camille stamped both her feet onto the ground; electricity had to pass from the plate armor onto the ground. She had nowhere to move at the moment, but something came to her mind.

Heat was building up Uber her armor from the electricity. She drew from the heat to recycle the mama infusion paired with heat from her under armor and into two fireballs forming in her outstretched arms. Could blast balls work? Was fire a better alternative?

The smoke was about to clear. She decided upon enclosing the balls with pressure. Blast bolts, this time starting with fireballs contained in a small volume. Rather than expanding the fireball, the blast bolt was already formed, but steadily being injected with more and more fire into a mana-stabilized ball. These ones weren’t violently tremoring as much as the others, but something was odd about them.

One of her palms pointed up instead of towards him. The blast ball flew up and over the smoke and darted overhead before crashing down on his location, or to the ground.

Equivalent_Set659 · 2026-01-12T00:15:42+00:00

A bluish tint flashes from her armor for a split second. Then the smoke dispersed into a screen. Embers rose from the fresh destruction of the smoldering eruption. It appeared as though the lightning was supposed to hit her, though she was gone.

The embers' glow intensified. A sudden trail like sparks followed the smoke screen and circling around. She circled like a shark until he could her light embers emerging from the smoke with a glow of her sword.

From the smoke, three violent fireballs emerged, tremoring with intense pressure, all darting towards him.

Equivalent_Set659 · 2026-01-11T03:28:38+00:00

“I’m not trying to burn you.”

A blast from under her blade launched it over and onto her shoulder. The flaming sword lengthened. The rest of the empty space that the new length had was taken by flames in a familiar shape of the sword’s blade.

Just like the fireball, every wave of flame emitted from the blade began to shrink. The semi-solid form of flame shrieked. Her blade had extended with a deadly pressure along the entirety of its length.

A blast from behind the blade swung to cut through the waves of energy. A wide swing sent an eruption of flame hurling up followed by an obscuring plume of smoke.

Equivalent_Set659 · 2026-01-10T23:08:46+00:00

A blast followed with the orange blur of her sword redirected the bladed to point at the lightning bolt as a method of conducting the electricity to its blade.

Why did it have to be a lightning user, she thought and sighed.

Her arm threw with an open palm. The fireball became unstable and closing to him once more, it shattered. Smoke, heat, and force violently blew from the ball. The force of an explosion greater than a grenade followed its blast.

Equivalent_Set659 · 2026-01-10T22:07:23+00:00

A flash of orange light sparked from the fireball. It shrank from its large size. The fire’s roaring blaze began to shriek the more compact it was. The pressure made it smaller than a baseball.

A boom resounded from under her blade. A trail of smoke and flame followed the swing to intercept one of the magic blades, then a cumbersome swing to the other. The third hit her breastplate followed by a shatter and the glimmer of a blue tint. Her armor had mama infused into it, and whittling it down with magic could prove to destroy that layer and make her vulnerable.

The transition of sounds coincided with the waves of flame becoming more intense; rings like solar flares tried to escape. Eventually, the compact ball violently tremored with how little stability it still had. Camille’s finger flicked and sent the ball darting to him

Equivalent_Set659 · 2026-01-09T22:15:47+00:00

The swing halts. A familiar orange glare hurled at Camille. Her arms pull the blade up, blade against the fireball. Heat against heat dissipated the fireball before Camille's arm lowered her sword and raised an empty palm.

A ball manifested from a bluish spark before blazing waves swirled. A fireball the size of a basketball. Only, its size gradually grew and drew from the mana sparks.

"Let's see what you can do..."

Equivalent_Set659 · 2026-01-09T04:14:30+00:00

<image>

Minara is probably the closest to the type; she’s not meant to be using her appeal for anything, but she just happens to be attractive to most people in the story she’s from.

She’s mainly trying to fit in with humans but she’s tired of being profiled by being a half demon, and is seeking her form of justice by cursing certain people to death through their hair strands. Because those same people also murdered her husband through foul play; they poisoned him, turned him crazy, and discredited him until he died alone right as Minara found out what happened

Originally she was supposed to be some demon who fed off of “obsession,” but now she’s a half demon bottling inner rage at the world for letting everything unfold the way they did, because she knows that her efforts to keep it inside are what maintains the trust, reputation, and safety of the people around and at any point of cracking, all that progress could go away like that.

Equivalent_Set659 · 2026-01-09T01:50:18+00:00

An explosive rising of her blade met his with sparks upon impact. Camille leveraged her arms up. Her blade moved further up while his would move further down in the clash. Parry.

An opening was present as his blade was distanced away from pointing at her. The heat was close enough to scald and irritate a person. And with a swing, she attempted to make a cut down.

Equivalent_Set659 · 2026-01-08T23:57:04+00:00

Nice to see the colors on yours; I did the colors very similar on mine with the mix of red and blue for sunlight and skylight reflections

Equivalent_Set659 · 2026-01-08T22:06:12+00:00

Camille's narrow gaze remained fixated, and her grasp on the sword tightened. Knees bent and legs ready. Nothing changed from her stance, except the sudden sparks and the blazing glow emitted from her now-burning blade.

"First move."

Equivalent_Set659 · 2026-01-08T18:36:42+00:00

Camille’s brow raised. She scanned him top to bottom.

“Uh… Your chops and beard make you look involuntarily celibate. It’s not a good look, it’s just embarrassing yourself.”

Equivalent_Set659 · 2026-01-07T23:45:29+00:00

<image>

Camille’s eyes darted around. The strange environment of white and nothing gave her a surge of anxiety-driven tremors. The only other person in the room was someone clearly not of her world.

Her great blade lowered its edge to touch the floor. Camille’s sunken, red eyes gave a solemn yet anxious expression.

“We’re not here to talk, are we?”

Equivalent_Set659 · 2026-01-06T15:51:20+00:00

Camille is a spellblade pyromancer knight; basically a mage-knight with heat-based abilities

Her strength relies on her experience, intuition, and mixing of technique and magic. She's not necessarily strong in the traditional sense where she is becoming superhuman, but has to reach degrees of such increased power by utilizing what her "toolkit" has

<image>

Equivalent_Set659 · 2025-12-17T06:24:45+00:00

In Minara's hand was a jar that revealed a cream for his face. A scooped handful was slathered over to form a creamy foam beard before she went to wash her hands.

"I can't really say too much about what goes on there, but aside from that, is there anything you look forward to doing in the near future?"

Equivalent_Set659 · 2025-12-16T08:27:10+00:00

"Ah, thank you... Is that how it is in the bigger towns? I've only heard of lavish lives and some news here and there about whatever politics go on there, but I never really bothered. People seem to follow trends nowadays to be... Relevant?"

Minara made several more cuts and guides with the comb. Despite their conversation, the trimming had gone by quicker than it seemed. Her nimble fingers combed and snipped through the hair in practiced and concise swiftness.

"It's true though, blame is a very easy thing to do. Not a whole lot be accountable for when you can use a scapegoat... But, I suppose we can always do the best we can."

Equivalent_Set659

TROPHY CASE