Rory and Chara continued to walk down the grassy area. Chara had mentioned that she had seen a couple others here, but where were they? And how would they be able to find their future companions?
"Maybe we should shout really loud and hope they hear us?" Chara suggested.
"Ohhh that's a great idea. And if that doesn't work? Well all that yelling will attract bears and Grimm, who will maul us so hard that our screams will certainly be noticed!" Rory snarked.
"Hmmm…I don't actually know Rory, I mean won't we be seriously injured?" Chara asked once again obliviously. Rory rolled his eyes.
Rory then pondered to himself what an actual, viable solution would be. He thought about what he saw earlier, and then remembered Chara's semblance.
"Chara, could you try to grab me then fly up? I can see if there are any signs of other people from up there. Like a campsite or something" Rory said.
Chara nodded and then got behind him…wrapping her arms around the redhead. The young man blushed once again, Chara would then fly upwards.
Once they started to get very far off the ground, Rory began to feel very uncomfortable. Just being so high up felt extremely scary for some reason, it made him kick his feet slightly. He was fine on the ship earlier, maybe it was because on the ship he was on a flat surface? Either way, he was scared now. But he did his best to hide it. He focused as much as he could on looking around like he planned, his eyes finally landed on a bit of smoke coming from a nearby area, it could have been someone cooking something.
"The…there, we should go there" Rory said pointing to it, holding his petrifying fear back as much as he could. Chara gently flew over to the location Rory pointed to, and set him down gently as well. Rory breathed heavily but seemed to calm down relatively quickly.
His speculation was correct, he could view a camp tent, and he saw the source of the smoke. A large piece of meat cooking above the fireplace. He had found another one of his intended companions and his beliefs being vindicated helped put him in a better mood. Maybe he could even get a bite of whatever his teammate was cooking.
A mood that dropped like he had been dropped hours ago, once he took a closer look at the meat cooking. It was not a pig, a chicken or animal of any sort for that matter.
It was a roasting human being.
Rory recoiled and stepped back immediately. He was shaking in terror, what in remnant was going on? Was he imagining this? He looked to the side to see Chara looking at the sight as well, with a shocked agape expression. He could see the fire and corpse in the reflection in her eyes. It was real, there was the burning dead body of a man with a mistralian army uniform.
"I've…heard Mistralian cooking tasted good but this is ridiculous" he joked, but this remark sounded much more desperate. It was clear Rory was trying to cope with the situation.
After a minute of processing, he looked back at the burning fire. Trying to investigate the situation was difficult, there were so many factors of what he was looking at he wished he could just ignore. The way his burnt black flesh looked…it was horrific.
"Let's….look around, see if we can find anyone…or who did this" Rory said, Chara nodded.
They both used their semblances to avoid being immediately viewable, Rory became a shadow and slouched down, and Chara lifted from the ground so she could avoid making footsteps. Rory stepped forward, with the floating Chara right behind him. They viewed the area around the bushes and trees.
Finally, they were able to spot somebody else.
It was another girl in feminine knights armour, her's had a notable silver color. She also had a mask that looked like a bird, maybe it was a hawk? She also had a backpack off to the side
She was standing right there, practicing fighting with a sword. Was this the one who was burning the guy's body over there?
The girl with the bird mask then seemed to tilt her head slightly, as if she had heard something. She then turned and seemed like she was looking right at Rory. He prepped for if she planned anything.
"I see you, shadow boy and floaty girl" she said.
"Hello….bird face, I just wanted to ask…Are you the one who killed that guy over there?" Rory asked.
"My name is Shiloh. And if you are talking about the cooking soldier, I did not….though, I have a decent idea of who did, I saw that display then met…a certain person eating his cooked arm"
Rory felt like he was about to throw up.
"And….what happened to her?" Chara asked.
"Wild girl!" A loud and sudden noise was heard. All 3 of them pointed their heads in the direction of the sound.
"I put her over there," Shiloh explained.
They walked over in the direction of the song.
She was hanging ankle-first from a free branch. The girl had black and red coloured hair. Her outfit was different from the others as well. She wore some kind of corset on her stomach, with a pair of metallic plates on her upper chest. She had rather peculiar shoulder plates, on her right shoulder plate was a golden replica of a comedy mask. On her left plate was a golden replica of a tragedy mask. She looked like she was wearing some sort of black pair of small hot pants, over the red fabric visible on her legs.
The most notable little factoid to him, was her face, or rather what he looked at in place of it. It was a white mask, perfectly designed to resemble a female's face. Its face had black lips, and there was a sort of art pattern on the mask. There were red and yellow lines waving around the eyes and the cheeks. It was an interesting pattern.
Despite the many eccentric parts of her outfit, it was still not the most notable thing about her. That was how she, while restrained by the rope, swung around side to side while singing bombastically.
"She's a wild girl! Can't hold her down if you tried, wild girl! Ready to travel a wiiild world!" She sung
"Hey!" Rory called out. The girl stopped both her singing, and her movement. She blinked a few times before looking at Rory.
"Are you the…one who killed the guy over there?" Rory asked calmly.
"Nope, the bastard was a Mistralian scout who got killed probably weeks ago, I am just glad I got him before the meat expired" she said.
Well at least she wasn't a murderer…or didn't kill this specific guy At Least.
That led to a different question however.
"...Why did you eat that guy?" Rory asked, this was not a question he ever dreamed he would ask, yet here he was, in the middle of the Forest, having to explain it.
"Didn't like the fruit out here, found him, saw he was a Mistralian soldier and figured I could eat the fellow guilt free" she admitted rather bluntly.
"That…that is wrong!" Chara said, stepping forward.
"Even if he worked with the enemy, he was a human being! No human deserves to have their remains desecrated" Chara said.
"That's a lame way to look at life" the mysterious masked girl replied, flabbergasting Chara from that response. She went back to swinging side to side.
Rory realized this whole conversation was raising more questions than answers.
"Alright let's just get to the big questions then! Who the hell are you, and why are you here?" Rory asked.
"My name is Qin, I was part of the Mistralian resistance, the emperor's forces found our settlement and were on their way. My commander sent me here, telling me he knew king Ozymandias and that he could help me. Ozymandias asked if I wanted to be a knight, so here I am!" She answered.
Rory, Chara and Shiloh all seemed to process what she was saying, could she really be a fellow recruit? Shiloh then walked forward and began to untie her.
"What, that's it? You're just letting her free just like that?" Chara asked.
"Her story checks out, she has a Mistralian opera mask, fitting her claim she is from Mistral. And she knows about being here to become a knight and being recruited by the king even though none of us brought it up" she explained, neither Rory or Chara could argue against that exactly. Rory just steadily realized that Ozymandias not only recruited this lunatic, but she was going to be one of his team-mates.
"Besides…it will be exciting to serve along someone with her, quirks" she said as she finished untying her. Qin fell from the tree.
"Eep! Hehehehe" she said on the grassy floor. Qin then slowly stood up, and spread her arms to introduce herself more formally.
"Nice to meet y'all! It will be just gweat being a team" she said, with a slightly childish demeanor.
Rory was really hoping this would be the last teammate of the bunch. She was already feeling like too much on her own.
"Let me just grab somethin!" Qin said before she quickly began skipping away. The 3 of them curiously followed her.
They walked all the way back to the campsite Qin had set up. All 3 of Qins teammate's avoided looking at the cooking corpse, she walked to her tent.
Once she got out, she had 2 blades.
One looked like a Valian sword, and the other was a Mistralian katana. She was evidently a duel-wielder.
"So, where are we going now?" Qin asked
Finally have all the crew together! Glad to get to this point. Next chapter we will explore our new recruits more and explore some other things I want to get to. Hopefully I can get to Shiloh's works in soon chapters.
I realized with this that I am kind of not great at describing things as I think about them. Qin's corset is meant to look like the armor of an Adepta Sororitas from Warhammer 40K. Wanted to make her feel different from the others
Anyways, see ya guys later.