Episode 19 - A New Year

[Keramane]

 

Empty BBCode block

:: Lapin "Chapi" Champagne :: 『Attack 6/11』『Defense 14』『Resistance 8』 『H.P 5 (+5 Party)』 Condition: None Active Powers: Notes: Critical Analysis Bun

She would move to open the door and usher the man of many hours in. "SO many yes. I am incredibly familiar with time, given my semblance, but traveling backwards is not within that purview. From my understanding there are a few things that might theoretically happen if we mess with the established timeline; we create a new timeline, everything is fine. We can't change things, as time is static, obviously not the case given what we've seen so far. We destroy the timeline entirely if we screw around too much, that being worry #1. Or we cause irreparable harm to those directly affected by the alteration in the timeline, namely Fen and her family, worry #2. Then there's the Sci-Fi theory of angering some over-being that governs time by messing with their work, but that can't possibly be a thing outside of softcover, dime-store novella."

 

Chapi would claim whatever seat was available and resume signing along to her words. "I understand the desire to turn back time and undo tragedy and regret, especially in the case of lost loved ones, but I can't condone it nor support it if there is substantial risk to others as a result. And there must be substantial risk, otherwise Beacon wouldn't be in its present state, nor would King remain dead. So I really want to know the particulars."

Edited March 29 by Keramane (see edit history)

[Imtar]

Nicoale blinked. Ok, Time Travel. That was a new one. Fen wasn't usually one for jokes. She waited for Fen to drop it and get to what she was really after. As the explanation wore on it sunk in that she was serious. She put down her meal and turned to face Fen, remaining quiet throughout Fen's story. She'd known a few scraps of it already and some of it she'd guessed at, but she'd never heard the whole of it before. It... certainly explained some things.

It also raised a bunch of alarms. How was time travel even supposed to work? What did she mean by there being a risk of 'breaking time'? Sorin and then Chapi beat her to the questions and Dr. Brown appeared at precisely the right time. Of course. For the moment she decided to watch Brown. Chapi had hit on questions that she too wanted answers for.

[Phoenix1]

Team FLNS

"Very astute questions, Miss Champagne," Doctor Brown replied, both speaking and signing. "The particulars are that we cannot change history at all."

"Alternate timelines are a...reasonable approximation, although not quite in the manner that they tend to be described in fiction. I tend to think of time...more like a great tree. The trunk represents the past, history. It is big, solid, and unyielding. We cannot alter that trunk, nor damage it. If it were possible to do so at all - something I have encountered no evidence of - it would take a power far beyond my Semblance to accomplish."

"Near the top, though, the trunk begins to split into innumerable branches. These themselves split and fork, cross and intertwine, press against each other in ways that alter where and how they grow. This great tangle of branches is what you might think of as the present. Each branch represents a particular path that time might take. You might imagine the thickness of each branch as some measure of its probability. As you go further, sub-branches split off, growing smaller and smaller as each event in the series becomes necessarily less likely."

"Finally, attached to the thinnest stems on each branch come the tree's innumerable leaves. These are the future; specifically, all the myriad possible futures that could exist. Like the leaves of a tree, they will wither and die and new ones sprout, far faster than the tree itself or its branches will grow."

"We cannot alter the trunk, cannot move or damage it by any force we are capable of exerting. We can alter the future trivially, we do so with every choice and action we take, as casually as leaves blow in the wind. The branches, though, that is where a Semblance like mine can do some real work, can exert enough force to bend or even break them, or allow me to leap between them, by altering events in the recent past."

"So for example, when the Headmaster requested airships for our attack on the Farm holdings, I was able to go back in time, make the request several minutes earlier, and then upon returning to the present the airships arrived presently. And today when I conveniently arrived at your door to answer your questions, it is because a version of myself in a highly probable potential future sent me back a notice that this would be a useful thing for me to do. Later, I will send that very notice back to my past self; in consistently doing so, I make such potential futures more likely in general, and so am able to more reliably receive helpful future information."

"Matters like that are relatively simple, honestly as much sleight of hand as actual time travel, although yes the time travel is a prerequisite. What we hope to do today goes further, but is still based on similar principles. Much like how, Mister Miller, I acquired your sister's weapon that day from the future. The plan is to bodily retrieve Miss Fable's brothers from the past, before they can be killed by Nevermores. This will not change history - but we will return with them to the present, and they will be able to continue their lives going forward."

"You may recall that prior to our assault on the Farm, the airships did not arrive before the Headmaster made the request. In fact, they didn't arrive until ten minutes later. That is to avoid one of the fundamental limits on traveling to the past so as to alter the present - you cannot make any alteration that would have changed your lived experience in even the smallest detail. There's a few more odds and ends to it, changing the lived experience of anyone whose actions directly led to your attempt to change the past also counts for example, but that's the main bit."

"That is why I cannot do the same thing we are going to do today to save Professor King. I learned about his death from the Headmaster, after he had been told by Professor Wulf, after she had been told by Mister Ascleps. If I went back in time and whisked Professor King to safety, then in that hypothetical timeline, I would not have learned of his death. My lived experience would have changed. Even if I told Mister Ascleps or Professor Wulf or Headmaster Lionheart to inform me of Professor King's death just as I had been, at the exact same time and in the exact same words, the lack of his body would have changed Mister Ascleps's lived experience, and since his actions directly led to my effort, it would fail. Even if I staged an elaborate deception, faking the scene so perfectly as to fool Mister Ascleps and all his enhanced senses - something I suspect would be quite beyond my capacity - it would matter not. Changing what he perceives is irrelevant - it is his lived experience, his history, that must not change. The experience of encountering an elaborate fake remains a different experience from encountering Professor King's actual body, even if Mister Ascleps himself has no way to tell the difference."

"In Miss Fable's case, her lived experience was seeing her brothers go into battle with the Nevermores, fleeing, and never seeing any of them again. That experience does not change whether they are all slain in battle, or whether they are rescued and abducted to the future by time travelers. And in fact, strange though it may sound, the second possibility is actually the most probable."

Doctor Brown reached into his labcoat, and pulled out a small egg-like device, white banded with gold, looking not entirely dissimilar from one of Solstice's egg grenades, albeit maybe a bit smaller and slightly less colorful. "This is a Chrono Trigger. It's a device I acquired from a future that...had been probable, once, long ago. It no longer is, so this device only remains in existence because I keep it...well, this explanation is going on long enough without getting into tangents, so let's just say somewhere safe, most of the time. I will need to return it there soon. What it is is a computational tool. Given inputs about a past event, it calculates the probability of an anomaly, an indication that the event was influenced by time travel - and, thus, is ripe to be influenced by time travel. It's not perfect, but used correctly and in the proper circumstances, it can greatly increase the odds of successfully making alterations to the present through actions in the distant past."

"Miss Fable, at that time, was of course far younger than she is now. She would have been far less skilled, far less experienced. She had only just lost her hearing, only just discovered her Semblance. Nevermores are fast fliers, there is no reasonable chance her brothers could have defeated the flock that she described descending upon them. She was undoubtedly and understandably terrified and distraught - whatever her skills in stealth at the time, there is little realistic chance she could have concealed herself from the Grimmsense."

"And yet, she was not eaten by a Nevermore something like two minutes later. That is intuitively unlikely. Not impossible, indeed do many things come to pass, and implausible does not mean anomalous. But the Chrono Trigger has calculated the probability of anomaly at slightly over eighty percent."

"All together, that gives us excellent odds, although you are not wrong Miss Champagne, that there are also risks. Even notwithstanding the rescue itself - because Miss Fable last saw her brothers as they entered battle, our only option will be to join the battle directly, and from what Miss Fable has described to me it was several Nevermores. The real risk, though, comes if we accidentally do something that alters the lived experience of Miss Fable's past self. If we do so, the attempt will fail."

"The reason time travel cannot change history, is where we get into something sort of like alternate timelines. That is giving them too much credit though. I can't say whether alternate timelines as they are often postulated in fiction exist, but if a change to the past would alter the time traveler's lived experience or breach certain other limits, what happens is...well, it's like going back down the tree's trunk and growing a new branch. It's a new line of theoretical possibility, which leads to myriad new theoretically possible futures. But...they are only theoretically possible; in reality, history is what it is, and those futures did not come to pass, any more than any other future that could have happened, but didn't."

"Should we take Miss Fable's brothers from the past, they will continue to exist in the present. If we take them from a theoretically-possible future state that in principle could have developed from the point in the past that we arrived at but in fact did not, then at best, they will merely not make the trip back with us, for they do not in fact exist. In worse cases, they may make the trip initially, as practically speaking the raw materials making up their bodies did exist in the past in roughly the same configurations, only to die agonizing deaths as time catches up to them and they fade out of existence one piece at a time. Though if discovered quickly enough it may be possible to stabilize them by taking them to the same place I keep the Chrono Trigger, where time catching up is...not really an issue, though I cannot say I much recommend living there full-time. In the very worst case, the hypothetically possible future that did not actually happen, but which we are currently inhabiting, will wither away before we are able to leave it, and we will entirely cease to exist."

And on that note, Doctor Brown clapped his hands once and asked cheerily, "So! Any other questions, or shall we get going?"

Edited March 30 by Phoenix1 (see edit history)

[Zelphas]

Fen listens to the explanation from Professor Brown, paling slightly but noticeably at the last explanation of what might go wrong. She hadn't probed too deeply into that question, too focused on the chance of saving her brothers--and too afraid that it might just be another false hope--that she couldn't let herself imagine things going wrong. To save her brothers, only for them to vanish, or die agonizingly, or be trapped in that lightless, empty void at Time's End, or to wipe out her team, her friends, as well as her brothers--

--wouldn't happen. She wouldn't allow herself to think of it.

Fen takes in a slow, silent breath, then looks back at her team, facing Chapi slightly more than the rest of the group. Clarification: will do this with or without help. Figure out safeguards to make sure Professor Brown is safe if I go alone. But I will go. Am asking for help, not permission.

[Keramane]

:: Lapin "Chapi" Champagne :: 『Attack 6/11』『Defense 14』『Resistance 8』 『H.P 5 (+5 Party)』 Condition: None Active Powers: Notes: If/Else/Then Bun

Chapi is a good student, and quite the smart sort. However, her focus at this moment is almost unnerving in its intensity. It is quite clear that she wishes to miss nothing and to mistake nothing. However, she sees Fen's signs and immediately sighs/speaks to ask "And what would happen if past Fen spots future Fen or worst case, directly encounters her? Or if past Fen - due to the greater amount of combat - decides to return and sees us/them? She doesn't remember us from then at present, and doesn't remember seeing them dead or alive at present, but our interference might make changes in that regard, no? Do we have a plan in place to ensure past her doesn't botch this whole thing in her emotional state? Is there some early-warning we will have before a critical error?" She takes a breath and resumes with her signing and speaking.

 

"Given that it won't destroy the timeline, the mission can still be done, and I doubt Fen is going to listen if I say otherwise for any reason, which is fine, but if this mission fails or worse, affects past-Fen in some manner, what will happen? Aside for her family facing a possibly worse death that is."

[Phoenix1]

"Past Fen spotting Miss Fable, or any of us, or even just noticing something that she didn't actually notice and that causing her to turn back or otherwise change what she did, or even if it doesn't but it's still a different experience, means the effort fails. The extent of the change to her history does not matter; as soon as her lived experience changes, we are effectively no longer in the past, but instead in an alternative potential branch of time, which for our purposes means the mission fails. There aren't any worse consequences than the one I outlined if the change is especially egregious. If Past Fen were to be killed, for example, assuming we are able to return to the present before that branch of theoretical possibility ends, Miss Fable will be fine, because in the actual past she was not killed."

"The benefit of using the Chrono Trigger is precisely that it tells us, with very high probability, that factors such as some random event just happening to go differently and cause a critical change, won't happen. You can think of it...more-or-less like a stable time loop. Fen's survival in a situation where our best knowledge suggests she probably should not have survived - in all likelihood, the Nevermores should have detected her with the Grimmsense due to her extreme negative emotional state, easily caught up to her, and killed her - is a sufficient implausibility that it suggests a temporal anomaly, which when checked with the Chrono Trigger was about eighty percent probable. Given the extraordinary unlikelihood that any other time traveler would have gone back to that point and done something that caused that implausibility to occur, then conditional on it being an anomaly, it was almost certainly us that caused it. Given that that event did happen in the past, it suggests that our journey to the past succeeded, rather than creating a new branch of probability, again conditional on it in fact being an anomaly."

"This in no way means we are guaranteed to succeed. There's about a twenty percent chance that it isn't an anomaly at all, simply a coincidence. For a group of five people in a combat situation involving something like a score of other combatants, relatively nearby one of their own past selves, that is actually an extraordinarily high probability. There are numerous things we could do, accidentally or intentionally, that could change Past Fen's experience, very much including all of us getting killed in battle and failing to prevent the Nevermores from going after her next. The chance that we do at least one of them all lives in that slightly less than twenty percent window. Given that...there really isn't any meaningful room left for freak coincidences. If it's easier to understand, think of the Chrono Trigger as having eliminated the chance of failure due to random events completely outside of our control. That's not precise, but it is accurate."

"The only early warning we will get is if we notice that Past Fen's experience has changed. Miss Fable, fortunately, has an eidetic memory, so between that and the Chrono Trigger eliminating freak occurrences, I expect we'll get at least some warning if it happens. Miss Emery's Semblance may also be able to assist in this matter. But...no, we will not get any specific warning if we fail in a way that is not apparent to our own faculties."

Edited March 30 by Phoenix1 (see edit history)

[Keramane]

:: Lapin "Chapi" Champagne :: 『Attack 6/11』『Defense 14』『Resistance 8』 『H.P 5 (+5 Party)』 Condition: None Active Powers: Notes: Mandatory Inquiry Bun

Chapi shifted her posture a little, visibly weighing the new information in her mind. It was quite clear from her body language she was not a fan of messing with timelines, safe or otherwise, and it would take some time for her to tone in again. Holding the Grimmbone necklace about her neck, she'd rub her thumb along it a few times before finally speaking up once more. "Alright. 80% is good. Do the numbers increase without Fen present?" She would glance over to Fen as she continued. "Popping in on what could probably be called the most traumatic moment of your life - albeit yes, to fix things - isn't exactly something that screams confidence in emotional stability. If one of us is going to get a redo on their childhood suffering, I'd rather the numbers be as high as possible."

Edited March 30 by Keramane (see edit history)

[Phoenix1]

"The Chrono Trigger only calculates the chance, given the historical inputs, that the event in question contains an anomaly. It cannot calculate our odds of success directly, so it cannot calculate whether particular changes to our strategy will help or hinder us." As to the rest...well, that felt like a question that Team FLNS and Fen herself were better equipped to answer than he. They had been training, fighting, and living together for a year now, after all. He may have been the more experienced Huntsman, but he only taught their Science classes, and could hardly weigh in on matters of team tactics, or team cohesion.

[Llyarden]

Sorin sat quietly for a few moments, digesting both Dr Brown's explanation and Chapi's questions. "So...let's say something does go wrong, and we get out of there before that 'branch' collapses. If that 'branch' no longer exists, is there anything precluding us from just travelling back and trying again, since our first time travel never happened at that point? Or would we find ourselves there again if we go back, even though we'd be back in a time when the past Fen never saw us, because we know we were there?"

"As far as bringing Fen goes...well, leaving aside the fact that she's the team's leader, and also short of beating her up and locking her in here I'm not sure how we'd stop her..." He trailed off for a moment, giving Fen an apologetic look. "This, uh...this is probably going to sound kind of cruel, sorry. But I think it would actually be to our advantage if Fen came with us. Like you said, travelling back to a traumatic childhood experience is not going to be easy. But one of the requirements for us to do this right is that the Nevermores don't go after the original Fen. That means, like Dr Brown said, something stopped them. Now maybe that's just us through sheer combat power...but it could also be because there was someone registering strongly to the Grimmsense much closer to them."

[Zelphas]

Have successfully evaded Nicoale's Semblance before. Would have to find me to stop me. And I can find any of you. Fen makes it clear that not going on this trip is not an option she's willing to entertain, even for a moment.

[Phoenix1]

To Sorin's question about if anything would prevent them from just going back and trying again, Doctor Brown replied, "Indeed. That is one of those other odds and ends I mentioned. The power to travel through time is not the power to create a save point and reload to try again like in a video game. Any attempt to alter the present that requires multiple separate instances of travel to the past will fail. There are a few reasons for this, but in this case the most fundamental one remains the matter of changing your lived experience."

"Although those new branches did not happen in reality, the time travel itself did. Further, though history in the sense of the accumulation of past causes and effects that determine the present state of reality we find ourself in does not change, everything we experience during time travel remains part of our lived experience, our own personal histories. If you travel back in time, and then travel back in time again, that third instance of you cannot affect the present by any means that would have changed the lived experience of either your original past self, or your prior time-displaced self, regardless of whether those experiences occurred in the actual past or a hypothetical alternate branch of history."

"Therefore, should we travel back to the past, blunder in some way that changes Miss Fable's lived experience, and then travel back once more to try again...well, there is simply no way we could make another attempt at completing the mission without our actions altering the lived experience of our original time-displaced selves who were themselves attempting to carry out the same mission."

"Although to be clear, that is not the only restriction on alterations involving multiple instances of time travel. I could travel to the past and hide a tool or weapon in a location nearby, so that in the present I could draw it forth to use. I could also travel to the past to collect an item, return to the present and use it, and then return it back to the past, although in practice the future is often a better source for useful items. But...say I were to take an airship to the forest near Wind Path, from there travel back in time to a few hours before Professor King's death, borrow Excalibur from him (with intent to return it a few minutes later from his perspective), return to the present, take the airship back to Haven, travel a day into the past, and hide Excalibur somewhere in the Combat classroom for some student to hopefully stumble upon as a jolly prank on Professor Wulf. On returning to the present, there would sadly be no Excalibur to be found, for accomplishing that alteration would have required two distinct trips to change the past, even though my lived experience during the first instance of time travel was unchanged by the second - and indeed could not have been changed by it, given that that experience happened months further in the past."

[Arlin]

Anya colored a bit at the compliment, though perhaps that was just the chill. "I mean, we can talk shop another time, but my infusion has been far more function than fashion... the latter hasn't really been a priority for me so I hadn't really considered aesthetic application."

'Clientele,' eh? Between that and the exacting and self important demands of said client, what little of Lapis' past she had seen were quite familiar to Anya, in their way. But to have that right alongside traveling with professional Hunters was a dichotomy that made it a bit surreal. Still, they probably had a fair bit in common. She certainly wasn't going to press for details here and now, but she had no problem dropping a hint for later.

"I learned the basics from my combat tutor when I was young, and have more or less tinkered on my own since then. My weapons are pretty simplistic compared to most," Anya said, gesturing to her boots, "so my spare training time goes into martial pursuits, Semblance work, or Dust infusion rather than weapon tinkering like some students."

She paused a moment, looking over the video and just blinking a moment or two at the sheer amount of detail, not just in the dress but in her new companion's memory. "Your meticulousness is downright intimidating. What I wouldn't have given to have someone like you working with me to tame Headmistress Kershaw's 'filing system'." This last was said with the bat faunus actually making air quotes by her face.

[Ridai]

Lapis patiently listens to Anya, though he does briefly interject once, namely the moment she finishes the sentence containing talking shop later. "Wonderful!" he delightedly clasps his hands, but with his fingers outstretched, forming an upward V-shape. "Let me know when is most convenient to you, I'll make pastries. Tea, coffee, juice, water?" Lapis is already going through his mental inventory of pastries matching the drink choices (also kept by Elegance). Some more due diligence will be required in case any allergies, dietary intolerances, or particular likes and dislikes exist, of course, but that can be delayed for now. Fashion- or combat-focused, it's always so nice to talk to colleagues in the craft.

Even without knowing anything about it, hearing about the "filing system" makes Mirth cackle. Elegance seemed quite pleased with herself behind her fan when the word "intimidating" was used, but that was overridden by disgust and possibly contempt once Kershaw's organization (or likely complete lack thereof) is mentioned. Mettle is still on the mentioned martial pursuits and adds them to the discussion points for later.

"From the sound of it, my condolences to your successor, if any." Life in Shade Academy must be hard for diligent people. Moving slightly back to something touched on earlier: "As for meticulousness, well, frankly my Semblance enables it to an extent. However, my mother Orchid taught me diligence and mental techniques since I was very young, especially once my Semblance appeared when I was six. My work is held to a very high standard by the clientele and has to withstand a lot of scrutiny by the client's peers, so it's important to be thorough, not to cut corners, keep records, show my work, and the like. Sometimes clients also wish to have documentation, but I... rarely receive feedback on it, to be honest." Lapis briefly presses his lips into a thin line at the last bit. (METTLE - Requesting literature to simply have it is just disrespectful to the author. MIRTH - Too rich and high class to read, they got people for that.) "Still, the work should be done right, and it's nice to make people happy with what I do."

Realizing he once again dipped back into work, Lapis switches subjects. "My parents taught me self-defense, in case of any attempted muggings or kidnappings, though my mother was adamant about needing no external tools so I would never be left unable to incapacitate someone, ultimately overruling my father who wanted me to follow the Path of the Sword. The real combat training came during the two year trip with Team SCCS, though. You... learn quickly on the job, and the team had a lot of input for me." When it came to training, Lapis is unsure whether Celes or Sabin was the more demanding taskmaster. Anya's point about needing to spend less time on weapon maintenance does feel familiar. He has a lot of time to chip away at his backlog, and help out at the infirmary and workshop.

A thought occurs. "Do you make your own boots?" Several Huntsmen make their own weapons, but building weaponry into boots while still having them function well as footwear takes a more niche set of skills, on average.

Edited March 31 by Ridai (see edit history)

[Keramane]

:: Lapin "Chapi" Champagne :: 『Attack 6/11』『Defense 14』『Resistance 8』 『H.P 5 (+5 Party)』 Condition: None Active Powers: Notes: Counter-Point Bun

Chapi sighs and signs back to Fen "No, we'd only have to find Doctor Brown, since you need him for all this." her expression one of seriousness rather than back-at-ya-ness that would normally be "appropriate" for this back and forth. "If the stars have aligned and given you the chance to save your family, then we should make sure the odds are the highest. If things failed because of your presence, Fen... Could you live with yourself if you lost them a second time?"

 

She would move to cross her arms to make her stance known, but then stop and instead resort to a lean since, well, crossed arms make it very hard to sign. "Don't pretend you can replace all of us in this scenario. And I was just checking in the first place; no need to get all hostile."

 

Looking back to Doc Brown Chapi would ask one last thing. "Is there a chance of any of us getting stranded in the past? Not that you'd leave us behind, Doctor Brown, but if we can't make multiple trips and one of us is stuck, that implies that we can't go back and get that person, doesn't it?"

[Phoenix1]

Team FLNS

"Not a practical one. We can't go back for any sort of do-over, since that would alter our lived experience, but if the only issue is someone somehow not making the trip back to the future, we could always return to immediately after we left to retrieve them. Even from a hypothetical branch, since they are still their real self from the present. Certainly, one can conceive of situations where it becomes impossible to rescue a stranded traveler, but they would be at the tail ends of probability. We will face greater risk by far in fighting the Nevermores, I should say."

Team RACL

In the midst of your conversation, a fiery light came streaking across the twilit sky, rising up the mountain. Anya and Rhys would likely notice it first, with their incredible senses of smell and hearing, but it wouldn't take long for the by this point familiar roar of Inferno Napalm Dust to reach everybody's ears.

Nick's sleigh came slamming down to land in front of you, and without getting out, Nick called, without so much as a single ho as a preamble and less jolliness in his voice than any of you have ever heard, "My team's in trouble. They grabbed Solstice. Get in!"

Robin

Your Semblance starts going haywire. Not like, "more danger than you've ever felt before" haywire. More like...it's definitely trying to warn you about something, but it's having trouble figuring out the actual danger level. It seems to be randomly flashing from "lol yes it's technically something that can take attack actions but like please" to "serious, but nothing you haven't dealt with before" to "WARNING WARNING APEX LEVEL THREAT IMMINENT!" and back again without being able to settle on which. The precognitive visions that sometimes come along with it are likewise jumbled, flickering and overlapping in ways that would have made it all but impossible to pull any signal from the noise...for anybody with a less powerful Semblance of forewarning than yours.

Perception DC 25 (Can't be Routined)

You are able to catch a fleeting glimpse of humanoid figures swathed in shadow. You can't make out any details, aside from glowing red eyes, and sharp white fangs protruding from their mouths.

DC 30

You catch a clear vision of...oh...oh gods. It's Chro Antius. In the vision he is pointing his dagger in your (your viewpoint's?) direction, and the vision ends just as the blade launches from the hilt.

DC 35

Somehow, you manage to forge past the vision of your greatest enemy and seek deeper, and you see...Ben? But Ben's a friend why would your Semblance be Warning you about him?

DC 40

This last image is incredibly faint, suggesting it's a danger you're less likely to encounter. But despite its faintness and all the other conflicting information you manage to catch a glimpse of it. A tall, pale-skinned man in elegant dark clothing. His hair is raven black and his age hard to determine from his features. He is smiling a bit mockingly, and you can see the tips of fangs just protruding from his mouth. You don't recognize him, but you're pretty sure he's dangerous.