I had less problems today, but I’m still angsting at the characterization. I’ve been told that it seems like I’m a little hesitant with these characters, which is totally understandable because they’re not my own.
With my own characters, there’s no questioning whether they’re in-character or not, because I know what makes them tick. However, as I’ve explained before, these are rather minor characters that only show up in very specific missions, so there isn’t a lot of information about them.
After rereading the steaming piece of crap what I’d written yesterday, I realized that I hadn’t described Adelheid at all. I’m really not good with descriptions. I rewrote the entire beginning (after the preamble) but I’m not going to post it here tonight; just click on the permalink below to see it.
In case anyone was wondering about that, actually, the Google Docs version is just a copy/paste from Word, so yes, the formatting will be borked.
And incidentally, here’s a screenshot of her, as well as Nicolaus in the background (I haven’t described him yet on purpose). Yes, he has Darian’s model (but blond). Yes, and that’s Ulbrecht’s model, too. Why does every male Scholar in this game have my model?!
Anyways, am I doing it right, both with the descriptions and her characterization? She’s decidedly not as… um… insane quirky, though, which worries me.
Title: Exodus
Series: Final Fantasy XI
Characters: Adelheid, Nicolaus, Erlene
Rated: T, rating subject to change
Word Count: 4,493/50,000
Permalink: http://docs.google.com/View?id=dgz5qq6w_31cd3dzpfb
“Oh, please, Nick?” Adelheid clasped her hands together in front of her, looking all the world like a little girl that wanted a chocobo for her birthday. “I’ve been wanting to go there for a while…” She looked up at me with a look that made my heart feel like it’d sunk down to my stomach, and I nearly lost it when another “Please…?” escaped her lips.
“Alright, alright…” I sighed and ran my fingers through my blond hair as I mentally calculated how I could fit an expensive meal in my monthly allowance, and I gestured to allow her to step off the platform first. “Let’s go spend all my money, then…”
I immediately knew something was wrong when I saw Adelheid looking even more distracted than usual.
I was on my way back from delivering a report when I saw her all but run out of the Jeunoan embassy, her eyes unfocused as she’s wont when she had something on her mind. The fact that her fists were balled up was completely out of the ordinary, though, and in all the time I’ve known her, I’ve never seen her resort to physical violence.
I quickened my stride to catch up to her, but I nearly had to sprint in order to catch the lift going down to the main level of the Metalworks. With her back towards the front of the lift, she didn’t seem to notice me hopping on, and I regretfully resorted to poking her on the shoulder to catch her attention.
I did indeed catch her attention as she jumped up about a foot with a yelp of surprise. She turned towards me with an angry glare, but whatever she was going to say evaporated along with her expression as her cheeks flushed with embarrassment.
“Oh, Nick! I’m sorry, I thought you were…”
“Are you alright?” I ignored the jarring nickname that Adelheid had a tendency to call me, and I frowned as I looked at her closely, hoping that she wasn’t offended at the fact I’d cut her off mid- sentence. “What happened?”
Adelheid opened her mouth to say something, but she immediately clammed up and shook her head. “Could we talk someplace else?” she asked in a voice that was barely audible over the churning the lift gears made as it made its way down.
“Alright.” I tapped my finger against my lips as my mind raced through the names of eateries in Bastok that weren’t closed from the aftermath of the war. “How about the Steaming Sheep?”
Adelheid made a face as she shook her head. “I’ve been sick there one too many times. There’s something in their food that simply doesn’t agree with me…”
“The Bat’s Lair?” [AN: Is this the Sandy dive or the Bastok dive?] I winced as I suggested the location — it certainly wasn’t a place to which one would take a lady.
“I’d be tempted to drink if we went there…” The corners of Adelheid’s lips curled into a smile that was laced with a hint of mischief; I shook my head at that, memories of the LAST time she’d become inebriated suddenly coming back to me.
“Right. Bad idea. REALLY bad idea.” I tried not to shudder as I continued wracking my brain for someplace we could talk.
“There IS that coffee shop that opened on Gold street… the one with the white and teal awnings?”
“The Ivory Dove? But that one’s expensi-…”
“Oh, please, Nick?” Adelheid clasped her hands together in front of her, looking all the world like a little girl that wanted a chocobo for her birthday. “I’ve been wanting to go there for a while…” She looked up at me with a look that made my heart feel like it’d sunk down to my stomach, and I nearly lost it when another “Please…?” escaped her lips.
“Alright, alright…” I sighed and ran my fingers through my blond hair as I mentally calculated how I could fit an expensive meal in my monthly allowance, and I gestured to allow her to step off the platform first. “Let’s go spend all my money, then…”
I could have sworn I heard Adelheid say a quiet “Yay!” as she went on ahead of me. At least she did seem to be in a better mood… but I had a feeling that her joy would be short- lived once she told me what was wrong.
My suspicions were confirmed as soon as we’d seated ourselves at a quiet table inside the coffee house. The lady who took our orders gave us a knowing smile, and no amount of shaking my head seemed to change her mind about my relationship with the woman sitting across from me. After receiving our drinks and food – she’d ordered some kind of sugar-rimmed coffee covered in whipped cream and crowned with a cherry on top, along with a dessert consisting of a mountain of cream puffs drizzled with chocolate and even more whipping cream — she took a sip of her beverage and looked at me squarely in the eyes, her ditzy, girlish expression having completely vanished in favour of a disturbingly serious look.
“I’ve been deployed to Grauberg.”
I blinked for a moment, not really comprehending the problem with this particular situation. “Alright…?”
“On a combat operation,” she clarified with the same deadpan expression and tone, though her disgust was obvious to me as her voice was tinged with it.
Deploying Adelheid’s unit for a combat operation was akin to sending a fresh recruit to go slay a dragon. It’s not that Adelheid couldn’t fight — she was definitely one of the best Scholars I’ve had the pleasure to work with, and her command of White and Black Magic was better than some of the dedicated mages I’ve worked with — it’s that she doesn’t fight all that well. Her unit is more geared towards reconnaissance. Her men can hold their own in battle, but a mission like that was more suited towards one of the Heavy Infantry divisions, or even the Musketeers…
“This makes no sense to me.” Adelheid ran her finger around the rim of her glass, the large sugar grains falling inside the concoction. “They found some Quadav hiding out at an encampment in the northwest… but why my unit?”
“I was about to say exactly the same.” I shook my head, my mind not able to process what she’d just told me. “But who…?”
“Some stuffed shirt from the Duchy.” I couldn’t help but wince again at her words… she never usually used epithets like that. “I don’t even know his name. He didn’t give me a choice, too, and I hesitate to see anyone higher up for fear of sounding like I’m whining.”
She then took one of the cream puffs and stuffed the entire thing in her mouth while I thought about the situation. I hated feeling helpless like this, but no amount of thinking could come up with something that could help her out.
“So what will you do?” I lowered my voice as I posed the question, even though there was no one around us that could overhear out conversation.
“I haven’t a choice but to do as I’m told.” She shook her head and stuck a finger in the whipped cream on her coffee. “But I will certainly approach someone about this upon my return.” She straightened up and stuck her finger in her mouth to savour the sugared cream; she then took her spoon and mixed the entire thing together, cherry and all.
“That sounds like a sound course of action. But, er…” I paused as the words I wanted to say – “Please be careful” – caught in my throat.
“I’ll be careful, Nick.” I felt my cheeks flush as Adelheid smiled softly at me. “I promise.”
“Alright.” I sighed quietly, then, eyeing the still- imposing mountain of pastry before my colleague, I quickly filched a cream puff from the bowl in plain view. “But I’ll hold you to that.” I popped the dessert in my mouth, and as I felt the sweetness overwhelm my senses, I tried not to choke too hard at the ridiculous amount of sugar in that little piece of pastry.
Adelheid giggled at that, and after I recovered, the rest of our time together was dominated by chit- chat and gossip completely unrelated to the situation at hand.
Adelheid navigated through the encampment, her men following close behind her. The tension in the air was heightened by the complete silence in the area, and that was only broken by the sounds of movement coming from her unit.
The encampment was, for lack of a better word, deserted. While there were signs that it had been previously occupied – there were broken weapons and tools scattered throughout the camp, as well as some half- destroyed fortifications and siege weaponry – there wasn’t a sign of any living thing in the area, whether it was beastman or otherwise.
“Being a pessimist is generally the last thing on my mind, Commander…” Wilhelm frowned as he fell into step next to Adelheid. “But this is incredibly suspicious. Did the Jeunoan official say when he’d acquired his intelligence?”
“He did not…” Adelheid shook her head and sighed resignedly. “I’m beginning to think that he might have been mistaken about their location… or perhaps they simply aren’t here…”
“That could be.” Wilhelm nodded as he stepped forward. “In any case, if I could suggest that we explore the encampment one more time befor-…”
Adelheid screamed as she saw a sudden gush of blood, and as her eyes met the source, she watched in horror as Wilhelm, with a crossbow bolt through his head, fell mutely to the ground. It was then that she realized that she and her men were surrounded by a platoon of Quadav, and judging from how organized they seemed, it was apparent that they had been expecting them.
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