Shared Story: Character Campfire

"Thanks."

Bianca really needed that meal. But then, he insisted that she shouldn't be afraid of his scary friend, because he's actually nice, like in a Mr. Kunstler kind of way. Only... Grandpa and Mr. Kunstler don't like each other. She looked off at nothing in particular, merely nodding in response.

Again, she wanted to look at the velociraptor, but then she stopped herself. Didn't it talk? She remembered hearing words coming out of its mouth, but then the one guy kept trying to get it nod or shake its head. She paused, considering as she watched it casually, then slowly approached the dinosaur, tilting her head quizzically.

"...Can you talk?"

"Hmph, birthday parties." the magician rolled his eyes, his face pinched in a slight sneer, though he sounded only somewhat indignant. "Yes, well, that'll be the day."

His companion, meanwhile, was busy examining all of the other people present; measuring them with his blank, round, and very white eyes. The companion very much doubted that they were back on Earth, but even for a place like Aurimundi, this gathering was strange. And that was saying something.

Presently, the companion took notice of a small creature he thought he had seen watching him earlier. The feathered creature looked to be a velociraptor, of all things. It's appearance here was by far the most outlandish of the entire group— though the companion couldn't imagine the unspoken reactions towards his own appearance. The companion wondered if the dinosaur was, perhaps, a changed-person from Aurimundi. It had not yet uttered a word, but that—sadly—was not unheard of. And moreover, there were a couple of people in the gathering who had yet to speak, like the man clutching his gun, and hiding behind one of the gas-pumps. The companion supposed that perhaps big entrances did not, in fact, do favors for everyone.

The magician gave Damien a sly smile. "No, I'm afraid I don't perform at birthday parties. However, I do have a fantastic new trick I've been working on, in which I transfigure a tin-man into a bird. It's flashy and colorful, and the end result is astounding! I'm certain the kids would get a kick out of it." he pursed his lips, trying very hard to downplay his smile. "Do you want to see it?"

His companion looked down suddenly, shaking his head slightly and muttering, "Mud... no."

The magician frowned for real this time and looked up at his companion in annoyance. "Oh you prod, I was kidding!" He then looked between his companion and Damien, returning his broad grin to his face. "Of course I was kidding! Honestly, you people..."

He paused for a moment, looking at his companion, then slowly turned his head back to Damien, giving him a very intense stare with his silvery eyes. "Unless, of course... you're truly curious."

Philip crept closer to the fire, mostly to distract from the magician's mention of performing another magic trick. He was starting to get really nervous about that guy. "Yes, let's go. Just wish I had more than six rounds." He holstered the revolver and let out a rattling sigh.

And if he hadn't ducked instead of shot when Nathan showed up, there would only be five.

He made brief eye contact with everyone who he wasn't sure knew his name, including Nathan and the magician. "I'm Philip, by the way."

edited 24th Sep '12 7:47:11 PM by SnowyFoxes

Damien stared back, just as intensely. He was curious. He was very curious. He held out the torch.

"If you're coming with us, come with us. If you're not, light me."

Whitetip was jarred out of her own thoughts when someone asked her a question. The question, in and of itself, was rather obvious to her - had anyone even heard her utter a word, at least of a language they would understand? The answer to that was a certain "no." However, Whitetip was more surprised at the person who just asked her that - the little girl, who Whitetip was sure was called Bianca. Whitetip was certain this girl was actually afraid of her, cowering up next to one of her companions when she had first arrived here. Maybe Felix's attempt to communicate her had made her braver somehow.

Whitetip tilted her own head to the side, as she had done numerous times previously when observing someone. She wondered how this question would be best answered - she could try speaking again, but given Bianca's earlier reaction to her, Whitetip wasn't certain if that was the best of ideas. On the other hand, a simple head shake wasn't going to get the entire point across.

In the end, she decided on both. She shook her head slightly, and then added, "Not in a language you would understand, anyway." Again, the words came out as unintelligible growling to anyone who couldn't understand her.

The glance of Mr. Great didn't go un-noticed - Whitetip glanced in its direction the second she noticed it was looking at her. Given how monochrome it was, it was difficult to discern what its facial expression was like or what it might be thinking, but she gave it a wary glance regardless.

Are you thinking about eating me? You better not be thinking about eating me, she thought.

She could get the general gist of what it was saying- well, it sounded more like a she now that Bianca was paying attention. Something about not being able to understand her... only, she kind of knew what the dinosaur was saying. Was that a moot point? She heard Papa say it before.

"But... I do. You just said that I wouldn't understand you, but I do," she said rather bluntly.

She snuck a glance at Philip. He seemed calmer now, but there were lots of times when Uncle Eli was calm and non-embarrassing, too, not that he was ever like that when she wanted him to be. All she had to do now was wait and see how this dinosaur would go.

Right now self preservation was off the utmost priority, and as non appealing as walking into a cave was it definitely beat having to deal with some crazy who claimed too, and unfortunately appeared to practice magic. A message pops up on his visor, a simple analytical scan from the surrounding area, the velociraptor was indeed a velociraptor despite Bianca conversing with it, and Damien was practically half machine, some of which seemed to be failing; not surprising considering the crude savage and foreign design. As for the magician? The scanner was reporting an error. Spelunking with some humanoid half breed wasn't on his agenda, but it sure beat the alternative.

"Allow me." The whole set of armour glows illuminating the surrounding twenty feet in solid light. He turns his head to look at Damien.

"Torches are so unreliable anyway."

edited 24th Sep '12 8:14:50 PM by Aqueos

Wait...Bianca could understand her? Whitetip, suffice to say, was rather surprised. Granted, Bianca's interpretation wasn't exactly what she had just said, but the fact that another person here could at least get the basic gist of what she was saying was a rather unexpected turn of events. Maybe, through this person, she could make a few things clear to the rest of the group.

"Oh, really?" she responded, still somewhat skeptical. "Then maybe you can tell everyone else here that I am not 'Raptor.' My real name is Whitetip. And while I'm on the subject...."

She leaned in a little closer, or more accurately moved her head a little closer. "I. am not. dinner."

A sudden burst of light from somewhere distracted Whitetip from the conversation of sorts. As it turns out, there was yet another newcomer she hadn't noticed, whose entire body seemed to be emitting the light. Whitetip blinked a few times to adjust her eyes to the light, and wondered what this new person was trying to accomplish. There was some talk about going to find an animal den, but she couldn't figure out if this display was connected to that at all. To her, it was more of a distraction...well, moreso than the appearance of Mr. Great and its companion, and the people who kept trying to communicate with her, at any rate.

Damien kept the torch, and gestured with it towards his general person. "I'll keep the stick, if it's all the same to you," said Damien. "Technology isn't exactly foolproof."

He oriented the map, studied it for a moment, and set off in the direction of the den.

"Scale's a bit rough on the map, but the cartographer made it there and back. I have to think we can too. "

"If you insist."

Nathan snaps his fingers and a small bolt of electricity hits the torch lighting it on fire.

"We can go now right?"

He found it awfully ironic that someone depending so much on technology would take a mere torch over a light.

Philip stared at the torch.

"Take is a complaint if you want, but I seem to be running into an awful lot of magic lately," he muttered, keeping one hand on his revolver to reassure himself.

"I take that back. Magic has been fucking things over since forever. Carry on, my dear mages. Are we ready to go yet?" He sighed and began coughing again, the worst fit in a while. "Well, just one thing. Are there any water sources marked on that thing? I... er...." He sighed and casually brushed some of his hair into his face. "I can't read very well, even when it's light. I just—just—well. I did join the army, after all. Sorry. Hopefully the rest of you intellectual heavyweights can make up for my lack of of literacy." More and more bitterness became apparent in his voice as he went on, but he managed to restrain himself better towards the end.

edited 24th Sep '12 10:58:30 PM by SnowyFoxes

Nathan raises an eyebrow, "No that was simply a display of technology, something that could be accomplished by anyone here given the right means. Just a simple matter of smashing some atoms together."

He looks over at the map, and after squinting and even using a zoom feature he walks over but he can't quite decipher it himself and the CPU shines no light on the matter, "Still though, Phillip has a point, we do need water."

He glances over at the campfire and sighs, "And preferably some means of purifying it. I guess we'll be back." It seemed he wasn't going to just be able to leave these people behind after all, no matter how stupid or menacing.

edited 24th Sep '12 11:30:16 PM by Aqueos

"Thanks," said Damien, torch in his left hand, so at least he would feel it if his flesh started to burn. The thing was clumsy, he would be the first to admit. It barely made a difference next to Nathan's armor, but it was warm and it would die when it was bloody well meant to, and Damien could always use a little more of that in his life.

"Animal den put on hold," he said, once he had gotten within speaking distance of the fire. "We're going to find water. Anyone else coming?" He glanced at each of them. "Or have you got anything we can fill up and bring back?"

The magician's smile grew wider. "Join you on an expedition to an unidentified sludge pool in the meager hope of discovering some filthy drink?" He considered the prospect... for about a second and a half, before tipping his hat in a nod, "Very well, I shall share with you, my company. You gloomy bunch seem to be in dire need of it."

His companion's arms slumped slightly forward in what might have been a sigh. He made a move to follow the magician, but the magician held up his hand to halt him. "I'm afraid I must ask you to stay behind, Signore Great." He turned to aim one eye at the tall fellow, who was opening his mouth in protest. "Only for now, good fellow. I'm certain that those gathered here around our magnificent fire will find themselves able appreciate your stalwart presence!"

"And besides, I wouldn't want you to put a damper on our fun, you delightful stick in my side." The magician smiled a teasing smile, then turned away, moving to stand next to Damien and holding himself in a very dignified manner, as though he were posing for a picture.

His companion did not speak, but his normally very round eyes narrowed slightly, in an expression that may have been concern, but... concern for who? The magician, or those he planned to travel with? After a few moments, he bowed his head and clasped his hands together. "Very well, I will stay here." He raised his head slightly to catch the magician's eye— or so it seemed in any case, and added, "...be responsible."

The magician tut-tutted and shook his head slightly, as though he were disappointed with something, but otherwise did not respond.

edited 25th Sep '12 6:39:51 PM by Ryuhza

"Hi, Whitetip." Nice name. It was like how the kitties were named in Warrior Cats, but that's because they were cats and not people. It seemed to be an animal thing.

She nodded when Whitetip insisted that she was not food. Well... to be fair, everyone has to eat, right? Sometimes, vegetables just don't cut it.

But then there was the light. Another new guy just lit up behind her because he didn't like torches. Why? That's like taking the sun out of the sky. He was a soldier, right? Weren't soldiers supposed to hide? Can't he use night vision? Sure, everything will be green, but then someone won't mistake you for the sun. Or maybe that was the point.

Bianca turned to Damien. "Can you bring the map back, please? I found a lot of maps in there-" she motioned vaguely at the gas station building "-but they show towns that aren't there anymore. So I used them for a fire."

It used to be standard for gas stations to hand out free road maps before the 1970s.

Just north-east of the animal den on the map was labeled "Sledge Pool."

"Huh," said Damien. "Imagine that."

He laid the map back down in front of Bianca. It was too big to take with them anyway. "So, you can read?" he asked.

Apparently, Bianca had missed the "tell the others" part of Whitetip's statement on the matter. She wasn't too concerned about this, though - after all, if someone called her "raptor" or "the velociraptor" while Bianca was in earshot, she was likely to correct them. In fact, that would be preferable, as "raptor" wasn't the word Whitetip and others of her kind used to refer to themselves. Then again, the word they did use was simply "being," so maybe she could remember those words, take them back to her pack, and tell them about them and have a new title to throw around.

She turned her head towards the map when Damien set it down in front of Bianca and herself. What was probably perfectly understandable to someone such as Damien was more or less gibberish to Whitetip. There were those scribbles around it that Damien had called "writing," but as her kind really wasn't equipped with the ability to draw symbols like that (and didn't need to), those words were nothing more than odd markings. The drawings weren't very indicative, either, for much the same reasons.

She looked at the map for a few moments, then looked around the area at no one in particular, then looked back at the map. From this, she could get that it probably represented the surrounding area, but what reason was there for that? Her kind had never even heard of these before, and they got around just fine without. Maybe one of the others could offer an explanation.

Felix, who had been staring at the magician speechless until now, finally spoke. "Wait. Are you sure this is a wise decision? We have to be careful when we go about our business here. Didn't somebody say something about wolves? I mean, I'm as thirsty as all of you guys - in fact, I've been traveling with only the tiniest drops of water to hydrate me, so of course I'm thirsty. But we can't just rush to the... sledge pool, or whatever. We have to prepare."

He unhooked the metal canteen clasped to his belt, turned the cap, and opened it upside-down. A single drop of water fell out, splashing on the desert sand. "Nothing left in here," said Felix, screwing the cap back on again. "...so, yeah. The point I'm trying to get across is that even though we need water, we can't blindly go into the desert. There's a... a saying, or something. I heard it a few times. It's... something along the line of... 'fools rush in.' Yeah, that's it." Felix glanced around at the others. "I don't know about you guys, but I'm no fool. Caution. We need to proceed with caution."

"Unless, of course," said Felix, looking at the magician wryly, "you can just magick the wolves away, or perhaps cause them to burst into flame."

edited 25th Sep '12 1:05:59 PM by Collen

Bianca took the map back.

'Can you read'?

Maybe it wasn't normal for kids to be able to read where Damien was from? But... then again, he was a cyborg. Cyborgs come from the future, where everyone is smart. Mama also told her that in some places, the men really don't like women being able to do stuff and don't even want them to be able to read, so... but, then, he would've been mean to her.

Eh...

"Yeeeaah... I'm in sixth grade. I'm reading Harry Potter. Why, is it not normal for kids to be able to read?"

edited 30th Sep '12 7:38:37 AM by CrystalGlacia

"Nah, it's normal to be reading." Damien shrugged. "It's just not so normal to be out in the desert alone with a broken arm. My whole frame of reference is called into question. But I was wondering if you... you and Whitetip, I mean," She seemed to have named the velociraptor. Cute. "Could work on the map, then, while we're gone?"

"This is all what I've added," he pointed to "Au Gu ST" at the top of the map, and other marks like it. "I can mostly tell what that says, but this stuff," He pointed to one of the thicker clusters of scratch-marks, where the writing got very small and very close. "I find new things every time I look. I can't read half of them and I forget another third. Maybe see if you can find us anything useful?"

He turned to Felix. "And I hate to be a downer, kid, but I don't think that's going to work."

Damien rubbed the back of his neck. He had spent the past few days knowing that the wolves would be the end of him. Every stick of firewood he had gathered had been keeping them at bay for five more minutes. Back home, he could have killed a wolf or two with his bare hands and thought nothing of it. Out here, he might as well be strangling nightmares. But how could he explain that to Felix? It was something you just had to see.

"Alright... Picture this." He drew himself up to his full seven feet and held a hand a little below his waist. "About this tall, and dark. Not black. Black stands out. They're the kind of dark you just don't realize is there. Not all that big around, because they're nothing but muscle and bones. They've got nothing to eat out here but each other, and I've seen them do it."

One minute, they would be lazing around in the moonlight. The next, there would be one less of them, and a cloud of fur rolling away across the sand.

"Now, look out there." He pointed well beyond the glow of the firelight, where the stars turned everything to silhouette. "See that pile of rocks?"

edited 25th Sep '12 2:09:28 PM by DaeBrayk

Felix bit his lip, squinting where Damien was pointing, into the darkness. He could barely make out the outline of a pile of rocks. "Yeah... rocks. What about them? ...You're not going to launch into some long, wordy metaphor involving the rocks, are you?"

Damien smirked. "No."

He stuck two fingers in his mouth and let out a short, shrill whistle. The pile of rocks, as well as three other piles that Damien actually thought were rocks and a few clusters that had, seconds ago, been cactuses, all exploded in movement. When they flurry stopped, at least two-dozen wolves stood perfectly alert, eyes flashing, ears perked for another sound.

"Now," said Damien, voice lowered, as if they were listening in. "We can go quietly to get water while our torches still burn, and while Nathan's suit still has power, and hope they continue to stay away from the light, or..." he gestured again to the wolves, still watching them, beginning to fade from visibility because they stood so still. "Or we could fight them. All of them." His voice took on a synthetic edge as he reached the low end of his range. Instead of vocal fry, he began to sound badly prerecorded. "You tell me, Felix. Which of those options sounds foolish?"

The magician finished counting the matches in a dark box he had drawn from his shirt pocket, and sighed melodramatically. "Precisely six matches short, I fear." He grimaced and shook his head, then peered into the darkness, vying for a better look at the distinct shape of the wolves.

"Those brutes bring to mind an unpleasant image of the troupe of ballerinas that held a part in my show back in Heights. If I'm not mistaken, that foul, flesh-hungering glint in the eyes is the very same as the one that those ballerinas gave me each and every morning! Truly remarkable!" He rubbed his beard for a moment and added, "However, These particular beasts aren't nearly as hairy."

Felix looked at the wolves nervously, backing up closer to the light of the fire. "I- I'm not sure," said Felix quietly. "It depends on how much power we have, and how tough the wolves are to kill. They outnumber us, obviously, but we can trust each other, I think. You said the wolves will kill their own kind, didn't you? We wouldn't do that. Well, I wouldn't, at least."

He grasped around his belt and pulled another thing loose from it - a sheathed dagger, one which he'd been carrying all throughout his trip. He'd use it to cut his hair if he wasn't so averse to the idea of doing that out here in the desert. Felix pulled the dagger out of its sheath, the metal gleaming in the firelight. "This is all I got," said Felix, holding the dagger up for Damien to see. "One dagger, one size. I'd rather not take on the wolves, I think."

Damien seemed to had caught Bianca saying Whitetip's name, so that was one other person down. However, being called by the right name was the least of her concerns right now. As it turns out, the sound of Damien whistling made a bunch of seemingly inanimate objects suddenly burst into life just beyond the reach of the fire. If Whitetip hadn't known any better, she would have thought them to be the four legged, dim witted herbivores that made up most of her pack's diet. However, as far as she knew they didn't huddle together and hang around in groups. And they weren't fuzzy in the slightest.

From what the others were saying, these creatures were apparently called "wolves." Whitetip didn't find their appearance to be particularly scary - no, what she was worried about was that there was a lot of them. She was used to being in a pack, but raptor packs usually maxed out at seven or so. Even if the rest of the pack was here with her, they'd still be horribly outnumbered. By herself, she might be able to take out one or two depending on how well armed they were, but she wasn't going to last very long. Back home, if anyone in her pack had seen something this, there was only one reasonable action to take - to run for their lives.

However, that wasn't an option here. For all she knew, these wolves could very well have the entire site surrounded. Not having any ideas herself, she cocked her head, listening to what everyone else had to say about the situation and how it was best handled.