Hello and welcome reader, to the 28th instalment of the Character Development Threads
! These shared story exercises help budding writers develop their characters alongside the characters of other budding writers. No sign-up is needed; just jump right in with your characters. It is recommended that you read the thread page and the last couple of pages before starting.
Discussion Thread Thread Page Town Map
This is a "Main Series" thread and, as such, an element of risk is expected. Rules and participation guidelines may be found on this page.
The thread page groups active characters under the areas in which they are active, enabling you to see who is at a given location in which you might be interested or to find out where to go to encounter characters with whom you wish to interact.
Kindly add your own characters to the thread page, with a link to their initial post, under the area in which they are located and update the page if they change location.
Bear in mind that if your characters are arriving at a location, they are likely to know little more than what they see and hear as they arrive - what the location looks like, what other characters are there (both of which can be read on the thread page) and the last few lines uttered and actions taken as they are arriving (which can be found in the last few posts for that location in the story thread itself), so inserting characters need not be a terrifying process.
If you need help, have any questions, or want a quick recap (if the page count is daunting), head over to the discussion page, and someone is sure to help you out!
To help guide character interaction, having your character come in with a at least one short-term and one long-term goal or motivation is strongly recommended. It is not required, but it does make it easier to drive the plot forward. Feel free to come up with rumours about what treasures, adventure, locations, and dangers may be found in the setting - they need not be true or accurate, just some hook on which to hang an adventure.
The setting is specifically designed to be a vast sandbox into which details can be inserted by participants (for example, you are free to decide that there is a particular temple in the midst of the forest in which something may be found or that there is a particular shop/hotel/restaurant in a section of the town), if you come up with a location that you desire/expect other characters to visit, please add it to the thread page as a sub-location of the relevant area.
Things change as the story progresses. If, for example, a massive battle occurs at a location and the area is now strewn with bodies and buildings are damaged, kindly update the thread page to reflect those changes, in order that other participants have an up-to-date description of the location prior to sending their characters there.
Special thanks to all those who helped in getting the thread launched or provided ideas and feedback. In alphabetic order, they include:
Blackfire667, Collen, Corvidae, daird, DarkbloodCarnagefang, EternaMemoria, Gault, Kkutwar, KillerClowns, ladytanuki, Masterofchaos, nrjxll, Pyxo, Slysheen, TroPartner, WillDeRegio and yours truly
Apologies if I missed anyone - just let me know and I'll update the post.
Between dimensions, and linked to the rest of the multiverse, lies a strange post-apocalyptic environment made up of various regions strewn with the remnants of past glory - ruins, lost technologies and magic. Here and there, nature has found its way back amongst the ruined temples and towns.
In the midst of the blighted landscape, a fresh new town has emerged - a synergy of technology, nature and magic; clean and eco-friendly; a beacon of hope for a brighter future - where travellers can rest, recharge their batteries both literally and metaphorically and get whatever they may need - technological, magical or otherwise - to aid them on their adventures.
New arrivals can turn up by diverse means in the transportation area in the north-western part of the town or by whatever other means they deem appropriate. Here they may also find for rent, lease or hire, any transport they desire from riding animals to vehicles.
The wilderness areas have not been fully explored since the mysterious apocalyptic events that ravaged the area some time ago and no one is really sure what's out there - but rumours abound.
All that is known for sure is that both magic and technology have existed here for a long time, so anything is possible...
Currently in Day 1.
Current Time: 10:00 PM
Current Weather:
General Setting: Fine, a few light clouds Rainforest: Moderately misty, the fog is slowly thickening
See the thread page for updates.
Edited by Wolf1066 on Feb 11th 2021 at 12:12:29 AM
East of Town ~ David's Truck (Claire; Arnaya; Nasur; David, Joseph; John, the Hunters)
The witch-thief adventurer Claire was rummaging through the back of the truck on all fours.
The fair skinned, five and a half foot tall twenty-year-old human woman had her strawberry-blonde hair drawn back in a short, braided ponytail, with her wispy bangs swept to her right. She had heterochromia of the eyes, her left being a bright, sparkling blue, her right gold with faint strands of black.
She was dressed in primarily black with gold accents: A fascinator bearing a small witch's hat, an Inverness cape atop a midriff bearing waistcoat that covered her ample bosom, finger-less leather gloves, and a gold belt holding up a pair of knickerbockers that were tucked into a pair of well-worn leather mountaineering boots.
Hooked to her belt was a coiled length of titanium chain, with strands of woven orichalcum laced through its length, ending in a fist-sized ball of platinum, and a small, square, brown leather magic satchel.
Raising her head slightly, she could have sworn she heard something. Perhaps it was the owner of the truck she had observed wandering off somewhere? She paused, trying to listen in on whatever was going on outside, before shrugging and returning to her ransacking of the truck.
Edited by WillDeRegio on May 7th 2019 at 8:05:52 AM
Sun-Dry Sea ~ Panzerfaust Crash Site (Pilot 0037, Novia; Moquoql)
She reached over and grabbed 0037's arm feebly, trying to keep him from childishly poking fingers outside of their immediate area.
"How can we be of assistance?" she asked of the alien.
"Do you know how to use a fire extinguisher?" Moquoql asked, still spraying with the one she had. Over the comm-chip, she heard the spaceship's automated system switch from Orange Alert to Red Alert.
The Ridge (Mustang herd, Whisper, Skvader; seven moufreta; The Frisky One)
Battle Round 1 - Roll For Initiative
The Frisky One suddenly sprouted wings, causing Ripple, Mouse and Whisper to shy away, and took off into the air. The four moufretas at the top of the canyon tried to take a flying leap to intercept her... and failed spectacularly. Flapping their forearms in an ineffective attempt to fly, they plummeted towards the canyon floor, about to splat.
Fiddler, Rook, Raven and a white gelding prepared to break formation to personally ensure the falling moufretas' deaths. As soon as the moufretas went splat, the horses would approach, rear up and slam their forehooves down on the neck vertebrae.
Meanwhile, the three remaining moufreta rushed Guardian Thunder, who prepared to dodge their plan to leap onto his back.
Lead Mare Flashfoot beckoned three more white geldings out of the defense ring to run to Thunder's rescue. The ring closed the gap behind them.
WFS Hummingbird Transporter Room
To properly demonstrate how one presented themselves, Nasur walked up to the group. Joseph gave a more appropiate explanation. The narati took this as an opportunity. He bowed again with the flowery display tipical of Nocturnan high society. "Nasur, formerly of Nocturna. A pleasure to make your acquaintance."
Counter-offended, Moquoql rolled her eyes at the time-wasting pomp and circumstance that had no place on board a ship during Orange Alert.
"David Harkness," he introduced. "Welcome welcome Nasur, once of Nocturna. We're more than happy to have you along."
Moquoql glared and cleared her throat, pointing at the orange flashing lightbulb next to the computer terminal.
"You mean," Joseph cut in, "the stuff with the thief? I already told-"
"...which I'm sure Joseph has filled you in on, but I am certain that at the end of it, or somewhere along the way, we can help you find whatever or wherever it is you need. Now," he cast a quick glance at the others, "let's get going before the waiting drives us all mad."
Before dwelling on it too much, he hurried with everyone to the platform everyone was standing, ready to go back down the same way the had come.
David watched as Moquoql approached the computer to initiate the teleport. Once everything seemed finalized, he winked and said, "A la proch-"
Outside Hub Town, David's Truck (John, NCH; David, Joseph; Nasur; Arnaya)
Arnaya was the first to re-orient herself after the teleport. Her telepathy sensed someone's presence — so that explained why the flock of birds had suddenly left — so her telekinesis instantly reacted by grabbing and stilling the air to make a voice-muffling bubble.
Arnaya telepathically warned, "Quiet, everyone!" and updated her vampiric stealth.
"Sense anything?" he asked, casting a glance at Arnaya. "Anything that the your ship's scanner might not've picked up? Landmines? Booby traps? Whoopee cushions?"
The space Arnaya had occupied was already empty.
"Huh," he said, "Still no sign of thief. Truck is just sitting there."
John cocked his gun. "Sounds suspicious. Everyone be on alert. You all have your weapons?"
The rest of the Not-Chaos-Hunter nodded, arming themselves once again. Nick put on his metal gloves and slammed his fist together, a small spark of electricity going through them.
"Uh, we're just trying to scare the thief," Adam said, putting his arrow on the invisible string of his bow, "Not kill her."
"I know that!" Nick said, "Can you guys trust me? Metal gloves can scare the living hell out of anyone. Besides, if she tries to run, the force of these things will knock her back down on the ground. That'll give David and Joseph the perfect opportunity to arrest her."
Marie flipped her hair. "We can discuss more of this once we head towards the truck."
"That's David's call," Maya said, "I say we don't go waltzing into a possible trap. Not until Ms. Vampire tells us the coast is clear."
Jackson gave an annoyed glare. "I have a scanner."
"We know!" Amy said, "But maybe she can sense something the scanner can't pick up!"
"...I guess."
Arnaya had left the cluelessly unstealthy group behind. She stalked up to the truck.
The five and a half foot tall twenty-year-old had her blond hair drawn back in a short, braided ponytail, with her wispy bangs swept to her right. She had heterochromia of the eyes, her left being a bright, sparkling blue, her right gold with faint strands of black.
She was dressed in primarily black with gold accents: A fascinator bearing a small witch's hat, an Inverness cape atop a midriff bearing waistcoat that covered her ample bosom, finger-less leather gloves, and a gold belt holding up a pair of knickerbockers that were tucked into a pair of well-worn leather mountaineering boots.
Hooked to her belt was a coiled length of titanium chain, with strands of woven orichalcum laced through its length, ending in a fist-sized ball of platinum.
Raising her head slightly, she could have sworn she heard something. Perhaps it was the owner of the truck she had observed wandering off somewhere? She paused, trying to listen in on whatever was going on outside, before shrugging and returning to her ransacking of the truck.
The stranger had looked right through invisible Arnaya. Arnaya opened her mouth in a Flehmen response, which quickly morphed into a grimace as she caught the history-scent of undead lingering on the stranger. She retreated just as stealthily as she'd approached and returned to the group.
Inside her telekinetic voice-muffling bubble, she asked, "David, Joseph, does your thief look like this?" and used Mequoql's power to make a hologram in the palm of her hand of the stranger she'd found ransacking the truck.
Edited by Miss_Desperado on May 4th 2019 at 3:09:12 AM
If not for this anchor I'd be dancing between the stars. At least I can try to write better vampire stories than Twilight.
This is my good side.
Wasteland: Southeastern Coast
The storm was getting worse by the moment. Wind was picking up, and it was starting to get difficult for Sallara to walk. Apparently, Nerea didn't seem to have such difficulty, so the Onden took refuge right next to her. It wasn't a good solution, but the Abyssal Empress was the closest she had to proper cover for now.
Varla continued focused in her incantation. Around her, small electric discharges formed and vanished, Sallara could feel them. The place was starting to fill up with static, which she felt straight on her skin. But not just that; some lightnings were striking down, fortunately away in the water for now.
Speaking of, something she had passed on before now caught her attention. An unnatural dome of water was forming far away from the shore. Despite the distance, it was large enough that it could dwarf the three of them if it was closer. And it kept growing, like a wave held on from breaking.
A bubble of water formed around the group, shielding them from the rain, and hopefully from the wind. Still, Sallara focused on the dome of water. Was it the source of ths storm? Or related to it? Varla's loud calling out did not help matters.
Turning around, she saw something useful: A large rock formation that seemed to have an opening. Hopefully, a safe haven until the storm subsided. She was briefly distracted by Lerna' who seemed to have regained her consciousness. "Lerna? Can you hear me?" Sallara tried to make herself heard over the wind's howling.
The Harbor
By now, the storm was visibly disturbing the surface, despite it being almost completely calm under it. Nayx was almost done. A few moments more, and her 'surprise' would be unleashed.
The presence pulsed against her, furious at being contained. Nayx could barely contain it now. But she just needed to properly direct it, and it would do the rest on its own. The hand with the blood remains was lifted up, and a few scrapes of it flaked off, flowing upwards and dissolving among the seawater. 'Follow this one's blood. Bring it to me.'
A thunderous voice roared above, disturbing hte depths even for a moment. "iF you DaRe To SeND THaT TiDaL WaVe WiTH iNTeNT To HuRT uS, i WiLL ReTuRN THe SeNTiMeNT aND MaKe iT BoiL WiTH DeaDLy HeaT aKiN To GeySeRS!" Kraul readied his trident, ready to strike out at any attacker, but Nayx did not care.
"Oh, it's not the tidal wave what you should worry about." She said to herself, not caring that whoever spoke probably wouldn't hear her. With a flick of her hands, she broke the spell.
Wasteland: Southeastern Coast
The water dome wobbled, and started flowing... upwards. Climbing up in the sky, the mass took a form vaguely akin to a torso. Two smaller massed flowed down both sides, making the 'arms', and a smaller one forming between the 'shoulders', as if making the mockery of a head. Said head turned towards the group dead on, despite the distance. The creature was easily several stories tall, towering over the group despsite the distance.
Sallara took a step back in shock. She had heard of these creatures before, but never before she had dreamed of seeing one with her own eyes. An incarnation of the fury of the seas. "An elemental." She managed to say, barely believing her own words. "T-That's an elemental! A big one."
WFS Hummingbird -> Outside Hub Town
Nasur nodded at David's explanation. "Oh, yes. Joseph has already filled me in." He then proceeded to give Joseph a very obvious wink and a thumbs up. Whatever that meant, who knows.
With a shudder, the scenery changed again. Once a cramped metal interior, now the group was outside again. Nasur covered his eyes to get them used to the strong light again. Looking around, the area didn't seem very different from where he and Joseph had departed, though with a small amount of green here and there. On the horizon, a gathering of clouds caught his attention, making him frown briefly.
The rest seemed focused on something he didn't notice before: A large, strange machine, completely still and unmoving. As the others discussed how to properly inspect it, Nasur decided to try his luck. Crouching on all fours, he left his artifact on the ground, slowly crawling around towards the front of the vehicle, or at least what seemed the front.
The Necropolis ~ Cody's Cove (Akane; Alexa, Cody; Syrni Sandra, Jen Jara)
Syrni Sandra slowly and absentmindedly started preening her feathers into some semblance of order, as much as she could with her imperfectly aligned follicles. She hummed, "Hmmm, so if we go somewhere where you don't have to worry about collateral damage..." and trailed off with a small speculative smile on her face.
Jen Jara kept a sly smile off of her poker face, acting like she didn't know what Akane was talking about.
Syrni Sandra shook her head, "Clearly you have no idea how hard it is to make life support machinery that won't choke on the volcanic ash we need to breathe."
"Wakey, wakey," she said, tapping the lantern a few times. The lantern sprung to life, illuminating the tunnel in a pale glow as the lantern yawned. Its singular eye, a burning ball of light, flickered to and fro, as the lantern ghost unfurled its long tongue.
The sight of the long tongue sent the Void Maidens' minds to the gutter. Jen Jara blushed, her knees trembled and her heels briefly touched the floor before she recovered her poise with a cough. Syrni Sandra took a step back and crouched again, looking down to hide her blushing face, and put her bare hand on the floor in an attempt to replace her focus on seismic activity instead of gutter activity.
She then tossed the paper lantern gently into the air, the lantern ghost coming to a rest, bobbling in midair as it cheerfully served its purpose as a light fixture.
"THAT IS SO COOL! How did you do that? Is there some sort of spell you can do to certain things? Do those things have to be prepared in some way?"
Syrni Sandra chanced a glance up as she remarked, "Huh, I know of several Mayatans who would be greatly interested in, uh..." She didn't even attempt to pronounce 'tsukumogami' "...living tools like that. They have a talent for summoning life into specifically prepared vessels, and this reminds me of that."
Akane started introducing various other youkai using cards, and the Void Maidens watched in silent interest.
Out of the corner of her eye, Syrni Sandra glimpsed Alexa's sly grin, so she watched Alexa intently with concealed eager anticipation.
If not for this anchor I'd be dancing between the stars. At least I can try to write better vampire stories than Twilight.
The Necropolis, Cody's Cove
Cody shrunk at Syrni Sandra's response. "Oh. Are they why you left, then? The volcanoes? he asked. He glanced at Alexa and jumped slightly.
"Uh, are you alright? You're looking a bit, well..." Cody's sentence trailed off as he frantically thought of a polite term to call what she looked like.
Alexa turned toward Cody and began creeping slowly toward him. "I look a bit what, Cody? Come on now, don't be shy..." she purred.
Cody masked his sudden excitement at her attempt to scare him with a scowl. "What are you gonna do, tickle me?" he taunted, then slapping his hand over his mouth.
Alexa crept closer to him and laughed, a noise like distant thunder. She pounced and began tickling Cody.
"AHAHAHAHA! Aaaaa, no!" Cody squealed in the midst of laughing. "G-get offa m-HAHAHA!" He pulled her down and tried to get her into a chokehold, but she tackled him again.
"So it's a fight you want, is it?" she teased.
Cody grinned. "You'll have to catch me first!" he said, scrambling out from underneath her and running down the corridor.
Alexa smirked slightly. "Seems he wants to play hide and seek. Are any of you familiar with that?" she asked.
< East of Town, David's Truck - Communications Withheld >
"Better safe than sorry, Jackson." David said, "The rest of you, keep your voices down until we can be sure we're alone. And let's avoid banging things together, shall we?" He gave Nick a meaningful look, though he had the feeling there was little cover left to be blown. With a small sigh, he turned his head back to Arnaya. Or rather, where he thought Arnaya had been.
He looked left. He looked right. He looked at Joseph, who could only shrug and say, "She just kind of... vanished."
Heaving a greater sigh, David faced the truck with a quiet glare, one hand against his hip and the opposite foot patting the ground.
A moment later, Arnaya reappeared, presenting a hologram of a curiously dressed woman for David and Joseph to potentially identify.
David shook his head almost immediately, "That's not her. Different clothes, different hair, not nearly as scruffy. Could be an accomplice; someone she met up with after stealing it. Oh, and Arnaya? This running-off-without-a-word-thing is not going to work. There are a lot of toes around here to be stepped on. This is my truck, we're after my quarry, we—you and me—need an open line of communication."
Joseph had little of his own to add to David's answer, and he didn't get as look at the thief as David had anyway, so he turned his attention elsewhere. Between Arnaya taking initiative into what seemed like capable hands, David trying to maintain some semblance of authority, Adam and his friends getting armed and ready for a fight, he was left not knowing what place he had in all the hubbub. To sit back and watch, only to be chided later for sitting back and watching? To anticipate what to him seemed near unpredictable? And even if he had a weapon, and he was in a position where his use of said weapon mattered, history was against him. What was to stop him from clutching up again?
Earning nothing but a frown for all his puzzling, Joe folded his arms and looked for Nasur. If nothing else, he could always keep his new friend company. He knew well how it felt to be lonely in a crowd.
Only, he couldn't find Nasur. The hooded man should have been fairly easy to pick out, but Joseph didn't see him anywhere. He turned in a circle, and felt his tail brush against something with a curiously smooth surface. Glancing at the ground over his shoulder, he spotted the solar panel and energy feeding gadget Nasur had been given, left lying in the dirt.
Uh-oh.
He crouched down, dusting the device off as he looked this way and that. And there, just as it rounded the corner of the tuck to the side that faced away from them, he spotted what looked like a pale blue Nasurian foot.
Crap.
Unsure if anyone else had noticed, Joseph crawled after Nasur, though not quite leaving the extremity of their group, or—unbeknownst to him—the sound muffling bubble Arnaya had created.
"Nasur!" he hissed, cupping his hands around his mouth as best he could to keep the sound low. "Nasur, what are you doing?"
the color todayTown Square (Mael; Sarquoql)
With a press of a button, the two vanished from the ship and appeared on the street, like they just opened a door and walked into another room.
Sarquoql briefly dropped into a primordial fighting stance, looking wildly around for whoever might have seen them arrive. Not seeing any Web of Friendship members, he relaxed and put his spacesuit's helmet back on.
Sarquoql briefly pointed at the two-person spaceship with the archaeologist in front of the airlock, alone and awkwardly staring at her shuffling bare feet. "There's no need to go to the hotel, she's right there." He looked around again, and this time recognized Soryn by the billboard. Behind his tinted visor, Sarquoql smiled at the prospect of potentially having an ally more savvy than he estimated Mael to be.
If not for this anchor I'd be dancing between the stars. At least I can try to write better vampire stories than Twilight.
[Wasteland-I think we're by the truck but also by the town?? Honestly I have no clue. It's not really clear lol]
Nick, rather embarrassingly, put his hands to the side. "S-Sorry, man. Just making sure they still worked. I'll be quieter now."
Looking over the hologram, Jackson rubbed his chin.
"Looks like some sort of scavenger," he said quietly, "I wouldn't say she's in cahoots with your thief, David, but it is good to be on guard. We may have to interrogate her."
"What are you, a cop?" Maya said, "Nah, I think she's just someone looking for something to eat. Trust me, I know these types of people."
"Maybe she can be a new friend!" Amy said, stopping herself from yelling with excitement, "We could ask her if she's seen the thief."
"I really wish I was like you, sweetie," Marie said, "But we need to be realistic. We need to know what her deal is, and we have to do it safely."
You can read minds, right? John thought, I, uh, am guessing you can, though I don't know if Nick and the others are that good...myself included. Anyway, this could help with communication. Maybe. Unless you have any other plans.
As the others talked about the strange woman or ways of talking to each other, Adam quickly noticed that Joseph and Nasur had broken off from the group, and now were dangerously close to whoever was rummaging to the truck.
Oh no, Adam thought, They don't have a weapon! He looked back at his team, who seemingly were distracted with other plans. He knew that the team motto was to never split the party, but he couldn't risk his friends possibly getting hurt, especially one he just got reunited with. Sorry guys.
Without a word, he closed his eyes, the gems gave a rather soft glow, and he seemingly faded away...or at least, that would've been the case had someone not noticed footsteps in the sand, leading to the truck.
"Mr. Nasur! Joseph!" he whispered, slowly making himself more visible, "What are you two doing? You're unarmed! Why didn't you stay with us?"
It should be noted that Arnaya will not be able to hear Adam's thoughts due to the spinel, which would slightly tip her off that something's not quite right.
[Town Square]
Well, that worked better than Mael predicted it to be.
"Alright then," he said as they walked to the airlock, "Luck appears to be on our side friend. Lets hope the day continues to be merciful."
Once they were near the archaeologist, he cleared his throat and gave a smile; one of his biggest ways to charm anyone, especially ladies.
"Hello, my lady," he said, "I've been studying the local wildlife in this area for a research paper, and I was just wondering if you could give me a ride? I haven't been here long—I've arrived her about a day ago—but I have to say, it is fascinating to see so many different species around here."
Secretly, the amethyst on his glove began the glow, but not brightly enough for most people to notice. If this cover story didn't work, then his way to charm her might. A backup plan was something else he was good at.
Edited by Masterofchaos on May 6th 2019 at 12:49:48 PM
Forest's Edge ~ Campsite (Rebecca Jane Walshm, Bonnie, Carol, Lily; Morpho; Henry)
Rebecca was still suffering post-regeneration effects and a sugar high, and she heard Morpho asking various questions, quick-fire:
"Who do you know who's named Joseph?"
"Keep your hand raised if you remember Joseph being a lizard."
"Keep your hand raised if you remember Joseph using these moonstones to turn himself human."
"Keep your hand raised if you remember Joseph forgetting us after turning human."
"Keep your hand raised if you remember thinking Joseph was acting weird besides the amnesia."
Rebecca could only raise her hand once, knowing who Joseph was. She knew who he was but didn't know him.
As for the other events, she was in such a post-regeneration delirium wearing the tattered clothing of her previous short-lived incarnation (which shouldn't even have happened, as sex-shifting wasn't in her regeneration's DNA, so this was an anomaly at best).
"He...he...help m...me...mm...me!", Rebecca said, still trying to cope with her regeneration.
The sugar high she'd had during when Morpho asked the questions was starting to wear thin.
As she was saying help, she got a coconut chocolate bar from her jacket pocket. It looked unappetising and was very black-brown in color, but she ate it anyway just to get a sugar high.
Being a metahuman meant she wouldn't get tooth rot from all this sugar; somehow the powers she'd acquired included ability to withstand certain things a human body shouldn't.
But she was human biologically, just an enhanced one.
The situation was not good, and she needed help.
Luckily, she was not going to regenerate again, but this was certainly a troubled regeneration at best.
Hopefully someone like Bonnie or Carol could sort it out. Yet she was a bit embarrassed to ask.
Rebecca had made a promise to get them a new truck, even if it meant temporarily going back to her Alternate Universe, but being a metahuman meant that she was a de facto Dimensional Traveler.
The Necropolis ~ Cody's Cove (Akane; Jen Jara, Syrni Sandra; Alexa, Cody)
The oni admiral returned Syrni Sandra's smile with one of her own. The Void Maidens seemed to have taken an interest in her and her abilities, "Well, I like the sound of your train of thought. Might take you up on that," she told her.
Akane glanced at the two tsukumogami, "What, these? No, I didn't do anything to 'em, they came to life on their own. You see, essentially, when something reaches its 100th birthday, it gains a spirit and becomes self-aware. Though... in actuality, all it takes is a long service life." She frowned slightly, "Just... don't carelessly throw something away, m'kay? Doing that causes a vengeful tsukumogami to be created."
She noticed the behavior of the Void Maidens, flashing a smirk at them. "Finding yourselves weak in the knees over a silly little lantern— or could it be..." She smirked harder, the blushing of the two was bright as day for the blood-drinking oni.
Raising a hand to her chin as Syrni Sandra recovered enough to remark about the tsukumogami. "So, these Mayatans... what they can do sounds like an onmyouji's shikigami—" She frowned, and then smirked.
Concealing her mild surprise at the sudden outburst of horseplay between Cody and Alexa. She raised an eyebrow at the antics, which transitioned into mirthful laughter. "Ah yes, children. I've got many youkai who act that way, despite appearances for some," she said, before flashing a grin at Alexa, "I'm familiar with hide and seek, though it's often called, uh... "hide from the oni" where I'm from."
Placing clenched fists on her hips, she smiled. "I'm up for it," she said, before glancing over at the enthusiastically bouncing lantern and her fluttering scythe, "I think they are, too."
The Wasteland ~ Southeastern Coast (Lerna, Nerea; Varla; Sallara)
"A wall of water... a tsunami? Humph, child's play." Nerea clasped her hands together, strengthening the barrier around them. "I would like to see them penetrate that with a mere wave," she said.
"T-That's an elemental! A big one."
Nerea frowned. "What!? Where—" she hissed.
Lerna craned her neck around, blinking the fog from her eyes. "Uh..." she started, gawking at the watery colossus. She outstretched her arm to point at it, "Over there..."
Through her aetheric resonance, she noted the direction Lerna was pointing in. "Please, do not disturb me," she said, before sitting down and crossing her legs. She slowed her breathing as she extended the range on her resonance.
There it was, clear as day for her now, an angry, seething giant of water, reeking of magic— and two living specks right next to it. One of them was likely the spell caster.
Standing, her resonances blurred slightly, as she began crafting a spell of her own. Pulling water from the storm, she mixed extra-fine sediment into it before forcing it down the center of a series of magical circles. Clawing her hand, she twisted, constricting the circles and drawing them closer and closer.
She forced more water into the array, before taking aim at where she last saw one of the two specks.
A snap of her fingers and the array fired off an extremely thin beam of abrasive water at just over the speed of sound.
Meanwhile, Lerna was distracted by the purple energy tendrils latched to her. "Oh... pretty"
Sun-Dry Sea ~ Panzerfaust Crash Site (Pilot 0037, Novia; Moquoql)
The boy gave an enthusiastic nod as Novia replied, "Affirmative."
East of Town ~ David's Truck (Claire; Arnaya; Nasur; David, Joseph; John, the Hunters)
Having found the clothes in the trunk in the back of the truck to be a bit too small for her, Claire put everything she had pulled from out of their back neatly. Her undead roommate, Maelys, was rather broom-wieldingly adamant about cleanliness, being one of Castle Aria's maids and all. That, and tripping down a flight of stairs due to an errant book she had tossed aside was an exercise in pain.
She turned her attention to the chest of drawers opposite it. Finding draws of stuff, foodstuff, and more stuff, she encountered several locked drawers. Bingo! Obviously, to go to the effort of locking it, there had to be something of value in there.
Putting off using Titan's Fist to open one of the drawers (as that would probably also take out half the truck in the process), she broke out her lockpick from her satchel and went to work on the lock. After a few moments of fiddling with tumblers, she heard the lock click, and the drawer slid out.
The moment of truth. Inside was... boxes of ammunition. "Huh... Well, I suppose I could use those eventually." She stuffed them into her satchel before moving on to another drawer. In that one was a sidearm firearm in a holster. She pocketed that as well, "Could always keep a spare gun or five. How many does this make..."
Clambering out of the back of the truck, Claire hopped down to the ground. She paused, noticing the group of people nearby... and the bluish purple person and the lizard crawling towards the truck.
"Oh, hi there! Are you here to steal the truck, too?" she cheerfully shouted, before adding, "I call dibs, by the way!"
Edited by WillDeRegio on May 17th 2019 at 9:28:23 AM
The Necropolis, Cody's Cove
Alexa grinned at Akane. "Alrighty then. I'll be the seeker and you guys can hide. I'll give ya a couple of minutes to hide," she said. A low, rumbling laugh escaped her lips and echoed around the corridor. She knew using her monster voice often would trigger the urge to transform again, but she couldn't resist.
Meanwhile, Cody turned down a side corridor, running parallel to the church. He stopped abruptly, nearly falling down a staircase. He frowned slightly, and peered down into it. A deep monstrous laugh sounded distantly from behind him. He shivered and started down the stairs. They led into a room filled with coffins of all shapes and sizes. One had its lid askew. He pushed it aside, checking for bones, but oddly enough, found none. He climbed in, leaving the lid slightly open so that he could breathe, and waited.
Edited by Mroh on May 6th 2019 at 11:48:07 AM
Sun-Dry Sea ~ Panzerfaust Crash Site (Pilot 0037, Novia; Moquoql)
At the affirmative answers, Moquoql stuck the depleted fire extinguisher into the small atomic manipulator she'd brought along, activated it, and soon had three fire extinguishers, full and copied. She tossed two to the children and resumed spraying with the third.
Forest's Edge ~ Campsite (Bonnie, Carol, Lily; Morpho; Henry; Rebecca)
"Raise your hand if the name Joseph sounds familiar."
Henry, Lily, Rebecca and Carol raised their hands.
"Who do you know who's named Joseph?"
Rebecca lowered her hand.
Henry answered, "uh... no one in particular, at least not personally. Joseph Stalin... Chief Joseph... Joe Jackson? There are a lot of Josephs."
"Sergeant Hartmann's first name is Joseph?" asked Bonnie, to which Lily nodded her head.
That wasn't the Joseph that Morpho was asking about. "Keep your hand raised if you remember Joseph being a lizard."
At this point, Lily and Henry lowered their hands. Henry added, "I... yeah, this all must've happened before I got here. I really don't think I was around for anything like that. Was this like a special lizard, or... how did it use the gems- or moonstones or whatever, to turn into a human? I mean, animals can be smart, but that seems especially, weirdly, higher-minded."
"Keep your hand raised if you remember Joseph using these moonstones to turn himself human."
"Keep your hand raised if you remember Joseph forgetting us after turning human."
Carol lowered her hand.
"Keep your hand raised if you remember thinking Joseph was acting weird besides the amnesia."
At this point, Morpho was the only one who had his hand raised. He prepared his 3D hologram projector. "All right, I'm gonna fill you in on the gaps in your memory..." but he was interrupted before he could start in on the exposition.
The sugar high she'd had during when Morpho asked the questions was starting to wear thin.
As she was saying help, she got a coconut chocolate bar from her jacket pocket. It looked unappetising and was very black-brown in color, but she ate it anyway just to get a sugar high.
"Of all the rotten luck in bad timing!" Morpho groaned. He darted over to swiftly fish out a fatty cut of moufreta meat from the back of the truck where he'd dropped the pile of meat cuts. His metal hand lost its shape to engulf the meat in a pseudopod, which he ran over to stick into the heart of the fire nearest Rebecca. As the meat and pseudopod started to heat up, Morpho squeezed the meat and sliced it into bite-sized pieces. He asked Rebecca, "Can you last until the meat is cooked?"
If not for this anchor I'd be dancing between the stars. At least I can try to write better vampire stories than Twilight.
Strepsirrhine of DOOM!
The Necropolis, Cody's Cove (Akane; Jen Jara, Syrni Sandra; Alexa, Cody; Krakka'a, Shade of Osiris)
Krakka'a carefully approached the wall at the end of the tunnel. "You said this led somewhere."
I SAID NOTHING OF THE SORT.
"Quiet. I think I hear voices on the other side."
...VOICES?
Krakka'a grinned. Voices meant people, but more importantly, if he could hear them, then the wall couldn't be that sturdy. He braced his front claws against the wall and pushed.
CAREFUL. YOU'LL GIVE YOURSELF A HERNIA.
"Don't you...rrgh...have someone else to annoy?"
YOU KNOW I DON'T.
The stones shifted slightly. Krakka'a gave a victorious grunt and pushed again.
WOULDN'T IT BE TERRIBLE IF THIS TURNED OUT TO BE A LOAD-BEARING WALL?
"I wouldn't have expected...nnrgh...the god of death...to have such a mouth on him."
HEY, WHEN YOU SPEND AS MUCH TIME SURROUNDED BY DEAD PEOPLE AS I DO, YOU HAVE TO DEVELOP A SENSE OF GALLOWS HUMOR TO COPE. ALSO, I THINK PTAH MAY BE RUBBING OFF ON ME.
"I'm not gonna pretend to know or care who that is." With one final shove, the stones gave way, and the wall toppled to the floor. Krakka'a stepped through the dust cloud into a room that appeared to be full of coffins.
"Hmm...I could have sworn I heard voices..." He slowly, cautiously entered the room, his claws clacking against the stone floor.
Osiris secretly scanned the room. There was another sign of life in here besides Krakka'a. He immediately decided that Krakka'a didn't need to know that.
"Is someone hiding in here?" Krakka'a deliberately deepened his voice to just the right pitch to echo through the chamber.
PLEASE DON'T SAY IT. PLEASE, FOR THE LOVE OF ME, DON'T SAY IT.
"Come out, come out, wherever you are!"
I HATE YOU SO MUCH.
Tidesson Son of the staves of time
"Of all the rotten luck in bad timing!" Morpho groaned. He darted over to swiftly fish out a fatty cut of moufreta meat from the back of the truck where he'd dropped the pile of meat cuts. His metal hand lost its shape to engulf the meat in a pseudopod, which he ran over to stick into the heart of the fire nearest Rebecca. As the meat and pseudopod started to heat up, Morpho squeezed the meat and sliced it into bite-sized pieces. He asked Rebecca, "Can you last until the meat is cooked?"
Rebecca turned towards Morpho, still trying to cope with her regeneration. Hopefully it would take a few more hours before she really got back to normal.
"You were asking... can I last until.... until the meat is cooked?" Rebecca said, in a slightly stoner-esque tone, although she wasn't actually high from any form of drug, it was just the regeneration taking effect. "Yes.... I can do that. This regeneration is so tough. I guess you've never had to experience a regeneration? This is only my third one."
"I wish I could get some new more feminine clothes", Rebecca thought "I've been wearing John, my second incarnation's male clothes for too long now. Grrr!!"
She was hungry, and although she didn't normally eat meat (she was vegetarian, but no straight-edge) she'd probably have ate the moufreta meat simply for survival purposes, although she'd need something to wash it down to probably get rid of (to her) a horrid meat taste.
In Rebecca's mind, she was thinking about how to deal with the situation, whether to stay or go and if her Hammerspace small portable flight contraption could get everyone out, if they wanted to leave, that is.
Edited by Merseyuser1 on May 7th 2019 at 10:31:20 AM
The Necropolis, Cody's Cove, Coffin Room (Cody; Krakka'a)
The sound of stones crashing to the floor startled Cody. He peeked out of the lid and was utterly nonplussed at what he saw. Some sort of large Pterosaur was walking toward him at the other end of the room. His wings were folded up. If what he heard was true, he could also talk. It would most likely be impossible to outrun whoever this newcomer was, so he clambered out of the coffin, arms raised.
"Just me, Cody," he said, attempting to sound friendly. He was typically hostile toward strangers, except ones that had the potential to eat him. There was absolutely no way he could pick a fight with this guy. "You looking for somebody?"
Edited by Mroh on May 8th 2019 at 10:57:16 AM
The Necropolis ~ Cody's Cove (Akane; Alexa, Cody; Syrni Sandra, Jen Jara)
"Of course not, didn't I just get through saying I need to breathe volcanic ash?" Syrni Sandra answered.
Syrni Sandra smiled.
She frowned slightly, "Just... don't carelessly throw something away, m'kay? Doing that causes a vengeful tsukumogami to be created."
She noticed the behavior of the Void Maidens, flashing a smirk at them. "Finding yourselves weak in the knees over a silly little lantern— or could it be..." She smirked harder, the blushing of the two was bright as day for the blood-drinking oni.
Raising a hand to her chin as Syrni Sandra recovered enough to remark about the tsukumogami. "So, these Mayatans... what they can do sounds like an onmyouji's shikigami—" She frowned, and then smirked.
The Void Maidens tilted their heads in confusion at the unfamiliar vocabulary.
"Uh, are you alright? You're looking a bit, well..." Cody's sentence trailed off as he frantically thought of a polite term to call what she looked like.
Alexa turned toward Cody and began creeping slowly toward him. "I look a bit what, Cody? Come on now, don't be shy..." she purred.
Syrni Sandra bit her lower lip, but that didn't stop her sudden eager grin. She thought to herself, "Now this is more like it!"
Alexa crept closer to him and laughed, a noise like distant thunder. She pounced and began tickling Cody.
Jen Jara pinched herself just above her gauntlet. The sharp burst of pain helped her regain her focus after Alexa's rumbling.
"So it's a fight you want, is it?" she teased.
Cody grinned. "You'll have to catch me first!" he said, scrambling out from underneath her and running down the corridor.
Alexa smirked slightly. "Seems he wants to play hide and seek. Are any of you familiar with that?" she asked.
"Oh yeah!" Syrni Sandra cheered, bouncing to her feet.
"Let's do this!" Jen Jara grinned, swept up in the excitement. She was always up for a game of hide and seek, even willing to set aside her usual aloofness with kids in order to play.
Placing clenched fists on her hips, she smiled. "I'm up for it," she said, before glancing over at the enthusiastically bouncing lantern and her fluttering scythe, "I think they are, too."
The Void Maidens twitched at the rumbling laugh, put their hands over their cheeks and retreated. Syrni Sandra dashed to the nearest corner, bounced off the walls and teleported away midair, while Jen Jara melted into the shadows at a more sedate pace.
Church Bell Tower (Syrni Sandra)
Syrni Sandra briefly appeared outside the church, assessed the bell tower, then went inside to find the staircase leading up to it and walked up to make sure it was intact. She found that the stairs were indeed intact. Satisfied that everyone had a fair chance to get to her, she leaped up, aiming for the bell's support beam. She didn't stick the landing, so she slipped and fell onto the humongous bell. "Oops!" Her weight tipped the bell and sent it swinging.
DONG!
Syrni Sandra slid off the bell's slope and onto the floor. She ducked into a crouch as the bell swung back towards her.
DONG!
Syrni Sandra clutched her ears and shivered as the loud vibrations at point-blank range thoroughly rattled her flesh and bones. The bell swung again.
DONG!
Syrni Sandra came to her senses and scrambled out of the way before the bell could threaten to hit her noggin again.
DONG!
Well, if anyone managed to hear that all the way down in the catacombs, Syrni Sandra figured the hint of the ringing bell would make up for her breaking her scent trail with a teleport.
DONG!
Syrni Sandra braced herself and prepared to catch and silence the bell as it swung back towards her. "Oof—"
Dong...
Success. The bell was still. Panting and sweating, Syrni Sandra let go of the bell and estimated how much time she had left. She didn't want to be found with her toga unwrapped — that would be awkward. She concluded that she most likely wouldn't have enough time if she was awake, but Viporises could sleep and dream while standing up almost anywhere.
Syrni Sandra leaped up to the bell's support beam again, this time sticking the landing. Once she was sure of her balance, her breathing slowed and she blinked slowly as she quickly fell asleep. She quickly started dreaming the way Viporises did when they needed to both dream and stay alert at the same time — her senses were still active so that the dreamscape could replicate her surroundings exactly, except for some obvious hallucinations.
Syrni Sandra was perched with perfect balance, hands out in the air. Her eyes were open but mostly unseeing, darting around erratically. She would occasionally blink slowly. Her breathing quickened into a quiet panting rhythm distinct and instantly recognizable to anyone with their minds in the gutter.
Cody's Cove, Coffin Room (Jen Jara; Krakka'a; Cody?)
Meanwhile, Jen Jara figured she might as well find out what made that thud earlier, she probably could hide next to it. She came across a bunch of tunnels splitting off left and right from the one she was going down. She put her ear to the wall, listening and trying to remember the general direction from which the thud had come from.
She heard and felt the distinctive vibrations of a wall collapsing and took off towards the source in alarm. Using a combination of line-of-sight teleporting and bouncing off the walls to round corners, she soon closed in on the source. She overheard an adult male voice call out, "Come out, come out, wherever you are!"
Jen Jara skidded to a halt in a room full of coffins and billowing dust. Her skin registered two sources of heat in the room. The larger source of heat was the largest flying food critter she'd ever seen perched on top of a collapsed wall, and the smaller source was inside a coffin. Was the smaller source Cody or a freshly fed vampire or what?
Jen Jara's stomach growled, and because of the winged creature in the room, she instinctively used her ultrasonic voice box to sound the Viporis "hunt food" call. Jen Jara switched back to her alto voice box to ask, "Hello? Who said that?"
Author's note: Mroh ninja'd my post — cont. from ninja'd
Cody emerged from the coffin and said, "Just me, Cody. You looking for somebody?"
Jen Jara tilted her head in confusion, unaware that Cody wasn't talking to her. "Cody? I thought you were too young for puberty voice cracks?" The possibility that what she currently saw as food was capable of speech had not yet occurred to her.
Edited by Miss_Desperado on May 7th 2019 at 6:44:19 AM
If not for this anchor I'd be dancing between the stars. At least I can try to write better vampire stories than Twilight.
Cody's Cove, Corridors/Coffin Room (Alexa, Cody, Jen Jara, Krakk'a)
Alexa noticed the slight twitching of the Viporises as they teleported, but shrugged. A low boom sounded further down the corridor and she headed off to investigate.
She rounded the corner and came upon a staircase. She could see Jen Jara and Cody down in the room though, it looked like somebody had intruded upon the game they were all playing. She crept slowly down the staircase and emerged into a room with various coffins laying about. A Pterosaur was walking toward them on the far side of the room, with wings folded up. She quietly crept down next to Jen Jara and stood very still, careful not to disturb this new arrival.
Edited by Mroh on May 8th 2019 at 10:56:34 AM
Sun-Dry Sea ~ Panzerfaust Crash Site (Pilot 0037, Novia; Moquoql)
Barring some initial hiccups as the pair got used to the familiar, yet unfamiliar fire extinguishers, they were soon able to start hosing down the burning wreckage.
The Necropolis ~ Cody's Cove (Akane; Alexa, Cody; Jen Jara, Syrni Sandra)
Akane smirked harder at the Void Maidens' confusion; they clearly didn't understand what she was talking about.
Excitement was in the air, and her and her tsukumogami were swept up in it. Akane poised herself for a speedy takeoff.
And they were off. The bobbling lantern alight with phantasmic flames tottered off one way, the scythe fluttered off somewhere down the corridor, and Akane went off down the twisting catacombs, bounding skillfully from wall to wall.
She attempted to tail one of the Maidens, but they were too nimble for her in these cramped quarters; her teleport only worked a little past line of sight.
However, she gained a clue to investigate in the form of a muted echoes of a tolling bell. Five times it tolled, enough for her to get a heading.
The Admiral darted off, soon finding herself above ground in the grayed atmosphere of the Necropolis. Scanning her surroundings, she took note of the church and its bell tower, the most likely source for a ringing of a bell. She smirked, before leaping up to the top of a mausoleum.
Leaping from building to building, she rapidly approached the bell tower, before one last leap upwards. In her assent, she noticed Syrni Sandra, poised amid the belfry.
Redirecting wind currents, she silently landed into a crouch on the edge of one of the belfry's lower windows. "Hey~ whatcha doin'," she quietly called upwards, smirking at the faint sounds she could hear coming from the Maiden.
Forest's Edge ~ Campsite (Bonnie, Carol, Lily; Henry; Morpho; Rebecca)
Bonnie chased after Rebecca. "How can I help?" she asked.
Noticing Morpho go off to cook some meat, the medic glanced between metahuman and metal man. She gave them a "are you kidding me?" look, before realizing, that no, they weren't kidding.
She sighed. "Alright, let me see what's wrong; Lily, could you get some rations from the truck?"
Lily nodded, cringing, and after a brief moment in the back of the truck, returned with a small box.
Jokingly referred to as "the stuff that lasts forever" and "spare ammunition", each field ration consisted of enough nutritional content to sustain a combat mage: ultra-condensed soybean and lentil soup, a solid red block of paste; a can of TTC (Tuber, Turnip, Carrot) stew; a two-pack of hardtack; and a "Bittersweet Bar", the failed attempt at canned coffee, turned out to be surprisingly popular.
Lily handed it over to Rebecca as Bonnie prepped her scanning spell for use on Rebecca to diagnose any further concerns.
WFS Hummingbird Sick Bay (Maequoql)
The spaceship sounded Red Alert, and Maequoql shivered at the burst of anger down below. Her long-range telepathy investigated. Something was angry at being controlled. Her telepathy stealthily greeted, "Hello. Who are you? Can I be your friend?"
Author's note: She's "talking" to the elemental, not its summoner.
Wasteland, Near the Southeastern Coast (Lerna, Nerea; Varla; Sallara)
Now that the thunder was harmonize-slaved to her voice, Varla's eyesmoke tendrils continued to catch and sap the lightning as she took stock of the situation. Sallara was still being buffeted by uncooperative winds and tried to use Nerea as temporary shelter. Varla tested her point control by pointing and sending a pulse of collected heat a dozen meters to the southeast. The suddenly heated air rose with a violent hiss of steam, carrying vaporized rain with it, and the wind briefly swerved to fill the low pressure air pocket left behind by the heat pocket. Varla growled, "Vsssh khehrrr al-thehvrrrit, rrrextakkk khehrrr trrrhehkkkaf-thehlllhehnnn, vsssh trrrhehkkkaf-thehlllhehnnn Vhahrrrlllhah, vsssh woorrrhehlll-trrrn Vhahrrrlllhah!" while following up the pulse of heat with a smaller, more widespread stream of heat lifting the air and making a curved path of low air pressure for the wind to swerve into. Sometimes magic had to exploit some laws of physics instead of brute-force-breaking all of them.
Meanwhile, the wall of water reshaped into a giant's shape, and Sallara took a step back in shock. "An elemental." She managed to say, barely believing her own words. "T-That's an elemental! A big one."
Varla scoffed, "eLeMeNTaL SCHMeLeMeNTaL, My WaRNiNG STiLL aPPLieS To iT. Vhahrrrlllhah hoth-jrrrnnn vhahrrrlllhah, trrrhehkkkaf-thehlllhehnnn hhhrrrennn-ja sssat-ja! " She added the planet's mantle to the list of heat sources she was tapping into, again keeping it magically insulated so she wouldn't melt her wheelchair and weapons or burn Lerna.
Through her aetheric resonance, she noted the direction Lerna was pointing in. "Please, do not disturb me," she said, before sitting down and crossing her legs. She slowed her breathing as she extended the range on her resonance.
Varla accordingly stopped her spells from trying to snatch and assimilate Lerna's spells.
Standing, her resonances blurred slightly, as she began crafting a spell of her own. Pulling water from the storm, she mixed extra-fine sediment into it before forcing it down the center of a series of magical circles. Clawing her hand, she twisted, constricting the circles and drawing them closer and closer.
She forced more water into the array, before taking aim at where she last saw one of the two specks.
A snap of her fingers and the array fired off an extremely thin beam of abrasive water at just over the speed of sound.
Varla was caught between approval of how Nerea attacked and disapproval of the timing of Nerea's attack. Varla had wanted to see if whoever was coming would back down from a mere threat.
The threads finished darkening to black at the tips attached to Varla's skin. Varla un-twisted in her seat and seized Lerna by the horns, fixing her in a perfectly passionless stare as she warned, "I don't want to use you as a living battery again, but I might have to anyway. Hold still so I don't sap too much energy from you."
Anywhere where Lerna was feeling crush-related thrills on her skin would be reflected in the threads as tiny pink motes manifesting at the connection points on her end and sliding down to Varla's end.
Edited by Miss_Desperado on May 9th 2019 at 9:13:28 AM
If not for this anchor I'd be dancing between the stars. At least I can try to write better vampire stories than Twilight.
< 1.24km Above The Forest - Head In The Sky >
Joseph was floating in mid air. He'd stopped three quarters of a mile above the ground, and descended not an inch further. His sore, wind-ravaged eyes were shut tight, keeping the wild world and his unfathomable circumstances out of sight. Shutting out the fear and confusion as best he could with the thinness of his eyelids.
But he couldn't escape the colossal wave of agony catching up to his ears, flooding them with sharp and invasive pain, like someone had just driven a long nail through his head.
He needed help. He needed grounding. Some way out of his nightmarish predicament. A way back to something he understood, if only loosely. The campground, the others, and-
There was a tiny flash of light in the sky, and Joseph was gone.
< Forest, Edge - Feet On The Ground >
Henry did a double take at the sound of Rebecca's voice. She'd been quiet for so long, he'd almost forgotten she was around. It seemed as if so many people had come and gone without a word, he was becoming unconsciously conditioned to it.
Amidst the hubbub, he headed to a nearby log where he'd leaned his bat and backpack, unzipping the latter to fish out some supplies.
"I have some soup and a bit of a pinnacle bar," he announced, holding up a thermos and half of an energy bar. "I must warn, it has peanuts. Sorry, it's not much. This wasn't meant to be an overnight thing. I guess it just goes to sh- ...show..."
He trailed off, noticing a strange item in his backpack. He'd packed a few spare clothes in case of emergency, but he most certainly hadn't packed a pair of jeans for a forest trek in the cool of the evening. Stranger than that was the gaping hole in the back of them, as if they'd snagged bad on something and been torn wide open.
"Hey, uh, I don't know whose this is, but my backpack isn't a public waste bin. If you need me to carry something for you, just ask next time." He paused, glancing over his shoulder at the others, his gaze lingering a brief moment longer on Carol.
Suddenly, there was a thump, followed by a low, agonized moaning that grew louder and more agitated by the second.
Henry whipped his head around and nearly fell backward, confronted by the sight of a bedraggled young man on his knees, appearing on the other side of his log seemingly out of the blue. His dark hair was wildly unkempt, like he'd just been through a wind tunnel. More alarming was his haggard, near sickly complexion, with dry lips and deep, dark marks under his eyes. Most worrisome of all were his ears. The person had his hands clapped over each, but it didn't stop a trail of bright red blood from leaking out between the cracks.
Henry's first reaction was to jump to his feet and then stumble away from the log with a loud, "OH SHIT!"
His second move was to toss his supplies back in his pack, and quickly make a grab for his baseball bat, gripping it tightly as he retreated a safe distance.
But the young man made no move of his own. He didn't even look up. He just covered his bleeding ears, crying in pain.
Henry lowered the bat and tried to calm down, only he was surrounded by the loud sounds of anguish. Taking a deep breath, he turned to the others and said—as calm and collectively as he could—"Hey guys, I think we have another situation over here."
"...Henry..."
"Oh god!" Henry panicked, gesturing wildly at the suffering young man, "He's- he's saying my name!"
Sun-Dry Sea ~ Panzerfaust Crash Site (Pilot 0037, Novia; Moquoql)
"Too small!" Moquoql grunted in frustration when her fire extinguisher ran out of compressed carbon dioxide again. She closed it in the atomic manipulator again to refill it.
Forest's Edge ~ Campsite (Bonnie, Carol, Lily; Morpho; Henry; Rebecca)
"Can you still pay attention to some important news?" Morpho followed up with another question to Rebecca.
West End of the Forest (Mequoql; Possessed!Joseph)
Mequoql successfully retrieved the gem from Joseph and thought, "After him!"
Instead of appearing in the sky along with Joseph...
Forest's Edge ~ Campsite (Bonnie, Carol, Lily; Morpho, Mequoql; Henry, Possessed!Joseph; Rebecca)
...she reappeared in the campsite, stumbling from a wave of exhaustion despite reappearing in a shadow. "Bah!" she exclaimed in irritation, "Viporises can teleport better than that! Some transport these are."
She handed the two gems over to Morpho, levitated all the rest that weren't in the firepit over to him, and took in the situation. Joseph was incapacitated with his ears bleeding. Rebecca was incapacitated with ravenous hunger. Mequoql loudly announced while simultaneously telepathically broadcasting, "Morpho, make sure nobody, including me, and especially not Joseph, uses these moonstones until further notice."
Morpho obediently added all the moonstones to the pile on fire that he was cooking the moufreta meat with.
Mequoql walked over to Joseph and, just in case he tried to make a break for it, engulfed him with her gliding membranes in a hug, her claws sheathed but still at the ready. "Did you explain to them yet?" she asked Morpho.
"Negative," Morpho grumped, "Rebecca interrupted."
Mequoql took a moment to compare the relevant memories in her head to the copy she'd sent up to the spaceship's log, looking for data corruption and refreshing where necessary. "Right. Everyone pay attention. Carol, look me in the eyes. This is Joseph, he's possessed, and this is what his possessor did to us all." With that, Mequoql telepathically replayed her retrieved memories, complete with the thoughts from the others that she'd gleaned while the events had been happening.
Edited by Miss_Desperado on May 12th 2019 at 8:57:56 AM
If not for this anchor I'd be dancing between the stars. At least I can try to write better vampire stories than Twilight.
The Ridge
The Frisky One; Mustang herd, Whisper, Skvader; seven moufreta and two more;
"Wheeeeee-eeeee!"
Her hooves became talons. She grew three more clawed fingers on each "arm". She turned, facing the battlefield again. Noticed the untimely demise of four moufretas that were stupid enough to try to follow her into the skies.
A point for bravery each, minus thousand for good thinking.
She saw the three remaining ones darting towards Thunder.
Oh, this one won't go down easily.
She nosedived with a loud skreeech towards the place where moufretas were about to meet the Guardian, and as the cockiest of the lizards was about to jump on Thunder's rump, Iolana snatched the struggling moufreta out of the air. She bit the lizard on the head, shutting its jaw before it could bounce back from being disoriented.
With the struggling moufreta in her claws, she buzzed towards the herd's formation … and dropped the lizard right into the circle, behind the defensive line.
With a single powerful movement of her wings she flied back into the skies and with one last glance towards the ground she spied two reptilian figures, familiar in their forms, but a lot bigger than the seven hapless moufretas that tried to attack the herd.
Grownups have heard the noise and want to know what the fuss is about.
Edited by Millership on May 11th 2019 at 11:28:00 PM
Spiral out, keep going.
It's a bird.
Grasslands, Battlefield (Jann, Varg; Ozurr; Rosalind)
"Target practice?" Jann asked, taking Rosalind's hand as he followed her back to the vehicle, his mind immediately reaching back to his days at the Academy.
"I've studied plenty of inert ghouls before, but getting active ones into the city past all the rules and decrees was nearly impossible," he began to ramble, "And they never lasted long anyway. Gods, the things I'd give for a chance to properly study an undead creature in...
He stopped next to the door of the vehicle, quickly turning his head to give Rosalind a wide-eyed look of shock that slowly turned into shame. You're speaking to a vampire, you buffoon!
"I'm sorry!" he almost shouted once he came to his senses. "You're... it's not..."
Jann took a deep breath, nervously running his free hand through his hair. His interest in the not-so-widely-approved-of fields of thaumic science had already caused him enough trouble as it was, but this particular faux-pas felt especially painful. His gaze turned to the ground.
"That was rather insensitive, wasn't it..?"
Some distance behind them, Varg looked up at Ozurr, thoughtfully swinging her tail side to side.
"It was summer back home for us," she commented. "Guess that's just another thing that's different."
As the others began to walk, she stayed behind for a while. Some of the crows that had been scared off were cautiously making their way back towards one of the corpses. Varg threw a silent glance and an oddly solemn little smirk in their direction before turning around to head for the vehicle.
After a few more moments of silent thought, she looked up at Ozurr again with a curious glint in her eyes.
"In that Hromstgard place of yours... Does your people have any gods?"
Still a great "screw depression" song even after seven years.The Ridge — Battle Round 2
(Mustang herd, Whisper, Skvader; The Frisky One; four dead juvenile moufreta; three live juvenile moufreta; two incoming older moufreta)
The four falling moufretas landed painfully, first on their hind legs, which snapped, and then on their bellies with a sickening splat. They didn't get up.
Fiddler, Rook, Raven and a white gelding broke formation to personally ensure the fallen moufretas' deaths. The defense ring closed behind them. They reared up and slammed their forehooves down on the neck vertebrae.
The Frisky One flew down and snatched one moufreta mid-leap, but the other two were still chasing Guardian Thunder. One moufreta managed to leap onto Thunder's back while he was distracted by the overhead commotion, so he started bucking. The moufreta on his back scrabbled for claw-holds and tooth-holds. The other moufreta darted in and out, trying to bite his legs.
Whisper shied out of the way of the Frisky One's incoming moufreta delivery, and the skvader dodged off of Angel's back and onto Whisper's saddle. Poor Angel couldn't dodge in time, but when the disoriented moufreta landed on his back, he was able to dislodge it with a single buck. Filly Flashfoot immediately darted in and began nipping at the stunned moufreta like a cobra. Nippy, Wheezer and Stomper, as the closest members of the defense ring, tried to join in the nipping. Whisper stayed out of the way as best he could in the cramped ring. Angel couldn't quite turn around to join Filly Flashfoot in the nipping, so he began kicking at the moufreta with his hind hooves instead. He missed.
Surrounded by incoming attacks, the dropped moufreta thrashed around as it tried to flip itself upright and stand up again. Its hind claws raked Stomper, Nippy and Wheezer between their eyes, forcing them to take a step back.
Meanwhile, Lead Mare Flashfoot and three white geldings ran to Thunder's rescue. Flashfoot spun and kicked with her hind hooves, blind-siding the moufreta that wasn't paying attention to her. That moufreta gasped and screeched in agony from a broken rib, distracted from biting Thunder's legs. Flashfoot spun again to get closer to Thunder and the moufreta on his back.
The three white geldings summoned by Flashfoot stood side by side, forming a small blockade to try to keep the injured moufreta from rejoining the fight. They watched each other warily and tested each others' defenses with feinting bites, waiting to see who would flinch or expose a weak point first. Outnumbered, the injured moufreta started slowly retreating towards a cave.
With his bucking no longer hindered by having to dodge bites to his legs at the same time, Guardian Thunder was able to buck strategically instead of frantically. By now, the base of his neck, his shoulders and his back were slashed and bleeding from the moufreta's scrabbling claws, and the moufreta had bitten the fleshy ridge on the back of his neck from which his mane grew in an attempt to hold on. At least the moufreta had missed his spine. The inertia of Thunder's bucking flung droplets of his blood in all directions.
Outside Hub Town, David's Truck (Claire; Arnaya; Nasur; David, Joseph; John, the Hunters)
As the Not-Chaos-Hunters discussed the hologram, Arnaya turned to David. "What? We do have an open line of communication. I overheard you thinking that I should investigate, so I investigated. It's not my fault that speech is slow and you decided to waste time saying what you were thinking."
"Did it seriously take you that long to figure out telepathy's tactical usefulness and what I was already doing, Captain Obvious?" Arnaya snarked, then left Adam out of her next thought. "There's just one problem — Adam's thoughts are now shielded way beyond human capacity. I warned you that bug did something fishy to him!"
Arnaya saw Nasur splitting off from the group with Joseph and Adam half-following him. Then the thief who smelled like a necromancer emerged from the truck. Arnaya cancelled her voice-muffling bubble with a grumble, "So Much for Stealth" and berated the thief, "Your 'dibs' is invalid — this is David, the rightful owner of the truck. Did you not read the sign?"
If not for this anchor I'd be dancing between the stars. At least I can try to write better vampire stories than Twilight.
[Wasteland]
And just like that, they were back on earth.
Jackson pulled out his holographic screen again, examining the area.
"Huh," he said, "Still no sign of thief. Truck is just sitting there."
John cocked his gun. "Sounds suspicious. Everyone be on alert. You all have your weapons?"
The rest of the Not-Chaos-Hunter nodded, arming themselves once again. Nick put on his metal gloves and slammed his fist together, a small spark of electricity going through them.
"Uh, we're just trying to scare the thief," Adam said, putting his arrow on the invisible string of his bow, "Not kill her."
"I know that!" Nick said, "Can you guys trust me? Metal gloves can scare the living hell out of anyone. Besides, if she tries to run, the force of these things will knock her back down on the ground. That'll give David and Joseph the perfect opportunity to arrest her."
Marie flipped her hair. "We can discuss more of this once we head towards the truck."
"That's David's call," Maya said, "I say we don't go waltzing into a possible trap. Not until Ms. Vampire tells us the coast is clear."
Jackson gave an annoyed glare. "I have a scanner."
"We know!" Amy said, "But maybe she can sense something the scanner can't pick up!"
"...I guess."
[???-Main Town]
Mael rubbed his chin. "Interesting. Thank you for the lecture, and the advice. Now that we got all of that out of the way..."
With a press of a button, the two vanished from the ship and appeared on the street, like they just opened a door and walked into another room.
"Show me the way to the hotel," he said, "The faster we get this done, the more time we have to plan out our next moves."