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Wag
 
Group: System Moderators
Last Login: Yesterday @ 10:26 PM
Posts: 1,528,
Visits: 3,647
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| "Ketta, now!" That familiar twist in reality and they are somewhere else. She drops and turns, but they are clear. She takes a breath of different air. "My thanks. I go to Gar-risone, do you wish to travel with me? If not, I can meet you in City and we can discuss these events." Another human city destroyed, but this one had no longer been a human city. The City humans had acted entirely rationally. She hopes they have managed to escape, and regrets that she had left them, but she could not have helped them against whatever that West Lander had become and her cultist allies, and there is no benefit in a pointless death. A death that achieves the death of the enemy or saves the life of an ally is one thing, but there is no point to a death that is only symbolic. Not all humans understand that. They are too often far too prey to their emotions, logic and wisdom pushed aside in the pursuit of glory, revenge, or passion. Five dead Xadacians is testament to that. But Tamarind suspects that the Citiers do understand that life is a valuable thing not to be squandered. She breathes from her diaphragm, and feels cleansed and refreshed. One thought does make her mouth twitch in slight amusement. Things are about to get even more interesting. There is an ancient curse, "May you live in interesting times", and these certainly are.
- _____________________________________________________
- Riftworld:
Lyria; Morgan Doosh; 'Spanners'; Tamarind of Ruunar - Artificer: Lady Evron (Survivor!)
- M&M: Miss Emily Mortimer
- Blood Red Roses: Miss Audhild Godwinson
- Crusades: Jumanah Amal
- Odyssey: Julia Tiberillus, 'Ridea', of the Cruentus Anatidae
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Wag
Group: Basic Members
Last Login: Today @ 1:50 AM
Posts: 1,224,
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"I suggest we travel together to the coast of Gar-Bay. From there hopefully you can take ship in the direction of Gar-isone, and I can meet with the ship heading back to City. We can talk more on the route about the situation out here, cousin."
How easy that word had rollled off his lips. The old habit. Shengui traditionally addressed each other as cousin, as a common family with a common ancestor. It had been years since he had used that term. His mind refocused on what was happening
"I'd like travel with you, but I need to get back and report to Clan Kharnan in City urgently. Hopefully I'll meet you there whenever you head back East."
"When you get to Gar-isone, seek out Defender Shenk. He fought alongside our people in the last great Chaos War, and still has a lot of respect for us. Last I heard, he carries a lot of weight on the Council there. I'll write a brief report on what I know is going on; I'd appreciate it with you'll deliver it to the Defender Council."
------<insert really amusing sig here>
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Knight
Group: Basic Members
Last Login: Yesterday @ 8:52 PM
Posts: 66,
Visits: 2,519
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PERSONAL LOG (AUDIO FORMAT):
Major Thomas Mortimer,
North Xadacian Military
Cybernetics Division,
Administration Dept.
Entry Begins -
Day 17, I think, not really sure without a clock
Rather interesting turn of events. Was sent out thanks to minor indiscretion, saucy little minx, but found quite a few items of interest. Com-Trow now a bit of boom, grrrr, naughty wolves a tad upset. The situation has gone rather pear-shaped, I should say so. Get them feeling that I'm going to be sent to establish a research station in the Nightlands as punishment for my report. Well, their own fault for sending me, what.
I say, it appears to be one of those Spined wolf fellows, my he does have rather big teeth. What the?
(Sounds of a struggle)
Dash it all, stop trying to eat me!
(Sounds of bones crunching)
I say, stop that! I'm sure I need those to...
(Sounds akin to wet splats along with more crunching of bones.)
Bugger.... (Belch).
*Archivists Note: The preceding recoding was obtained from the spoor of a Spined Wolf Class Entity. The same spoor contained trace elements of Major Mortimer's person and effects. Retrieval of said effects was unsuccessful. Major Mortimer has accordingly had his status changed from MIA to EIA.
RW: James "Spook" Strelok (KIA)/Dmitry (KIA)/Major Thomas Mortimer (Probably Dead)/Samuel Nyx
PD: Gaspar Lebeau, the awesome gunsmith.
Serenity: Gonner Hendershot/Adelai Niska/Crew
The Brass Hand of Dr. Martell: Colonel Arthur Frosting (ret. dec.)/Crew
RL: I'm real. Are you?
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Wag
Group: System Moderators
Last Login: Yesterday @ 10:26 PM
Posts: 1,528,
Visits: 3,647
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"Of course cousin. You write your report, I shall hunt something for our lunch. But first I suggest we put more distance between ourselves and the enemy."
- _____________________________________________________
- Riftworld:
Lyria; Morgan Doosh; 'Spanners'; Tamarind of Ruunar - Artificer: Lady Evron (Survivor!)
- M&M: Miss Emily Mortimer
- Blood Red Roses: Miss Audhild Godwinson
- Crusades: Jumanah Amal
- Odyssey: Julia Tiberillus, 'Ridea', of the Cruentus Anatidae
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Squire
Group: Basic Members
Last Login: Friday, August 06, 2010 6:59 PM
Posts: 35,
Visits: 467
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The world shifted back into focus around her. Her brain had just enough time to register the fact that she had been one choice away from having to put the contract before herself thanks to spine wolves (again) before settling back into concentrating on the task at hand. She did a quick sweep of the area, they weren't safe yet, and she knew she would only be able to sign this off once she returned to City. Her right leg still ached slightly, not fully healed, but the medfit was at least not broken this time and the pain would keep her alert. Taking stock of the two people with her, she filed their names and faces under 'potentially useful assets' and hoped she would remain the same long enough to get back to the guild.
___________________________________________________________________
Maelstrom:
Then: Aud Uruva (gone home to her Chicks), Now: Brongwyn Y Mel
Serenity: Constance Tang, highly overqualified receptionist
Riftworld: Slightly insane Mercenary Aneirin and sometime tea angel
Artificer: Litara Dicanto, the very definition of sweetness and light (unravelled)
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Champion
Group: System Moderators
Last Login: Tuesday, May 11, 2010 7:27 PM
Posts: 313,
Visits: 1,846
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The half-track sits idling on a ridge above the town, a cliff-edge a few metres away plunging down to the Bay.
The bat-faced driver is trying not to fidget. His master sits less than arms-length away and he disapproves of fidgeting.
The lord leans forward to see the town, almost pressing his skeletal features to the armourglass of the windshield and muttering to himself. In the town below there are a few people here and there, coming out from their barricaded homes and cellars.
Not in the centre though. In the centre the deep crater and collapsed ground has taken care of many dwelling there - their occupants will certainly not require burial.
He considers going down there to pick up a few titbits for personal use, but shrugs and leans back instead. He claps his hands and a glowing holoscreen appears in front of him.
"Checklist 3.." the screen flickers and opens a side image, "Off load existing stock...check.....promote interest in new projects....check............push boundaries of revenge.......check."
"And driver..."
"Lord?"
"Get a bloody move on, we'll lose our boat if we aren't lucky"
A good day.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Come to Riftworld:the sun never shines, tomorrow is not a better day, but you can drink and swear all you like. That's when we attack.-
"We make ritual noise, we weave the fabric of dreams..."
Bugger it, I was supposed to be having a break from this stuff...oh well....
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Heroic Knight
Group: Basic Members
Last Login: Wednesday, February 17, 2010 11:40 PM
Posts: 124,
Visits: 694
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Usta stood on the rise overlooking Com-Trow. Even by the weak, low sunlight she could make out the central crater where the missile had struck, a collapsed hole about thirty metres across. Huge snaking cracks radiated from its devastating circle, looking fleetingly familiar but she couldn't place why. Looking towards the city walls, a carpet of sparkling evening sunlight scattered on the ground told her that the shockwave had broken every window in the city.
Out by the docks, two large vessels and a few smaller ones floated, unmanned and slightly tattered (was that one slowly sinking?) but the docks themselves seemed intact enough.
A crowd of soft footsteps behind her; sounds of panting, sweat and animal musk in the air. Her blue and white tabarded Skirmishers stood by, stunned. Even the excitable young 'Perky' was quiet and still. Then padding steps close behind and wolfish faces appeared, sleek, some spined, some almost human except for the animal rage in their eyes and all together they let out a deafening howl.
Usta held up her hand and the howling ceased. "F*ck and Drast those f***ing Citiers," she said, not quite under her breath. A hand motion and the band of a dozen or so made their way lithely down the steep slope and were quick to arrive at the city.
Winding their way through the scarred streets, Usta could see, here and there, a few of its innocent citizens, the ones who had been either too brave or too frightened to leave, digging their dead and injured relatives out of the cellars and cracked sewer chambers that they had been hiding in, too shocked and heartbroken to pay any attention to the sniffing, padding beasts that prowled around Usta.
She paused, hearing a tiny noise. "Olaf, Redder, Marn, shift this rubble here." The commander herself pitched in, leading by example, as usual. Within moments, a small, thin young man in a split white and blue tabard was staring at them, dazed. "Hey kid, wake up and fall in," said Usta as she laid a hand on his chest and let the healing Psi flow. They had all felt the psionic shock of mass death not two hours earlier from twelve kliks away. The few people still walking were stumbling around but Usta was fairly sure that the dreadful Nothingmen were no longer a threat here.
Closer in to the centre and she could see that the Barracks were still standing though quite badly damaged, unlike the Administration building, which had been reduced to rubble. Past that, leaping over a wide crack in the street and dodging a fountaining pipe, the pack edged close to the crater. Smoke, rubble, nothing else. No feeling of life, the Spined wolves sniffed around but found nothing. They howled again and then melted away into the ruined streets.
Usta's eyes glistened through her flak helm, her rage carefully contained. "We dig. We gather survivors into the outer barracks, looks like the roof is intact - Perky, set up triage there. Any civies want to bail, let them. Anyone else fit, we can recruit - Olaf, you're in charge there. We'll rebuild. This is our home, drast it. Anyone interferes, they'll have to face me."
If the Skirmishers around her noticed the razor sharp claws retracting back to fingernails, they didn't let on but carried out their orders as efficiently as usual.
AliensphereLRP Riftworld: Minion and Crew
Maelstrom: Last Cherry Blossom
Artificer: Crew
Waypoint: Yanei Rynn
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Squire
Group: Basic Members
Last Login: Friday, August 06, 2010 6:59 PM
Posts: 35,
Visits: 467
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| Aneirin opened her eyes to close darkness, the kind that no light unless carried had ever filtered into. She felt the stone and dirt under her hands. It was quiet. Not the quiet of a non-working Comm system, the empty quiet of none at all. She had fallen asleep, she cursed herself, you never fall asleep with both eyes. Keep awake, keep alert, keep alive... She started upright, feeling her way in the dark, her hand jerking back as she touched another person. Her heart sank; even without light she recognised this. She turned, treacle slow, knowing that soon shapes would be moving in the darkness. She grabbed a rock, but dreamlike, her hand went through it. That's not how this went and you know it, her brain whispered unhelpfully. She turned back, to kick the person awake, but suddenly they were gone, further down the tunnel, and all she could hear were snarls and screams.run... RUN! Endless repeating permutations of the same scenario. Faces she never knew the names of, or no longer tried to remember. .....
She blinked her eye. A twig had snapped and she found her gun already pointing in the direction of the sound. The heavy Comm silence filled her head, and over it, she heard nothing but the movement of an animal too small to do harm, for now. Her empty eyesocket itched.
.....
She blinked her eyes in the light, keeping to the shadows. You never strayed in too far, not when you didn't belong. That was a mistake she had seen people make too many times. Never let the cleaners find you; there were worse places to be than the unlit tunnels. She waited unbreathing for the light to dim just enough to sprint across and grab the square parcels waiting to be reprocessed. Food for the desperate. She was alone this time, and successful.
.....
She opened her eye and shifted position. Time to move on soon, she winced at the sounds her companions were making, but they were quiet enough for now. Her leg ached as a reminder to stay alert.
.....
A hand descended on her shoulder, she twisted in its grasp, reaching for the gun she knew was at the man's side.
'You're a bit dirty for a City brat, and I wouldn't grab anything you don't know how to use.' He stopped her hand short of the holster and looked her over. 'Too shabby for Sceptre, too unfashionable for Doosh, and definitely not Khanan.' He watched her eyes, the way they looked like they weren't focusing on anything in particular, at least not for long. 'Well, you clearly are used to not using Comms or you wouldn't be listening. You do talk right?' Her eyes snapped to his face, but she said nothing. 'Kord,' he said by way of introduction 'You little scrabbler, and I know just the place for someone not on the system. Especially one as vicious as you are.' He added when she tried to scratch herself free. 'Relax, I won't throw you to the A.I.s, in fact, I'm going to show you how to use that Laz gun.' He grinned at the sudden eagerness in her face. 'Got a name?' 'Aneirin.' she said sharply. He chuckled. 'Weird sort of name for a girl, who gave you that?' 'I did.' He grunted, amused, and dragged her further into the light of the Dock area. 'Well I'm not going to ask where you've been, but I know just where you belong.' .....
She stood up slowly, blinking her eye and whispered sharply to her companions. 'Get up and get awake fast, it's time to move on.' Stay alert, stay alive, sign off the contract. She grinned.
___________________________________________________________________
Maelstrom:
Then: Aud Uruva (gone home to her Chicks), Now: Brongwyn Y Mel
Serenity: Constance Tang, highly overqualified receptionist
Riftworld: Slightly insane Mercenary Aneirin and sometime tea angel
Artificer: Litara Dicanto, the very definition of sweetness and light (unravelled)
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Champion
Group: System Moderators
Last Login: Tuesday, May 11, 2010 7:27 PM
Posts: 313,
Visits: 1,846
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Within the Mocking Idol in the chamber highest from the water, Glass strokes his red devil-chin, staring across the expanse of silvered waves towards the Human coast. An aide whispers in his mind.
"Sir, we have news of Com-Trow..."
"Yes yes, no need to waste my time with that."
"Oh you are aware...ah um of course you are...my apologies. There is one other matter."
Glass looks sidelong at the aide.
"Well."
"Seems that Lord Blod has..."
"Yes yes yes, I know, my brothers and I got the memo. Is that it, you half-baked spawn of unstable warp-matter?"
"Sorry sir, well actually...um..."
Glass turns back to the window with a sigh.
"If this wastes my attention further, you are of course going out of this window."
"If sir observes a few points to the southwest...", the aide hands Glass a scope.
"Ah, a ship. They cannot be lost and they don't have Twisted colours. Cheeky little probe from the humans perchance?"
"We think so sir."
"Well we could leave it, but then again I'm sure my master could do with letting off a little steam right now..."
The aide backs away, slowly, as Glass closes his eyes and mumbles indistinctly.
In the space between the distant speck of the ship and the rearing walls of the Mocking Idol, a small dark rift appears, then another. The waves seem to swell.
Glass turns to the aide.
"Send some Gifted flyers, then shoot them down. Seems we need a little blood on the scene."
Moments later, as the ship comes closer braving the rising waves, Twisted flyers hurl themselves from the roof towards it, their shadows flitting across the window. A minute later a weapon strikes from somewhere below, slicing the flyers to shreds as they near the ship.
It is close enough for Glass to see alarmed figures on deck gesture skyward. Another rift opens, then another and another.
"Farewell humans."
With a howl the wind rises to monstrous gale, whipping the Bay waters higher and higher. The gust tips the ship. It is sinking even as the huge waves strike, smashing it to splinters. The rifts vanish as quickly as they appeared.
High, high above, a lone figure watches through his visor display. Then with a twist of the controls he turns the jetbike back south in a flutter of blue tassels, making some verbal additions to the records stored onboard. He reaches the opposite coastline, passing low over the Trido base, to ensure successful data-dump, then onward to the mainland beyond. Towards the rising smoke.
The sign says "Yperket". The child playing near the bent and dirty posts that hold the sign stops as she feels something behind her. Carefully she places her pebbles on the ground and turns, already trying to remember how to Teleport like mummy showed her. The thing behind her seems huge in the dying light, a hairy mountain of heat, spines and muscle. She starts to 'port, but catches the glitter in the creature's eyes and falters.
"Are you food child?" It's voice is like gravel in treacle. Saliva drips.
The little girl frowns then puffs out her chest and pokes the thing in the gut.
"No I'm not you dirty beast. If you don't get lost my mum will kick your arse. And so will I," she adds.
The beast grins, the mouth seeming to stretch back forever, revealing more and more teeth.
"I think not"
It grabs the girl by her smock and lifts her up to the bared teeth. She does not remember to 'port and couldn't have focused anyway. A canine grazes her cheek and she lashes out, kicking and scratching as best she can. Hot breath washes over her.
She realises the beast is actually laughing.
"Don't laugh at me, I'm going to pull your horrid teeth out." Struggling at the end of the beastly arm.
Then she is on the ground again, with her pebbles and the old familiar posts. The beast crouches next to her.
"No. You not food child. You one of us."
It gestures to companions who seem to appear out of the dusk from nowhere.
"This one strong. Will war alongside us, eventually. Take the rest. Get full. Get strong. We go back to war."
Behind them, a smaller figure watches from the trees, her hand resting on the hilt of her sword. She mutters to herself.
"No choice now, no other way, gotta get even, for Com-Trow, gotta crush the bastards, this is the only way."
As the screams begin from the direction of the settlement, she turns away and puts her hands to her head to block the sound, but cannot block out the agony in her heart.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Come to Riftworld:the sun never shines, tomorrow is not a better day, but you can drink and swear all you like. That's when we attack.-
"We make ritual noise, we weave the fabric of dreams..."
Bugger it, I was supposed to be having a break from this stuff...oh well....
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Knight
Group: Basic Members
Last Login: Monday, August 16, 2010 7:09 PM
Posts: 60,
Visits: 180
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| 'Lyssa paused, breathing heavily after the brief second of panic as the Spined Wolf had turned and moved in their direction. She looked around - they had landed exactly where she had planned on the long muddy track. Now, if they could catch that Citier van as it came by... There was a whoosh in the distance, and her breath caught again. Usta hadn't stopped the missile. Given Com Trow was held by the Spined Wolf, that blast wouldn't be a bad thing. Either for clearing out cultists, or for putting those trapped there out of their misery and preventing a slow, painful death as sacrifices. Then the rest of her brain caught up with that thought. "Screw the van. We have to go. Now." She reached out to her fellow Defender, grabbed a handful of sleeve and 'ported her out before she could argue, following a bare fraction of a second later. The cave was small, with an overhang of vegetation over the entrance. 'Lyssa glanced around, then swiftly sat down, hoping her companion would do the same. She closed her eyes - dark, pitch black, tentacles oozing across her skin, screams and howls in the nothingness around her - she snapped her eyes open instead, and started mentally force-calming herself, dampening down her psionic abilities as much as she could. There wasn't enough time... She knew the instant the missile hit, the instant of stunned silence before the survivors realised what had happened echoing across the link. The dampening wasn't enough, there was no way to avoid this. This is going to hurt...
LorienTrust: 'Not Nuts' by Royal Decree
RiftWorld: You can't scare me, I'm a coward. I'm always scared.
RealLife: Officially only 98% random.
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