open | does everybody have it together

[sterngaze]

Who: Liem Talbott & various
What: Setting update catch-all
Where: Alenroux
When: Throughout March

Liem is fully committing to assisting with Meridian's invasion of Alenroux, so he will be present there throughout the month, hunting monsters, scouting the woods, and keeping watch at Meridian encampments. At the beginning of the invasion, and potentially later in the month, he will be suffering from blood-withdrawal and will be more likely to accept blood donors so he can keep being properly useful. He's still keeping his drinking habits from public knowledge, though, so he won't be outright canvassing for volunteers.

Starters below are all closed, but if you would like to do something with Liem this month, please hit me up on discord or at Sporelett. I will happily write a starter for whatever nonsense we decide to get up to.

Comments

[sterngaze]

[Liem has little idea of what the creature will actually look like until it finally comes into view below them. He sees splayed, spidery feet and similarly bony hands; small, spindly wings; a tentacled face from which stare two dully glowing eyes. It looks about right for what they were expecting, at least in shape and size — but it's also nothing he's ever seen before. The blank area covering their knowledge of the creature's abilities does make him a little concerned.

Quickly and fluidly, he loads a quarrel into his crossbow. The monster's abilities won't trouble them if they can kill it before it acts.

He waits until Akua drops her ward before he shoots; when she does, he looses two bolts in rapid succession, aiming for the creature's chest and throat. One bolt finds its target, thudding into spongy flesh, but whatever Akua's magic is doing confuses his vision enough that his second shot only grazes hide. Liem doesn't bother cursing his aim; he just reaches for the next shot in his quiver.

Which is at the same time that the writhing, snared creature fixes them with its belligerent gaze — and screams. This time Liem does swear, though the noise drowns it out, dropping his quarrel from fumbling fingers in his haste to cover his ears. He sags against the tree's trunk as dizziness swarms him, and though he manages somehow to avoid pitching straight down onto the forest floor, it becomes obvious that their perch is no longer the best place for them to be fighting from. They're better off dispersing to ground level; he glances around the swimming forestscape — blood trickling from his ears — to pick a spot for relocation, and snatches for Akua's shoulder a moment before his magic whisks him into the midst of a small, skeletal thicket.]

[wolof]

[ The sound it makes -- Akua felt her mind react, like it had started to crash and burn. For a moment, there's nothing, then the magic just simply... vanished, the hold on the creature, the soupy sense of reality around it, everything gives, and Akua can feel her feet stumble, though Liem's attempt to get them to ground is welcome. She knows he is an ally, even if she cnanot think of anything else, and when they find the ground, it still took her a few moments to "reboot", as it were.

When it does, she hissed, and looked at the creature. ]

Now we know why they were so confused about what it was.

[ SHe said, as she moved to catch sight of it from within the thicket. ]

We need to take it out quickly, and make it believe we are elsewhere.

[ The creature looked left, and right, searching for them, before Akua's fingers crocked, and a ruffle of wind took through bushes on the other side of the clearing, and the monster swung its head to follow that. ]

I will not be hit by that again.

[ How dare they try to affect her mind, she thinks. ]

[sterngaze]

[It is well that their jaunt through space has placed them somewhere not immediately within sight of the monster, because Liem too requires a moment to recalibrate his nerves. His thoughts race about like startled rabbits in the wake of that mind-scrambling noise, and settle only reluctantly to the task of finishing the job they came out here to complete.

Fortunately, Akua's distracting breath of wind grants them both a much needed moment to think.]

It looks aberrant, to me, [he mutters, peering at the monster from behind the shelter of a slim alder tree. He reloads his weapon with practised fluidity, for now heedless of the dark blood trickling from his ears.] Alien, at least by the standards of my world.

[In the dark of the wood, he thinks the blood dripping from the creature's wounds has a greenish tinge. The quarrel lodged in its chest also hasn't had the effect he might have hoped for in something with a more typical set of lungs.]

But it bleeds. It has discrete anatomy. If we find its vitals, we can kill it easily enough.

Nothing that enough firepower can't address.

[wolof]

[ And oh does she have that.

Akua nodded, following the indicators he pointed out. ]

I am much more the expert on demons and devils rather than... whatever this thing is, but it will be easier to kill than some things I've dealt with. It at least bleeds.

[ She kept herself crouched, as she appraised the thing, looked it over and considered their next move. ]

Firepower is easy, but inaccurate. Though if I hit it fast enough, it will not have much time to escape the blast. Be ready.

[ Her magic is silent. There are no incantations or movements, though there are more of those slippery, odd letters that seem to vanish from mind the moment they vanish from reality, but the space around the creature shifted, and it's clear this time that it's heated, as if super-heated quickly before the space begins to shift, and shake, and it explodes, a series of them, rapid-fire, and they rocketed in the space the creature was --

-- had been, before it howled, having teleported out of danger, though its skin looks charred. ]

[sterngaze]

[Liem too has experience with creatures from the lower planes, and frightful though this beast appears, he still prefers dealing with a creature like this to fighting divs and other extraplanar monsters. At least, as far as he’s been able to tell, the monsters that stalk Alenroux’s woods don’t tend to have any great intelligence or complex plans for their victims. It makes hunting them simpler, as well.

Though this particular monster is putting up a rather spirited fight.

Liem takes Akua’s warning to ready himself, aiming his crossbow at the beast as her spell’s formula blinks in an out of existence. He watches the air around the being shift and shimmer, then explode, and he firms his grip on his weapon, ready to shoot the moment the cluster of explosions dies away—

But before even that, the monster howls and vanishes, in a move that is so familiar to Liem that he grits his teeth.]

It can teleport. No wonder the soldiers were at such a loss to pin it down.

[Liem scours the surrounding woods for the beast, pricking his ears to the hint of movement deeper into the trees. It is somewhere to the west of them, remaining mostly still.]

It’s somewhere to the west of us now; still close by. Could you snare it again, or lock down its teleportation? I have some yet-untapped magic I can add to my shots, to finish the job.

[He nods in the creature’s direction, listens for another long moment, then stalks a little further through the underbrush, gaining some distance from Akua before he strips the glove from his right hand and incants a spell to quicken and empower himself. Now, all he needs is a clear shot.]

[wolof]

[ Akua released a curse in Lower Miezan -- her own language -- a biting thing with Frustration, though it's clear the monster has now elevated itself from "easy" to "nuisance". ]

Of course it can. It wasn't enough for it to be a mere beast, it has to be a bother as well.

[ She said it, derisively, but she's already looking to the west, her eyes narrowed, as she followed the lingering trails of... something. Her head dipped, as she nodded. ]

I can hold it. Just be ready to kill the thing before it creates yet another ability to slip our traps, hm? [ That's...mostly a joke. ] Now that I know to anticipate it, I will keep it from moving next time.

[ She can hold it, or she can blow it up, apparently. Creating a weave to lock it down would be something she could do, or she could do the other, but not the both of them. Typical mages.

She crept along, her feet silent, and the whisper of a promise of death and magic made her feet silent as she started off toward the creature, and she dipped behind another bush when she got close, to let her weave drop, and she began to cast. Her lips do not move, no hand motions, but those letters started to appear yet again, this time at the creature's feet, above its head, they moved in fast -- slippery though they were, like a chain that caught the creature, and lifted it, and started to compress the space it inhabited.

It could try to move, but the box was set, the workable space only That -- and The box was collapsing. It soon could move no further, like the creature had been... shrink-wrapped into reality itself. ]

[sterngaze]

[No magic guides the silent tread of Liem's booted feet as he slides through the woods, circling around to catch the creature in plain view; only decades' worth of practice keep his steps from making any noise, finding protruding roots and patches of bare ground amongst the twigs and leaf litter decorating the forest floor. He skirts a patch of dry bracken and pauses next to a thick tree trunk, observing the unnatural shape of the beast.

He does not dare get closer without risking its notice, so the paltry obstruction of a scantily leafed branch between them will have to be tolerated. He has shot through worse visibility than this — and if his bow retains even a scrap of its former luck, perhaps it will aid him. Dignity's Barb has long had a reputation for finding a mark even against the odds.

Liem waits until Akua springs her snare, chains of magic binding reality tight around the creature. When he spies the movement, sees the spell take effect, he steps just a bit clearer into view, aims his weapon at the beast — and shoots. One, two, three, four quarrels trailing ripples of magic, guided by his judgement as Abadar's weapon, by divine power and aberration's bane leap from his crossbow one after the other and slam into the creature's charred flesh: two more bolts into the spongy meat of chest and flank, one finding a dully glowing eye, and one piercing clean through its neck, each causing ruination upon impact, as though plunging into flesh already swollen with rot. The thing twists and gurgles in its prison with each strike, falling silent only upon the last, as greenish ichor weeps from its split, burnt skin.

Liem stands panting lightly, one last quarrel already half drawn from its quiver, regarding the snared creature for any remaining sign of life. But death seems finally to have claimed it; the only movement from that part of the forest is the drip of fluids onto the ground below.]

[wolof]

[ Akua watched it twitch with each and every impact, the way the creature writhed and shuddered from the impact. The flesh beneath it seemed to wither and pucker from the shots, and her lips curled as the creature's eye was taken, its neck, and she felt the strain from holding it lessen, as it lost its ability to exert its pressure and fought against her trap one last time, before it went limp, and she let the magic drop. The creature's body thudded to the ground audibly, and the silence of the forest from their fight almost eerie, now that they seemed to be the only two in this patch of the woods.

The creature had certainly driven most wildlife away, and the combination of magic and signs of battle certainly drove away the rest.

She stepped from the brush, and moved through it, before she peered for Liem. ]

Nice shots.

[ She said, as she continued forward, closer to the creature's body. ]

Your arrows, they are enchanted?

[ Though it's mostly idle, as her foot nudged the creature's body, to gauge if there were any reaction. Last thing they needed was for the creature to stir now. ]

[sterngaze]

[It is the noise of the creature's body thumping into the forest floor that stirs Liem from his tense, anticipatory stillness. He straightens from his tightly wound shooting stance, letting the quarrel in his grasp slide back into its quiver as he walks closer to join Akua beside the fallen carcass.

It certainly looks dead, though he supposes it might only be stunned. But the slow seep of blood weeping from its throat suggests that whatever mechanisms had been in charge of its circulatory system are no longer operational.]

Nice spell, [he returns when he reaches her and looks down at the dead thing. When it doesn't move in response to her nudging boot, he returns his crossbow to its place slung over his back and draws a long, dark-bladed dagger instead, crouching down to examine it more closely. He starts with the face and the other visible details on its exterior, but cutting the thing open is definitely on the horizon.]

I put magic on my bow, briefly — but most of it was on me, to augment my strikes. The bolts themselves [— he pulls one free of the creature's chest, trailing greenish-blue fluid —] are mundane. The magic on them was wholly transitory.

[wolof]

[ She watched him start to press his dagger into it, she nodded, and moved to a different part. She does not open the thing, but the way her eyes start to search, it's pretty clear that she's examining it for something. As if she was ready the tea leaves, or the magic inherent in the pattern of blood seeping from an arrow wound. ]

Fascinating. It's effective. There are not many archers that can impress me so.

[ Her standard is: can shoot over a mile though. Fucking superpowered villains. ]

Thank you for your help with this, I do think it would have been quite the... bother on my own. Is there anything in particular you want from the corpse? I only wish to examine it briefly.

[ The way she's focused on it, however, suggests that she's already doing so. ]

[sterngaze]

[Liem looks up from the body long enough to aim a small, polite smile at Akua when she offers her compliments. This is one other nice thing about working with a partner on such a mission; he rarely had the pleasure of having his work appreciated so by a colleague when he worked solo.]

You flatter me. Your own assistance was invaluable. I wouldn't have liked to contend with more of its assaults.

[One such attack had been disorienting enough, and he doubts he'd have been able to kill it by himself without weathering more, even if he'd been lucky. Liem glances back down at the remains of the creature, turning its head with the butt of his dagger to view its uninjured eye.]

I intend to bring back as much of it as is practical. The soldiers will appreciate a view of the corpse, I think, and some of the parts might end up being useful — or at the very least, valuable.

[Someone in Kowloon is always willing to buy body parts from the weird creatures to come out of Alenroux.]

But I will wait as long as you need before taking a blade to it.

[wolof]

It isand capable. Particularly when our specialties can mesh. [ She said as she nodded, but it was only a few moments later, before she let her hands peel away from hovering over it. ]

Please feel free. I wanted to feel for any magic pathways, or if its ability was powered by it, but it does not seem so. I suspect its abilities are far more rudimentary. Perhaps the teleportation has a source, but it is not something I can divine.

[ She actually sounds...disappointed. Akua always did like to discover more to power her interest in magic. The fact that she was not a Savant was likely only because she fit another better, but she's clearly the type that took her time to hound new discoveries. She did not step far away, even though she offered him to do the cutting. ]

If anything is particularly tough, I will open it.

[sterngaze]

Creatures such as these are always a puzzle, [Liem agrees as he continues to examine the monster's face, pulling his quarrel from its ruined eye and examining the mess of tentacles for signs of a mouth.] Particularly when they hail from afar. Given that we now find ourselves in an alien world, I imagine that most will.

[Even the native wildlife could be strange, when the place they're native to is an island floating naked in the midst of the dark tapestry. Liem isn't even sure this one isn't native — he just knows it was far too dangerous to continue living.

After another moment's examination, he finally does push the creature into a straighter orientation and slide his blade into it. The darkly hued dagger goes in like a hot knife into butter, suggesting a keenness that surpasses that of normal steel.]

I will be sure to beg your assistance should the beast resist me even in death.

[With that, he slits it open along the entire length of its ventral surface, and goes about a rather mercenary examination of its insides. Like his companion, he's unable to divine anything of real interest from what lies within, but it's at least enough for him to decide what parts of the creature he wants to bother hauling back to camp. The rest of the carcass can be food for the forest's other hideous creatures.]

🎀

[wolof]

Just say the word, Liem.

[ She says it, but she crouched over the corpse with him, unafraid of blood. Perhaps, in fact, that was why she wore red, though the creature's blood had not been a guarantee to be red, though the decision to wear the color could be considered intentional, as she leaned close, to watch.

Her hands were not poised, but there was a readiness about her, as he started to cut, and when they are ready, she will assist him with what needs to be pulled back to camp, with their haul. ]