Just for Maebe, he made his offer in the form of a text message: short, direct, and maybe a bit overly punctuated, in the way that people didn't text often wrote them.
Nio Love
Maebe: There's a training course that involves protecting a princess. I thought of you. Want to have a go? -Ever
He didn't wait long enough for a proper reply: instead he carefully continued, writing up the location as well as a bit of clarification, since it seemed only:
Nio Love
Maebe: It's not a real princess. -Ever
Hopefully, though, she'd come all the same -- and when she did she'd find him waiting, somewhat improved from recent leave, in pants that almost fit him and didn't have any holes in them and a t-shirt with a bright splash of color across his chest, under the familiar weight of his coat. He flashed her a smile.
Moon Hunter PRINCESS ISLAND
General Information Maintaining a superior defense is the pride of the Moon Division, defending even at the expense of attacking. However, this can be hard, especially for trainees who just got new magic weapons full of glowing and powers. Thus the Princess Island. At the center of the island sits a princess who will do absolutely nothing to protect herself, and it's up to you to build defenses that will withstand shadowling attacks so she she doesn't die in a horribly realistic manner.
There's four main paths for shadowling's to travel through, and you have 3 types of building materials to create your defenses from: straw bales, wood, and bricks. The sturdier the material, the sturdier the barrier, but the fewer you can build in the allotted time. After a set amount of time, the princess will crush a pumpkin pill, attracting varying amounts of lurking shadowlings. You get to watch helplessly from the observation station, without getting to attack yourself.
These creature are extremely weak and ill formed, coming up against a solid defense they will disperse, but in turn they also weaken said defense. When a defense goes down, they go right to the princess and attack her. Should she survive the wave, you get to go back down, rebuild, and do it again.
If you fail: the princess has died, horribly, and you've wasted a lot of time on this only to look fairly incapable. All things considered? Most pleasant course to fail.
If you win: peen points and bragging rights go to those with the healthiest princess and lasted through the most attack waves. If you choose to go beyond 5 rounds, switch the enemy dice roll to 4 d20s.
Mechanics Your princess has 20 hp First, roll the strength of you defense, using the dice for whichever building type you choose.
Brick: 4 d12 Wood: 8 d6 Hay bales: 12 d4
The order of the die determine the HP for each barrier location. For example, with bricks, rolling 5/6/8/1, would mean that path 1 has 5 HP, path 2 has 6 HP and so on. With a wood roll of 3/3/3/1/2/5/5/2, the first 2 dice would equal the amount of the first path. Brick would be the least math-y of the building materials (you lazy asses.) Roll 4 d12 for the attacking forces. Once again the order of the dice correspond with the path being affected. Then do the math to determine the status of your defenses and princess. Example: My defenses are 5/6/8/10 The attackers are 3/7/3/8
The result defenses are 2/-1/5/2 Negative numbers are taken off the princesses HP, leaving her at 19 HP. Go back and rebuild your defenses in the same manner as before, you'll be building on top of old defenses so you add the new defense HP to the remaining defense HP. Negative numbers = 0 HP for the defense, not negative HP. Minimum rounds to complete the course is 3
Bonus Mechanics Their defense expertise allows them to build slightly sturdier barriers. This applies to all paths that start at 0 hp. They do not stack. So if you are re-building on a barrier that lasted from an existing round, this bonus does not apply, as it is already still in effect.
Trainees: 0 hp bonus Moon Trainees: +1 hp bonus to each path Hunters: +1 hp to each path Moon Hunters: + 2 hp to each path
Her response did not make it clear whether she was taking him up on the offer, but she showed up after a fair amount of time, looking as flawlessly made up as ever, and dressed to kill. Literally, for once - tight pants and an understated blouse, with heels that looked like they doubled as knives.
"Hello, handsome." Maebe gave him an appreciative look, and then skipped to stand in front of him. "So, you want to do a training course with me. I'm honored. I've never done one of these before, it seemed exhausting. If I faint, will you catch me?"
"Nope." He was cheerful as he said it, though, straightening up out of his seat and grinning down at her. In truth, he probably wouldn't: nothing personal, but he remembered the darts from the Life training course, remembered how they came from nowhere and there was, really, nothing you could do about it.
Ever shook his head at her, gesturing to the island beyond, and he couldn't help but be amused by the idea of being the one in charge. After all, she was the one with the fancy new coat, and he still a hopeless newbie, all things considered...
"We're not in danger, though. Apparently the idea's to keep her from getting horribly murdered, so we just have to set barriers. You in?" He hesitated another moment, weighing the pros and cons of honesty. "There's no prize or anything, but if we do it, no one can say we're not trying..."
nio love
Posted: Wed Aug 20, 2014 7:03 pm
Setting barriers sounded right up her alley. So did Ever - he was kind of a d**k, as were most of the men in her life, and she felt right at home dealing with a man who would more likely let her fall than catch her. This was what she was used to. She was back to being on her own.
"I'm in. This is training, and the only thing I'm more serious about than sleeping, is training. Let's do this."
The course itself sounded just fantastic. Build protection, stand back, and do nothing while waiting to see if it worked? Did she create this course herself or something?
"Bricks, Wood, Hay. Okay, Hay is out. That's just dumb. Got any preferences?"
Ever hesitated, looking at the bricks and then the wood and shifting a bit where he stood -- and then he looked up at Maebe, just a touch embarrassed, perhaps. When he shrugged at her it was slow and uncertain, and he licked his lips a couple times before he answered.
"...honestly, I was kind of thinking about trying the hay..." His eyes resettled there, as he fished a hat out of his pocket and tucked the worst of his hair up into it. Out of the way, now, so that he could see better, focus better.
"I mean, I assume they're automatons or something, right? How bright can they be? Maybe they'll just bump into any barrier and run off, and there's a lot more hay..."
nio love
Posted: Thu Aug 28, 2014 3:03 am
Maebe's expression went from apathetic to mischievous in seconds, with a slow little smile. "It might be fun to do both. Let's make this interesting - you use hay on your princess, I'll uh.. I'm going to try wood on this one over here. A little friendly competition never hurt anyone, right?"
She looked a little more excited about the prospect of playing the course, now that there was pride on the line. "Sounds good? You can even go first, because it means I get to stand here and do nothing for a minute."
Ever's expression, as he looked her over, was wary: eyebrows pulled together and chin up so he could peer down the length of his nose. He struggled to figure out what was so funny about it -- other than, of course, the classic Three Little Pigs scenario. But this wasn't a fairy tale. This was real life.
Kind of.
"...are we betting, then?" All the same, he'd go cocky, easily so. "And if so, what are we betting?"
nio love
Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2014 11:32 pm
"Seeing as you wouldn't be interested in the kind of bets I normally make," She began, her lips tilted up in that effortless, sarcastic smile. "I'd be willing to take the utterly boring bet of money as an alternative. I don't know, fifty bucks?" It wasn't much, but neither was it enough to scoff at, in her opinion. "And the prestige of being able to say I told you so, of course."
He could do fifty bucks -- though Ever looked her over in a wary sort of way as he shook her hand and eased away to grab the first hay bale, like he couldn't believe she'd let him off that easy.
"...I was kind of expecting you to ask for d**k pics." It came with a grin, though, in passing, and it was too late now. The deal had been made, and he was already moving: stacking hay bales on hay bales, doing the best he could to block of paths, and leaving Maebe to do the same with her own chosen material. At least his was the easy way. Hay was light enough, easy to maneuver, to kick into place. But there was also more of it, and so he'd probably be a bit weary by the time he finished up.
Maybe she'd be surprised by just how sturdy some of his defenses ended up being. And not at all surprised by how weak one of them was. Ever gave it all a skeptical look and then shook his head as the princess crushed her candy to send enemies a-trampling his setup.
and be blue rolled 4 12-sided dice:
3, 8, 12, 9Total: 32 (4-48)
Posted: Fri Sep 05, 2014 10:06 pm
Ever's Defense
6, 8, 3, 6
They could watch from the observation tower, Ever lighting up a cigarette -- even if that was against the rules. He didn't see a sign, but it seemed likely someone, at some point, would object. Too bad.
It seemed, at first, that his efforts were working: his somewhat-flimsy-looking hay bales holding up surprisingly well against the invading forces. Victory started to spark in Ever's expression -- and then things started to fall apart. He winced as one of his towers just fell over and were trampled as if there had been no barrier at all, winced again as the last trembled, teetered, and finally fell over.
The princess screamed and thrashed as the monsters attacked her. Not all of them getting through, no, but enough to prove his theory flawed.
Nio Love
Defenses: 3, 0, -9, -3 Total damage to princess: 12, her HP is now 8. >_>;
you get to build on top of that 3, so add 3 to whatever your first defense is. Ever will DEFINITELY complain about this.
Maebe hated smokers. She made coughing sounds for every second she had to sit in the observation booth with him, but he never seemed to care - which she should have expected, considering he'd lit up in a closed space to begin with. When he mentioned the d**k pics, she just shrugged. "You already said no. If you don't want me to have them so bad, I guess there's probably a reason for that. Ipso facto, they're likely not worth betting for. Money's better."
She sat back and watched as his turn went through, waving the smoke away until it was over. "Not awful." She murmured, toddling out of the booth happily to go put up her wood.
She wasn't very good at building. It was a strange task, putting barriers up made of wood, and she was sure that they would crumble over the moment something came to hit it. But when she was done, she didn't think they looked terrible.
Then she turned to look at her princess, and wished they were.
"Help. Save me. I am in danger and need your assistance." Maebe shuddered as she stared at the pink dressed, yet still somehow completely horrifying looking Mimsy. Without another word, she backed away from her contraption and headed up to the booth.
Returning to the booth meant she had to enter the smoke zone, but she was more comfortable there than anywhere near that princess she'd been given. She watched quietly as the shadows came to damage her wood, chopping through it like paper. They were strong, but her walls were impressively holding up all the way until the very end. One of them even managed to survive.. just barely.
But in the end, the princess took a fair deal of her own damage - but she did not scream, like Ever's princess.
She just stared up at the booth, accusingly.
"Ugh." Maebe flopped down in her seat, and slunk until the princess couldn't see her anymore. "I don't even know if this was worth 50 bucks."
Quote:
10 - 11 = -1
7 - 11 = -4
4 - 8 = -4
11 - 10 = 1
Princess HP: 11
and be blue
miscommunication, they can't have a bet if they use the same princess / building area, they're each on their own!
There were ways to address smokers -- and coughing passive aggressively didn't work. Instead it made Ever quirk just a little smile. He'd put it out eventually, but asking nicely might have been more effective. Maybe.
He could take some pleasure at least in the fact that she hadn't done much better than him: watching with eyes narrowed as the shadowlings crawled over her bricks, about the sam way they'd crawled over his hay.
"...it's not over yet." His reply was surprised fading to annoyance. "The princess is still alive, it's four rounds."
As he back down to start putting hay into place for the next round he shook his head at her, wiggled a hand in her direction.
and be blue rolled 4 12-sided dice:
2, 5, 3, 3Total: 13 (4-48)
Posted: Sun Sep 07, 2014 7:33 pm
Perhaps Ever had learned from the last round, or perhaps the failure of the previous had just revitalized him -- whatever it was, he returned to the booth looking intent, chin up, daring her to say anything. As the shadowlings began to attack, he mouthed the words at her again:
Four rounds.
And, indeed, this time he did much better. None of the creatures managed to get past his defenses and his princess [Cee, because who else would it be, and Cee would probably be horrified to see herself in that dress] was untouched at the end.
