Near the train station, the students find themselves ushered past towering structures of increasing height and decay and into a moderate sized office building. While not in the best of shape, it also doesn't appear likely it'll fall down around them anytime soon. The treat wearing Professor Brittel scampered ahead cheerfully as he began to lecture.
"Now, in this upper level of Terminus, also known as the Ruins, no one has owned property since the great move to the underground cities 72 years ago! Since that time, a very special culture has developed around what remains. Everyone up here exists in the transient state, you see! It's quite freeing! So go, be free! Find excitement but not so much excitement that you yourself cannot be found!"
The accommodations visitors are provided with include: a bedroll and an empty space on an office floor to place said bedroll a set of clothes to suit the environment they'd be exploring (long, hooded garment; scarf; goggles; gloves) a rented Dune Buggie the whole-hearted encouragement of the professor to go out and explore.
Posted: Thu Jan 23, 2014 6:36 pm
Lee had assured 77 on the train that they would come back. He had asked the cafe owner about the trip, and she had given him Time Off. He listened to the Proffessor carefully. He didn't understand all the words, like transient, but he understood free.
"Free," he repeated, and this time aloud, a hoarse whispery noise.
He had not stayed as anyone's guest before. Gifts? he asked 77. He pulled on the cloak and gloves, looking over the scarf before decidedly wrapping it around his mouth, like the other city inhabitants.
We should go to the tops of the buildings, the very top.
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Posted: Thu Jan 23, 2014 6:54 pm
He did not understand gifts, he had been given sustenance once upon a time and it had been good. This too was good, things that would be useful, but he was not grateful, he did not understand the concept.
77 had tried put the cape, goggles, gloves and scarf on despite being in his quadrupedal fu dog shape. He didn't see any reason why not. Everything bar the gloves had worked out well enough, the cape kept off the ground by his long tail. Before all of this however he had spooked and dashed rapidly for cover until he realised it was simply the undead - his friend - using throat-words. When he came back he gave him a hopeful tail swish, he had been informed it showed happiness.
Yes. Up. Up to the top. And there was no fear in his tone, the concept of falling still alien to the boil. I will go where you do. You will not leave me. It was neither a request nor a demand, simply a fact as the fu dog knew it.
Toshihiko Two rolled 1 6-sided dice:
6Total: 6 (1-6)
Posted: Thu Jan 23, 2014 7:26 pm
I won't leave. We will stay close.
Lee demonstrated his voice a few more times as they left, in hard and broken sentences. The sounds were quiet.
Outside, there was a stall, and after further explanations, "Rental?" Lee had asked, and had gotten a had-to-explain-this-to-slower-minded-creatures-a-lot look, but had understood that it was something you had for a while, but did not keep.
"Up," Lee said, putting a boned hand over the buggy, whose skin was very hard and smooth. He started when the legs twitched, but smiled underneath the scarf.
After a shaky start, he held on as the buggy hopped between buildings. This was...it was different from only standing in high places. The ground rushed towards him, and then they were up against the sky again.
The wind made it hard to hear as they rushed up and down.
Ah, 77! he exclaimed, the joy in his thoughts intense.
He didn't even see the figures that had started to shadow them.
bandits
As your mount jumps and skitters through the city, several figures emerge from the area, their drab robes and mounts blending almost seamlessly with their surroundings. One of them throws a net at you, and it quickly becomes obvious you're being hunted down by bandits!
Bandit Mob: -There are 4 Bandits with 25 HP each! -Each time you attack one, the others attack you for 2 damage each! (So if there's 3 bandits remaining, attacking one causes you 4 damage from the other two) If you defeat them: there is a Boogey Bounty on their heads, capturing them gets you 20k (IC) silver + 4 Terminus Tokens! -If you are defeated: you wake up beaten and robbed several hours later! -Running away: Roll 1 d20. If 15+ you escape safely, if lower, you take 8 damage.
Good was still a tenuous concept for the fu dog, good was what he had come to equate with a strange giddy surge in his gut, with a twist in the muscles of his cheeks, a tension which needed to be manifested as a swish of his tail. It was a mysterious sensation which came on unbidden but which he found himself inexplicably drawn back towards time after time.
It took him a bit still to stop leaping away each time that Lee spoke, the words always pulling him back to a time when words had been strange and absolute, when he had yearned to feel them and see them but when there had been only dark. There was a grandness to sound, an overwhelmingness which still scared him, like a man kept in the dark all his days forced into bright light.
Faced with the mounts they had to ride 77 was fearful, he wasn't sure what to make of the creature, all of his instincts screaming at him that it was a threat and that he should get away immediately. The skittish creature didn't seem best pleased with the fu dog either and sidled away insistently whenever he got near. Eventually, distressed and uncertain why he couldn't get on the mount and spurred onwards by the fear that Lee might go on ahead and he would be left behind and forced to start anew, he shifted to his pinned shape. He didn't understand why the limited form seemed to soothe the creature, but climbed on anyway, holding on tightly.
The buggy wanted to follow its companion as much as 77 wanted to follow Lee, which was fortunate, the fu dog was not best suited for giving commands. He closed his eyes as the creature bunched with power under him and then leapt, feeling a rise in his gut which was like but very much unlike good. A fluttering which made him close his eyes against the heights.
The joy in Lee's voice was not quite mirrored in his own.
HIGH, VERY HIGH. he said urgently, in case the other boil had not noticed. Not good. And it was not.
A net swished past him and there was a flash, a flicker of a moment back to handlers, to nets and traps and not suitable. He opened his mouth and cried out without making a single sound.
73 they come, they come with the walk-takers the stand-takers, the walls with holes! Help!
He had never learned the word net, but he knew help. He knew how to call for help well, the instinct innate and primal, a baby calling out for its mother, the essence of fear.
The bug knew what to do more than its rider, picking up speed with urgency in its leaps. But it wasn't quick enough, with the nets came thrown spears and projectiles, sharp and shiny, he knew sharp and shiny, he shied from it, almost falling from his steed, only his tail reflexively wrapped around its girth keeping him seated as he found himself suddenly pelted with his worst nightmare.
Toshihiko Two rolled 1 20-sided dice:
10Total: 10 (1-20)
Posted: Thu Jan 23, 2014 9:16 pm
Lee jerked the reigns back grimly.
"Stay back," he said, into the wind. Their hands tore at him. The nets stung. He rode even closer to 77.
We must ride very fast, he thought with urgency. They were not safe. They had said free many times, and he had been lured, with the height, with the sky.
Liars. We must ride very fast. Many, many, I would hide and rip them open-
There was a twist in his thoughts, confused. Are they scientists? Are they handlers? Are they men?
They wore the city's clothes, and some had wide, ratty wings, or shadowy sharp smiles. Men were soft, and when you struck at them, their insides, the parts that looked like him fell out.
"Mistake," he said, strained, they must be making a mistake, but they didn't listen, and when they tore at him again, he ducked closer to his buggy.
And there was pain, there was always pain. And he was not afraid, not in the way the scientists had been afraid, rich overwhelming and wonderful, he had no concept of cessation, of an end. He just disliked the sharp pointy things, they were not good. And so he let the bug follow its fellow, spurring it on as well as he could.
Would they rrrnch? he asked, the closest approximation he could make to the sound he'd heard when he'd chomped down, cornered on one of the food-bringers. Are they not us? he latched onto Lee's confusion with his own. He couldn't understand, wasn't even capable for the time being of making the connection that being alike meant they should not harm one another.
All there was was pain, and he wanted to be far from it.
Stop. he pleaded as if they could hear him. But they were not like them.
The buggy's flighty nature came in handy at least, it knew how to run and do it well, pulling ahead of their pursuers, 77 crouched low against its back, eyes wide like a spooked cat, of no use at all other than to keep out of its way.
HP: 14
Toshihiko Two rolled 1 6-sided dice:
3Total: 3 (1-6)
Posted: Thu Jan 23, 2014 10:07 pm
The buggies flipped through the alleys, faster, faster, out of the reach of claws and nets, until they were...surrounded by other buggies, also jostling for space, hurtling away from something or towards something, it was hard to tell.
The hisses of their pursuers drew away into the sound of a crowd instead.
race
Your mount speeds along across the city and soon you find yourself flanked by other riders, each in off uniforms that fit more tightly that your robe. A cheer sounds below from a small crowd as a flag rises in the distance and the riders turn toward it at full speed. It seems you've been caught up in the middle of a race! Roll 1 d4 to join
1: a sniper shoots you down, total fail 2: you don't do too well but you make it to the end, recieving 1 Terminus Token along with several small injuries for your participation 3: you do okay, gaining 2 Terminus Tokens and no real injuries 4: you are a star, and thought you don't win, you come very close and wow the crowd and other riders with a variety of acrobatics and clever manuevers. You ride away with 3 Terminus Tokens
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Baneful rolled 1 4-sided dice:
3Total: 3 (1-4)
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Posted: Thu Jan 23, 2014 10:25 pm
77 would have liked it if they could have stopped, found somewhere to get off of the buggys and recoup. But there was no such luck, they found themselves in the midst of a gaggle of strange riders.
Do these ones have sharp shinies?! he couldn't keep the panic out of his voice at all, it was too much in one day to cope with and the fu dog had no idea what to do other than hope that somehow once again his steed would know how to get through it when he did not. This place is not good.
His buggy stayed straight and true, lunging for the finish line with determined pace while he simply kept an eye out for Lee.
Where are you?
Quote:
3: you do okay, gaining 2 Terminus Tokens and no real injuries
Toshihiko Two rolled 1 4-sided dice:
1Total: 1 (1-4)
Posted: Thu Jan 23, 2014 10:28 pm
Lee thought they must still be in danger.
Go, go, keep going, he encouraged 77, flanking him.
He felt a sharp pain and fell, rolling into one of the city's decayed alleys. He had been right, he thought, breathing dizzily. Nets. There would be nets, and then...
Lee came loose from the saddle, and hit a wall, fading into temporary unconsciousness.
His body flickered sporadically under the cloak, like a shorted electronic.
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Posted: Thu Jan 23, 2014 10:48 pm
Down he urged the bug as he saw Lee fall, down as fast as he could, and he was leaping clear of it with a flash of teeth and a ragged raspy sound which meant stay here. And then he was running, long bounding strides with a sinuous scaled body and a billow of cloak as he galloped after the trailing scent.
When he found him, he nosed him with his muzzle, panicking.
73! Awake? Awake?
It was how he'd called out to the other boil when he'd sought for his mental voice in the dark.
Awake. Help.
Posted: Thu Jan 23, 2014 10:58 pm
Ohhhhh awake, Lee answered, flickering back into solidity, "Hhn."
77? ...77! Ah, hurry, go- no, the ground, ah. He winced in pain, reaching up to touch 77's mane, hand spread. The touch was light. They had not ever touched, before leaving their containers. Wherever they were, they were not there. He was not sure where his buggy was.
With his other hand, he fumbled with the fastener of his cloak. Safe or not safe? he asked.
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Posted: Fri Jan 24, 2014 4:09 pm
77 was afraid this time, it wasn't with the idea of cessation or death, but with the prospect of solitude, of not being able to hear Lee's voice when it had become one of the only stable things in the world. His fur bristled all along his back and tail at the touch but he didn't move away.
Safe. he said, though he didn't know for sure, he just felt like it was.
I can be buggy. he offered, large enough and strong enough to carry the other boil and learning from their mounts that it was possible. We can go.
Posted: Fri Jan 24, 2014 4:18 pm
"Rental," Lee grumbled, sitting up and shaking his head. That didn't clear the stinging buzzing sensation, only made it worse.
The alley was quiet, at least. He stopped unfastening his cloak. If they were safe, they didn't need to hide. 77 couldn't hide the same, anyway.
We have to take the buggies back, but don't want to go yet. Nets might be waiting.
He stood.
You're right. Should walk. Take buggies. ...Don't know the way, he admitted.
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Baneful rolled 1 6-sided dice:
3Total: 3 (1-6)
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Posted: Fri Jan 24, 2014 4:37 pm
We can find the way. It was an optimistic statement from the fu dog but he wasn't really afraid. Lee had said they would return to where they had come from and somehow that was enough. Buggies might find their way back? The beasts seemed to know better than they did. Can follow their smells.
Regardless they were now in the depths of the unknown and the alley seemed to lead at least vaguely back the way they came. 77 crouched low to the ground, immobilised by choice. 73 has to decide.
Quote:
You hear/smell/taste moisture somewhere nearby. Through careful searching, you discover a small grotto in the center of an old subway station.
